Christine,
this is called an extended or long s and was in common use in
roman script until the 18th century (not only in France). It is
still being used in fractur and Gaelic types. The small s was
used at the end of words (in the case of compound terms it could
appear at the end of the first element in the middle of a word).
You will still find it in Unicode:
http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/opentype/appendices/wgl4d.html
Christof Wolters
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