Using fiction as a historical source, this study investigates how the French empire was construed and infused with meaning at three historical moments: 1784, 1835, and 1938. Showing how literary and more general conceptions of French colonialism were influenced by an awareness of how rival European powers had negotiated conquest and disengagement from empire, it illustrates how perceived loss and nostalgia for imperial pasts helped shape the French colonial enterprise across its various manifestations.