Mark G. Boyer, author of “300 Years of the French in Old Mines,” says Renault eventually went bankrupt and left Old Mines, but the people who established homesteads stayed.

Christian Chenay, France’s oldest doctor, is still providing medical assistance to a local community of missionaries, whom he has served as a doctor for 50-plus years.

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks to the New Orleans-based band about their project to preserve the centuries-old Louisiana French dialect through music and how the city is coping with the coronavirus crisis.