 From the early 17th century to the 1830s the French possessed huge tracts of territory in North America, the Caribbean, French Guiana, Senegal and Benin.This empire included the richest colony in the world, Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and France's largest landmass in Nouvelle-France (now Quebec).From 1604, French colonists and government engineers built massive, expensive buildings on the model of Versailles and the grand palaces, townhouses, and churches of Paris in places like Quebec City, Cap-Francois (now Cap-Haitien), Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Louis, Senegal, Gorée Senegal, and French Guiana.