French History: every king, emperor, president and turning point, from Gaul to today

The Founding of Massalia (Marseille) (c. 600 BC)

Around 600 BC, colonists from the Ionian Greek city of Phocaea, in what is now Turkey, settled beside the inlet later called the Vieux Port. They chose a steep limestone peninsula with a protected basin, and the city became a trading hub linking Mediterranean goods with the Celtic interior. Massalia founded its own colonies along the southern coast, and it allied with Rome for centuries. The date is traditional, and the founding story told later by Greek and Roman writers is a legend, but archaeology around the Vieux Port shows a Greek settlement from the late 7th or early 6th century BC.

• Strabo says Massalia taught the Gauls to be so fond of the Greeks that they wrote even their contracts in Greek, and he describes this as a recent development in his day.
• Strabo reports that Massalia was governed by a council of 600 men called timouchoi, who held office for life; fifteen of them handled daily business and three held the chief power.
• Strabo records that the colonists were told by an oracle to take a guide from Artemis of Ephesus; in his story the goddess appeared in a dream to a woman named Aristarcha, who sailed with them carrying a sacred image.

Sources: Strabo, Geography 4.1.4-5 on Massilia (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago); Archaeology magazine: Marseille, ancient Massalia; Roman Ports: Massilia, the Phocaean city; Wikipedia: Massalia

The Celtic Gauls and the La Tene Culture (c. 450 to c. 50 BC)

The Gauls were not one nation but many tribes who spoke related Celtic languages and shared customs, laws and religion. Their material culture, known as La Tene after a site on Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, is dated to about 450 to 50 BC. It is known for fine ironwork, offerings left in water and a curving, geometric art style on metal. Caesar, writing in the 50s BC, describes three broad groups in Gaul, the Belgae, the Aquitani and the people who called themselves Celts, who differed in language, customs and laws. He also records that the Druids, the learned class, trained for many years and would not write their teachings down.

• The La Tene site was found in 1857 when a dry spell dropped the lake level; Hansli Kopp, searching for antiquities, collected about forty iron objects, mostly weapons (some accounts say forty swords, others fewer), and later digs recovered over 2,500 objects.
• Caesar says some Druid students trained for as long as twenty years, memorising great numbers of verses, and that Druids thought it wrong to write their teachings down, although the Gauls used Greek letters for public and private accounts.
• 'La Tene' is also used for a style and period, not only a people: La Tene-type objects turn up as stray finds in Scandinavia, northern Germany, Poland and the Balkans, regions that were never part of the La Tene culture proper.

Sources: Caesar, Gallic War 1.1 (Perseus, Tufts University); Caesar, Gallic War 6.14 on the Druids (Perseus); Swissinfo: Unearthing La Tene's Celtic mysteries; World History Encyclopedia: Ancient Celts; Wikipedia: La Tene culture

Brennus and the Sack of Rome (c. 390 BC (some date it 387 BC))

Brennus, chief of the Senones, who sacked Rome, Gallic chieftain

Brennus led a Gallic war band, identified as Senones, that defeated a Roman army at the Battle of the Allia and entered Rome. The Capitoline Hill held out. The date is given as about 390 BC by Roman tradition and about 387 BC by some modern chronology. Our main narratives comes from Livy and Plutarch, writing centuries later, so details such as the geese on the Capitol are legend. The event left Rome with a long fear of the Gauls.

How they rose: According to Livy, the Gauls came to attack the Etruscan town of Clusium and then marched on Rome. Modern writers doubt parts of this story, and the origin of the attack is uncertain.

How they died: The siege ended when the Romans agreed to pay 1,000 pounds of gold and the Gauls withdrew. Roman tradition says Camillus then arrived and drove them out, but that version is one of several. Nothing reliable is known of how Brennus himself died.

• Livy says disease struck the Gauls camped among the burned houses, and that they piled their dead into heaps, so the place was known as the Gallic piles.
• In Livy's account, the Romans on the Capitol threw bread into the Gallic lines to hide how little food they had left.
• Livy and Plutarch both tell of the ransom weighing: when the Gauls used heavy weights and a Roman officer protested, a Gaul (named as Brennus by Plutarch) added his sword to the scale, saying 'woe to the vanquished'. Historians treat the line as tradition rather than a recorded quotation.

Sources: Livy, History of Rome 5.48 (Perseus, Tufts University); Plutarch, Life of Camillus 28 (Perseus); World History Encyclopedia: Ancient Celts; Wikipedia: Brennus (leader of the Senones)

Caesar's Gallic War (58 to 50 BC)

Caesar, then governor of Roman provinces in Gaul, began by stopping the migration of the Helvetii in 58 BC and then defeated the German king Ariovistus. In 57 he fought the Belgae, in 56 the seafaring Veneti, and in 55 and 54 he bridged the Rhine and led two expeditions to Britain. In 52 a united revolt under Vercingetorix nearly broke the conquest. His own Commentaries are the main source, but modern historians read them as political writing that makes the most of his successes.

• The Commentaries open by dividing Gaul into three parts and name the rivers that separate them: the Garonne divides the Gauls from the Aquitani, and the Marne and Seine divide them from the Belgae.
• After defeating the Helvetii, Caesar's men found lists in Greek letters of the migrants: 368,000 people in all, of whom about 92,000 could bear arms. Modern historians think the real total was far smaller, perhaps 20,000 to 50,000.
• Ancient writers such as Plutarch and Appian credit Caesar's Gallic campaigns with about a million Gauls killed. Caesar's own text gives no such total, and modern historians consider the figure implausible.

Sources: Caesar, Gallic War 1.1 (Perseus, Tufts University); Caesar, Gallic War 1.29 (Perseus); World History Encyclopedia: Gaul; Wikipedia: Gallic Wars

Vercingetorix (52 BC (died 46 BC))

Vercingetorix, war leader of the Gauls, Arverni

Vercingetorix, traditionally said to have been born about 82 BC (the date is uncertain), was an Arvernian noble who took supreme command of a Gallic coalition in 52 BC. His plan was to cut Caesar's supplies and avoid pitched battles. At Gergovia he repulsed a Roman assault, a rare Roman setback in the war. Shut in at Alesia, he and his army were starved and defeated. In the 19th century he became a French national symbol, though it is worth remembering that no sense of a French nation existed then.

How they came to power: Caesar says Vercingetorix's father had been executed for seeking kingship. Vercingetorix gathered followers, was driven out by his own relatives, returned with a large force and was proclaimed king by his supporters. Tribes including the Senones, Parisii and Cadurci then gave him supreme command.

How it ended: He surrendered after Alesia in September 52 BC. Caesar says the Gallic chiefs handed him over; Cassius Dio says he came to Caesar and knelt in supplication. He was held in Rome for about six years, shown in Caesar's triumph in 46 BC and then executed.

• Caesar says he kept order with brutal punishments: grave crimes were punished by burning or torture, lesser ones by mutilation.
• Caesar and Cassius Dio differ on how he surrendered: handed over by the Gallic chiefs, or giving himself up to Caesar in person.
• The seven-metre bronze statue at Alesia, by Aime Millet and unveiled in 1865, was commissioned by Napoleon III and is said to be modelled on the emperor's own features.

Sources: Caesar, Gallic War 7.4 on Vercingetorix's rise (Perseus, Tufts University); Cassius Dio, Roman History 40.41 on the surrender (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago); World History Encyclopedia: Vercingetorix; Wikipedia: Vercingetorix

The Siege of Alesia (September 52 BC)

Vercingetorix withdrew into Alesia, a hilltop town of the Mandubii, usually identified with Alise-Sainte-Reine in Burgundy. Caesar built a ring of siege works around it and a second line facing outward against the relief army. His text describes a ditch twenty feet deep with vertical sides (in the usual English translation), trenches, a rampart with a wall 12 feet high, and towers every 80 feet. When the Gallic relief force arrived, the Romans were attacked from both sides. After a hard fight in which Caesar's reserves and cavalry turned the battle, the Gauls fled and Vercingetorix surrendered.

• Caesar says the relief army numbered 250,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry; most modern historians think his figures exaggerated.
• Caesar writes that the besieged Gauls expelled their women and children, but the Romans would not let them through, leaving them between the lines.
• Caesar gives a speech by an Arvernian noble, Critognatus, who urged the garrison to survive by eating those too weak to fight, as the Gauls had once done against the Cimbri; Caesar calls the proposal singular and detestable.

Sources: Caesar, Gallic War 7.72 on the siege works (Perseus, Tufts University); Caesar, Gallic War 7.68, Vercingetorix retreats to Alesia (Perseus); Caesar, Gallic War 7.77, speech of Critognatus (Perseus); Livius.org: Alesia (52 BCE); World History Encyclopedia: Battle of Alesia; Wikipedia: Battle of Alesia

Roman Gaul and Lugdunum (Lyon) (from 43 BC; Roman Gaul to the 3rd century AD)

Augustus divided Gaul into four provinces: Narbonensis, Lugdunensis, Aquitania and Belgica. Lugdunum, founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, became the base of provincial government. Latin spread, new towns replaced hilltop strongholds, and roads and veterans' farms boosted trade. Lugdunum became a major centre of trade and craft with an imperial mint and the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls, where delegates of the Gallic tribes met each year. Roman peace in Gaul lasted for roughly two centuries.

• The emperor Claudius was born at Lugdunum in 10 BC.
• Strabo says Roman governors struck both silver and gold coins at Lugdunum; modern accounts describe it as the main imperial mint for gold and silver from the reign of Augustus until Nero moved production to Rome in AD 64.
• Its theatre, begun around 15 BC, was enlarged in the early 2nd century (under Hadrian, by one account) to hold roughly 10,000 to 11,000 people.

Sources: Strabo, Geography 4.3.1-2 on Lugdunum (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago); Livius.org: Lugdunum (Lyon); World History Encyclopedia: Roman Gaul; The Collector: The Rich Archaeology of Roman Lugdunum; Wikipedia: Lugdunum

Claudius and the Gallic Senators (the Lyon Tablet) (AD 48)

In AD 48 the leading men of Gallia Comata asked to hold office at Rome. Opponents in the Senate said Italy could supply its own senators. Claudius replied with a speech arguing that Rome's old families came from elsewhere and that Rome had grown by absorbing others. Part of the speech survives on a bronze tablet found at Lyon, and Tacitus gives his own, different version in the Annals.

• Only the lower part of the tablet survives, in two large bronze fragments; a draper found it in 1528 in his vineyard on Croix-Rousse Hill, on the site of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls.
• In Tacitus's version, Claudius admits that the Gauls once sacked Rome but says they have since kept a loyal peace and are bound to Rome by customs, education and marriage.
• Scholars disagree on how far Tacitus altered the speech; the tablet may be close to a transcript of an official Senate document, and Malloch's 2020 edition uses the comparison as a case study in ancient historiography.

Sources: Tacitus, Annals 11.24 (Perseus, Tufts University); Claudius's speech on the Lyons tablet, translation (Fordham Ancient History Sourcebook); Cambridge University Press: The Tabula Lugdunensis, ed. S. J. V. Malloch (2020); The Collector: How the Lyon Tablet Changed Who Ruled in Rome; Wikipedia: Lyon Tablet

The Martyrs of Lyon (AD 177)

In AD 177, under Marcus Aurelius, a persecution broke out against the Christians of Lugdunum and Vienne. Our account is a letter from the two churches to churches in Asia and Phrygia, preserved by Eusebius about 150 years later. It describes mob attacks, torture, trials and executions, including the deaths of the elderly bishop Pothinus and the slave Blandina. The Catholic Encyclopedia counts 48 victims, half of Greek origin and half Gallo-Roman. It is among the earliest well-documented Christian communities in Gaul.

• Eusebius quotes the letter saying Blandina was exposed to wild beasts that did not touch her, and was finally killed by a bull.
• One of the victims, Ponticus, was a boy of about fifteen.
• While still a presbyter, Irenaeus, later bishop of Lyon, was sent to Rome with a letter from the Christians of Gaul to Pope Eleutherus, as Eusebius reports in Church History 5.4.

Sources: Eusebius, Church History 5.1: the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons (New Advent); The Persecution and Martyrdoms of Lyons in 177 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Catholic Encyclopedia: Lyons (New Advent); Livius.org: Lugdunum (Lyon); Wikipedia: Persecution in Lyon

Saint Martin of Tours (bishop 371 to 397)

Saint Martin, soldier, monk and bishop of Tours, Bishop · Tours

Martin was born around 316 or 317 at Savaria in Pannonia (modern Hungary) to a family in Roman army service, and he served as a soldier in Gaul. After leaving the army he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers and founded a community at Ligugé, then the monastery of Marmoutier near Tours. In 371 he was made bishop of Tours. He preached in the countryside, where he confronted pagan practice, and later travelled to Trier to oppose the execution of the heretic Priscillian. His tomb in Tours became a major place of pilgrimage.

How they rose: Sulpicius Severus, his biographer, says Martin met a naked beggar at the gate of Amiens one winter and cut his cloak in two with his sword to share it. That night he saw Christ wearing the half-cloak. Martin was baptised and stayed in the army nearly two more years. He became bishop by popular acclaim after reluctance.

How they died: He died at Candes, probably in 397. His feast day is 11 November. His basilica and tomb at Tours were sacked by Protestants in 1562 and the basilica destroyed in the Revolution; the tomb's site was located in 1860.

• At the time of the cloak vision Sulpicius says Martin was only a catechumen, not yet baptised.
• Tradition links the English word 'chapel' to cappella, the 'little cloak' of Martin kept as a relic, with the small sanctuaries housing it taking the name. This is a traditional derivation.
• His feast day, 11 November, is marked by lantern processions and goose dinners in parts of Europe.

Sources: Sulpicius Severus, Life of Martin 3: the cloak (Early Church Texts); Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Martin of Tours (New Advent); New World Encyclopedia: Martin of Tours; Wikipedia: Martin of Tours

The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (June 451 (traditionally 20 June))

In 451 Attila invaded Gaul. A coalition under the Roman general Aetius and the Visigothic king Theodoric I met him on the Catalaunian Plains in north-eastern France, near Chalons or Troyes; the exact site is unknown. Fighting lasted until dark. Theodoric was killed, and afterwards the Goths withdrew and Attila retreated. Traditionally, following Jordanes, the battle is seen as a Roman-allied victory, but many scholars now call it indecisive.

• Jordanes says about 165,000 died, and the chronicler Hydatius almost 300,000; modern historians treat these figures as far too high.
• Jordanes reports a rumour that Attila had a funeral pyre of horse trappings ready to throw himself on if attacked, and says Aetius urged the Goth Thorismund to go home to secure his throne.
• Jordanes says Theodoric died after being thrown from his horse and trampled, though some reported he was speared by Andag of the Ostrogoths. Scholars debate how much of this to trust.

Sources: Jordanes, Getica 36-41 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Attila the Hun; Wikipedia: Battle of the Catalaunian Plains

Clovis I (481 to 511)

Clovis I, King of the Franks, Merovingian dynasty

Clovis became king of the Salian Franks at about fifteen and spent thirty years turning a regional kingdom into the dominant power of Gaul. He defeated the Roman commander Syagrius at Soissons in 486, beat the Alamanni, and crushed the Visigoths at Vouillé in 507. His conversion to Catholic Christianity won him the support of the Gallo-Roman bishops. He is also credited with commissioning the first written Salic law code, and he later made Paris his capital.

How they came to power: Clovis succeeded his father Childeric I in 481 as king of the Salian Franks, aged about fifteen. He then absorbed rival Frankish and Roman-held territory by war and alliance.

How it ended: He died on 27 November 511, traditionally in Paris, aged about 45 (some historians give 513). He was buried in Paris, and his kingdom was divided among his four sons.

• Gregory of Tours says that at Clovis's baptism, Bishop Remigius of Reims told him to burn what he had worshipped and worship what he had burned. Gregory adds that more than 3,000 of his army were baptised too.
• The year of the baptism is disputed. Gregory of Tours implies 496, while many modern scholars favour December 508, based on correspondence with Bishop Avitus of Vienne.
• In Gregory's story of the Soissons vase, a soldier smashed a looted church vase with his axe rather than let Clovis take it outside the fair division of loot. A year later, at a review of the troops, Clovis killed the man with his own axe. Gregory tells it as a tale of royal revenge, so treat the details with caution.

Sources: Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks II.31: The Conversion of Clovis (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Gregory of Tours: On Clovis and the Vase at Soissons (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Clovis I; Wikipedia: Clovis I

The Salic Law is Written Down (Between 507 and 511)

The Pactus Legis Salicae is the law code of the Salian Franks, written in Latin and traditionally dated to 507-511, the end of Clovis's reign. Most of it is a tariff of fines for theft, injury and insult. Its rule that women could not inherit 'Salic land' was a narrow property rule. Writers of the 14th and 15th centuries cited it to justify excluding women from the French crown.

• Most of the code is a list of compensation payments, not a statement of government. The text sets fines for stolen livestock, assaults and slander.
• The rule on women (Title 59, clause 6) covers only 'Salic land'. Other property could pass to daughters, and under King Chilperic about 570 to 575 the code was amended so a daughter could inherit land if there were no sons.
• The code says nothing about the throne. In 1328 the French rejected Edward III's claim through his mother without citing it, and the first known citation of the Salic text in a succession dispute was by the monk Richard Lescot in 1358.

Sources: The Law of the Salian Franks, Title 59 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Franks (context for Clovis's kingdom); EBSCO Research Starters: Salic law; Wikipedia: Salic law

Dagobert I (629 to 639)

Dagobert I, King of the Franks, Merovingian dynasty

Dagobert ruled Austrasia from 623 and then, from 629, the whole Frankish world. Some historians see his reign as the high point of Merovingian power, though it rested on concessions to the nobility. He leaned on the saint-goldsmith Eligius and on the abbey of Saint-Denis. After him, kings were often children while palace mayors ran the realm.

How they came to power: He was made sub-king of Austrasia in 622 or 623 by his father Chlothar II. On Chlothar's death in 629 he took Neustria and Burgundy, had Brodulf, brother of Chlothar's widow Sichilde, assassinated, and gave his half-brother Charibert only Aquitaine.

How it ended: He died on 19 January 639 at Épinay-sur-Seine, aged about 34 to 36. He was the first Frankish king buried at Saint-Denis, which became the royal burial place.

• In 635 Dagobert granted the estate of Saclas, with its mills, meadows, serfs and flocks, to the monks of Saint-Denis.
• The Chronicle of Fredegar says he had three queens at about the same time, as well as several concubines.
• The nursery rhyme 'Le bon roi Dagobert', in which his adviser Saint Eligius scolds him, is satire with no historical basis. It became popular as an anti-monarchist song during the French Revolution.

Sources: Dagobert: Grant of an Estate to the Monks of St. Denis, 635 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Dado of Rouen: The Life of St. Eligius (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Merovingian Dynasty; Wikipedia: Dagobert I

Charles Martel (718 to 741)

Charles Martel, Mayor of the Palace, Mayor of the Palace · Carolingian ancestor

Charles Martel was the real ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death, while Merovingian kings sat on the throne. He fought the Saxons, Frisians, Bavarians and Alemanni, and he defeated an Umayyad force near Tours in 732. After the king Theuderic IV died in 737 he left the throne empty. His son Pepin became the first Carolingian king.

How they rose: He was a son of Pepin of Herstal. After his father's death in 714 his stepmother Plectrude imprisoned him in Cologne, but he escaped, was acclaimed in Austrasia in 715 and won at Amblève, Vinchy and Soissons by 718.

How they died: He died at Quierzy on 22 October 741 and was buried at Saint-Denis. He had divided the realm between his sons Carloman and Pepin.

• The nickname 'Martel' (the hammer) appears only in later chronicles. The Chronicle of St. Denis says he was first called Martel for the way he struck his enemies.
• His only defeat in these years was at Cologne in 716. He won the next three battles.
• In 739 Pope Gregory III wrote to him asking for help against the Lombard king Liutprand, but Charles did not act. Historians debate how far he seized church land to pay for his army.

Sources: Pope Gregory III: Appeal to Charles Martel, 739 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook; the page title says Gregory II, but its introduction names Gregory III); Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: The Legacy of Charles Martel & the Battle of Tours; Wikipedia: Charles Martel

The Battle of Tours (October 732)

In October 732 Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, the Umayyad governor of al-Andalus, led a force north through Aquitaine. Charles Martel met it between Tours and Poitiers. The Franks held their ground, Abd al-Rahman was killed, and the Umayyad army withdrew. Gibbon and others called this decisive for Europe, while many modern historians think it was a large raid and that its importance has been overstated.

• Nobody knows the army sizes or the exact site. The Chronicle of St. Denis claims 300,000 enemy dead against 1,500 Frankish losses, a figure no modern historian accepts.
• Isidore of Beja's chronicle says the two armies watched each other for almost seven days before fighting, and that the Muslim army left in silence during the night, leaving its tents standing.
• An Arabic chronicle in the Fordham collection says the army attacked Tours to gain still more spoil, and that its commanders did not dare make the soldiers drop their loot, a lack of discipline the author calls fatal to armies.

Sources: Anonymous Arab chronicler: The Battle of Poitiers, 732 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: The Legacy of Charles Martel & the Battle of Tours; Wikipedia: Battle of Tours

Pepin the Short (751 to 768)

Pepin III the Short, King of the Franks, Carolingian dynasty

Pepin, son of Charles Martel, ruled the Franks with his brother Carloman until Carloman entered a monastery in 747. In 751 he had Childeric III deposed and was himself made king, the first Carolingian. He allied with the papacy against the Lombards, and the land he gave the pope, the Donation of Pepin, was the basis of the Papal States. He also took Narbonne from the Muslims in 759 and campaigned in Aquitaine.

How they came to power: After Carloman retired in 747, Pepin was sole ruler. According to the Annals of Lorsch, envoys asked Pope Zacharias about kings with the title but no power, and the pope replied that he who actually had the power should be called king. Pepin was then named king and anointed.

How it ended: He died on 24 September 768 and his realm was divided between his sons Charlemagne and Carloman I.

• Childeric III was shorn of his long hair, the Merovingian sign of royalty, and sent to a monastery.
• In 754 Pope Stephen II anointed Pepin again at Saint-Denis, together with his sons Charles and Carloman, and gave him the title Patrician of the Romans.
• The 754 anointing tied the papacy to the Frankish kings. The Donation of Pepin that followed is seen as the basis of the Papal States, and Charlemagne's coronation in 800 later extended the link.

Sources: Annals of Lorsch: The Pope Makes the Carolingians Kings (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Carolingian Dynasty; Wikipedia: Pepin the Short

Charlemagne (768 to 814)

Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Emperor, Carolingian dynasty

Charlemagne ruled the Franks from 768, jointly with his brother until 771, then alone. He took the Lombard kingdom in 774, waged nearly continuous war on the Saxons, and was crowned emperor in Rome on 25 December 800. His court at Aachen drew scholars such as Alcuin, and the cultural revival that followed is called the Carolingian Renaissance. He governed through counts and royal envoys called missi.

How they came to power: He succeeded his father Pepin the Short in 768 and shared the kingdom with his brother Carloman I. Carloman died in December 771, leaving Charlemagne sole king of the Franks.

How it ended: He died on 28 January 814 in Aachen, of natural causes according to the sources, and was buried in the Palatine Chapel. In 813 he had already crowned his son Louis the Pious as successor.

• Einhard, who knew him, says Charlemagne tried to learn to write late in life and kept tablets and blank pages under his pillow to practise the letters, with little success.
• In 778 his army's rear guard was destroyed by Gascon forces in the Pyrenees. Einhard names Roland among the dead, and the episode later became the Song of Roland.
• In 802 he ordered every free subject, lay or clerical, to swear an oath of loyalty to him as emperor, and sent out royal missi to enforce justice.

Sources: Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Charlemagne: General Capitulary of the Missi, 802 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Charlemagne; Wikipedia: Charlemagne

Charlemagne Crowned Emperor (December 25, 800)

Charlemagne had come to Rome to help Pope Leo III after the pope was attacked by a mob. On Christmas Day 800 Leo crowned him emperor. Einhard says Charlemagne would not have entered the church that day had he known the pope's plan, though World History Encyclopedia doubts this and thinks he probably welcomed the title. Historians debate what the coronation meant.

• Einhard, writing after Charlemagne's death, says the king was reluctant and would have avoided the church that day had he foreseen the pope's plan.
• World History Encyclopedia says the coronation was likely an attempt by the papacy to gain some control over an already powerful ruler, though the papacy gained little practical leverage.
• Charlemagne crowned his own son Louis as co-emperor in 813, without a pope.

Sources: Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne, section 28 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Charlemagne; Wikipedia: Charlemagne

Louis the Pious (814 to 840)

Louis the Pious, Emperor and King of the Franks, Carolingian dynasty

Louis was king of Aquitaine as a child and became sole emperor when Charlemagne died. In 817 he issued the Ordinatio Imperii to share the empire among his sons while keeping it united under the eldest, Lothair. The birth of a younger son, Charles the Bald, upset the plan. Civil wars followed, including his deposition in 833 and restoration in 834.

How they came to power: He had been made co-emperor in 813 and succeeded Charlemagne in 814 as sole ruler of the Franks.

How it ended: He died on 20 June 840 on an island in the Rhine near Ingelheim and was buried at Metz. A new war among his sons followed, ended by the Treaty of Verdun in 843.

• His nephew Bernard of Italy rebelled in 817, was captured and blinded, and died two days later. Louis later did public penance for it.
• In 833 his army deserted him at Rothfeld, later called the Field of Lies, and he was deposed and made to do public penance at Soissons. He was restored in 834.
• Bishop Agobard of Lyons wrote to him around 830 (the date is uncertain), warning that he was undoing the oath-backed succession plan of 817.

Sources: The Ordinance of Louis the Pious: Division of the Empire, 817 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Agobard of Lyons: On the Division of the Empire, c. 830 (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Carolingian Dynasty; Wikipedia: Louis the Pious

The Treaty of Verdun (August 843)

After years of war among the sons of Louis the Pious, Lothair, Louis the German and Charles the Bald agreed in August 843 to divide the empire. Charles took West Francia, Louis East Francia, and Lothair a middle strip with the imperial title. The treaty was the first of several partitions. The middle kingdom soon broke up, and its borderlands became a long contest between France and Germany.

• The text of the treaty is lost. Historians rely on chroniclers such as the Annals of St. Bertin and the annals of Rudolf of Fulda, which give the shares of the three brothers.
• A year earlier, in February 842, Louis and Charles swore the Oaths of Strasbourg, each in the other's language so the other's army could understand. The Romance version is regarded as a landmark text in early French.
• Lothair's middle realm gave its name to Lotharingia, and its southern part became the Alsace-Lorraine region later fought over by France and Germany.

Sources: Ogg, A Source Book of Mediaeval History (1908), no. 25 'The Treaty of Verdun (843)': Annals of St. Bertin and Rudolf of Fulda (Internet Archive); Treaty at Aix between Louis II and Charles the Bald, 870, the follow-up partition (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Carolingian Dynasty; Wikipedia: Treaty of Verdun

The Viking Raid on Paris (March 845)

In March 845 a Viking fleet, led by a chieftain named Reginherus, sailed up the Seine. Charles the Bald split his smaller army across both banks. The Vikings beat one half and hanged captives to terrify the rest. They reached Paris on Easter Sunday, 29 March, and left only after Charles paid a ransom of 7,000 livres.

• About 120 ships and more than 5,000 men are reported in modern accounts, and the Vikings hanged 111 captured Franks on an island in the Seine, according to Wikipedia.
• The Annals of St. Bertin record that Charles the Bald paid 7,000 livres to make the raiders leave. Modern accounts differ on the unit (World History Encyclopedia says pounds), and Wikipedia gives roughly 2,570 kg of silver and gold.
• A story told by a Frankish envoy says the Viking leader blamed a plague in his camp on Saint Germain, after the Vikings attacked Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It is a reported story, not established fact.

Sources: Three Sources on the Ravages of the Northmen in Frankland, c. 843-912: Annals of St. Bertin, Abbo, Chronicle of St. Denis (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Viking Raids on Paris; Wikipedia: Siege of Paris (845)

The Great Siege of Paris (November 885 to 886)

In late November 885 a Viking army under Sigfred and Sinric reached Paris, where bridges blocked the Seine. Count Odo, with roughly 200 men-at-arms, held the city with Bishop Gozlin. Charles the Fat arrived in October 886 but paid the Vikings to raid Burgundy instead of fighting them. The siege made Odo's reputation, and after Charles was deposed (887 or 888) Odo was elected king in 888.

• The poet Abbo, an eyewitness, says 700 ships came. Modern historians consider that and his figure of tens of thousands of men exaggerated and put the fleet nearer 300 ships.
• In February 886 floodwaters collapsed the bridge supports and cut off a tower, and its twelve defenders were killed after refusing to surrender.
• Bishop Gozlin died in May 886 as disease spread. Wikipedia calls Odo the first non-Carolingian king of the Franks.

Sources: Three Sources on the Ravages of the Northmen in Frankland, c. 843-912: Annals of St. Bertin, Abbo, Chronicle of St. Denis (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Viking Raids on Paris; World History Encyclopedia: Odo of West Francia; Wikipedia: Siege of Paris (885 to 886)

Charles the Simple (898 to 922)

Charles III the Simple, King of West Francia, Carolingian dynasty

Charles was born in 879, crowned in 893 by a rival faction, and held full power only after Odo died in 898. In 911 he settled Rollo's Vikings around Rouen and briefly gained Lotharingia. His favouritism toward Hagano alienated the nobles, who elected Robert I in 922. He lost his throne and later died in custody.

How they came to power: Charles was crowned in 893 by nobles opposed to King Odo. After Odo died in 898 he became king of West Francia with no rival.

How it ended: Nobles seized him in 920 and elected Robert I in 922. Charles fought Robert at Soissons in 923, where Robert was killed, but he was later captured and held at Péronne, where he died in 929.

• 'Simple' comes from the Latin simplex, which meant straightforward or sincere, though chroniclers often used insulting terms for him.
• His son Louis IV was crowned in 936.
• The Chronicle of St. Denis, based on Dudo and William of Jumièges, says Rollo refused to kiss Charles's foot and had a follower do it. Historians consider Dudo's vivid version of the scene likely exaggerated.

Sources: Three Sources on the Ravages of the Northmen in Frankland, c. 843-912: Annals of St. Bertin, Abbo, Chronicle of St. Denis (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Gesta Normannorum (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook, trans. Lifshitz); World History Encyclopedia: Charles the Simple; Wikipedia: Charles the Simple

Rollo (c. 911 to 933)

Rollo, first ruler of Normandy, Viking leader · Normandy

Rollo was a Viking leader who settled on the lower Seine. After a failed attack on Chartres he came to terms with Charles the Simple in 911. He was baptised, took the name Robert, and became the first ruler of Normandy. His followers mixed with the local Franks and became the Normans. His descendant William the Conqueror took England in 1066.

How they rose: He raided the Seine valley for years. After the Franks relieved Chartres in 911 he accepted a grant of land around Rouen from Charles the Simple.

How they died: He died between about 928 and 933 (933 is the usual date) and was succeeded by his son William Longsword.

• Historians still argue whether he was Norwegian or Danish. Dudo of Saint-Quentin called him Danish, while Norse and Icelandic tradition links him to Hrólfr 'the Walker'.
• According to World History Encyclopedia there are no records of further Viking raids into Francia after the 911 agreement.
• World History Encyclopedia calls him the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror.

Sources: Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Gesta Normannorum (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook, trans. Lifshitz); Three Sources on the Ravages of the Northmen in Frankland, c. 843-912: Annals of St. Bertin, Abbo, Chronicle of St. Denis (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Rollo of Normandy; Wikipedia: Rollo

The Founding of Normandy (c. 911)

After Rollo's failed siege of Chartres in 911, Charles the Simple granted him land around Rouen. In return Rollo was to be baptised, swear loyalty and guard the Seine estuary against other Vikings. A marriage to Charles's daughter Gisela was part of the plan, according to some accounts. This was the start of the Duchy of Normandy.

• No original document survives. The treaty was probably spoken, and its terms come mainly from Dudo of Saint-Quentin, who wrote about a century later.
• Wikipedia reports that Charles first offered Rollo Flanders, but Rollo refused and asked for land better suited to farming. World History Encyclopedia says he thought Flanders too marshy.
• Some historians argue Rollo owed no oath or service and that the land was granted outright, so the idea that he became a vassal is itself debated.

Sources: Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Gesta Normannorum (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook, trans. Lifshitz); Three Sources on the Ravages of the Northmen in Frankland, c. 843-912: Annals of St. Bertin, Abbo, Chronicle of St. Denis (Fordham Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Rollo of Normandy; Wikipedia: Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte

Hugh Capet (987 to 996)

Hugh Capet, King of the Franks, Capetian dynasty

Hugh Capet was the son of Hugh the Great and the most powerful nobleman around Paris. When the last Carolingian king, Louis V, died childless, the lords of the realm chose Hugh over the dead king's uncle, Charles of Lorraine. Hugh was a lay abbot of Saint-Martin at Tours and Saint-Denis, and his strength lay in his lands rather than in the crown's own thin resources. He is remembered less for what he did as king than for what he began: a dynasty that held the throne in an unbroken male line until 1328.

How they came to power: Louis V died in a hunting accident in the forest of Senlis in May 987. At Senlis, Archbishop Adalbero of Reims argued that the throne was not a hereditary right and backed Hugh. Hugh was crowned at Noyon on 1 June 987 (an older account says July) and, by some accounts, again at Paris on 3 July.

How it ended: Hugh died in Paris on 24 October 996 (the Saint-Denis obituary date; the Britannica gives 14 October) and was buried at Saint-Denis. His son Robert, whom he had had crowned in his own lifetime, succeeded him.

• The main contemporary account has Archbishop Adalbero telling the assembly that the throne 'is not acquired by hereditary right'. The writer, Richer of Reims, composed the speech himself some years later, so it shows how the election was remembered, not a transcript.
• Hugh had his son Robert crowned co-king on 25 December 987, only months after his own election. Richer reports that Adalbero first objected that two kings could not be made in one year.
• Charles of Lorraine, the Carolingian claimant, held out as a rival king until 991, when Bishop Adalberon of Laon seized him and handed him over to Hugh. Charles died in captivity at Orléans.

Sources: Richer of Reims, The Election of Hugh Capet, 987 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Hugh Capet; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Hugh Capet (Wikisource)

Robert II the Pious (996 to 1031)

Robert II, King of the Franks, Capetian dynasty

Robert was crowned in his father's lifetime and ruled alone from 996. He had been taught by Gerbert of Aurillac, the future Pope Sylvester II, and later writers called him 'the Pious' for his devotion. He spent years winning the Duchy of Burgundy, which he held by about 1015 to 1016. His marriages caused a long dispute with the papacy. Late in his reign his own sons rebelled against him.

How they came to power: Robert was crowned junior king in December 987 while Hugh Capet was alive. He became sole king when Hugh died in October 996.

How it ended: Robert died of a fever at Melun on 20 July 1031 and was buried at Saint-Denis. His son Henry I succeeded him.

• Robert's marriage to his second cousin Bertha of Burgundy led Pope Gregory V to order them apart. Councils at Pavia (997) and Rome (998) imposed seven years of penance, with excommunication if they did not separate. Older books say he was excommunicated, but one modern account says the sentence was threatened and never actually proclaimed.
• On 28 December 1022 a pyre was lit at Orléans for a group of canons of Sainte-Croix and others who refused to recant. Adémar of Chabannes counts ten canons; other accounts give more. It is often called the first burning for heresy in the medieval West.
• His eldest son Hugh, crowned junior king, died in 1025. Around 1030 his sons Henry and Robert rebelled, probably with their mother Constance's support, before peace was restored within the royal family.

Sources: Ralph Glaber, On the First Millennium: famine and the 'white garment of churches' (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook). Context for Robert's reign; the extract does not discuss Robert himself; Wikipedia: Robert II of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Robert II, king of France (Wikisource)

Henry I (1031 to 1060)

Henry I, King of the Franks, Capetian dynasty

Henry I was crowned in 1027 and became sole king in 1031. His reign is often described as the high point of feudalism: royal power in practice reached little further than the lands around Paris and Orléans. He fought the houses of Blois and Champagne, and for much of his life he fought William, Duke of Normandy. He is also remembered for marrying a Rus princess and for securing the crown for his son.

How they came to power: Henry was born in 1008 and crowned co-king at Reims in May 1027. His father Robert II died in 1031. Henry first had to defeat a league led by his mother and his younger brother Robert.

How it ended: Henry died on 4 August 1060, at Vitry-aux-Loges according to Wikipedia, while campaigning against Thimert, and was buried at Saint-Denis. His son Philip I, already crowned in 1059, succeeded him.

• To end his brother's revolt, Henry gave Robert the Duchy of Burgundy in 1032. Robert's descendants ruled it as a separate Capetian line.
• In 1047 Henry helped the young William of Normandy win the battle of Val-ès-Dunes, then fought him for the rest of his life. At Mortemer in 1054 William of Jumièges says the greater part of the French nobility was slain, and the rest were held in Norman villages.
• On 19 May 1051 Henry married Anne of Kyiv, a daughter of the Rus ruler Yaroslav. She bore him the son who succeeded him, Philip.

Sources: William of Jumièges on the battles of Saint-Aubin (1053) and Mortemer (1054) (De Re Militari); Wikipedia: Henry I of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Henry I. of France (Wikisource)

Philip I (1060 to 1108)

Philip I, King of the Franks, Capetian dynasty

Philip I became king as a child, with Baldwin V of Flanders and his mother Anne of Kyiv as regents. As an adult he added the Vexin in 1082 and Bourges in 1100 to the royal domain, and he held his own against William the Conqueror and his sons. His reign is best remembered for scandal. He repudiated his wife and took another man's, and the Church punished him for it for years. Despite that, he handed on a stronger crown.

How they came to power: Philip was crowned in 1059 at about age seven (one modern scholar argues for 1058) and became sole king when Henry I died on 4 August 1060.

How it ended: Philip died at Melun on 29 July 1108. He was buried at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, not Saint-Denis. His son Louis VI, already named as heir, succeeded him.

• Philip put away his wife Bertha of Holland, reportedly because she was too fat. In 1092 he married Bertrada of Montfort, who was still the wife of Count Fulk IV of Anjou.
• He was excommunicated in 1094 and again in 1095 and 1101. He did public penance in 1104 and was reconciled with the Church.
• In 1106 he married his daughter Constance to Bohemond I of Antioch, a leader of the First Crusade. In 1107 he met Pope Paschal II at Saint-Denis.

Sources: Abbot Suger, Life of King Louis the Fat: the end of Philip I's reign (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Philip I of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Philip I., king of France (Wikisource)

Abbot Suger (c. 1081 to 1151)

Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, Churchman and statesman

Suger was a poor boy given to the abbey of Saint-Denis who became the right hand of Louis VI and Louis VII. He wrote the life of Louis VI and a report on his own abbacy. As abbot he rebuilt Saint-Denis, the burial church of the kings, with a new west front and choir. Scholars argue about how much of Gothic architecture was his idea, but his own writings are the best surviving account of what a patron wanted from the new building.

How they rose: Suger entered Saint-Denis as a child oblate in 1091 and later met the future Louis VI. He was elected abbot in March 1122, while returning from Rome.

How they died: Suger died at Saint-Denis on 13 January 1151. He had been trying to raise a new crusade.

• The new church at Saint-Denis was dedicated on 11 June 1144 in the presence of the king; the Fordham edition counts five archbishops and thirteen bishops at the ceremony. Suger himself writes that he paid 400 pounds for a hoard of gems for a golden cross, though they were worth much more.
• In February 1147 a council named Suger regent of France while Louis VII was away on the Second Crusade.
• Many guidebooks call Saint-Denis the first Gothic building. Some modern scholars, including Conrad Rudolph, see Suger as an inspired patron rather than the designer, and doubt any simple link between his theology and the architecture.

Sources: Abbot Suger, On What Was Done During His Administration (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Abbot Suger, Life of King Louis the Fat (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Suger; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Suger (Wikisource)

The Council of Clermont and the call to the First Crusade (17 to 27 November 1095 (some sources give the 18th to the 28th))

In November 1095 Pope Urban II presided over a council at Clermont, in France. It was mainly a reform council: it renewed the Truce of God, which limited fighting, and it extended the excommunication of King Philip I. On 27 November (some sources say the 26th) Urban gave a speech urging warriors to aid the Christians of the East, following an appeal from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I. He promised remission of sins to those who died on the way or in battle. Several accounts of the speech survive, all written years later, and they differ.

• Fulcher of Chartres, who was present, gives the speech in two parts: church reform and peace at home, then the call to the East. Modern scholars generally rank his version as the most reliable.
• The famous cry 'Deus vult' (God wills it) comes from Robert the Monk, who wrote later and added drama. The pope's own letter named Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy as leader and set departure for 15 August 1096.
• The same council that launched the crusade extended the excommunication of the French king, Philip I, over his marriage.

Sources: Urban II: Speech at the Council of Clermont, 1095, according to Fulcher of Chartres (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Council of Clermont; World History Encyclopedia: Council of Clermont

Louis VI the Fat (1108 to 1137)

Louis VI, King of the Franks, Capetian dynasty

Louis VI, called 'the Fat' or 'the Fighter', ruled with the help of the churchman Suger. Much of his reign went to breaking the barons who terrorised the roads around Paris from castles such as Le Puiset and Montlhéry. He fought Henry I of England for Normandy and the border castle of Gisors, and in 1124 he rallied a national army against an invasion by the Emperor Henry V. One modern account calls him the first Capetian to issue ordinances covering the whole kingdom.

How they came to power: Louis was born in 1081 and was named heir during his father's life. His half-brother blocked the road to Reims, so Archbishop Daimbert of Sens crowned him in haste at Orléans on 3 August 1108.

How it ended: Louis died of dysentery on 1 August 1137, a week after his heir married Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was buried at Saint-Denis. His elder son Philip had died earlier, in 1131.

• The castle of Le Puiset was taken and burned in 1111, rebuilt by its lord, and razed again; Louis needed a third attempt to subdue him.
• At Brémule in 1119 Louis lost to Henry I of England. Orderic Vitalis says he was told that of about nine hundred knights engaged only three were killed, and 140 were captured. Heavy armour and the custom of ransom kept the toll low.
• In 1124 the Emperor Henry V threatened to invade. Louis called out the whole kingdom at Reims and the invasion was abandoned. His heir Philip died in 1131 after a fall from his horse.

Sources: Abbot Suger, Life of King Louis the Fat (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Orderic Vitalis, The Battle of Brémule, 1119 (De Re Militari); Wikipedia: Louis VI of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Louis VI. of France (Wikisource)

Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1124 to 1 April 1204)

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, Queen of France and then of England, Duchess of Aquitaine

Eleanor inherited Aquitaine, one of the richest lands in Europe. As queen of France she went on the Second Crusade. After her marriage to Louis VII was annulled, she married Henry of Anjou and became queen of England in 1154. She had ten children in all, two daughters with Louis and eight children with Henry. She later governed Aquitaine in her own right, backed her sons' revolt against Henry, and was held captive from 1173 or 1174 until Henry died in 1189. As a widow she acted for her son Richard I.

How they rose: Eleanor became Duchess of Aquitaine in April 1137, when her father William X died. She married the future Louis VII on 25 July 1137, when she was in her early teens (sources differ on her birth year, c. 1122 or c. 1124).

How they died: Eleanor died at Fontevraud Abbey on 1 April 1204, aged about eighty, where she had retired after arranging Blanche of Castile's marriage. She was buried there.

• Her marriage to Louis was annulled at Beaugency on 21 March 1152 on grounds of kinship. She married Henry of Anjou on 18 May 1152, eight weeks later.
• After the 1173 revolt she was imprisoned until Henry II died in 1189. In 1173 Peter of Blois wrote to her, in the name of the archbishop of Rouen, urging her to return to her husband.
• The story that she rode to the Crusade as an Amazon is a later legend. Chroniclers hint that she had an affair with her uncle Raymond of Antioch, but historians treat it as unproven. In 1200 she helped arrange the marriage of her granddaughter Blanche of Castile to the future Louis VIII.

Sources: Peter of Blois, Letter 154 to Queen Eleanor, 1173 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Eleanor of Aquitaine; World History Encyclopedia: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Louis VII the Young (1137 to 1180)

Louis VII, King of the Franks, Capetian dynasty

Louis VII was a second son raised for the Church who became heir in 1131. His early years were shaped by Suger, and by his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, which for fifteen years brought the south to the crown. He led the unsuccessful Second Crusade. After the annulment Eleanor married Henry of Anjou, later Henry II of England, and the rivalry between the two courts defined the rest of the reign. Louis gave shelter to Thomas Becket and backed Pope Alexander III. His reign also saw the early growth of Gothic building and the schools of Paris.

How they came to power: Louis was anointed in 1131 after his older brother died, and succeeded his father in 1137. He married Eleanor on 25 July 1137.

How it ended: Louis died on 18 September 1180, weakened by paralysis. His son Philip II, crowned co-king the year before, succeeded him.

• The French crusaders reached Constantinople on 4 October 1147, according to Odo of Deuil. After an ambush at Mount Cadmus and heavy losses on the march, the siege of Damascus in 1148 was abandoned after four days, and the king left the Holy Land after Easter 1149.
• The marriage was annulled on grounds of kinship on 21 March 1152. Eleanor married Henry of Anjou eight weeks later, giving him Aquitaine.
• Louis had no surviving son until his third wife, Adela of Champagne, bore Philip in 1165. The chronicler Rigord stresses that the king had only daughters before then.

Sources: Odo of Deuil, The Crusade of Louis VII (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Louis VII le Jeune (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Louis VII of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Louis VII. of France (Wikisource)

The University of Paris (c. 1150 to 1231)

The University of Paris grew out of the cathedral school of Notre-Dame and the schools of the Left Bank, as a guild of teachers and students. Philip II recognised the corporation in 1200. The papal legate Robert de Courçon gave it rules in 1215. After a strike of 1229 to 1231, Pope Gregory IX confirmed its rights in 1231 and called Paris the mother of the sciences. The 1231 statutes name four fields of study (theology, canon law, medicine and arts), and the arts masters and students were grouped in four 'nations'. Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure are among its famous teachers.

• The 1231 statutes let the masters suspend lectures if satisfaction was not given within fifteen days of a proper warning, for example after an injury to a student. Students were barred from carrying weapons in the city.
• The chancellor could take no payment or promise for granting a licence and could not demand an oath or pledge from the licensed masters. The summer vacation was not to exceed one month.
• The Sorbonne began as a college founded by Robert de Sorbon in the 1250s, with the support of Louis IX. Historians give different dates for the university itself, from about 1150 to 1215.

Sources: Statutes of Gregory IX for the University of Paris, 1231 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: University of Paris; Catholic Encyclopedia (1913): Paris, section on the university (Wikisource)

Notre-Dame de Paris is begun (Begun 1163; largely finished c. 1260; completed c. 1345)

Work on the new cathedral of Notre-Dame began in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully, on the Île de la Cité. A later chronicle tradition, repeated in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, says Pope Alexander III, who was in Paris from 24 March to 25 April 1163, laid the first stone. The high altar is said to have been consecrated in 1182, and the western front and towers rose in the early thirteenth century. It is a leading example of French Gothic, with early rib vaults, flying buttresses and large rose windows.

• Maurice de Sully was bishop from 1160 to 1196, nearly the whole time the choir and nave rose. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia calls him the son of a simple serf, a claim modern accounts do not confirm.
• The high altar is dated to 19 May 1182. Dates for the rest differ: the Catholic Encyclopedia gives the facade as finished in 1218 and the towers in 1235, while Wikipedia gives about 1225 to 1250 for the towers, about 1260 for the main structure and 1345 for the last work.
• The slender central spire that burned in 2019 was not medieval. Viollet-le-Duc designed it in the restoration of 1844 to 1864; the original thirteenth-century spire had been removed in 1786.

Sources: Abbot Suger, On What Was Done During His Administration (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook). Context only: Suger writes about Saint-Denis (choir consecrated 1144), not Notre-Dame; no free contemporary Notre-Dame source was found; Wikipedia: Notre-Dame de Paris; Catholic Encyclopedia (1913): Paris (Wikisource)

Philip II Augustus (1180 to 1223)

Philip II Augustus, King of France, Capetian dynasty

Philip II was crowned at fourteen and became sole king in 1180. His chronicler Rigord gave him the name 'Augustus' for enlarging the royal lands. He went on the Third Crusade with Richard I, then returned early and spent the rest of his life dismantling the Angevin empire. By the end of 1204 he had taken most of Normandy and the Angevin lands. He used salaried officials called baillis to run the royal domain. In Paris he built a ring of walls, founded the Les Halles market and put up the first Louvre, a fortress.

How they came to power: Philip was born on 21 August 1165 and crowned co-king at Reims on 1 November 1179. His father Louis VII died on 18 September 1180.

How it ended: Philip died on 14 July 1223 at Mantes, aged 57, and was buried at Saint-Denis. His son Louis VIII succeeded him.

• After he married Ingeborg of Denmark in 1193, Philip sought an annulment. Pope Innocent III put France under an interdict from 1199 or 1200 until September 1200. Under its terms churches were closed except for baptisms of infants, Mass was allowed once a week, on Friday, only to consecrate the host for the sick, and the dead could not be buried in consecrated ground.
• In 1182 Philip expelled the Jews from the royal domain and confiscated their goods. He allowed them back in 1198.
• Rigord says that a King Henry of England attended Philip's coronation at fourteen and humbly supported the crown; the Fordham translator reads this as Henry II, though Henry II's son the Young King was also styled king. Rigord also says Philip fell seriously ill at Acre in 1191 and sailed home before Richard did.

Sources: Rigord, The Deeds of Philip Augustus (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Rigord, The King of France on the Third Crusade (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Innocent III: Interdict of France, 1200 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Philip II of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Philip II., king of France (Wikisource)

Blanche of Castile (1188 to 27 November 1252)

Blanche of Castile, Queen of France and regent, Queen mother and regent

Blanche was a granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and was brought from Castile to marry the future Louis VIII in 1200. When Louis VIII died in 1226, she became regent for her twelve-year-old son Louis IX and held power against a league of barons. In 1229 her government ended the Albigensian Crusade with the Treaty of Paris. When Louis went on crusade she ruled again from 1248 to 1252. She founded the abbey of Maubuisson, and Royaumont was founded as a result of Louis VIII's will.

How they rose: Blanche was born on 4 March 1188 at Palencia in Castile and married Louis, son of Philip II, on 23 May 1200, under a treaty that Eleanor of Aquitaine had helped arrange. She became regent when Louis VIII died on 8 November 1226.

How they died: She fell ill at Melun in November 1252, was taken to Paris, and died on 27 November. She was buried at Maubuisson Abbey.

• Joinville reports that Blanche told her young son she would rather he were dead than commit a mortal sin. When Louis took the cross after a serious illness, she is described as mourning as if he had died, and she urged him to give up the crusade.
• She bore twelve or thirteen children, and several died young.
• In 1229 a tavern quarrel over wine prices between students and townspeople in Paris turned into a riot. The University of Paris then suspended its lectures, and the dispute lasted until the pope's bull of 1231.

Sources: Jean de Joinville, Memoirs / Life of St Louis (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Saint Louis: the start of the reign (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Blanche of Castile; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Blanche of Castile (Wikisource)

The Albigensian Crusade (1209 to 1229)

In January 1208 the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered in the territory of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse. Pope Innocent III called a crusade against the Cathars of Languedoc. Northern knights, led later by Simon de Montfort, took Béziers and Carcassonne in 1209. The war turned into a conflict between north and south, and in 1226 King Louis VIII led a royal army south. The Treaty of Paris, signed at Meaux on 12 April 1229, ended the fighting. The Inquisition later pursued the remaining Cathars. Historians still debate how many died.

• Béziers fell on 22 July 1209 and most of its people were killed. The famous order 'Kill them all, God will know his own' is attributed to the papal legate, but the historian Joseph Strayer doubts he said it.
• At the siege of Termes in 1210 the garrison ran short of water and a truce was agreed. A rainstorm then filled the cisterns and the defenders refused to surrender. The story is told by the pro-crusade chronicler Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay.
• King Peter II of Aragon, who had backed the southern lords, was killed fighting Simon de Montfort at Muret on 12 September 1213. Under the 1229 treaty Count Raymond VII of Toulouse submitted to the king, and Toulouse was to pass to the crown after his death through the marriage of his daughter Joan to the king's brother Alphonse of Poitiers.

Sources: Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, The Siege of Termes (1210), Historia Albigensis (De Re Militari); Wikipedia: Albigensian Crusade; World History Encyclopedia: Albigensian Crusade

The Battle of Bouvines (27 July 1214)

On 27 July 1214, Philip II met an allied army of Emperor Otto IV, Count Ferrand of Flanders and the English-backed lords on a plain near Bouvines. John of England's plan was to pull the French south while the allies marched on Paris. The French won, and Otto fled the field. The victory ended the Angevin empire in France. It left King John too weak to resist his barons, who forced him to seal Magna Carta in 1215. Philip founded an abbey in thanks.

• William the Breton says Philip was resting under an ash tree, mostly disarmed, when news came that the rearguard was under attack. He rearmed, rode to the front and gave a short speech calling Otto's army excommunicated.
• The fighting lasted about three hours, by William's account. Ferrand was captured along with very many knights, and modern accounts add William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury, to the prisoners.
• Estimates of the armies vary widely: a modern account gives roughly 6,000 to 7,000 French and about 9,000 allies, while the 1911 Britannica gives about 37,000 French and 46,500 imperial troops. Otto's imperial standard was captured, and he was soon overthrown.

Sources: William the Breton, The Battle of Bouvines (1214), from the Gesta Philippi Augusti (De Re Militari); Wikipedia: Battle of Bouvines; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Bouvines (Wikisource)

Louis VIII the Lion (1223 to 1226)

Louis VIII, King of France, Capetian dynasty

Louis VIII was Philip II's heir and a soldier. In 1216 he led an invasion of England at the invitation of rebel barons and was proclaimed king in London, but he lost the war and withdrew in 1217. As king he took Poitou and La Rochelle in 1224. In 1226 he led a royal crusade against the Albigensian south, a campaign that opened the way for the crown's later control of Languedoc. His reign lasted just over three years.

How they came to power: Louis was born on 5 September 1187 and married Blanche of Castile on 23 May 1200. He succeeded Philip II on 14 July 1223 and was crowned at Reims on 6 August.

How it ended: On his return from the Languedoc campaign Louis fell ill with dysentery and died at Montpensier in the Auvergne on 8 November 1226. He was buried at Saint-Denis.

• In 1216 Louis landed in Kent on 21 May, and the papal legate Guala Bicchieri excommunicated him at Winchester on 29 May. After defeats at Lincoln and Sandwich in 1217 he made the Treaty of Lambeth, giving up his claim in return for 10,000 marks.
• Avignon surrendered to him on 9 September 1226, agreeing to pay 6,000 marks, give hostages and pull down its walls.
• The poet Nicholas of Bray gave him the nickname 'the Lion' after his death. His will in June 1225 gave younger sons lands, called apanages.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Louis VIII (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Louis VIII of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Louis VIII. of France (Wikisource)

Louis IX (Saint Louis) (1226 to 1270)

Louis IX, King of France, canonised as Saint Louis, Capetian dynasty

Louis IX was crowned at twelve, with his mother Blanche as regent, and took over in the 1230s. He acquired the Crown of Thorns and other relics in 1239 to 1241 and built the Sainte-Chapelle to house them. He asserted royal justice over nobles and clergy alike and ended the long feud with England in 1259. His record is mixed: in 1242 he ordered the burning of copies of the Talmud, and he advised his son to hold Jews in abhorrence. He died on his second crusade and was canonised in 1297.

How they came to power: Louis was born on 25 April 1214. His father Louis VIII died on 8 November 1226 and Louis was crowned at Reims on 29 November, aged twelve.

How it ended: Louis died of an epidemic illness, usually given as dysentery, in the camp at Tunis on 25 August 1270. His bones were buried at Saint-Denis in 1271. He was canonised by Boniface VIII in 1297 (the proclamation at Orvieto is dated 11 July in some modern accounts).

• In the Seventh Crusade he took Damietta in 1249. His army was defeated in Egypt in early 1250 and he was captured and ransomed. He returned to France in July 1254.
• In 1259 he tried Enguerrand de Coucy, who had hanged three young nobles on his land. Louis rejected trial by combat, held him at the Louvre, and fined him 12,000 pounds. The barons protested in vain.
• In the Treaty of Paris of 1259 Henry III of England gave up claims to Normandy and Anjou, while holding Aquitaine as Louis's vassal. Louis's heart and entrails were buried at Monreale, near Palermo, and the rest of his remains at Saint-Denis.

Sources: Jean de Joinville, Memoirs / Life of St Louis (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); St Louis, Advice to His Son Philip (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Trial of Enguerrand IV de Coucy before Louis IX, 1259 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Louis IX of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Louis IX. of France (Wikisource); Catholic Encyclopedia (1913): St. Louis IX, King of France

Philip III the Bold (1270 to 1285)

Philip III, King of France, Capetian dynasty

Philip III was the second son of Louis IX. He was proclaimed king at Tunis the day his father died and returned to France with his father's remains. In 1271 the large county of Toulouse passed to the crown. His court was dominated by factions and by his uncle Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily. After the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, Philip led a crusade against Aragon, whose crown the pope had granted to his son. The historian H. J. Chaytor (1933) called it perhaps the most unjust, unnecessary and calamitous enterprise ever undertaken by the Capetian monarchy.

How they came to power: Philip was born on 1 May 1245 at Poissy. He became king on 25 August 1270, when Louis IX died at Tunis, and was crowned at Reims on 15 August 1271.

How it ended: The French army took Girona on 7 September 1285 but was beaten at the Col de Panissars on 1 October. Philip died of dysentery at Perpignan on 5 October 1285. His body was divided for burial in four places.

• His first wife, Isabella of Aragon, fell from her horse while pregnant and died at Cosenza on the journey home from Tunis.
• Under the custom called mos Teutonicus his flesh was buried at Narbonne, his entrails at La Noë abbey, his heart at the Jacobins in Paris and his bones at Saint-Denis.
• His early favourite, Pierre de la Brosse, was hanged in June 1278 after accusations that included poisoning the king's eldest son. Dante places Philip outside Purgatory and calls him 'the small-nosed'.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Philippe III le Hardi (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Philip III of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Philip III., king of France (Wikisource)

Philip IV the Fair (1285 to 1314)

Philip IV, King of France, Capetian dynasty

Philip IV, 'the Fair', was known for his cold reserve; the hostile Bishop Bernard Saisset called him a statue and an owl. Later historians disagree on whether he was a figurehead or a determined strategist. His wars with England over Gascony and with Flanders were costly, and he raised money by taxing the clergy, revaluing the coinage and expelling the Jews in 1306. His quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII ended with a raid on the pope at Anagni in 1303. His influence over the next pope, Clement V, helped bring the papacy to Avignon. In 1307 he ordered the arrest of the Templars.

How they came to power: Philip was born in 1268 at Fontainebleau. He married Joan of Navarre in 1284, and became king on 5 October 1285. He was crowned at Reims on 6 January 1286.

How it ended: Philip died on 29 November 1314 at Fontainebleau, after a stroke while hunting (one account gives a fall from a horse). His three sons would reign in turn.

• His 1302 defeat by the Flemish at Courtrai, the Battle of the Golden Spurs, cost the French cavalry heavily. The Annals of Ghent, a Flemish chronicle, names Robert of Artois, who commanded the French, among the dead.
• In 1296 Boniface VIII issued Clericis laicos, forbidding lay rulers to tax the clergy without papal consent. In 1302 he followed with Unam sanctam. In 1303 armed men of the French party seized the pope at Anagni, and he died soon afterwards.
• In 1314, near the end of his life, the Tour de Nesle scandal broke: his sons' wives were accused of adultery. His daughter Isabella married Edward II of England.

Sources: Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, 1302 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Boniface VIII, Clericis Laicos, 1296 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); William of Hundleby, The Outrage at Anagni, 1303 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); The Battle of the Golden Spurs, 1302 (De Re Militari); Wikipedia: Philip IV of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Philip IV., king of France (Wikisource)

The arrest of the Templars (13 October 1307 to March 1314)

On Friday 13 October 1307, on the orders of Philip IV, royal officers arrested Jacques de Molay, the Templars' grand master, and many other members of the order in France. The charges included spitting on the cross. Many confessed under torture and many later retracted. Pope Clement V ordered other rulers to arrest Templars on 22 November 1307. In 1312 the Council of Vienne dissolved the order, and its property went mostly to the Hospitallers. Some historians argue Philip's debts to the order were a motive.

• Wikipedia says the royal arrest warrant opened with the words 'God is not pleased'. The 1911 Britannica says Molay and about sixty brothers were seized in Paris.
• According to the 1911 Britannica, of 138 Templars examined in Paris, 123 confessed to spitting on or near the crucifix at their reception, and 36 died during the proceedings in Paris alone. Those figures are old, and the confessions were obtained under torture.
• Molay and Geoffroi de Charney had retracted their confessions. They were declared relapsed heretics and burned in Paris in March 1314 (18 March in Wikipedia and the World History Encyclopedia; the 1911 Britannica says 14 March). In Portugal, King Denis refused to persecute the knights, and the Order of Christ was founded there in 1319.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Philippe IV le Bel, ch. LXIII: 'des Templiers qui furent pris par tout le royaume de France' (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Knights Templar; World History Encyclopedia: Knights Templar; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Templars (Wikisource)

The papacy at Avignon (1309 to 1377)

In 1309 Pope Clement V, a Frenchman elected in 1305, moved the papal court to Avignon. Seven successive popes, all French, lived there until 1376. The move followed the clash between Boniface VIII and Philip IV. The popes of this period were under strong French influence, built up a large administration and became wealthy. Avignon was not then part of the French kingdom. It lay in the Kingdom of Arles, part of the Empire. Critics called the period the 'Babylonian captivity', a polemical phrase.

• Avignon was sold to Pope Clement VI in 1348 by Joanna, countess of Provence, according to the 1911 Britannica. Wikipedia says it was bought from the Angevins.
• Petrarch called Avignon 'the Babylon of the West' and complained that the popes, successors of poor Galilean fishermen, were loaded with gold.
• Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome, arriving in January 1377. After his death the disputed election of 1378 began the Western Schism, which lasted until 1417.

Sources: Petrarch, Letter Criticizing the Avignon Papacy (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Wikipedia: Avignon Papacy; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Avignon (Wikisource)

Louis X the Quarreller (1314 to 1316)

Louis X, King of France and Navarre, Capetian dynasty

Louis X, called 'le Hutin' (the Quarreller), was king of Navarre from 1305 and of France from 1314. His uncle Charles of Valois dominated the court. The reign opened with a reaction against his father's ministers: Enguerrand de Marigny was executed in 1315. In 1315 he issued an edict inviting serfs on royal land to buy their freedom, and he readmitted the Jews on conditions. A 1315 campaign against Flanders achieved little.

How they came to power: Louis was born on 4 October 1289, and succeeded Philip IV on 29 November 1314. He was crowned at Reims on 24 August 1315.

How it ended: He died suddenly at Vincennes on 5 June 1316. One modern account reports pneumonia or pleurisy after drinking cooled wine following a game of tennis, with poison suspected but not proved. His queen Clémence was pregnant.

• His first wife, Margaret of Burgundy, was imprisoned at Château-Gaillard after the Tour de Nesle scandal and died on 14 August 1315. One account says illness and another says strangulation. He married Clémence of Hungary five days later.
• The Grandes Chroniques describe a salt shortage in Paris in 1315, a rise in grain prices in 1316, famine and a comet during his short reign.
• His death left a daughter, Joan, and an unborn child. Suspicions about Joan's parentage, tied to her mother's scandal, complicated her claim.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Louis X Hutin (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Louis X of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Louis X. of France (Wikisource)

John I the Posthumous (15 to 19 November 1316)

John I, King of France and Navarre, Capetian dynasty

John I was the son of Louis X, born five months after his father's death. He was king from the moment of his birth. His uncle Philip, Count of Poitiers, was regent. John lived only four days, and rumours of poison started at once. His death ended a line of father-to-son succession that had lasted since Hugh Capet.

How they came to power: John was born on 15 November 1316 in Paris, to Louis X's widow Clémence of Hungary. He was king from birth, with Philip of Poitiers as regent.

How it ended: John died on 19 November 1316 (the chronicles differ on the exact date), aged four days. The cause is unknown. His uncle Philip took the throne as Philip V.

• Later writers numbered the next King John as 'John II', which acknowledged that this baby counted as king.
• In 1354 a man called Giannino Baglioni claimed to be the lost John I. He was captured and died in prison in 1363. One scholar suggests Cola di Rienzo used the claim to boost his own power in Rome.
• Rumours said his uncle Philip had caused his death, or had swapped him for a dead child; another tale had him killed with a pin. As the 1911 Britannica puts it, 'nothing was ever proved'.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Philippe V le Long, chapter I: the death of John (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: John I of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): John I. of France (Wikisource)

Philip V the Tall (1316 to 1322)

Philip V, King of France and Navarre, Capetian dynasty

Philip V was the second son of Philip IV. He became regent in 1316 and king after the infant John I died. The Duke of Burgundy and his mother objected on behalf of Joan, the daughter of Louis X. An assembly in Paris in February 1317 held that women could not succeed to the French crown, a rule later called the Salic law. He reached a settlement with Flanders in 1320 and created a court of audit.

How they came to power: Philip became regent when Louis X died on 5 June 1316. He had himself crowned at Reims on 9 January 1317.

How it ended: Philip died at Longchamp, near Paris, on 3 January 1322, after several illnesses. He left no surviving son, so his brother Charles IV succeeded him.

• The Grandes Chroniques record that the Duke of Burgundy and his mother objected to the coronation on behalf of the dead king's niece, while others held that a woman could not inherit.
• In 1320 the Pastoureaux, a popular crusade, turned violent, and Philip put it down. In 1321 lepers were burned after confessing under pressure to poisoning wells, and Jews were accused of paying them. A modern account says Philip refused to sign an edict against the Jews, but the chronicle says he ordered them expelled and then let them stay for a large sum.
• His only son, Philip, died in infancy in 1317. The king was buried at Saint-Denis, with his viscera placed at the Jacobins in Paris.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Philippe V le Long (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Philip V of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Philip V., king of France (Wikisource)

Charles IV the Fair (1322 to 1328)

Charles IV, King of France and Navarre, Capetian dynasty

Charles IV was the youngest son of Philip IV. He followed his brother Philip V in January 1322. His reign was short and marked by money problems. He debased the coinage, sold offices and added taxes. A dispute over Saint-Sardos with England in Gascony began in 1323 and became a war in 1324, and his sister Isabella, queen of England, came to France in 1325 and soon began her rebellion against Edward II.

How they came to power: Charles was born on 18 or 19 June 1294. He became king on 3 January 1322 and was crowned at Reims on 21 February 1322.

How it ended: Charles died at Vincennes on 1 February 1328 with no living son, and was buried at Saint-Denis. His cousin Philip of Valois served as regent until the queen's child was born, and then became Philip VI.

• Charles had his marriage to Blanche of Burgundy annulled after the Tour de Nesle scandal, and she died in 1326. His second wife Marie of Luxembourg died in 1324 after a premature birth.
• His third wife, Joan of Évreux (married in 1324 or 1325), was pregnant when he died. The child, a daughter named Blanche, was born on 1 April 1328, after which Philip of Valois became king.
• The Grandes Chroniques remark that Philip the Fair's whole line was extinct in fewer than thirteen years. His three sons had reigned in turn without leaving a surviving male heir.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Charles IV le Bel (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Charles IV of France; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Charles IV. (King of France) (Wikisource)

The end of the direct Capetians (February to May 1328)

For over three centuries each Capetian king had been followed by a son. That ended between 1316 and 1328. Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV each left no surviving male heir. In 1316 to 1317 an assembly held that women did not inherit the French crown. In 1328 Charles IV died, and the regent Philip of Valois became Philip VI once the queen bore a girl. Edward III of England, whose mother Isabella was Charles's sister, argued that a woman could pass on a claim she could not hold. The French lords did not support him.

• Fifteen kings ruled in the direct Capetian line from Hugh Capet through Charles IV.
• In 1316 to 1317 the assembly said 'women do not succeed in the kingdom of France', but it did not cite the old Salic law. The law was first cited in a dispute over the throne in 1358 by Richard Lescot.
• Edward III's claim, based on his mother's blood, helped lead to the Hundred Years' War, which began in 1337.

Sources: Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Charles IV le Bel, chapter XV: his death at Vincennes (French Wikisource; ed. Viard); Wikipedia: Salic law; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Philip V., king of France (the 1317 assembly) (Wikisource); Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911): Charles IV. (King of France) (Wikisource)

Philip VI (1328 to 1350)

Philip VI of Valois, King of France, House of Valois

Philip came to the throne when the direct line of the Capetian kings ran out. His reign opened the Hundred Years' War, which began in 1337 after a quarrel over Gascony and Edward III of England's claim to the French crown. In 1346 his army was beaten at Crécy, and Calais surrendered to the English the next year. The Black Death reached France in 1348 and killed about a third of the population by one estimate, and the king's attempts to fix prices added to the unrest. He did add a large territory to France, the Dauphiné of Viennois, which he bought in 1349.

How they came to power: Charles IV died in 1328 with no surviving son. Assemblies of barons, churchmen and the University of Paris applied the rule of male-line descent, which shut out Edward III, whose claim came through his mother Isabella. Philip, a grandson of Philip III, acted as regent, was proclaimed king after Charles's posthumous daughter was born on 1 April 1328, and was crowned at Reims on 29 May 1328.

How it ended: He died on 22 August 1350 at Coulombes Abbey, aged 56 or 57, with the war unresolved and Calais lost. His son John II succeeded him.

• In 1349 Philip bought the Dauphiné of Viennois from Humbert II under the treaty of Romans and entrusted it to his grandson, the future Charles V, who held the title of Dauphin of Viennois from 1349.
• His queen, Joan the Lame, died in 1349, in the years of the Black Death, which by Wikipedia's account killed about a third of the population of France.
• The Salic-law argument that excluded Edward III was applied in 1328 by assemblies of barons, prelates and the University of Paris, not decided by a battle.

Sources: Jean Froissart on the Battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), Lord Berners' translation (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); The Hundred Years War in the High Court of Parlement (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook; includes an April 1341 ruling on a royal war tax, from Philip VI's reign); World History Encyclopedia: Hundred Years' War; Wikipedia: Philip VI of France

The Battle of Crécy (26 August 1346)

Edward III's army, with his son the Black Prince commanding the vanguard, met Philip VI's army at Crécy-en-Ponthieu. Medieval chroniclers gave the French 72,000 or 120,000 men, but modern historians think those figures are far too high; modern estimates run from about 20,000 to 30,000 French against 7,000 to 15,000 English. The English longbowmen could shoot up to ten arrows a minute. The day ended as a heavy French defeat. It was one of the great English victories of the early years of the war.

• The Genoese crossbowmen had left their large shields (pavises) behind in the baggage train, so they were exposed to English arrows and were routed early.
• The blind King John of Bohemia, fighting on the French side, is said to have tied his horse's bridle to those of his attendants and charged into the fight; they were all killed.
• A count made by the English heralds found 1,542 French noble men-at-arms dead, and more than 2,200 coats of arms were reportedly taken from the field as booty; the official English roll recorded only about 40 English dead, a figure some historians think is too low.

Sources: Jean Froissart on the Battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), Lord Berners' translation (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Hundred Years' War; Wikipedia: Battle of Crécy

The Black Death in France (1347 to 1352)

The plague reached France by sea at Marseille in late 1347 (one chronicler gives December) and moved north, reaching Lyon in April 1348. Estimates of deaths in France vary widely; on average about 30 percent of affected populations died, and perhaps closer to half in the worst-hit places. Wikipedia gives roughly 50,000 dead in Paris, about half the city's population. Philip VI ordered the University of Paris to write a report on the epidemic. Fear spilled into violence: Jews were blamed for poisoning wells and were killed in Provence in 1348, including at least 40 at Toulon. Pope Clement VI, at Avignon, condemned the persecution.

• The Carmelite chronicler Jean de Venette wrote that more than five hundred dead a day were carried from the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris to the Holy Innocents cemetery.
• Venette doubted the poison story: he wrote that poisonings, even if they happened, could not have caused so great a plague, and blamed the will of God and corrupt humours in the air and earth.
• In 1349, Venette writes, flagellants (people who whipped themselves in public) marched through towns for penance; the French king forbade them to enter France, and Pope Clement VI forbade their public penance under threat of excommunication.

Sources: Jean de Venette on the Black Death, in 'The Black Death and the Jews 1348-1349' (Jewish History Sourcebook, via UNC Greensboro); World History Encyclopedia: Black Death; Wikipedia: Black Death in France

John II (1350 to 1364)

John II the Good, King of France, House of Valois

John II was known as 'the Good' (le Bon); the reason for the nickname is not clear. In 1351 he founded the Order of the Star to bind the nobles to the crown and to rival Edward III's Order of the Garter. In April 1356 he had Charles the Bad of Navarre arrested at a banquet in Rouen castle, and had several Norman lords executed that night. A few months later he was captured at Poitiers. The Treaty of Brétigny (1360) set his ransom at 3 million crowns (écus), which Wikipedia puts at roughly two or three years of the French crown's revenue.

How they came to power: He succeeded his father Philip VI on 22 August 1350 and was crowned at Reims on 26 September 1350.

How it ended: John went to England under the 1360 treaty. In 1363 his son Louis broke his parole and escaped from Calais, and John chose to go back to England himself. He died at the Savoy Palace in London on 8 April 1364, aged 44, and was buried at Saint-Denis on 7 May.

• The first franc, the 'franc a cheval', was minted from 5 December 1360, after his return from captivity, to stabilise the currency.
• The ransom was set at 3 million écus in 1360 (Wikipedia, New World Encyclopedia); World History Encyclopedia's Poitiers article gives 4 million gold écus, so sources differ.
• On the night of Poitiers, Froissart says, the Black Prince served John at supper and told him not to take the defeat too heavily.

Sources: Jean Froissart on the Battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), Lord Berners' translation (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); New World Encyclopedia: John II of France; Wikipedia: John II of France

The Battle of Poitiers (19 September 1356)

The battle was fought a few miles south of Poitiers between an Anglo-Gascon army under Edward the Black Prince and a French army under King John II. Estimates differ: Wikipedia gives about 6,000 Anglo-Gascons against 14,000 to 16,000 French, while World History Encyclopedia gives about 35,000 French against about 7,000. The French attacked a fortified position held largely by men on foot. The king captured here was ransomed under the Treaty of Brétigny (1360), and the defeat left France without a leader at the top.

• King John had the Oriflamme, the sacred battle flag, unfurled, which signalled that no prisoners were to be taken; he was nonetheless captured, along with his 14-year-old son Philip. Froissart says he gave his gauntlet to a knight, Denis of Morbeke, saying 'There I yield me to you'.
• A small force of about 160 men under the Captal de Buch circled round and struck the French rear; many French troops are said to have believed they were surrounded and fled.
• In the following years the defeat fed the Jacquerie peasant revolt and led to the Treaty of Brétigny (1360), which recognised Edward III's claim to about a quarter of France in return for his giving up his claim to the French crown, according to World History Encyclopedia.

Sources: Jean Froissart on the Battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), Lord Berners' translation (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Battle of Poitiers, 1356 CE; Wikipedia: Battle of Poitiers

The Jacquerie (May to June 1358)

Violence began on 28 May 1358 in villages near Saint-Leu-d'Esserent on the Oise, north of Paris, and the main rising was put down within weeks. Causes were the capture of King John II at Poitiers, roaming bands of mercenaries, and a rule requiring peasants to defend the nobles' castles. The name comes from 'Jacques', a mocking noble name for a peasant. Historians still debate whether Paris coordinated the revolt or it rose spontaneously in the countryside, though they agree the presence of soldiers was a major cause; much of the narrative evidence comes from noble writers, above all Froissart, who was hostile to the rebels.

• Froissart calls the rebel king 'Jaques Goodman' (Jacques Bonhomme), but the rebels' captain was Guillaume Cale, who was invited to truce talks by Charles of Navarre, seized, and beheaded.
• On 9 June 1358 armed commoners from Paris, led by Étienne Marcel, who had come to support the rising, were beaten by nobles at Meaux, according to Wikipedia; the rebels were then defeated near Mello on 10 June.
• The regent issued an amnesty on 10 August 1358, but heavy fines on regions that had supported the rising followed; Justine Firnhaber-Baker's 2021 Oxford University Press book 'The Jacquerie of 1358' is the main modern study.

Sources: Jean Froissart on the Jacquerie, 1358, Lord Berners' translation (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Justine Firnhaber-Baker, 'Soldiers, Villagers and Politics: Military Violence and the Jacquerie of 1358' (Medievalists.net); Wikipedia: Jacquerie

Charles V (1364 to 1380)

Charles V the Wise, King of France, House of Valois

Charles V ruled as regent while his father John II was a prisoner after Poitiers, and he became king in 1364. He avoided pitched battles and relied on attrition and the soldier Bertrand du Guesclin, whom he made Constable of France in 1370. By 1374 or 1375 he had recovered nearly all the land ceded at Brétigny except Calais and Aquitaine. He set up what Wikipedia calls the first permanent army paid regular wages. His war taxes caused lasting discontent, and he backed Clement VII in the papal schism.

How they came to power: He was born at Vincennes, was the first Valois dauphin from 1349, acted as regent in 1356 to 1360, and became king on 8 April 1364 when John II died. He was crowned on 19 May 1364.

How it ended: He died on 16 September 1380 at Beauté-sur-Marne, aged 42, after an abscess on his left arm dried up in early September. His 11-year-old son Charles VI succeeded him. On his deathbed he announced he was abolishing the hearth tax.

• His library at the Louvre held over 1,200 volumes, according to Wikipedia.
• He built a new wall on the Right Bank of Paris that was extended to a fortress called the Bastille.
• A Parlement of Paris ruling of 20 June 1368 ordered the release of villagers (on surety) and the return of their seized goods in a dispute with their lord over castle fortification and guard duty.

Sources: The Hundred Years War in the High Court of Parlement (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook; includes rulings of 1366 and 1368); New World Encyclopedia: Charles V of France; Wikipedia: Charles V of France

Charles VI (1380 to 1422)

Charles VI the Beloved, King of France, House of Valois

Charles VI became king aged eleven, ruled under his uncles, and took control himself in 1388. In 1392 he suffered his first known breakdown, attacking his own knights in a forest near Le Mans. Doctors have suggested schizophrenia, porphyria or bipolar disorder, but the cause is unknown. Rivalry between his brother Louis of Orléans and John the Fearless of Burgundy led to Orléans' murder in 1407 and the Armagnac-Burgundian civil war. By the Treaty of Troyes in 1420 he named Henry V of England his heir and shut out his own son.

How they came to power: He succeeded his father Charles V on 16 September 1380 and was crowned at Reims on 4 November 1380, aged eleven.

How it ended: He died in Paris on 21 October 1422, aged 53, a few weeks after Henry V had died in August. He was buried at Saint-Denis, and his son Charles VII succeeded him.

• At a masked ball on 29 January 1393 (the Bal des Ardents) the king's costume caught fire from a torch; four dancers died, and he survived partly because the Duchess of Berry smothered the flames with her gown.
• The nickname 'the Mad' was added only in the 19th century; his subjects first called him 'the Beloved'.
• He reportedly believed he was made of glass and had iron rods sewn into his clothes to avoid shattering; the story is recorded by Pope Pius II.

Sources: Treaty of Troyes, 1420 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); New World Encyclopedia: Charles VI of France; Wikipedia: Charles VI of France

Joan of Arc (c. 1412 to 30 May 1431)

Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, Saint and soldier · Domrémy

Joan was born around 1412 into a propertied peasant family at Domrémy. She said she first saw Saints Michael, Catherine and Margaret about 1425 and that they told her to drive out the English and see the dauphin crowned. She was not taught to read or write and dictated her letters. In 1429 she led French forces to the relief of Orléans and then in the Loire campaign, and Charles VII was crowned at Reims on 17 July 1429 with her beside him. Attacks on Paris and La Charité failed.

How they rose: Robert de Baudricourt refused to help her in May 1428 and January 1429, then agreed in February 1429. She met Charles VII at Chinon in early March, was examined by theologians at Poitiers, and reached Orléans on 29 April 1429.

How they died: Burgundian troops captured her at Compiègne on 23 May 1430, and the English took custody of her that November. Bishop Pierre Cauchon presided over a heresy trial at Rouen; the charges included wearing men's clothes, acting on visions he held to be demonic, and refusing to submit to the Church's judgment. She was not tried for witchcraft. After she agreed to give up men's dress, the judges found her wearing it again on 28 May 1431, and the court declared her a relapsed heretic. She was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen. A 1456 court overturned the verdict; she was beatified in 1909 and canonised on 16 May 1920.

• In a letter dated 22 March 1429, written while Orléans was under siege, she told the King of England, the Duke of Bedford and the troops before Orléans to give back the keys of the cities they had taken and go home.
• At her trial she said she had put on men's dress when leaving Vaucouleurs and had a sword given by Robert de Baudricourt; she refused several times to say who had advised her to do so.
• On 28 May 1431 she told the judges she had put on men's dress again; the court then proceeded against her 'as relapsed', and the resumption of male dress was central to the sentence.

Sources: Joan of Arc, Letter to the King of England, 22 March 1429 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Joan of Arc: Trial of Condémnation, W. P. Barrett's English translation (saint-joan-of-arc.com); Joan of Arc: Trial of Condémnation, Joan's relapse and final adjudication, 28 to 29 May 1431 (Famous Trials, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Barrett translation); World History Encyclopedia: Joan of Arc; Wikipedia: Joan of Arc

The Battle of Agincourt (25 October 1415)

On 25 October 1415, Saint Crispin's Day, Henry V's English and Welsh army, marching for Calais, met a larger French army near Azincourt. English and Welsh archers made up most of Henry's force. They planted sharpened stakes, and recent rain had turned ploughed ground to mud. The Constable of France, Charles d'Albret, was killed, and Charles, Duke of Orléans was among the prisoners. Modern estimates give the English about 6,000 to 8,000 and the French about 12,000 to 15,000 fighting men, or up to about 25,000 if armed servants are counted. Five years later the Treaty of Troyes made Henry heir to France.

• The English chaplain who wrote the Gesta Henrici Quinti says he sat on a horse among the baggage at the rear and prayed throughout the fighting.
• The Gesta says the French vanguard was about thirty times larger than the English force; modern historians regard its figures for the French as greatly exaggerated.
• The night before, Henry ordered silence on pain of losing horse and harness for a nobleman and a right ear for an archer; the Gesta also reports that the French were said to be playing dice for the king and his nobles.

Sources: Gesta Henrici Quinti, new translation of the battle account (Agincourt 600, University of Southampton, PDF); World History Encyclopedia: Battle of Agincourt; Wikipedia: Battle of Agincourt

Charles VII (1422 to 1461)

Charles VII the Victorious, King of France, House of Valois

Charles VII inherited a kingdom whose northern half was held by the English and Burgundians, and ruled from the Loire around Bourges. After Orléans was relieved and he was crowned at Reims on 17 July 1429, he made peace with Burgundy at Arras in 1435 and recovered Paris in 1436. He issued the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), which asserted royal control over church appointments and revenues. A 1439 decree claimed for the Crown the sole right to raise troops, though it was hard to enforce, and the companies of the ordonnance (about 12,000 cavalry) and the francs-archers (1448) formed a standing army. The French won at Formigny (1450) and Castillon (1453), and only Calais remained English.

How they came to power: Born in Paris on 22 February 1403, the fifth son of Charles VI. The Treaty of Troyes (1420) had disinherited him. His father died on 21 October 1422, and Henry VI of England was also proclaimed king of France.

How it ended: He died on 22 July 1461 at Mehun-sur-Yèvre. An abscess in his jaw left him unable to swallow, and he died of starvation. His son Louis XI succeeded him.

• Rivals called him the 'King of Bourges' because that was the small area that still backed him.
• The merchant-financier Jacques Cœur helped fund the king, was arrested in 1451 on a poisoning charge that was never proven, and was then declared guilty of financial and other offences; his seized assets helped pay for the reconquest of Normandy and Guyenne.
• He took no action to save Joan of Arc after her capture; in 1456 a court overturned her conviction.

Sources: Treaty of Troyes, 1420 and Conditions in France in 1422 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Encyclopedia.com: Charles VII (France); Wikipedia: Charles VII of France

The Relief of Orléans (12 October 1428 to 8 May 1429)

The English siege of Orléans began formally on 12 October 1428, with bombardment from 17 October. The city was held for the captive Duke of Orléans by the Bastard of Orléans, Jean de Dunois. Joan entered the city on 29 April 1429, about 8 pm. The French retook the fortified bridge-gate called Les Tourelles on 7 May, after a final assault that Joan had urged. On 8 May the English on the north bank withdrew without a battle. Troop numbers are estimates only: Wikipedia lists about 6,400 French soldiers and 3,000 armed citizens.

• The English commander, the Earl of Salisbury, was hit in the face by debris from cannon fire in late October 1428 and died about a week later.
• Orléans holds an annual festival to mark the end of the siege on 8 May, which includes a woman playing Joan on horseback.
• A letter dated 22 March 1429 in Joan's name, addressed to the English before Orléans, names the Earl of Suffolk, Sir John Talbot and Lord Scales and tells the English to go home.

Sources: Joan of Arc, Letter to the King of England, 22 March 1429 (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Joan of Arc; Wikipedia: Siege of Orléans (1428 to 1429)

Louis XI (1461 to 1483)

Louis XI, King of France, House of Valois

Louis XI limited the power of the great nobles, reformed taxation and promoted talented men of humble origin. In 1464 he set up a network of royal postal relays, which helped earn him the nickname 'the Universal Spider'. He fought Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who was killed at the Battle of Nancy in January 1477, and the Treaty of Arras (1482) brought the duchy of Burgundy back to the crown. He also made peace with Edward IV of England at Picquigny in 1475. Philippe de Commynes, who served him, describes both a capable ruler and a suspicious one who used iron cages and fortified his own house.

How they came to power: Born at Bourges on 3 July 1423, he joined the Praguerie revolt against his father Charles VII, was sent to the Dauphiné, and fled to Burgundy in 1456. He succeeded on 22 July 1461 and was anointed at Reims on 15 August.

How it ended: He suffered bouts of apoplexy and years of illness, and died at the château of Plessis-les-Tours on 30 August 1483, a Saturday, as he had hoped (Commynes). Commynes says he was clear-headed to the end. He was buried at Cléry, not Saint-Denis as the custom was. His 13-year-old son Charles VIII succeeded him.

• Commynes says Louis used iron cages and fetters called 'the King's Nets'; Commynes himself writes that he spent eight months in one of the cages.
• Louis surrounded his château at Plessis-les-Tours with iron grates, spiked walls and iron 'sparrow-nests' at the corners, and placed archers in the ditches, according to Commynes.
• He wished to die on a Saturday, the day associated with the Virgin Mary, and Commynes records that he did.

Sources: Philippe de Commynes, Portrait of Louis XI (Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); The memoirs of Philip de Commines, Volume 1 (Project Gutenberg #77950); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Louis XI of France (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Louis XI

Charles VIII (1483 to 1498)

Charles VIII, King of France, House of Valois

Charles VIII was a boy of thirteen when his father died, and his sister Anne of France (Anne of Beaujeu) governed as regent with her husband until 1491. The nobles' 'Mad War' (1485 to 1488) was defeated by the royal government. In December 1491 he married Anne of Brittany, whose earlier proxy marriage to Maximilian of Austria was of doubtful validity; the marriage brought Brittany under French control. In 1494 he invaded Italy to press an Angevin claim to the kingdom of Naples, and the war he began changed Europe.

How they came to power: He was born at Amboise in 1470 and succeeded Louis XI in August 1483, at age thirteen.

How it ended: He died on 7 April 1498 at the Château d'Amboise, where he was born. The traditional account says he struck his head on a door lintel on the way to a game of real tennis; a 2021 study disputes that the injury was severe enough and proposes epilepsy linked to neurosyphilis. All his children died young, so his cousin Louis XII, Duke of Orléans, succeeded him.

• Louis XI called his daughter Anne 'the least foolish woman in France', and chose her as regent for his young son.
• The invasion force of about 25,000 included 8,000 Swiss mercenaries according to Wikipedia (another passage there gives a different count), and Charles took Naples on 22 February 1495 with almost no fighting and was crowned king of Naples on 20 May 1495.
• The League of Venice formed against him in 1495; he broke through its army at Fornovo in July and went home, losing his Italian gains.

Sources: The memoirs of Philip de Commines, Volume 2, histories of Louis XI and Charles VIII (Project Gutenberg #77951); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Charles VIII (King of France) (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Charles VIII of France

The Italian Wars (1494 to 1559)

The wars opened in 1494 when Charles VIII crossed the Alps with modern artillery and a large Swiss contingent, after Ludovico Sforza of Milan gave France a free hand. The French took Naples in February 1495, but a League of Venice formed against them on 31 March 1495. The battle of Fornovo on 6 July 1495 was inconclusive; both sides claimed victory. Peace was made at Vercelli on 9 October 1495. Louis XII and Francis I fought on over Milan and Naples. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in April 1559 ended the war: France gave up its claims in Italy and kept Calais and the Three Bishoprics.

• Wikipedia describes the likely first documented outbreak of syphilis as occurring among French troops at Naples in 1495.
• The League of Venice of 1495, proclaimed on 31 March, is described as the first league of its kind.
• Machiavelli, writing in The Prince, listed five errors that cost Louis XII the Milan he had won, including bringing a strong foreign power (Spain) into Italy by sharing Naples with Ferdinand.

Sources: Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter III (Project Gutenberg #1232, W. K. Marriott translation); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Charles VIII (King of France) (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Italian War of 1494 to 1498

Louis XII (1498 to 1515)

Louis XII, King of France and Duke of Milan, House of Valois-Orléans

Louis XII took Milan in 1499 and was its duke until about 1512. By the Treaty of Granada (1500) with Ferdinand of Aragon he divided Naples, and was its king as Louis III from 1501 to 1504, when Spain took control. He won at Agnadello on 14 May 1509, but Pope Julius II then formed the Holy League against France and the French were pushed out of Milan. At home he cut taxes, issued the Ordinance of Blois (1499), and was given the title 'Father of the People' by the Estates in 1506.

How they came to power: He was born at the Château de Blois on 27 June 1462, Duke of Orléans from 1465. Louis XI forced him to marry Joan of France in 1476. He became king on 7 April 1498 when his distant cousin Charles VIII died, and was crowned on 27 May.

How it ended: He married Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, on 9 October 1514, and died on 1 January 1515, probably of gout according to Wikipedia, with no surviving son. His cousin and son-in-law Francis I succeeded him.

• Pope Alexander VI granted the annulment of his first marriage in 1498; Machiavelli says Louis backed the Pope in return for the dissolution of his marriage and a cardinal's hat for Georges d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen.
• He married Anne of Brittany in 1499, which strengthened France's hold on Brittany.
• Machiavelli listed his errors in Italy as destroying the minor powers, strengthening the Church, bringing in Spain, not settling in Italy himself and not sending colonies there, and added a sixth: taking the Venetians' dominions.

Sources: Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter III (Project Gutenberg #1232, W. K. Marriott translation); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Louis XII of France (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Louis XII

Francis I (1515 to 1547)

Francis I, King of France, House of Valois-Angoulême

Francis I won the Battle of Marignano (13 to 15 September 1515), which gave him Milan, and signed the Concordat of Bologna with the Pope in 1516, which gave the crown control over the French Church. He lost Milan in 1521 and was captured at Pavia on 24 February 1525 and held in Spain until the Treaty of Madrid (1526), which he later repudiated. He allied with Suleiman the Magnificent against Charles V, which was controversial for a Christian king. He built or rebuilt Chambord and Fontainebleau and founded the royal professorships that became the Collège de France. After the Affair of the Placards in 1534 he persecuted Protestants.

How they came to power: Born at Cognac on 12 September 1494, he succeeded his cousin and father-in-law Louis XII, who had no surviving sons, and was crowned at Reims on 25 January 1515.

How it ended: He died at the Château de Rambouillet on 31 March 1547, of gout and liver disease according to Encyclopedia.com. His son Henry II succeeded him.

• His emblem was the salamander, with the motto 'Nutrisco et extinguo' ('I feed on the good and put out the evil one').
• Vasari says the Mona Lisa was in King Francis's collection at Fontainebleau, and that Leonardo had left it unfinished after four years of work.
• He made French the language of law: article 111 of the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) required court rulings, registers, contracts and wills to be in French.

Sources: Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, 1539, articles 110 and 111 (Lexilogos, French text); Giorgio Vasari, Life of Leonardo da Vinci, in Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Vol. 4 (Project Gutenberg #28420); Encyclopedia.com: Francis I (France); Wikipedia: Francis I of France

Leonardo da Vinci in France (1516 to 2 May 1519)

Leonardo entered Francis I's service in 1516 (World History Encyclopedia says 1517, so the date varies by source) and lived at the manor of Clos Lucé (also called Cloux) near the royal château of Amboise. His pupil Francesco Melzi came with him. Francis visited often and Leonardo drew plans for a castle town at Romorantin. He also built a mechanical lion for a pageant. Leonardo died on 2 May 1519, aged 67, possibly of a stroke.

• The mechanical lion he built is said to have walked toward the king and opened its chest to reveal lilies.
• Vasari writes that Leonardo died in the king's arms, in his seventy-fifth year; modern writers note that he was 67 and that the deathbed scene may be legend rather than fact.
• Leonardo may have helped with the early design of the Château de Chambord, but there is no firm evidence; the famous double spiral staircase is often credited to him without proof.

Sources: Giorgio Vasari, Life of Leonardo da Vinci, in Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Vol. 4 (Project Gutenberg #28420); World History Encyclopedia: Leonardo da Vinci; Royal Château of Amboise (official site); Wikipedia: Leonardo da Vinci

Catherine de' Medici (13 April 1519 to 5 January 1589)

Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France and Queen Mother, Queen consort and regent · Valois

Catherine was the most powerful woman in France from 1559 to about 1576, according to World History Encyclopedia. She tried compromise with the Protestants: the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 failed, and the Edict of Saint-Germain in January 1562 granted limited toleration. She toured France with Charles IX from January 1564 to May 1565 and met her daughter, the queen of Spain, at Bayonne. She commissioned the Tuileries Palace and supported early ballet, including the Ballet Comique de la Reine (1581). Her role in the St Bartholomew's Day massacre is debated.

How they rose: Born in Florence on 13 April 1519, she was orphaned within weeks and raised in convents and by relatives. In 1533 she married Henry, the second son of Francis I, at fourteen. After about ten years without children she had ten, of whom seven survived infancy, according to Wikipedia. When Henry II died in 1559 and the boy-king Francis II after him in 1560, she became regent for Charles IX.

How they died: Her influence faded after December 1588, when her son Henry III had the Duke of Guise killed. She died at Blois on 5 January 1589, most likely of pleurisy, according to World History Encyclopedia.

• The popular claim that she brought Italian cuisine to France is rejected by food historians.
• Her daughter Marguerite wrote that Catherine kept her feelings so far under the control of prudence that nothing showed in her face, yet doted on all her children.
• The Ballet Comique de la Reine (1581), produced at her court, is regarded by scholars as the first authentic ballet, according to Wikipedia.

Sources: Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre (Project Gutenberg #3841); World History Encyclopedia: Catherine de' Medici; Wikipedia: Catherine de' Medici

The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (August 1539)

The Ordinance was drafted largely by Chancellor Guillaume Poyet and has 192 articles on justice, government and the Church. Its best-known articles are 110 and 111. Article 110 says court rulings must be clear and leave no ambiguity; article 111 says rulings, registers, contracts, wills and other judicial acts must be given in the mother tongue, French, and no other. The main effect was to end Latin in official documents. Article 111 did not define the French mother tongue, so regional languages like Occitan, Breton and Basque were not addressed.

• The text is undated: it was signed between about 10 and 15 August 1539 (Wikipedia gives 10 August, Lexilogos 15 August), and the Parlement of Paris registered it on 6 September 1539.
• It required parish priests to record baptisms in writing (articles 50 and 51 in Lexilogos' text), which became the origin of the French civil register (état civil), and later ordinances extended this to marriages and deaths.
• Wikipedia calls it the oldest French legislation still partly used by French courts, and the current French Constitution (article 2) still states that the language of the Republic is French.

Sources: Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts, 1539 (Lexilogos, French text of articles 110 and 111); Hérodote.net: 10 août 1539, Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts; Wikipedia: Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts

Henry II (1547 to 1559)

Henry II, King of France, House of Valois-Angoulême

Henry II made peace with Spain and the Habsburgs only after years of war. He intensified the repression of Protestants: in 1547 he set up the chambre ardente, a chamber of the Parlement of Paris that handled heresy cases, and the Edict of Châteaubriant of 27 June 1551 added further measures. The war with the Habsburgs (1551 to 1559) included the defeat at Saint-Quentin in 1557 and the capture of Calais from the English in 1558. By the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in April 1559 France gave up its claims in Italy and kept Calais.

How they came to power: He was born on 31 March 1519. As a boy he and his elder brother were held hostage in Spain for over four years, to win their father Francis I's release after Pavia. He married Catherine de' Medici in 1533, when both were fourteen, and became king on Francis I's death in 1547. Diane de Poitiers was his long-time mistress and a major influence.

How it ended: On 30 June 1559 he was wounded in a joust by Gabriel de Montgomery, captain of the Scottish Guard, and he died on 10 July 1559, aged 40. His surgeons included Ambroise Paré. His eldest son Francis II succeeded him.

• His daughter Marguerite, who was six when he died, wrote in her memoirs that her mother had dreamed of the eye wound and begged him not to joust that day.
• Brantôme writes that Henry II was urged to give Mary Stuart in marriage to his son the dauphin, who was madly in love with her, and that the couple became king and queen of France after Henry died.
• Nostradamus served him as physician and astrologer, according to Wikipedia, which also says Henry wore Diane de Poitiers's colours at the joust.

Sources: Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre (Project Gutenberg #3841); Brantôme, The Book of the Ladies (Project Gutenberg #42515); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Henry II of France (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Henry II of France

Francis II (1559 to 1560)

Francis II, King of France and king consort of Scotland, House of Valois-Angoulême

Francis II was legally an adult, but he handed power to his wife's uncles, Francis, Duke of Guise, and Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, and his mother Catherine de' Medici agreed. In March 1560 a plot by Protestants and minor gentry to seize him and remove the Guises failed at Amboise, and executions followed. The Edict of Amboise (March 1560) offered amnesty to heretics who lived as good Catholics, and the Edict of Romorantin (May 1560) moved heresy trials to church courts, which effectively ended the death penalty for heresy.

How they came to power: He was born at Fontainebleau on 19 January 1544, and married Mary Queen of Scots in 1558. He became king on 10 July 1559, aged 15, when Henry II died, and was crowned at Reims on 21 September 1559.

How it ended: He died at Orléans on 5 December 1560, aged 16, of an ear condition, possibly an abscess. His brother Charles IX succeeded him, with Catherine de' Medici as regent.

• Because he married Mary Stuart in 1558, he was king consort of Scotland as well as king of France.
• Brantôme says that Mary was left a widow in the spring of her youth after about four years of marriage and that she wrote a lament for him.
• His death halted the proceedings against the Prince of Condé, according to the 1911 Britannica.

Sources: Brantôme, The Book of the Ladies, Discourse on Mary Stuart (Project Gutenberg #42515); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Francis II of France (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Francis II of France

Charles IX (1560 to 1574)

Charles IX, King of France, House of Valois-Angoulême

Charles IX's mother Catherine de' Medici governed as regent at first. Civil war broke out after the Massacre of Vassy in 1562, and the Edict of Amboise brought a truce in 1563. He declared his legal majority in 1563, though Catherine stayed influential. Peace in 1570 granted the Huguenots some concessions. In 1572 Huguenot leaders came to Paris for the wedding of his sister Margaret to Henry of Navarre, and the St Bartholomew's Day massacre followed; his own part is still debated. He married Elizabeth of Austria in 1570.

How they came to power: He was born on 27 June 1550 and became king on 5 December 1560, aged ten, when his brother Francis II died.

How it ended: He died at Vincennes, of tuberculosis according to Wikipedia, on 30 May 1574, aged 23, with no legitimate son. His brother Henry III succeeded him.

• He is credited with a hunting book, La Chasse royale, published in 1625 after his death.
• His sister Marguerite wrote that he was fond of the Huguenot leaders Coligny, La Noue and Téligny and regretted not being able to save them; this is her account, written later.
• He also had a son, Charles, Duke of Angoulême, with his mistress Marie Touchet, according to the 1911 Britannica.

Sources: Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre (Project Gutenberg #3841); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Charles IX (King of France) (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Charles IX of France

The Wars of Religion (1562 to 1598)

By 1562 there were about two million French Calvinists, including more than half the nobility, according to Wikipedia. After Henry II died in 1559, Catherine de' Medici as regent faced rival factions: the Catholic Guise and Montmorency families against the Protestant house of Condé. The Massacre of Vassy in March 1562 is generally treated as the start of open war. The Edict of Amboise (1563) ended the first war; the Peace of Saint-Germain (1570) the third. The Catholic League was formed after the Edict of Beaulieu (1576), and the 1580s brought the War of the Three Henrys. The Edict of Nantes of 1598, under Henry IV, ended the open conflict.

• Historians disagree on how to count the wars: some list nine, others eight, and Holt dates the conflict from 1562 to 1629.
• Estimates of the dead from violence, famine and disease run from 2 million to 4 million.
• A group called the Politiques, moderates who wanted order through strong central power and concessions to the Huguenots, was backed by Catherine de' Medici at first.

Sources: Jacques-Auguste de Thou, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572 (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: French Wars of Religion; Wikipedia: French Wars of Religion

The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre (24 August to October 1572)

Margaret of Valois married the Protestant Henry of Navarre on 18 August 1572, and many Huguenot leaders were in Paris. On 22 August Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was shot and wounded. In the night of 23 to 24 August Coligny was killed by a group led by the Duke of Guise. Mobs hunted Protestants in Paris for several days, and similar massacres followed in about twelve other cities until October. Navarre and the Prince of Condé were spared after pledging to convert. Modern estimates of the dead run from about 5,000 to 30,000. Historians still dispute who planned it: Catherine de' Medici, Charles IX, the Guises or the Duke of Anjou.

• The only firm figure for Paris is a payment for burying about 1,100 bodies washed up downstream on the Seine in one week.
• De Thou says the attackers wore a white linen band on the left arm and a white cross on the hat so they could recognise one another in the dark.
• The words often attributed to Charles IX, 'kill them all', come from a later account whose authenticity historians reject; Pope Gregory XIII ordered a Te Deum and had a medal struck.

Sources: Jacques-Auguste de Thou, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572 (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); Margaret of Valois' Account of St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (World History Encyclopedia); World History Encyclopedia: St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre; Wikipedia: St. Bartholomew's Day massacre

Henry III (1574 to 1589)

Henry III, King of France and Poland, House of Valois-Angoulême

Henry III's Edict of Beaulieu (1576) gave concessions to the Huguenots, which prompted Henry I, Duke of Guise, to form the Catholic League. After his younger brother died in 1584, the Protestant Henry of Navarre became heir presumptive, and the War of the Three Henrys began. In May 1588 the Day of the Barricades forced him to flee Paris. In December 1588 he had the Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal killed at Blois. He married Louise of Lorraine in 1575 and they had no children.

How they came to power: Born at Fontainebleau on 19 September 1551, he was elected king of Poland in May 1573. He became king of France on 30 May 1574, when Charles IX died, left Poland in June, and was crowned at Reims in February 1575.

How it ended: On 1 August 1589 the Dominican friar Jacques Clément stabbed him at Saint-Cloud, while he was preparing to attack Paris. He died the next day, naming Henry of Navarre as his successor. He was the last Valois king.

• Poland's parliament declared the throne vacant after he failed to return by 12 May 1575; accounts differ on whether he signed the Henrician Articles protecting the nobles' right to elect the king.
• His mother's death came in January 1589, a few weeks after the Guise murders; World History Encyclopedia says her health declined after them.
• In Marguerite's telling, once he was king he was jealous of his brother Alençon and was governed by his favourite Le Guast.

Sources: Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre (Project Gutenberg #3841); 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: Henry III of France (Wikisource); Wikipedia: Henry III of France

Henry IV (1589 to 1610)

Henry IV, King of France and Navarre, Bourbon dynasty

Born at Pau in 1553, Henry had been King of Navarre since 1572 and became the first Bourbon king of France. He spent years fighting the Catholic League before he could enter his capital. He won the Battle of Ivry, failed to take Paris in 1590, and finally secured the crown by becoming Catholic. His Edict of Nantes in 1598 gave the Huguenots limited rights and effectively ended the Wars of Religion.

How they came to power: Henry III, the last Valois king, died by assassination on 2 August 1589 without an heir, and Henry of Navarre was next in line. Many Catholics refused to accept a Protestant king, so he had to win the throne by war and by conversion: he abjured at Saint-Denis on 25 July 1593 and was crowned at Chartres on 27 February 1594, because the League still held Reims.

How it ended: He was stabbed to death in his carriage in Paris on 14 May 1610 by a Catholic zealot, François Ravaillac. He was 56. His eight-year-old son became Louis XIII, with Marie de' Medici as regent.

• He married Margaret of Valois in 1572; the marriage was annulled in 1599 and had no children. His second wife, Marie de' Medici, bore six legitimate children, including the future Louis XIII.
• The line 'Paris is worth a Mass' is attached to his conversion, but the attribution is doubtful; the sources do not show he said it.
• Even after he converted, Pope Clement VIII did not absolve him until 17 September 1595, two years after his abjuration.

Sources: The Edict of Nantes, April 1598, full English translation by Jotham Parsons (Huguenot Museum Germany, PDF); World History Encyclopedia: Henry IV of France and the Edict of Nantes; Wikipedia: Henry IV of France

The Edict of Nantes (April 1598 (traditionally dated April 13))

After decades of civil war, Henry IV issued an edict of pacification that he called 'perpetual and irrevocable'. It kept Catholicism as the religion of the crown but gave Protestants freedom of conscience, amnesty for acts of war, access to public office and the right to worship in set places. Separate brevets gave them fortified towns, including La Rochelle. It was a compromise, and neither side was fully satisfied.

• The settlement came in four texts: 92 general articles, 56 secret (particular) articles, and two royal brevets. The most controversial concessions, including the Protestant garrisoned towns, were in the brevets, which were provisional and lapsed when the issuing king died.
• The Parlement of Paris delayed about ten months before registering a modified text in 1599, and the Parlement of Rouen registered the edict without reservations only in 1609.
• Article 25 required Protestants to keep paying tithes to Catholic priests. The text is dated only 'in the month of April' 1598; 13 April is the usual date, though one modern account says it was probably promulgated at Nantes on 30 April.

Sources: The Edict of Nantes, April 1598, full English translation by Jotham Parsons (Huguenot Museum Germany, PDF); Musée protestant: The Edict of Nantes; Encyclopedia.com: Edict of Nantes (1598); Wikipedia: Edict of Nantes

The assassination of Henry IV (May 14, 1610)

On 14 May 1610 Henry IV's coach was held up on the Rue de la Ferronnerie, a narrow street beside the Saint-Innocent cemetery. François Ravaillac, a man from Angoulême who had come to believe he had a divine mission, reached over the wheel and stabbed the king twice. He told his judges he believed Henry planned to make war on the pope. The murder left an eight-year-old heir and a regency under Marie de' Medici.

• The coach was held up by two carts (a wine cart and a hay wagon, in one modern account). Ravaillac told his judges that he struck as the king leaned toward the Duke of Épernon, who sat on that side.
• Ravaillac insisted, even under torture, that he acted alone. Rumours linked the plot to the Duke of Épernon and others, and a modern historian has argued for the involvement of Albert of Austria, but none of it has been proven.
• Marie de' Medici confirmed the Edict of Nantes on 22 May 1610. The Parlement of Paris sentenced Ravaillac, and he was executed on 27 May 1610 after a further round of torture failed to produce accomplices.

Sources: The Trial of Francis Ravaillac for the Murder of King Henry the Great, tr. Edmund Goldsmid (Internet Archive); World History Encyclopedia: Henry IV of France and the Edict of Nantes; Wikipedia: Assassination of Henry IV of France

Louis XIII (1610 to 1643)

Louis XIII, King of France and Navarre, Bourbon dynasty

Louis was a hunter, a lute player and a composer, and he ruled for 33 years. His reign is remembered for Cardinal Richelieu, who served as his chief minister from 1624. Together they defeated the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle in 1628, curbed the great nobles, and pushed France into the wider European war. The Peace of Alès in 1629 removed the Huguenots' political and military privileges while keeping their right to worship.

How they came to power: He became king shortly before his ninth birthday, when his father was assassinated in 1610; his mother, Marie de' Medici, ruled as regent. In April 1617 Louis backed the arrest in which her favourite, Concino Concini, was killed, and sent his mother into exile at Blois.

How it ended: He died on 14 May 1643, thirty-three years to the day after his father. Historians suspect tuberculosis that had spread from his intestines to his lungs. His four-year-old son became Louis XIV.

• In 1635 he composed the music, wrote the libretto and designed the costumes for the Ballet de la Merlaison, and danced in two performances.
• After 23 years of marriage and four stillbirths, his wife Anne of Austria gave birth to the future Louis XIV on 5 September 1638. The parents named the boy Louis-Dieudonné, 'God-given'.
• In 1623 he had a small hunting lodge built at Versailles, first used in June 1624. Contemporaries thought it modest: Marshal Bassompierre wrote that a mere gentleman would not have been very proud of it. It became the core of the great palace.

Sources: Cardinal Richelieu: Political Testament (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Château de Versailles: History of the palace; Wikipedia: Louis XIII

Cardinal Richelieu (1624 to 1642)

Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu, Chief minister · Bourbon France

Richelieu was a bishop and statesman who served as Louis XIII's chief minister for 18 years. He installed intendants, officials who answered directly to the crown, to collect taxes and bypass local officeholders. He besieged La Rochelle, allied France with Sweden in 1631, and oversaw the Palais-Cardinal in Paris, which he gave to the crown and which became the Palais-Royal. His Political Testament says that when the king took him into government he promised to weaken the Huguenots, curb the great nobles and restore France's standing abroad.

How they rose: Born in Paris on 9 September 1585, he became principal of the Sorbonne in 1622. After La Vieuville was arrested on 12 August 1624, Richelieu took his place the next day. In the Day of the Dupes in November 1630, the queen mother Marie de' Medici demanded his dismissal; Louis XIII instead stood by him and Marie went into exile.

How they died: He died in Paris on 4 December 1642, aged 57, a few months before the king. He is buried in the chapel of the Sorbonne.

• He is credited with ordering, in 1637, that the points of the knives on his dining table be rounded; the story is the traditional origin of the blunt table knife.
• In the Revolution his tomb was opened and the mummified front of his head was taken. A private owner showed it, and Napoleon III persuaded him to return it in 1866.
• His library held about 900 manuscripts bound in red morocco with his arms, and he left it open to scholars. He also supported the playwright Pierre Corneille.

Sources: Cardinal Richelieu: Political Testament (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Château de Versailles: Key dates (Day of the Dupes, 1630); Wikipedia: Cardinal Richelieu

The founding of the Académie française (1635)

The Académie grew out of informal literary gatherings of writers. Cardinal Richelieu became its protector, and statutes dated 22 February 1635, with fifty articles, set it up. Letters patent of January 1635 limited it to forty members, and the Parlement of Paris registered them on 10 July 1637. Its chief task, in article 24 of the statutes, was to give the language firm rules and make it pure and eloquent. The first edition of its Dictionnaire appeared in 1694.

• The members are called 'the immortals', and the seats are limited to forty. The phrase 'the forty-first seat' was coined in 1855 for great writers who never won one, a list that includes Molière, Balzac, Proust and Zola.
• The Académie's 1635 statutes have fifty articles, and most remain in force today.
• The National Convention abolished all the royal academies on 8 August 1793. The Académie survived only as a class of the Institut de France, created in 1795, and was restored in the early nineteenth century, regaining the title Académie in 1816.

Sources: Académie française: Statuts et règlements, the 1635 statutes (in French); Académie française: L'histoire (in French); Institut de France: 1635; Wikipedia: Académie française

Molière (1643 to 1673)

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, called Molière, Playwright · Paris

Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and baptised in Paris on 15 January 1622, Molière was actor, director and writer. His comedies include Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, The Miser and The Imaginary Invalid. He worked under the patronage of Louis XIV, who gave his company a royal pension and the title Troupe du Roi. In 1680 Louis XIV merged his former troupe with the Hôtel de Bourgogne company to form the Comédie-Française.

How they rose: In 1643 he co-founded the Illustre Théâtre with Madeleine Béjart. It went bankrupt in 1645 over unpaid rent, he was briefly jailed for the debts, and he then toured the provinces for about thirteen years. His company's success in Paris was sponsored by the king's brother, Philippe, Duke of Orléans.

How they died: He collapsed during a performance of Le Malade imaginaire in February 1673 and died at home a few hours later, on 17 February. Two priests refused to come and a third arrived too late, so he had no last rites. Actors could not be buried in consecrated ground, so his widow asked Louis XIV for permission for a night funeral. His remains were moved to Père Lachaise in 1817.

• Tartuffe was first performed at Versailles in 1664. The Church and the Parlement attacked it, and a revised version in 1667 was banned too; public performances were finally allowed in 1669.
• The tale that Louis XIV once invited Molière to supper, to shame courtiers who would not eat with an actor, is a Romantic anecdote with no basis in the record.
• In his 14 years in Paris he wrote 31 of the 85 plays his theatre staged. The word 'tartuffe' is now French for a hypocrite.

Sources: Molière: Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite, tr. Curtis Hidden Page (Project Gutenberg); Encyclopedia of World Biography: Molière; Larousse: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin dit Molière (in French); Wikipedia: Molière

Louis XIV (1643 to 1715)

Louis XIV, the Sun King, Bourbon dynasty

Louis became king at four and took personal control at 22. He ruled without a chief minister, backed Colbert's financial and industrial reforms, and fought the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession. He moved the court to Versailles in 1682 and revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

How they came to power: Born on 5 September 1638 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, he became king on 14 May 1643. His mother, Anne of Austria, was regent and Cardinal Mazarin was chief minister. The Fronde forced the royal family to leave Paris twice. When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis declared he would govern without a chief minister.

How it ended: He died at Versailles on 1 September 1715, aged 76. His great-grandson, Louis XV, succeeded him at the age of five.

• In 1661 he had the superintendent of finances, Nicolas Fouquet, charged with embezzlement. The court sentenced Fouquet to exile, and the king changed it to life imprisonment.
• Saint-Simon, a duke at court, recorded that courtiers were expected at the king's rising, bedtime and meals, and that the king noticed who was missing. His curt dismissal of someone was 'I do not know him', and there was no appeal.
• In 1671 the steward Vatel, in charge of a banquet the Prince of Condé gave for the king at Chantilly, killed himself when a roast failed and the fish ran short, according to a letter by Madame de Sévigné.

Sources: Saint-Simon: The Court and Life at Versailles (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Accounts of Louis XIV: Saint-Simon and Madame de Sévigné (Hanover Historical Texts Project); World History Encyclopedia: Louis XIV of France, the Sun King; Wikipedia: Louis XIV

The Fronde (1648 to 1653)

While Louis XIV was a child, the government of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin raised heavy taxes to pay for the Thirty Years' War and the war with Spain. The Parlement of Paris refused to register new decrees. In 1648, after Mazarin had members of the Parlement arrested, Paris barricaded its streets. The Parlementary Fronde ended with the Peace of Rueil in March 1649. A second phase, the Fronde of the Princes, followed the arrest of Condé, his brother Conti and his brother-in-law Longueville on 14 January 1650. Louis XIV re-entered Paris on 21 October 1652 and Mazarin returned in February 1653.

• 'Fronde' means slingshot. It began as a mocking label for the rebels.
• Condé, one of the war's great commanders, ended up in Spanish service. The war between France and Spain went on until the Peace of the Pyrénées in 1659.
• Historians link the Fronde to Louis XIV's later distrust of Paris and the high aristocracy. The country, tired of disorder, turned toward the crown.

Sources: La Rochefoucauld: Memoirs on the Fronde (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz (Project Gutenberg); World History Encyclopedia: Louis XIV of France, the Sun King; Wikipedia: Fronde

Versailles (Enlarged from 1661; court moved there on May 6, 1682)

Louis XIII's small hunting lodge was rebuilt in 1631 to 1634. Louis XIV began to enlarge it in 1661, with architect Louis Le Vau, gardener André Le Nôtre and painter Charles Le Brun. On 6 May 1682 the court and government moved in. Paris stayed the capital, but Versailles was the working centre of the kingdom until October 1789. The palace has about 2,300 rooms today.

• Contemporaries thought Louis XIII's first lodge, built from 1623, modest; Marshal Bassompierre wrote that a mere gentleman would not have been very proud of it.
• The reception of the Doge of Genoa in the Hall of Mirrors in 1685 was the first major reception of its kind there. The Persian embassy of 1715 was the last of the three great receptions of foreign envoys under Louis XIV.
• Saint-Simon writes that a room in the palace was a prized favour, and that trips to Marly and Trianon were used to reward and snub courtiers. After the royal family left on 6 October 1789, the palace's own history says a museum opened there in 1796.

Sources: Saint-Simon: The Court and Life at Versailles (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Château de Versailles: History of the palace; Château de Versailles: Key dates; Wikipedia: Palace of Versailles

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1661 to 1683)

Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Controller-General of Finances, Minister · Louis XIV

Colbert, born in Reims in 1619, became Louis XIV's most important minister. He became Controller-General of Finances in 1665 and Secretary of State for the Navy in 1669. His policy, often called Colbertism, is a form of mercantilism: use the state to build industry and trade so wealth stays in France. He founded a royal mirror-glass works in 1665, backed the Gobelins tapestry workshops and issued more than 150 edicts regulating guilds. The Code Noir, begun under him in 1682 and issued in 1685, sanctioned slavery in the French colonies.

How they rose: He helped bring down the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet, accused of embezzlement, and in 1661 joined the king's council as intendant of finances. His 1664 Memorandum on Trade argued that a state's greatness depended on its supply of money and that trade was the way to get it.

How they died: He died in Paris on 6 September 1683. After his death, surgeons found a large kidney stone, which would explain the pain he suffered.

• In his 1664 memorandum he complained that French subjects owned only about 200 to 300 ships, while about 150 Dutch vessels carried almost all the trade with the French West Indies.
• In 1665 he brought the Italian artist Bernini to Paris to design the east front of the Louvre, but the design was rejected.
• The palace's own history says that when Louis XIV moved the court and government to Versailles on 6 May 1682, the move was opposed by Colbert.

Sources: Colbert: Memorandum on Trade, 1664 (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Château de Versailles: Key dates; Encyclopedia.com: Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683); Wikipedia: Jean-Baptiste Colbert

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (October 18, 1685)

On 18 October 1685 (published on 22 October) Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau, repealing the Edict of Nantes. Its preamble says that most Protestants had embraced the Catholic faith, so the edict of 1598 was no longer needed. It ordered Protestant churches pulled down, forbade Protestant worship and schools, and gave pastors who would not convert two weeks to leave. Troop billeting, called dragonnades, had been used from 1681 to push Protestants to convert.

• Emigration was banned, with the galleys for men and prison for women, so many who left did so in secret. Estimates of how many fled range widely, from about 200,000 to as many as 900,000.
• The Musée protestant says only about twenty Reformed churches were still active by October 1685. The World History Encyclopedia counts about 780 pastors in France, of whom about 620 went into exile and 160 abjured.
• Frederick William of Brandenburg issued the Edict of Potsdam in late October 1685, inviting refugees to his lands. Louis XVI's Edict of Versailles, signed on 7 November 1787, ended 102 years of prohibition by giving non-Catholics civil status.

Sources: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, October 22, 1685 (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Musée protestant: The Edict of Fontainebleau or the Revocation (1685); World History Encyclopedia: Louis XIV and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; Wikipedia: Edict of Fontainebleau

Louis XV (1715 to 1774)

Louis XV, King of France, 'the Beloved', Bourbon dynasty

Louis XV ruled for nearly 59 years. He succeeded his great-grandfather as a five-year-old, and the Duke of Orléans ruled as regent. From 1726 to 1743 Cardinal Fleury ran the government, and after that Louis governed himself. His reign saw France gain Lorraine and Bar in 1766 and Corsica, but lose almost all of its North American empire at the end of the Seven Years' War. Enlightenment ideas challenged the court, and cultural life shifted from Versailles to Paris.

How they came to power: Born at Versailles on 15 February 1710, he succeeded Louis XIV on 1 September 1715 at five. He was crowned at Reims in October 1722, and the Parlement declared his majority in February 1723.

How it ended: He died at Versailles on 10 May 1774, aged 64. His grandson became Louis XVI.

• His most influential mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, began her relationship with him around 1745 and remained his closest adviser until her death in 1764.
• Lorraine and the Duchy of Bar became part of France on the death of Stanislaw Leszczynski in 1766.
• The Treaty of Paris in 1763, made in his name, gave up Canada but kept Guadeloupe and Martinique and fishing rights off Newfoundland.

Sources: The Treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Library of Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Absolute Monarchy, Grand Siècle and Enlightenment; Château de Versailles: History of the palace; Wikipedia: Louis XV

Voltaire (1718 to 1778)

François-Marie Arouet, called Voltaire, Philosopher and writer · Paris and Ferney

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in Paris on 21 November 1694. He took his pen name in 1718, after his first stay in the Bastille. He spent 1726 to 1728 in England, where he absorbed English philosophy, Newton's science and a different idea of liberty. His Letters on the English (Lettres philosophiques) were condemned in France and publicly burned. He later wrote Candide (1759) and campaigned against religious fanaticism, notably in the Calas case.

How they rose: A satirical poem put him in the Bastille in 1717 to 1718; a quarrel with a noble sent him there again in 1726, and he accepted exile in England rather than stay jailed. He lived with the mathematician Émilie du Châtelet at Cirey from 1734 until her death in 1749, left Frederick II's court after a quarrel over a satire on Maupertuis in 1752 to 1753, and settled at Ferney near Geneva.

How they died: He returned to Paris in February 1778 after more than 25 years away, and died there on 30 May 1778, aged 83. The Church denied him burial in Paris, so friends buried him secretly in Champagne. In 1791 the National Assembly moved his remains to the Panthéon.

• He wrote over 20,000 letters and many books and pamphlets, and used many pen names, at least 178 by one count.
• The line 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' is often credited to him. It comes from Evelyn Beatrice Hall's 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire.
• In the Calas case, Jean Calas was sentenced by the Parlement of Toulouse on 9 March 1762 and broken on the wheel (sources give 9 or 10 March for the execution) on a charge of murdering his son. Voltaire argued that religious prejudice had replaced proof, and the verdict was overturned in 1765.

Sources: Voltaire: Letters on the English (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Voltaire: In Connection with the Death of Jean Calas (Wikisource); Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Voltaire; World History Encyclopedia: Voltaire; Wikipedia: Voltaire

Denis Diderot (1749 to 1784)

Denis Diderot, editor of the Encyclopédie, Philosopher and writer · Paris

Diderot was born in Langres in 1713, the son of a cutler, and was educated by Jesuits. He co-created the Encyclopédie with Jean le Rond d'Alembert and ran it alone after d'Alembert left. He also wrote novels, plays and essays, many unpublished in his lifetime, including Rameau's Nephew and Jacques the Fatalist. He is counted with Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau among the leading philosophes.

How they rose: His 1749 Letter on the Blind, which seemed to reflect atheism, led to a few months at Vincennes. He left on 3 November 1749 and went on with the Encyclopédie, whose first volume appeared in 1751.

How they died: He died in Paris on 31 July 1784. Catherine the Great of Russia had earlier bought his library and kept him on as its custodian.

• Catherine the Great bought his library of about 3,000 volumes in 1766 for 15,000 livres and let him stay as its custodian, with a pension.
• In prison, he is said to have annotated Paradise Lost using a toothpick as a pen and ink made from scraped slate and wine.
• Rameau's Nephew was written between 1761 and 1774 but not published in his lifetime. Its manuscript was found only in 1891.

Sources: L'Encyclopédie, 1st edition, with the Discours préliminaire (French Wikisource); Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Denis Diderot; World History Encyclopedia: Denis Diderot; Wikipedia: Denis Diderot

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1750 to 1778)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher of Geneva, Philosopher and writer · Geneva and Paris

Born in Geneva on 28 June 1712, Rousseau became famous in 1750 when his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences won a prize from the Academy of Dijon. In 1755 his Discourse on Inequality argued that private property was a source of inequality. In 1762 he published The Social Contract, which proposed the 'general will' as the basis of legitimate society, and Émile, a treatise on education. Readings of The Social Contract range from democratic to authoritarian, and the dispute continues. He was also a composer, novelist and botanist.

How they rose: The 1750 prize brought him fame. His opera Le devin du village was staged for Louis XV in 1752, and the king offered him a pension, which Rousseau declined.

How they died: Émile's religious content led French authorities to order his arrest in 1762, and he fled to Switzerland. He lived in England from 1766 and returned to France in 1767. He died on 2 July 1778 at Ermenonville, reportedly of a cerebral hemorrhage. His remains were moved to the Panthéon on 11 October 1794.

• He reportedly placed his children in a foundling hospital, a charge that critics such as Voltaire and Edmund Burke later used against him.
• The Confessions, begun in 1765 and finished in 1770, were published only in 1782, after his death, and helped start the modern autobiography.
• In his last years he took up botany, and his Letters on the Elements of Botany were published after his death.

Sources: Rousseau: The Social Contract (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Jean Jacques Rousseau; World History Encyclopedia: Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Wikipedia: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Encyclopédie (1751 to 1772)

The Encyclopédie, or reasoned dictionary of the sciences, arts and trades, began in 1745 as a plan to translate Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia. By 1749 it had become an original work. Denis Diderot edited it throughout; d'Alembert co-edited it until he resigned. It ran to 17 volumes of text (1751 to 1765) and 11 of plates (finished by 1772), with about 72,000 articles. More than 140 people wrote for it. Louis de Jaucourt wrote about a quarter of the articles.

• A royal edict suspended it in 1752 after the second volume. In 1759, after the seventh, the privilege was revoked, but work went on in secret, helped by the director of the book trade, Malesherbes.
• Volumes 8 to 17 were printed with a false imprint naming Neuchâtel, outside French jurisdiction.
• Subscribers were first asked for 280 livres, but the price rose to 980 livres as the work grew, which put it out of reach for much of the middle class. About 25,000 sets had been sold by 1789.

Sources: L'Encyclopédie, 1st edition: Discours préliminaire and articles (French Wikisource); MIT Libraries: Introduction to the Encyclopédie; World History Encyclopedia: Denis Diderot; Wikipedia: Encyclopédie

The Seven Years' War and the loss of New France (1756 to 1763 (Treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763))

The war began with a diplomatic revolution: in 1756 France allied with its old rival Austria, and Britain allied with Prussia. On 13 September 1759 a British army defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in a battle reported as lasting from about fifteen minutes to an hour. Wolfe died on the field and Montcalm the next morning, and Quebec capitulated on 18 September. In the Treaty of Paris of 10 February 1763, France ceded Canada and Cape Breton to Britain. Britain returned Guadeloupe, Martinique and other islands, and France kept fishing rights off Newfoundland, plus the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

• Under article VI Britain gave France Saint-Pierre and Miquelon as a shelter for fishermen, on condition that France not fortify them and keep only a 50-man police guard.
• France had already secretly transferred Louisiana west of the Mississippi to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau in 1762, three months before the peace. The Spanish did not take possession until 1769.
• Britain debated whether to keep Canada or the sugar island of Guadeloupe. It kept Canada. Voltaire is reported to have dismissed the colony as a few acres of snow.

Sources: The Treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); American Battlefields Trust: Conquering a Continent, the Battle of Quebec; Office of the Historian: The French and Indian War / Seven Years' War, 1754-1763; Wikipedia: Treaty of Paris (1763)

Louis XVI (1774 to 1792)

Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre, Bourbon dynasty

Louis XVI married the Austrian archduchess Marie Antoinette in 1770 and came to the throne in 1774. He backed the American colonists against Britain: France signed treaties of alliance and commerce in 1778 and sent troops and ships, which strained its finances. His Edict of Versailles of 1787 restored civil status to non-Catholics. To meet the financial crisis he convened the Estates-General in 1789, a step that led to the French Revolution. He was also an enthusiastic locksmith and studied geography and astronomy.

How they came to power: He was born at Versailles on 23 August 1754 and became king on 10 May 1774, when his grandfather Louis XV died.

How it ended: His attempt to flee in June 1791 failed at Varennes. After the Tuileries was stormed in August 1792 he was imprisoned, and the monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792. The Convention found him guilty of high treason, and he was guillotined on 21 January 1793, aged 38. He was the only French king to be executed.

• Of his four children with Marie Antoinette, only Marie-Thérèse reached adulthood.
• Under the 1778 Treaty of Alliance (article 8), neither side could make peace with Britain without the other's formal consent, and both promised not to lay down arms until American independence was assured. France's loans to the Americans from 1778 to 1782 came to 18 million livres, and the king forgave the interest owed up to the peace treaty.
• The Edict of Versailles, signed on 7 November 1787 and registered on 29 January 1788, is known as the edict of tolerance. It ended 102 years of prohibition.

Sources: Treaty of Alliance between the United States and France, 1778 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Contract between the King and the Thirteen United States, July 16, 1782 (Avalon Project); World History Encyclopedia: Louis XVI of France; Office of the Historian: French Alliance, French Assistance, and European Diplomacy, 1778-1782; Wikipedia: Louis XVI

The Estates-General of 1789 (May 5 to June 17, 1789)

Louis XVI called the Estates-General to Versailles to deal with a state financial crisis. The assembly brought together the clergy, the nobility and the commoners of the Third Estate, who made up the great majority of the population. Each order had one vote, so the two privileged orders could outvote the commoners two to one. The Third Estate had been given twice as many deputies, but without a vote by head that meant little. The deadlock over this rule drove the spring of 1789.

• The body had not met since 1614. The Third Estate was over 90 percent of the population (the World History Encyclopedia counts about 26.5 million of 27 million people), yet it held one vote against two.
• Before the meeting, parishes and towns wrote lists of grievances called cahiers, which drew many ordinary people into politics for the first time.
• In January 1789 the abbé Sieyès published a pamphlet arguing that the Third Estate was the true nation. On 17 June the deputies voted 491 to 89 to call themselves the National Assembly.

Sources: Sieyès, What Is the Third Estate? (1789), Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): Estates-General; World History Encyclopedia: The Three Estates of Pre-Revolutionary France; Wikipedia: Estates General of 1789

The Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789)

After the deputies of the Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly, they found the doors of their usual hall at Versailles locked and guarded by soldiers. Fearing the king meant to dissolve them, they moved to a nearby indoor tennis court. There they swore to keep meeting wherever they had to, until a constitution was firmly established. The oath was an early open act of defiance toward royal authority.

• According to Wikipedia, 576 of the 577 Third Estate members who took the oath signed it. The one who refused, Joseph Martin-Dauch, said he would only carry out decisions made by the king.
• The deputy Joseph-Ignace Guillotin is credited with suggesting that the deputies meet in the tennis court. He is the physician who proposed a simple beheading machine in October 1789; the device that took his name was built by others, notably Antoine Louis.
• In the oath the deputies swore never to separate and to reassemble wherever circumstances required, until the constitution of the kingdom was established on solid foundations.

Sources: The Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), in Anderson, Constitutions and Other Select Documents (Wikisource); Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): National Assembly; Wikipedia: Tennis Court Oath

The Storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789)

With troops gathering near Paris and the minister Necker dismissed, Parisians organised their own defence. On 14 July a crowd of roughly a thousand attacked the Bastille, an old fortress and state prison, where gunpowder had recently been stored. After fighting, the garrison surrendered. The governor, the marquis de Launay, was seized and killed by the crowd. The fortress stood for royal arbitrary power, and the Assembly could now count on the city's support.

• Only seven prisoners were inside, among them four forgers and a man held at his family's request.
• The garrison was about 114 men, 82 veteran Invalides and 32 Swiss soldiers. Some 250 barrels of gunpowder had been moved there a few days before.
• In 1790 Lafayette sent the key of the Bastille to George Washington. It remains at Mount Vernon.

Sources: A Defender of the Bastille Explains His Role (14 July 1789), Swiss officer Louis de Flue, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; A Conqueror of the Bastille Speaks (14 July 1789), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; World History Encyclopedia: Storming of the Bastille; Wikipedia: Storming of the Bastille

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 26, 1789)

Weeks after the Bastille, the National Constituent Assembly set out the principles of the new order in a single page. It names liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression as natural rights, says the law expresses the general will, protects free expression and presumes innocence. The Assembly meant it as a preface to a constitution. It became the best-known statement of the Revolution.

• Lafayette prepared early drafts in consultation with Thomas Jefferson, then the American minister in Paris. The final text was shaped in the Assembly, with Sieyès among those credited.
• The text never mentions slavery, and its rights were framed for men. Active citizenship was limited to male property-owning taxpayers, about 4.3 million of some 27 million people, according to the World History Encyclopedia.
• It is still French constitutional law. The 1946 and 1958 constitutions both refer back to it in their preambles.

Sources: Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), Avalon Project, Yale Law School; World History Encyclopedia: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; Wikipedia: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The Women's March on Versailles (October 5 to 6, 1789)

On 5 October 1789, women from the markets of Paris gathered at the Hôtel de Ville over the high price and shortage of bread. They marched about 20 km to Versailles, followed by thousands of National Guardsmen under Lafayette. Next morning part of the crowd entered the palace and killed some royal guards. The royal family and the Assembly's deputies were then brought to Paris, where the king lived at the Tuileries.

• Workers then spent nearly half their income on bread, which is why the march began as a protest about food.
• The crowd at the Hôtel de Ville was put at 6,000 to 7,000. By the return to Paris on 6 October it had grown to more than 60,000.
• Police records preserve testimony from women who joined. Some said they had been pressed to go by other marchers, and one said she asked the king to escort flour convoys to Paris.

Sources: Women Testify Concerning Their Participation in the October Days (1789), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): October Days, the Women's March Upon Versailles; World History Encyclopedia: 4 Women of the French Revolution; Wikipedia: Women's March on Versailles

Marie Antoinette (1755 to 1793 (queen 1774 to 1792))

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Queen · House of Habsburg-Lorraine

Born in Vienna in 1755, she married the future Louis XVI at fourteen to seal an Austrian alliance, and became queen in 1774. Rumours of extravagance, helped by the Diamond Necklace affair, made her unpopular long before 1789. During the Revolution she became a symbol of the court for its critics. She was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal in October 1793.

How they rose: She was born an archduchess, married Louis-Auguste by proxy on 19 April 1770, and became queen consort on 10 May 1774 when he took the throne.

How they died: After the monarchy fell she was held in the Temple, then in the Conciergerie. She was tried on 14 to 16 October 1793, found guilty of high treason and guillotined on 16 October at the Place de la Révolution, aged 37.

• The line 'Let them eat cake' is not recorded of her. The World History Encyclopedia says there is no evidence she ever said it.
• The Diamond Necklace affair came to light in 1785. The Parlement of Paris found Cardinal de Rohan not guilty, and the World History Encyclopedia calls her an innocent victim of the swindle, though she was widely blamed.
• At her trial an accusation of incest with her young son was raised, the climax of the hostile libels about her. Le Moniteur reported that she kept a calm and self-assured demeanor in court.

Sources: Execution of the Queen (16 October 1793), Le Moniteur, no. 36, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; World History Encyclopedia: Marie Antoinette; Wikipedia: Marie Antoinette

Maximilien Robespierre (1758 to 1794)

Maximilien Robespierre, lawyer and member of the Committee of Public Safety, Jacobin leader · Paris

Robespierre was a lawyer from Arras. In Paris he rose through the Jacobin Club, which he presided over from 1790, and was known as 'the Incorruptible'. He argued for the king's execution and, from July 1793, was the dominant member of the Committee of Public Safety. In 1794 he defended revolutionary government as a union of virtue and terror. Historians still argue about how far the Terror was his personal policy.

How they rose: Born in Arras on 6 May 1758, he resigned a judge's post in 1782, reportedly over capital cases. He became a leader of the Jacobins and joined the Committee of Public Safety on 27 July 1793.

How they died: On 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) the Convention turned on him and declared him an outlaw. He was shot in the jaw during his arrest, by his own hand or a soldier's, and was guillotined on 28 July with 21 allies, aged 36.

• On 30 May 1791 he gave a speech calling for the abolition of the death penalty, which the Assembly did not support.
• He was known as 'the Incorruptible' for his modest living and refusal of bribes. Madame Roland is reported to have applied the plural 'incorruptibles' to him and two other deputies, and the World History Encyclopedia says the name was in use by 1790.
• In February 1794 he told the Convention that the spring of revolutionary government is virtue combined with terror, 'virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent' in the Fordham translation.

Sources: Robespierre, On the Principles of Political Morality (February 1794), Fordham; World History Encyclopedia: Maximilien Robespierre; Wikipedia: Maximilien Robespierre

The Flight to Varennes (June 20 to 25, 1791)

In June 1791 the royal family left the Tuileries at night in a single heavy coach, bound for the royalist garrison at Montmédy near the border. The king left behind a declaration criticising the Revolution's course. A postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, recognised him and raised the alarm at Varennes. The family was stopped and returned to Paris under guard on 25 June.

• The party travelled under false names. The royal governess, the marquise de Tourzel, played a Russian baroness, the queen posed as a governess and the king as a valet.
• Drouet said he thought he recognised the king from his likeness on an assignat, a paper banknote, but he was not certain. The Swedish count Fersen, who helped plan the escape, wanted two light carriages, but the family would not split up.
• The flight damaged the idea of a constitutional king. Support for a republic grew, and the monarchy was abolished a little over a year later.

Sources: Drouet's account, The Flight to Varennes (21-23 June 1791), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; World History Encyclopedia: Flight to Varennes; Wikipedia: Flight to Varennes

Olympe de Gouges (1748 to 1793)

Olympe de Gouges (Marie Gouze), playwright and writer, Playwright · Paris

Born Marie Gouze in Montauban, she moved to Paris and wrote plays, some against slavery. In September 1791 she published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, which follows the 17 articles of the men's declaration point by point. She dedicated it to Marie Antoinette. She also wrote political pamphlets, which brought her before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

How they rose: She came to prominence as a dramatist in the 1780s, and as a political writer after 1789. Her Declaration of 1791 made her the best-known woman author of the Revolution.

How they died: After the Girondins fell she published a poster, Les Trois urnes, calling for a vote on the form of government. She was arrested on 20 July 1793, convicted of sedition and guillotined on 3 November 1793.

• Her Declaration says a woman has the right to mount the scaffold, so she must equally have the right to mount the speaker's platform.
• Her anti-slavery play, staged at the Comedie-Française as L'Esclavage des noirs, closed after only three performances, according to the World History Encyclopedia.
• The trial record accuses her of writing pamphlets, among them Les Trois urnes, that attacked the sovereignty of the people by seeking a return to monarchy or a federal system. A modern editor notes her criticism of the National Convention weighed more heavily in her sentence than her writing on women's rights.

Sources: Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; The Trial of Olympe de Gouges, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; Library of Congress: France, Women in the Revolution (research guide); World History Encyclopedia: 4 Women of the French Revolution; Wikipedia: Olympe de Gouges

The First Republic (September 21 to 22, 1792)

On 10 August 1792 a Parisian crowd attacked the Tuileries and the Legislative Assembly suspended the king. A National Convention was then elected by universal male suffrage to write a constitution without a king. Its first act, on 21 September, abolished the monarchy. Documents were soon dated from the Year I of the Republic, and the Convention ruled as both legislature and executive.

• Wikipedia notes the Republic was never formally proclaimed on 22 September. Acts were dated from that day, and on 25 September it was declared one and indivisible.
• The Convention adopted a new calendar on 24 October 1793, with ten-day weeks (decades), and the decree even divided the day into ten decimal hours. Napoleon ended its use from 1 January 1806.
• The First Republic lasted until 18 May 1804, when the Senate proclaimed Napoleon Emperor.

Sources: The Attack on the Tuileries (10 August 1792), letter of Michel Azéma, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; Decree on the Republican Calendar (1793), marxists.org; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): National Convention; Wikipedia: French First Republic

The Execution of Louis XVI (January 21, 1793)

After the Tuileries fell, the king was held in the Temple. Papers found in a hidden iron cabinet at the Tuileries showed his secret dealings with opponents of the Revolution, and in early December 1792 the Convention decided to try him for treason. He was voted guilty in mid-January 1793. A call for a referendum was defeated 424 to 287, and the vote on the sentence went by a margin of a single vote. He was guillotined on 21 January.

• By Wikipedia's count, on 20 January 361 of 721 deputies voted for immediate death, a majority of one. An eyewitness letter also describes the sentence as passed by a single vote.
• Drums were beaten so loudly that his last words were mostly drowned out. Reports differ on what he said, but fragments such as 'I forgive my enemies' were heard.
• He was tried as Louis Capet. He was the only French king executed, and his death ended about a thousand years of unbroken monarchy, according to the World History Encyclopedia.

Sources: Execution of the King (21 January 1793), eyewitness letter of Philippe Pinel, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; Marat on the trial of Louis Capet (3 December 1792), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; World History Encyclopedia: Louis XVI of France; Wikipedia: Execution of Louis XVI

The Reign of Terror (September 1793 to July 1794)

With France at war with much of Europe and a civil war raging in the Vendée, the Convention gave wide powers to the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal. The Law of Suspects of 17 September 1793 allowed arrest on vague grounds. The Law of 22 Prairial (10 June 1794) sped up trials and left only acquittal or death as verdicts. Executions peaked in the weeks before Robespierre fell.

• Wikipedia gives 16,594 official death sentences. The World History Encyclopedia puts the total toll at about 30,000 to 50,000 and says 300,000 to half a million people were arrested under the Law of Suspects. Other historians give different totals, so treat all figures as estimates.
• Historians disagree about the cause. Albert Mathiez saw the Terror as a forced response to war and crisis, while others, such as François Furet, stress ideology as well.
• The 'Great Terror' after the Law of 22 Prairial saw about 1,400 executions in Paris between 10 June and 27 July 1794, in under seven weeks.

Sources: Robespierre, On the Principles of Political Morality (1794), Fordham; The Levée en Masse (23 August 1793), Fordham; World History Encyclopedia: Reign of Terror; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): Committee of Public Safety; Wikipedia: Reign of Terror

The Fall of Robespierre (9 Thermidor) (July 27 to 28, 1794)

On 26 July 1794 Robespierre told the Convention he knew of traitors but would not name them. Next day, 9 Thermidor, deputies including Tallien and Billaud-Varenne attacked him, and an order was made to arrest him and his followers. The Paris Commune tried to free him, but the Convention sent troops under Barras to the Hôtel de Ville. He and his allies were outlawed and guillotined without trial on 28 July.

• The jaw wound Robespierre received during his arrest may have been self-inflicted, but accounts differ.
• On 29 July the victors condemned about 70 members of the Paris Commune to death, according to Wikipedia.
• The Thermidorians soon closed the Jacobin Club (November 1794), abolished the price controls known as the Maximum on 24 December 1794, and then faced a violent White Terror against the left.

Sources: Robespierre, speech to the Convention of 8 Thermidor Year II (26 July 1794), Œuvres complètes, vol. 10 (French Wikisource); The Eighth of Thermidor, from Bienvenu, The Ninth of Thermidor, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; World History Encyclopedia: Reign of Terror; Wikipedia: Thermidorian Reaction

The Directory (October 1795 to November 1799)

The Constitution of the Year III set up a two-chamber legislature, the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients, and a five-man Directory as executive. It faced inflation, royalist and Jacobin opposition and continuous war. The directors twice overturned election results they disliked, which weakened its claim to be a lawful republic. It won the war with Bonaparte's help but proved unable to protect the republic.

• Sieyès was elected a director and refused, and Carnot took his place. The constitution renewed one director each year (Article 137), and each director presided in turn for three months (Article 141).
• On 5 October 1795 (13 Vendémiaire), Bonaparte's artillery fired on royalist-led insurgents near the Tuileries, killing some four hundred according to Wikipedia. He was promoted to command the Army of the Interior.
• On 19 February 1796 the government destroyed the assignat printing presses in a ceremony at the Place Vendôme.

Sources: Constitution of the Year III (22 August 1795), in Anderson, Constitutions and Other Select Documents (Wikisource); Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): Directory; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (CHNM/ASHP): Treaty of Campo-Formio; Wikipedia: French Directory

The Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9 to 10, 1799)

Abbé Sieyès and other plotters wanted a stronger executive. They needed a general, and Napoleon Bonaparte arrived from Egypt in October. On 9 November the Council of Ancients moved the legislature to Saint-Cloud, away from the Paris crowd. Next day Napoleon was shouted at in the Council of Five Hundred, and his brother Lucien, its president, called in troops to clear the hall. A rump of deputies named three provisional consuls.

• The coup is often called bloodless, as no one was killed. Napoleon himself, however, was described as dazed and bleeding after deputies tried to seize him in the Orangery.
• The plebiscite on the new constitution reported 3,011,007 votes for and 1,562 against. Wikipedia notes a turnout of only about 25 percent and allegations that the totals were inflated.
• Sieyès, who planned the coup, was outmaneuvered. Napoleon criticised his ideas in public and became First Consul, though he kept the main features of Sieyès's constitutional draft.

Sources: Bourrienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte (Project Gutenberg), account of the 18th and 19th Brumaire; Constitution of the Year VIII (13 December 1799), in Anderson, Constitutions and Other Select Documents (Wikisource); World History Encyclopedia: Coup of 18 Brumaire; Wikipedia: Coup of 18 Brumaire

Napoleon Bonaparte (1799 to 1815 (First Consul 1799 to 1804, Emperor 1804 to 1814 and 1815))

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, Bonaparte (Consulate and First Empire)

Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, and trained as an artillery officer. His campaigns in Italy and Egypt made him famous, and after the coup of 18 Brumaire he governed as First Consul under the Constitution of the Year VIII. He reformed law, finance and the Church's position, was proclaimed Emperor in 1804, and fought almost continuous wars until 1814. He returned for the Hundred Days in 1815.

How they came to power: He first won notice at the siege of Toulon in 1793, and by suppressing a royalist revolt in Paris in 1795. His Italian campaign of 1796 to 1797 made him a national hero. He took power in the coup of November 1799, and the new constitution named him First Consul for ten years. In 1802 a referendum extended this to life.

How it ended: He abdicated in 1814 and was sent to Elba. After the Hundred Days and Waterloo he was exiled to Saint Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821, aged 51, most likely of stomach cancer. He was buried at Les Invalides in Paris on 15 December 1840.

• Napoleon was about 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) tall, average for his day, according to Wikipedia, and History.com gives 5 ft 7 in. The image of a very short emperor is a later myth.
• In 1803 he sold the Louisiana territory to the United States for 15 million dollars. In May 1802 he reintroduced slavery in the recovered French colonies, which the Convention had abolished in 1794.
• The 1802 plebiscite that made him Consul for life reported about 3.6 million votes for and 8,374 against, roughly 99.7 percent approval.

Sources: Constitution of the Year VIII (13 December 1799), in Anderson, Constitutions and Other Select Documents (Wikisource); Bourrienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte (Project Gutenberg); Napoleon, Farewell to the Old Guard (20 April 1814), Fordham; World History Encyclopedia: Napoleon Bonaparte; History.com: Napoleon Bonaparte; Wikipedia: Napoleon

The Napoleonic Code (March 21, 1804)

Before the Revolution France had many regional legal systems. A commission of four jurists drafted a single civil code for all citizens, and it took effect on 21 March 1804. It replaced feudal and local laws and set rules on persons, property and contracts. It also placed the wife under her husband's authority (Article 213) and kept divorce, including divorce by mutual consent, under strict conditions (Article 233). Revised many times, it is still in force in France.

• The four drafters were Tronchet, Portalis, Bigot de Préameneu and Maleville. The Council of State held 107 sessions on the code, and Napoleon chaired 55 of them, according to the Fondation Napoléon.
• The World History Encyclopedia says the team merged old regional law and nearly 14,000 revolutionary decrees into one code.
• Its influence spread across Europe. It stayed influential in the Rhineland until 1900, Mauritius took it in 1808, and Romania's 1864 code drew on it. Louisiana's civil code draws on French and Spanish traditions.

Sources: Code civil des Français (1804 original edition), French Wikisource; Fondation Napoléon: Le Code civil (21 mars 1804); World History Encyclopedia: French Consulate; Wikipedia: Napoleonic Code

Napoleon's Coronation (December 2, 1804)

On 18 May 1804 the Senate proclaimed Napoleon Emperor of the French. The coronation followed in Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December, with Pope Pius VII present. Napoleon placed the crown on his own head, then crowned the kneeling Joséphine. A referendum had overwhelmingly approved the empire. A government catechism of 1806 later taught that Christians owed him obedience, and it cited his consecration by the pope.

• The traditional coronation crown had been destroyed in the Revolution. A new one, made to look medieval, was called the Crown of Charlemagne for the ceremony.
• Napoleon crowned Joséphine with a small crown after crowning himself, and his three sisters carried her mantle.
• According to Wikipedia, the historian Vincent Cronin writes that Napoleon told Pius he would crown himself and the pope raised no objection. Jacques-Louis David's large painting of the scene is dated 1807.

Sources: The Imperial Catechism (1806), Fordham; World History Encyclopedia: Napoleon Bonaparte; History.com: Napoleon Bonaparte; Wikipedia: Coronation of Napoleon I

The Battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805)

In Moravia, near Austerlitz, Napoleon faced a combined Russian and Austrian army, with Tsar Alexander I and Emperor Francis II present. He weakened his right flank and abandoned the Pratzen Heights to tempt the Allies down. Marshal Soult's corps then drove through the Allied centre, the heights were retaken and the Allied army was cut in two. Austria sought peace, and the Treaty of Pressburg followed on 26 December.

• The Allies lost about 27,000 killed, wounded and captured, roughly a third of their strength, though Wikipedia gives a range of 27,000 to 36,000. French losses were about 9,000.
• Retreating troops are said to have fled across frozen lakes while French guns fired at the ice. Napoleon claimed 2,000 drowned, but most modern scholars put it at 200 or fewer, according to the World History Encyclopedia.
• The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, and Francis II remained Emperor of Austria.

Sources: Karl von Stutterheim, A Detailed Account of the Battle of Austerlitz (1807 English edition), Project Gutenberg; World History Encyclopedia: Battle of Austerlitz; Wikipedia: Battle of Austerlitz

The Invasion of Russia (June to December 1812)

Napoleon invaded Russia to force Tsar Alexander I back into the Continental System against British trade. The army crossed the Niemen on 23 to 24 June 1812 and fought a costly battle at Borodino on 7 September. It occupied Moscow on 14 September, but the city burned and no peace offer came. The army retreated in October and November through early snow and frost and suffered disastrous losses at the Berezina river. Napoleon left it on 5 December.

• Borodino was one of the bloodiest single days of the Napoleonic Wars. The World History Encyclopedia counts about 35,000 French and 45,000 Russian casualties, killed or wounded.
• Exact losses are unknown. The World History Encyclopedia says fewer than 100,000 of the 615,000 who crossed returned, and Wikipedia says exact figures remain elusive.
• The crossing of the Berezina, 26 to 29 November, cost the army about 40,000 men by the World History Encyclopedia's count. Napoleon left the army on 5 December and returned to Paris.

Sources: Ségur, History of the Expedition to Russia (Project Gutenberg); World History Encyclopedia: Napoleon's Invasion of Russia; Wikipedia: French invasion of Russia

The Hundred Days (March 20 to July 8, 1815)

After his abdication in 1814, Napoleon was given the island of Elba. On 26 February 1815 he left it, and landed on 1 March near Cannes. He marched toward Paris, and soldiers sent against him changed sides. He entered the capital on 20 March, after Louis XVIII had left. The powers declared him an outlaw, and the Seventh Coalition took the field against him.

• At Laffrey, near Grenoble, he opened his coat to royalist troops and said, 'If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am.' They joined him.
• Marshal Ney had said Napoleon should be brought to Paris in an iron cage. On 14 March he joined him at Lons-le-Saunier with about 6,000 men.
• The period lasted about 110 days, from his arrival in Paris to the king's second restoration on 8 July.

Sources: The Return of Napoleon from Elba, 1815 (eyewitness account), Fordham; Napoleon, Farewell to the Old Guard (20 April 1814), Fordham; World History Encyclopedia: Hundred Days; Wikipedia: Hundred Days

The Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815)

On 18 June 1815 Napoleon's Army of the North fought Wellington's Anglo-allied army at Mont-Saint-Jean in what is now Belgium. The French attacks failed to break the Allied line. In the evening the Imperial Guard was repulsed, and the Prussian army under Blücher, about 50,000 strong, broke the French right flank. The French army collapsed. Napoleon abdicated on 22 June and surrendered to the British in July.

• Wellington later called it 'the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life', a remark recorded by Wikipedia.
• The French call it the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean and the Prussians the Battle of La Belle Alliance, after an inn.
• The World History Encyclopedia says it ended nearly 23 years of constant warfare in Europe that began with Valmy in 1792, though it adds that the battle's importance is sometimes overstated.

Sources: Wellington's Waterloo dispatch to Lord Bathurst, 19 June 1815 (Wikisource; London Gazette Extraordinary, 22 June 1815); World History Encyclopedia: Battle of Waterloo; World History Encyclopedia: Hundred Days; Wikipedia: Battle of Waterloo

Victor Hugo (1802 to 1885)

Victor Hugo, poet, novelist and politician, Writer · Paris

Hugo led the Romantic movement in French theatre and wrote the poems of Les Contemplations and the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). He began as a royalist and became a convinced republican. He was a peer of France in 1845, a deputy in 1848 and a senator from 1876. He campaigned against the death penalty and slavery and called for a United States of Europe.

How they rose: Born in Besançon on 26 February 1802, he was famous as a poet and dramatist by his twenties. As a teenager he wrote in his diary that he would be 'Chateaubriand or nothing'.

How they died: He died in Paris on 22 May 1885, aged 83. His body lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe on the night of 31 May, and on 1 June he was taken in the hearse of the poor, as he had asked, to the Panthéon. Wikipedia gives over two million attendees, the largest funeral in French history; this is an estimate.

• After Louis-Napoléon's coup of December 1851 Hugo tried to rouse resistance and left France. He went first to Brussels, then Jersey (1852), and from October 1855 to 1870 lived on Guernsey, where he wrote Napoléon le Petit. Napoleon III's amnesty of 15 August 1859 would have let him return, but he refused it, and he came back only after the Empire fell in 1870.
• His body lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe on the night of 31 May 1885, and on 1 June 1885 he was taken to the Panthéon in the hearse of the poor, as he had asked.
• During the 1870 siege of Paris he is reported to have eaten animals given to him from the Paris zoo.

Sources: Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood (Project Gutenberg #135); G. Barnett Smith, Victor Hugo: His Life and Work (1885, Project Gutenberg; a contemporary biography, not a modern reference); Arc de Triomphe (Centre des monuments nationaux): Victor Hugo and the Arc de triomphe; Guernsey Donkey: Victor Hugo's Exile; Wikipedia: Victor Hugo

Louis XVIII (1814 to 1824 (interrupted March to July 1815))

Louis XVIII, King of France, Bourbon Restoration

Louis XVIII was the brother of the guillotined Louis XVI. He spent about 23 years abroad, in Prussia, Britain and Russia among other places, before the fall of Napoleon returned him to the throne. His Charter of 1814 kept much of what the Revolution had changed and set up a two-chamber parliament, but it was a granted constitution, and the vote was limited to men paying at least 300 francs a year in direct taxes, about 1 percent of the population by one estimate. His reign was cut short by Napoleon's Hundred Days. Afterwards he steered a middle path between the ultra-royalists and the liberals.

How they came to power: After Napoleon abdicated in 1814 the Bourbons were restored, and Louis took the throne on 3 May 1814. He fled when Napoleon returned to Paris on 20 March 1815 and was restored on 8 July 1815, after Waterloo.

How it ended: He died at the Tuileries Palace on 16 September 1824, aged 68, after a long illness that included gout and gangrene. He had no children, so his brother Charles X succeeded him.

• He dated his reign from 1795, when his young nephew Louis XVII died in prison, which made 1814 the 'nineteenth year' of his rule.
• By about 1810 severe gout had put him in a wheelchair, and he governed France from it. He was the last French monarch to die while still reigning.
• In the preamble to the Charter he wrote that he granted it 'by the free exercise of our royal authority', so the constitution was presented as a royal gift, not a right. In 1830 the deputies struck that preamble out as 'wounding the national dignity'.

Sources: Constitutional Charter of 4 June 1814, preamble (translation by Stephen Walton, Portland State University); Declaration of the Chamber of Deputies, 7 August 1830, suppressing the Charter's preamble (July Revolution documents, Portland State University); World History Encyclopedia: Hundred Days; Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: Louis XVIII

Louis Pasteur (1822 to 1895)

Louis Pasteur, chemist and microbiologist, Scientist · Paris

Pasteur's 1848 work on tartaric acid crystals showed molecular asymmetry. He then proved that fermentation is driven by living microbes, disproved spontaneous generation with swan-neck flasks, and showed that heating wine kills spoilage microbes, a process patented in 1865 and now named for him. He identified the causes of silkworm disease, helped save the silk industry, and developed vaccines for chicken cholera, anthrax and rabies. In his 1881 London address he said he had extended the word 'vaccination' to his own vaccines in honour of Jenner. The Institut Pasteur was founded in Paris in 1887 and opened in 1888.

How they rose: Born in Dole on 27 December 1822, the son of a tanner, he trained in science in Paris and held posts at Strasbourg, Lille and Paris.

How they died: A stroke in 1868 limited his work in the laboratory, and he relied on assistants such as Émile Roux and Charles Chamberland. He died on 28 September 1895 and was buried in a vault beneath the Institut Pasteur.

• In a public trial in 1881 he vaccinated 25 sheep against anthrax; they survived a virulent dose while 25 unvaccinated sheep died within fifty hours. His private notebooks later showed that the method used differed from the one he described publicly.
• On 6 July 1885 nine-year-old Joseph Meister, who had been bitten 14 times by a rabid dog two days earlier, began a course of 13 injections over ten days and did not develop rabies. Pasteur was not a physician, so he asked Dr Grancher to give the injections.
• The rabies agent could not be seen: the Institut Pasteur notes it stayed invisible under the microscopes of the day. In his own 1886 account Pasteur called the agent a 'virus'.

Sources: Louis Pasteur, 'The Germ Theory' (address to the International Medical Congress, London, 8 August 1881; Popular Science Monthly, April 1882, Wikisource); Louis Pasteur, 'Inoculation Against Hydrophobia' (Popular Science Monthly, January 1886, Wikisource); Institut Pasteur: The final years, 1877 to 1887; Science History Institute: Louis Pasteur; Wikipedia: Louis Pasteur

Charles X (1824 to 1830)

Charles X, King of France, Bourbon Restoration

Charles X was Louis XVIII's younger brother, a conservative who put the old order first. He had himself anointed at Reims in 1825, in the old style, and backed the Church and the returned nobility. His government paid former noble landowners an indemnity of about 988 million francs in bonds for property seized in the Revolution, and passed a sacrilege law that revived the death penalty. In 1830 it sent an expedition to Algiers. The same year, in the July Ordinances, he suspended press freedom and dissolved the newly elected Chamber.

How they came to power: He succeeded his brother on 16 September 1824.

How it ended: He abdicated on 2 August 1830 in favour of his grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux, but the deputies chose Louis-Philippe instead. Charles went into exile, first in Britain and then in Austrian lands, and died of cholera at Gorizia on 6 November 1836.

• His coronation at Reims on 29 May 1825 was the first held at the traditional site since 1775, and he also tried to revive the royal healing touch.
• His government decided in January 1830 to send an expedition to Algiers, and French troops took the city on 5 July 1830, three weeks before the ordinances that cost him the throne.
• He is described as the only French king buried outside France, in the Kostanjevica monastery in what is now Nova Gorica, Slovenia.

Sources: Charles X: the July Ordinances (25 July 1830) and his abdication (2 August 1830) (translations, Portland State University); Chateaubriand, Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, Book XXXII (July 1830; translated by A. S. Kline); Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: Charles X of France

The July Revolution (Three Glorious Days) (27 to 29 July 1830)

On 25 July 1830 Charles X signed ordinances that suspended press freedom, dissolved the Chamber of Deputies elected weeks earlier and changed the electoral rules. They appeared in the Moniteur on 26 July. Paris journalists announced they would print without authorisation, and fighting began on 27 July. Troops under Marshal Marmont lost the city as units deserted and barricades went up. The Louvre, the Tuileries and the Hôtel de Ville were taken by 29 July.

• Over 4,000 barricades were built in roughly a day and a night, according to Wikipedia's account.
• The journalists' reply of 26 July said that 'the legal regime is interrupted' and that they were 'absolved from obedience'.
• Chateaubriand, an eyewitness, was carried through the streets by young men to the Chamber of Peers, where he urged the peers to accept the repeal of the decrees and stay loyal to the king.

Sources: The July Ordinances, the journalists' and deputies' replies, and the abdication (translations, Portland State University); Chateaubriand, Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, Book XXXII (translated by A. S. Kline); Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: July Revolution

Louis-Philippe (1830 to 1848)

Louis-Philippe I, King of the French, July Monarchy (House of Orléans)

Louis-Philippe was the son of Philippe Égalité and fought for the Republic at Valmy and Jemappes. He took the title King of the French, not King of France, and the revised Charter said that censorship 'can never be re-established' (Article 7). His reign, the July Monarchy, favoured bankers and industrialists, and from 1840 to 1848 its policy leaned conservative under the influence of François Guizot. He turned Versailles into a museum dedicated 'to all the glories of France'. Economic hardship in 1847 eroded his support.

How they came to power: On 7 August 1830 the Chamber of Deputies declared the throne vacant and invited him to take the title King of the French. He took the oath on 9 August.

How it ended: He abdicated on 24 February 1848 in favour of his young grandson, but the Republic was proclaimed instead. He fled to England and died at Claremont, Surrey, on 26 August 1850.

• During his exile he taught geography and mathematics at a school in Reichenau, Switzerland, under an assumed name, then spent about three years in the United States and about fifteen in England.
• His father, Philippe Égalité, was guillotined in November 1793, the year Louis-Philippe broke with the Republic and fled.
• The Gallery of Battles at Versailles opened in June 1837 as part of his plan to make the palace a museum for all of France's history.

Sources: Declaration of the Chamber of Deputies, 7 August 1830, and Thiers's Orleanist manifesto, 30 July 1830 (Portland State University); The French Constitution of 1830: changes to the Charter (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: Louis Philippe I

The conquest of Algeria (1830 to 1903 (Algiers taken 5 July 1830))

About 34,000 French troops landed at Sidi Ferruch on 14 June 1830 and entered Algiers on 5 July, ending Ottoman rule there. The pretext was a quarrel of 1827 between the dey and the French consul, in which the consul was struck with a fly-whisk, and a long dispute over debts. Charles X's government hoped for a popular success. Resistance spread, above all under the emir Abd al-Qadir, who built a state in the interior. After Bugeaud took command in 1840, scorched-earth tactics and fast columns broke it, and Abd al-Qadir surrendered in December 1847.

• Historian David Todd argues that the fly-whisk 'Fan Affair' was a pretext and that the real cause was a French effort to fortify the warehouse at La Calle.
• Estimates of Algerian deaths from war, famine and disease in the first three decades run from 500,000 to 1 million, out of a population of about 3 million. Some scholars and governments call the conquest a genocide; others dispute the term.
• Abd al-Qadir surrendered in December 1847 and was held in France for almost five years. Louis-Napoléon, then still President, released him in October 1852, and he settled in Damascus, where in July 1860 he sheltered Christians during the sectarian violence.

Sources: Moritz Wagner, The Tricolor on the Atlas, or Algeria and the French Conquest (London, 1854; Internet Archive); Louis-Napoléon, speech at Bordeaux, 9 October 1852 ('a vast realm to assimilate to France' across from Marseille) (translation, Portland State University); Marie-Cécile Thoral, 'French Colonial Counter-Insurgency: General Bugeaud and the Conquest of Algeria, 1840-47', British Journal for Military History 1(2), 2015; EBSCO Research Starters: France Conquers Algeria; Wikipedia: French conquest of Algeria

The Revolution of 1848 and the end of slavery (22 February to 27 April 1848)

The government of Guizot banned the reform banquets, and the last one planned for 22 February 1848 was called off, but crowds gathered in the streets anyway. On 23 February troops fired on a crowd on the Boulevard des Capucines, and over 1,500 barricades went up overnight. Louis-Philippe abdicated on 24 February, and Lamartine proclaimed the Republic early on 25 February. Victor Schoelcher, under-secretary of state for the colonies, helped draft the decree of 27 April 1848 that ended slavery in all French territories and gave the freed people French citizenship.

• Schoelcher had been sent in 1828 on an eighteen-month journey through Mexico, Cuba and the southern United States, where he saw slavery at first hand. He sold the family porcelain business to devote himself to abolition.
• The decree freed 251,019 people: 87,087 in Guadeloupe, 74,447 in Martinique, 60,651 in Réunion, and others in Guiana, Senegal and smaller islands. Compensation went to former owners, not the freed: sources give about 120 to 126 million francs under the law of 30 April 1849, which was symbolically repealed in 2016.
• France had abolished slavery once before, in February 1794. Napoleon's government reversed this in 1802: a law of 20 May 1802 was followed by consular decrees that restored slavery in places such as Guadeloupe and Guiana.

Sources: Alphonse de Lamartine, History of the Revolution of 1848 (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); Percy B. St. John, The French Revolution in 1848: eyewitness account (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); Lawrence C. Jennings, 'Slavery Emancipation: 1848' (libcom.org); Wikipedia: Decree of the Abolition of Slavery of April 27, 1848

Napoleon III (1848 to 1870 (Emperor from 2 December 1852))

Napoleon III, President of the Second Republic and Emperor of the French, Second Empire (Bonaparte)

Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte was born in 1808. In December 1848 he won the first direct presidential election with about 74 percent of the vote. When the Assembly blocked his re-election he seized power on 2 December 1851, and a plebiscite endorsed him. A year later he became emperor. His regime built railways, modernised banking, signed the 1860 free-trade treaty with Britain and rebuilt Paris. In foreign policy his armies fought in the Crimea, in Italy and in Mexico, where the intervention failed.

How they came to power: Elected president in December 1848. After the coup of 2 December 1851 a plebiscite on 20 to 21 December gave him wide powers, and the Empire was proclaimed on 2 December 1852.

How it ended: He declared war on Prussia in July 1870 and was captured at Sedan. The Third Republic was proclaimed on 4 September. He went into exile in England and died at Chislehurst on 9 January 1873.

• He tried to seize power at Strasbourg in 1836 and Boulogne in 1840. After Boulogne he was sentenced to life at Ham fortress, wrote there, and escaped in 1846.
• At Bordeaux on 9 October 1852 he said 'the Empire means peace'. Eighteen years later the Empire fell in a war.
• The coup killed about 600 people, according to the historians cited by the Fondation Napoléon, and the plebiscite counted 7,439,216 yes votes to about 640,000 no.

Sources: Louis-Napoleon, speeches at Dijon (1 June 1851) and Bordeaux (9 October 1852) (translations, Portland State University); Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), chapter 1 (Marxists Internet Archive); Fondation Napoléon: Le coup d'État du 2 décembre 1851 (Julien Mallet); Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: Napoleon III

Haussmann's Paris (1853 to 1870)

Georges-Eugène Haussmann became prefect of the Seine on 22 June 1853. Napoleon III told him to give Paris air, unity and beauty. Over the next 17 years the city gained long straight boulevards, new squares and parks, and the Bois de Boulogne was laid out in 1852 to 1858. On 1 January 1860 Paris was enlarged from 12 to 20 arrondissements. The work was financed largely by borrowing, including vouchers paid to contractors and a special works fund, and critics attacked the cost.

• The annexation of 1860 raised the city's area from 3,300 to 7,100 hectares and added about 400,000 people, bringing the population to 1.6 million.
• Napoleon III dismissed Haussmann on 5 January 1870 after parliamentary opposition. In 1867 Jules Ferry had mocked his accounts in a pun on his name.
• Zola's novel La Curée follows a property speculator, Saccard, who looks down on Paris from Montmartre and plans how it will be divided into boulevards and squares.

Sources: Émile Zola, The Rush for the Spoil (La Curée), translated by E. A. Vizetelly (Project Gutenberg); Fondation Napoléon: Juliette Glikman, Le Paris d'Haussmann : la transformation d'une ville (in French); RetroNews (BnF): 1860, Paris annexe la proche banlieue (in French); Wikipedia: Haussmann's renovation of Paris

Marie Curie (1867 to 1934)

Marie Skłodowska Curie, physicist and chemist, Scientist · Paris

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw and moved to Paris in 1891. She married Pierre Curie in 1895. In 1898 the couple announced polonium, named for her homeland, and radium. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Henri Becquerel, and won the 1911 Prize in Chemistry alone. After Pierre died in a street accident in 1906 she became the first woman to hold a professorship at the University of Paris.

How they rose: She studied at the Sorbonne, partly funded by work as a governess so that her sister could study medicine. After Becquerel's discovery of uranium rays in 1896 she chose to study them.

How they died: She died on 4 July 1934 of aplastic anaemia, likely caused by radiation exposure (some popular sources say leukaemia). In 1995 she became the first woman buried in the Panthéon on her own merits.

• In 1921 she said radium is more than 100,000 times more expensive than gold, and that there is not even one part of radium in a million parts of good ore.
• She said she did her work in a hangar with little equipment, help or money, and did the many crystallisations herself.
• In the First World War she set up mobile and fixed X-ray stations for the wounded, nicknamed 'petites Curies'.

Sources: Marie Curie, The Discovery of Radium (address at Vassar College, 14 May 1921; Wikisource); Franklin Institute: Marie Curie; HISTORY: Marie Curie facts; Wikipedia: Marie Curie

The Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871 (peace signed 10 May 1871))

The immediate cause was the candidacy of a Hohenzollern prince for the Spanish throne. After it was withdrawn, the French ambassador pressed King Wilhelm I at Ems for a promise never to renew it. Bismarck shortened the king's telegram so that the rebuff looked sharper, and France declared war on 19 July 1870. German armies won at Wissembourg, Gravelotte and elsewhere, and at Sedan Napoleon III was captured. Paris was besieged for over four months and fell on 28 January 1871. The Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 required a large indemnity and ceded most of Alsace and parts of Lorraine.

• The original telegram from Heinrich Abeken says the king refused 'somewhat severely' to give a pledge for all time. Bismarck's cut version made the refusal look more final. Historians disagree about whether he meant to provoke war.
• Bismarck himself called the edited telegram a red flag to the Gallic bull.
• The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles in 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors, while France was defeated and occupied.

Sources: Original and Edited Versions of the Ems Dispatch, 13 July 1870 (German History in Documents and Images); Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: Franco-Prussian War

The Third Republic (4 September 1870 to 10 July 1940)

The Republic was proclaimed in Paris on 4 September 1870, after Sedan, by Léon Gambetta and the Parisian deputies. The National Assembly was conservative, but its monarchists could not agree on a king, so the 'temporary' republic became permanent through the constitutional laws of February and July 1875. The crisis of 16 May 1877 ended with the Republicans winning the next election. The Ferry laws of 1881 and 1882 made public schooling free, compulsory and secular. The regime survived the Boulanger crisis, the Panama scandal and the Dreyfus affair, and ended with the fall of France in 1940.

• Thiers described the republic as the form of government that divides the French least.
• Three laws made up the constitution: 24 February, 25 February and 16 July 1875. They were legally revoked only with the 1946 constitution.
• The Republic's colonial acquisitions made France's empire second only to Britain's, reaching about 13.5 million square kilometres at its height in the 1920s and 1930s.

Sources: Léon Gambetta, The Belleville Manifesto, 1869 (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period; Wikipedia: French Third Republic

The Paris Commune (18 March to 28 May 1871)

On 18 March 1871 soldiers sent by Adolphe Thiers failed to seize the cannons on Montmartre, two generals were killed, and the National Guard took control of Paris. Thiers withdrew the government to Versailles. A council of 92 was elected on 26 March, though only about 60 took their seats. Its declaration of 19 to 20 April called for a republic and the autonomy of every commune within a federation. It remitted siege-time rents, abolished night work in bakeries and separated church and state. Government troops retook the city in the Bloody Week of 21 to 28 May.

• The Commune pulled down the Vendôme Column, a monument to Napoleonic glory, on 16 May 1871.
• Estimates of Communards killed in the Bloody Week run from about 10,000 to 15,000, with one unconfirmed 1876 figure of 20,000.
• About 1,169 Communards were sentenced to deportation, mostly to New Caledonia, and the survivors were pardoned in 1880.

Sources: Declaration to the French People, Journal Officiel, 20 April 1871 (translation, anarchistfaq.org appendix); Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (1871), Marxists Internet Archive; Palace of Versailles: from the Revolution to the interwar period (Thiers at Versailles, Bloody Week); Wikipedia: Paris Commune

The first Impressionist exhibition (April 1874)

In April 1874 a group of about 30 artists, organised as the Société anonyme des peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs, showed their work in the former studio of the photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines, outside the official Salon. Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne and Berthe Morisot were among them. On 25 April the critic Louis Leroy mocked the show in the satirical paper Le Charivari, taking his title word from Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise. The artists later adopted the label themselves.

• Leroy wrote his review as a dialogue between himself and a fictional landscape painter, Joseph Vincent, who by the end is dancing in front of a bewildered guard.
• In the review Vincent says an unfinished wallpaper design looks more finished than Monet's seascape, painting No. 98 in the catalogue.
• The group held eight shows between 1874 and 1886, and Berthe Morisot took part in seven of them, missing only 1879.

Sources: Louis Leroy, 'The Exhibition of the Impressionists', Le Charivari, 25 April 1874 (English text, Wikisource); World History Encyclopedia: Impressionism; Wikipedia: Impressionism

The Eiffel Tower (28 January 1887 to 31 March 1889 (opened 15 May 1889))

Built for the 1889 World's Fair, which marked a century since the Revolution, the tower was designed by Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, engineers at Gustave Eiffel's company, with decorative elements added by Stephen Sauvestre. It rose 300 metres, 330 with the antenna, from about 7,300 tonnes of wrought iron and 2.5 million rivets. On 14 February 1887 a protest, 'Artists against the Eiffel Tower', appeared in Le Temps. Eiffel was to receive income from the tower during the exhibition and for 20 years after.

• The protest was published in Le Temps on 14 February 1887, and a Committee of Three Hundred led by Charles Garnier formed around it; Bouguereau, Maupassant, Gounod and Massenet are named among its members. In reply Eiffel asked why what is admirable in Egypt should become hideous in Paris.
• The tower was slated for dismantling in 1909 but was kept because it was useful for radiotelegraphy.
• Nearly 1.9 million people visited the tower during the exhibition, and about 60 tonnes of paint are applied every seven years to prevent rust.

Sources: 'Artists against the Eiffel Tower' (Le Temps, 14 February 1887) and Eiffel's reply: excerpts in English only (Pessimists Archive, a secondary page quoting the originals); HISTORY: Eiffel Tower; Wikipedia: Eiffel Tower

The Dreyfus affair and J'accuse (October 1894 to July 1906 (J'accuse: 13 January 1898))

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian artillery officer of Jewish descent, was arrested in October 1894 after a handwriting analysis linked him to an anonymous note, the bordereau. A closed court-martial convicted him of treason in December, and he was sent to Devil's Island. Lt Col. Georges Picquart later pointed to Major Esterhazy as the real author, but a military court acquitted Esterhazy. Émile Zola answered with an open letter in L'Aurore on 13 January 1898, accusing named officers of covering up the truth. France divided into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards.

• Dreyfus was publicly stripped of his rank in January 1895, in a ceremony met by crowds with antisemitic abuse.
• Each of Zola's charges begins 'I accuse'. He named generals and the handwriting experts, and he wrote that he was ready to be tried so that the truth would come out in daylight.
• Major Hubert Henry later confessed to forgery and died by suicide in 1898. A second court-martial in 1899 found Dreyfus guilty 'with extenuating circumstances', he was pardoned on 19 September 1899 and was cleared in July 1906. On 12 July 2006 President Chirac led a state ceremony for the centenary of his rehabilitation, with descendants of Dreyfus and Zola present.

Sources: Émile Zola, 'I accuse! Letter to the President of the Republic', L'Aurore, 13 January 1898 (Marxists Internet Archive); Émile Zola, The Trial of Émile Zola, containing his letter to President Faure (Project Gutenberg); Encyclopedia.com: The Dreyfus Affair; Wikipedia: Dreyfus affair

The separation of church and state (9 December 1905 (in force 1 January 1906))

Article 1 says the Republic ensures freedom of conscience and guarantees the free exercise of worship, subject to public order. Article 2 says it neither recognises nor pays for any religion, and it removes worship expenses from state and local budgets, with exceptions for chaplaincies in schools, hospitals and prisons. The Chamber of Deputies passed it on 3 July 1905 by 341 to 233 and the Senate on 6 December by 181 to 102. President Loubet signed it on 9 December. It abrogated the Napoleonic Concordat, although Alsace-Moselle, which was German in 1905, still lives under the Concordat.

• Republicans had been asking for separation for decades. The Belleville Manifesto of 1869 listed it among eleven demands.
• France had broken diplomatic relations with the Holy See in July 1904, and they were restored only in 1921.
• In February 1906 Pius X condemned the law in the encyclical Vehementer Nos as a unilateral break of the 1801 Concordat.

Sources: Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Églises et de l'État, original version (French Wikisource); Léon Gambetta, The Belleville Manifesto, 1869 (Fordham Modern History Sourcebook); World History Encyclopedia: Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 and Religious Pluralism; Wikipedia: 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State

The First Battle of the Marne (September 5 to 12, 1914)

In early September 1914 the German armies were advancing south of the Belgian border and passing east of Paris. On the evening of 4 September Joseph Joffre, the French commander, ordered an offensive on the Marne for the next morning, with Paris's military governor Joseph Gallieni pressing him to strike. The fighting lasted about a week. The Germans fell back to the Aisne, and the war turned into four years of trench warfare. The French remember the battle as the 'Miracle on the Marne'.

• Gallieni requisitioned about 600 Paris taxis on the night of 7 to 8 September to carry roughly 6,000 soldiers toward the front. Historians disagree about their military value, but their effect on morale is generally thought to be real.
• On 3 September Joffre replaced General Charles Lanrezac, commander of the Fifth Army, with the more aggressive Louis Franchet d'Espèrey, just before the counter-attack.
• Wikipedia, citing several historians, gives about 250,000 French killed or wounded, about 12,700 British, and about 298,000 German casualties including 38,000 captured. Exact figures are hard to separate from the related fighting.

Sources: George H. Perris, The Battle of the Marne (1920, Project Gutenberg): account by a correspondent with the French armies; History.com: French general gives order to attack at the Marne; Wikipedia: First Battle of the Marne

The Battle of Verdun (February 21 to December 18, 1916)

On 21 February 1916 German guns opened a massive bombardment at Verdun, in north-eastern France. The German chief of staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, wrote after the war that he wanted to wear down the French army by forcing it to defend the ground, though historians still debate his real aim. Fort Douaumont fell on 25 February. Philippe Pétain took over the defence that night, and in early May he was promoted to command a group of armies while Robert Nivelle took over at Verdun. The battle ended on 18 December with the French having retaken much of the lost ground, at a terrible cost on both sides. Verdun became a French symbol of endurance and of the war's cost.

• The Germans took Fort Douaumont on 25 February, four days into the offensive. According to the Mémorial de Verdun, its small garrison did not defend it because the men believed the enemy was still far away.
• Casualty estimates vary. Heer and Naumann (2000) counted 377,231 French and 337,000 German casualties, while Philpott (2014) put the combined total at about 714,000. The Mémorial de Verdun gives almost 700,000 killed or wounded in all.
• Sources disagree by minutes on the opening shot: History.com gives 7:12 a.m. on 21 February, the Mémorial de Verdun 7:15 a.m. The fighting then lasted about ten months.

Sources: Raymond Jubert, 'Verdun (mars-mai 1916)', Revue des Deux Mondes, 1918 (Wikisource): first-person account by an officer who fought there, quoting Pétain's order of 10 April 1916 'Courage, on les aura'; Mémorial de Verdun: The Battle of Verdun; History.com: Battle of Verdun begins; Wikipedia: Battle of Verdun

Georges Clemenceau (November 1917 to January 1920)

Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France 1917 to 1920, Prime Minister · Radical

Clemenceau was a doctor turned journalist and veteran politician who first served as prime minister from 1906 to 1909. President Poincaré recalled him on 16 November 1917, at the age of 76, at a dark point in the war, and he pushed for complete victory. His programme was simple and he said so in the Chamber. After the armistice he led the French side at the Paris Peace Conference, and the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the Hall of Mirrors on 28 June 1919.

How they rose: He returned as prime minister in November 1917, when the war was going badly. Earlier, as a journalist, he had published Émile Zola's 'J'accuse...!' in L'Aurore on 13 January 1898, backing the campaign to reopen the Dreyfus Affair.

How they died: His second term ended in January 1920. On 16 January the republican caucus chose Paul Deschanel as its candidate for the presidency instead of him, and he resigned two days later and stayed out of politics. He died in Paris on 24 November 1929, aged 88.

• On 8 March 1918 he told the Chamber: « Politique intérieure, je fais la guerre ; politique étrangère, je fais la guerre. Je fais toujours la guerre. » He won a vote of confidence, 374 to 41.
• He was wounded in an assassination attempt on 19 February 1919, and the bullet stayed in his body for the rest of his life.
• The Château de Versailles says the date and place of the treaty signing were chosen deliberately: 28 June was five years to the day after the Sarajevo assassination, and the German Empire had been proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors in 1871.

Sources: Georges Clemenceau, speech of 8 March 1918 (Assemblée nationale, Grands discours parlementaires); Larousse encyclopédie: Georges Clemenceau; Château de Versailles: The Treaty of Versailles; Wikipedia: Georges Clemenceau

The Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919)

The Paris Peace Conference opened in January 1919, dominated by the 'Big Four': the UK, France, the United States and Italy. The treaty with Germany was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Germany lost territory, including Alsace-Lorraine, accepted military limits and agreed to pay reparations. The treaty also set up the League of Nations. Historians still argue over how harsh it really was and how far it caused later events.

• Article 231 says Germany accepts responsibility 'for causing all the loss and damage' suffered by the Allies. Article 232 admits that Germany's resources are not adequate to make complete reparation.
• A Reparation Commission was to fix Germany's liability by 1 May 1921 and set a schedule for payment within thirty years from that date.
• The US Senate fell short of ratifying the treaty in a final vote on 19 March 1920, by seven votes.

Sources: The Versailles Treaty, Part VIII: Reparation (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Office of the Historian: The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles; Château de Versailles: The Treaty of Versailles

The Popular Front (May 1936 to 1938)

The Popular Front won the general election of 3 May 1936 with 386 of 608 seats, and Léon Blum became prime minister. A wave of strikes followed. The government oversaw the Matignon Agreements between the employers' confederation and the CGT union, then passed laws on the 40-hour week and paid holidays. The coalition dissolved itself in autumn 1938.

• The Matignon Agreements were concluded overnight on 7 to 8 June 1936. Larousse dates them to 7 June and the text on Wikimedia Commons to 8 June. They recognised union rights, allowed collective contracts and created staff delegates.
• Workers won twelve days (two weeks) of paid annual leave, and the Chamber voted the 40-hour week on 11 June 1936.
• By 1938 the Radicals had taken control of the coalition, forced the Socialists out and ended the 40-hour limit.

Sources: Accords de Matignon, 8 juin 1936: texte complet des sept articles (Wikimedia Commons, from the French Labour Ministry); Larousse encyclopédie: accords Matignon; Wikipedia: Popular Front (France)

Léon Blum (June 1936 to June 1937)

Léon Blum, Prime Minister of France 1936 to 1937, Prime Minister · Socialist

Blum, born in Paris in 1872, was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus Affair. He led the Socialists and became prime minister in June 1936 after the Popular Front's election win. His government is remembered for the Matignon Agreements and the social laws that followed. He served three terms in all: 1936 to 1937, a few weeks in 1938, and a short post-war government from December 1946 to January 1947.

How they rose: The Popular Front won the May 1936 election, and Blum, a Socialist leader, became prime minister in June 1936.

How they died: His first government fell on 22 June 1937. After the defeat of 1940 the Vichy regime tried him on treason charges but never reached a judgment, and he was held in the Buchenwald concentration camp. He returned to politics after the war and died on 30 March 1950 at Jouy-en-Josas.

• Larousse calls him the first socialist and the first Jewish person to serve as French prime minister.
• He held the office three times: 4 June 1936 to 22 June 1937, 13 March to 10 April 1938, and 16 December 1946 to 22 January 1947.
• The Matignon Agreements of June 1936, concluded under the arbitration of his government, created staff delegates in firms and recognised union rights.

Sources: Accords de Matignon, 8 juin 1936: texte complet (Wikimedia Commons, from the French Labour Ministry); Larousse encyclopédie: Léon Blum; Larousse encyclopédie: accords Matignon; Wikipedia: Léon Blum

The Fall of France (May 10 to June 25, 1940)

Germany invaded the Low Countries and France on 10 May 1940. Its armoured units crossed the Ardennes and the Meuse and drove down the Somme valley, trapping the Allied forces that had advanced into Belgium. Italy entered the war on 10 June, and Paris was occupied without a fight on 14 June. The armistice was signed on 22 June in the forest of Compiègne. It led to the German occupation of northern and Atlantic France and to the Vichy government in the south.

• The signing took place at Compiègne because Germany had signed the 1918 armistice there. General Wilhelm Keitel handed the German conditions to General Charles Huntziger.
• The armistice stipulated that three-fifths of France would be occupied, including the main industrial areas in the north. The German History in Documents and Images abstract calls it 'factually a dictate'.
• Wikipedia's casualty table for the Allies lists 73,000 killed, 240,000 wounded, 15,000 missing and 1,756,000 captured, for all Allied armies together.

Sources: Maréchal Pétain's first broadcast to the French, 17 June 1940 (INA archive audio); German History in Documents and Images: Signing of the Franco-German Armistice at Compiègne, June 22, 1940; Wikipedia: Battle of France

Philippe Pétain (July 1940 to August 1944)

Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of the French State (Vichy), Vichy France

Pétain was born in 1856 and became known as the 'Lion of Verdun' after taking over the defence of that battle in February 1916. In June 1940 he took over a collapsing government and asked for an armistice. On 10 July 1940 Parliament voted full powers to him and ended the Third Republic, and he became head of the French State on 11 July. The regime, based in Vichy, held legislative, judicial, executive and diplomatic power in his person.

How they came to power: On 16 June 1940 Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned and President Albert Lebrun appointed Pétain. On 10 July Parliament voted to replace the Third Republic with the French State, and Pétain became its head on 11 July.

How it ended: Vichy ended in August 1944. His treason trial began in Paris on 23 July 1945, and he was sentenced to death on 14 to 15 August (sources give both dates). Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment on the Île d'Yeu, where Pétain died on 23 July 1951, aged 95.

• Vichy issued its first Statute on Jews on 3 October 1940, creating a segregated class of Jewish citizens and barring them from many professions.
• In the Vel d'Hiv roundup of 16 to 17 July 1942, French police arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,051 children. The Jewish Virtual Library says the Vichy government helped in the deportation of about 76,000 Jews, and notes that the number varies by account.
• He was born on 24 April 1856, so he was 84 when he became head of state in 1940 and 89 at his trial.

Sources: Maréchal Pétain's first message to the French, 17 June 1940 (INA archive audio); Jewish Virtual Library: The French Vichy Regime; EBSCO Research Starters: French war hero Pétain is convicted of Nazi collaboration; Wikipedia: Philippe Pétain

The Appeal of 18 June (June 18, 1940)

On 18 June 1940, the day after Pétain asked for an armistice, de Gaulle spoke from London on the BBC. He said the defeat was not final, that France was not alone and that the war was a world war. He invited French officers, soldiers and engineers in Britain to contact him. The speech is seen as the start of the Resistance, though few people heard it at the time.

• No recording of the broadcast survives, and historians consider most later accounts of hearing it to be false memories. The Fondation Charles de Gaulle's teaching site says the text was revised in consultation, or even in opposition, with the British government.
• Permission for the broadcast came from the British government but was nearly withdrawn. It aired at 10 pm BST.
• Only about 300 of 10,000 French citizens in Britain volunteered at first, and about 7,000 of more than 100,000 French soldiers there stayed to join him (Wikipedia).

Sources: De Gaulle, Appeal of 18 June 1940, full text (Ordre de la Libération); Fondation Charles de Gaulle (Enseigner de Gaulle): L'appel du 18 juin 1940; Wikipedia: Appeal of 18 June

Jean Moulin (1940 to 1943)

Jean Moulin, head of the National Council of the Resistance, Resistance leader

Jean Moulin was born in Béziers in 1899 and was a civil servant who had been prefect of Eure-et-Loir since January 1939. After the defeat he joined the Resistance under the alias Joseph Mercier and went to London, where he met de Gaulle in late October 1941. De Gaulle sent him back to unify the movements, and he was parachuted into Provence on 1 January 1942. On 27 May 1943 he chaired the first meeting of the National Council of the Resistance in Paris.

How they rose: On 17 June 1940 he refused German demands to sign a statement blaming Senegalese soldiers for civilian killings, and he attempted suicide in custody. Vichy dismissed him in November 1940, and he moved into the Resistance.

How they died: He was arrested at Caluire, near Lyon, on 21 June 1943 during a meeting at a doctor's house and was tortured by Klaus Barbie. He died on 8 July 1943 while being moved toward Germany, and the exact circumstances remain uncertain. Who betrayed him is still disputed. His ashes entered the Panthéon on 19 December 1964.

• Raymond Aubrac, arrested with him, said in a 1963 interview that he last saw Moulin at Montluc prison in Lyon, injured and held up by two German policemen.
• Under the pseudonym Romanin, he also drew and published political cartoons.
• The first meeting of the National Council of the Resistance took place in Paris on 27 May 1943, with Moulin in the chair.

Sources: Raymond Aubrac recounts the arrest of Jean Moulin, 1963 interview (INA); Larousse encyclopédie: Jean Moulin; Wikipedia: Jean Moulin

Charles de Gaulle (1944 to 1946 and 1959 to 1969)

Charles de Gaulle, leader of Free France and President of the Fifth Republic, Free France · Fifth Republic

De Gaulle was born in Lille in 1890 and was a French general and statesman. He led the Free French forces against Germany and Vichy, and he chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946. He returned to power in 1958 during the Algiers crisis and oversaw the constitution of the Fifth Republic. As president he oversaw Algeria's independence, withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command and built an independent nuclear force.

How they came to power: He left France on 17 June 1940 and broadcast his Appeal from London the next day. After the Liberation he led the provisional government, and in 1958 he returned as prime minister. He took office as president on 8 January 1959 and was re-elected in 1965.

How it ended: He resigned on 28 April 1969 after losing a referendum on Senate reform and regionalisation. He died on 9 November 1970 at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, of a ruptured aneurysm.

• On 28 October 1962 voters approved the direct election of the president by referendum, by 62.25 percent, replacing the electoral college (Conseil constitutionnel).
• The famous line 'France has lost a battle, but has not lost the war' comes from the 'A tous les Français' poster distributed in London in August 1940, not from the Appeal of 18 June.
• A military court at Clermont-Ferrand sentenced him to death in absentia on 3 August 1940 for treason and desertion abroad; the judgment was annulled in January 1945 (Fondation Charles de Gaulle).

Sources: De Gaulle, Appeal of 18 June 1940 (Fondation Charles de Gaulle: text and manuscript page); Constitution of 4 October 1958, English text (Conseil constitutionnel); Fondation Charles de Gaulle: Frise chronologique (3 August 1940 sentence); Fondation Charles de Gaulle: décès du général de Gaulle, 9 novembre 1970; Wikipedia: Charles de Gaulle

The Liberation of Paris (August 19 to 26, 1944)

The French Forces of the Interior began an uprising on 19 August 1944, and Paris police joined in. Within about 36 hours more than 600 barricades had gone up. Swedish consul Raoul Nordling brokered a truce that neither side fully kept. General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division entered the city, and on 25 August the German commander, Dietrich von Choltitz, surrendered. De Gaulle spoke at the Hôtel de Ville that evening and led a parade on 26 August.

• Choltitz surrendered despite preliminary orders from Hitler that Paris must not fall 'except lying in complete debris'. 'Is Paris Burning?' is the English title of Choltitz's 1950 memoir, not a documented Hitler quote.
• The surrender convention was signed at the Préfecture de police. Colonel Rol-Tanguy, chief of the FFI, was present, and his signature was added to one copy of the convention.
• Sources differ on the dead. The Musée de la résistance en ligne lists 901 FFI killed and about 3,200 Germans, while Wikipedia's text gives 800 to 1,000 Resistance dead.

Sources: La Libération de Paris, 24-26 août 1944: surrender convention and documents (Musée de la résistance en ligne); The National WWII Museum: The Liberation of Paris; History.com: Paris is liberated after four years of Nazi occupation; Wikipedia: Liberation of Paris

Women win the vote (April 21, 1944 (first votes April 29, 1945))

Women in France could not vote before 1944. The Chamber of Deputies backed the reform after the First World War, but the Senate repeatedly refused to take it up. The ordinance on public powers after the Liberation, dated 21 April 1944 and signed in Algiers, settled the question. Its Article 17 says women are voters and eligible 'in the same conditions as men'. They first voted in the municipal elections of 29 April 1945.

• The first draft, of 24 March 1944, gave women only the right to be elected. A communist delegate to the Algiers Consultative Assembly, Fernand Grenier, proposed the amendment that added the vote.
• The National Council of the Resistance left women's suffrage out of its programme of 15 March 1944 because Paul Bastid's opposition blocked it under the unanimity rule.
• In the legislative elections of 21 October 1945, thirty-three women won seats. They entered the Palais Bourbon on 6 November 1945 (Sénat).

Sources: 21 avril 1944: l'accession des femmes au droit de vote, Article 17 (Assemblée nationale); Sénat: Le vote des femmes; Wikipedia: Women's suffrage in France

Dien Bien Phu (March 13 to May 7, 1954)

General Henri Navarre set up a fortified base at Dien Bien Phu to cut Viet Minh supply lines into Laos. Colonel Christian de Castries commanded the garrison, and General Vo Nguyen Giap directed the besiegers. The Viet Minh hauled heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns into the hills around the valley. The garrison surrendered on 7 May. The Geneva Conference opened the next day and its July accords divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel.

• Wikipedia gives a garrison of about 10,800 troops on 13 March, rising to roughly 14,000 by 7 May. After the surrender 11,721 men were captured, the most the Viet Minh had ever taken.
• History.com says only about 3,300 French prisoners returned home, and that the French lost 62 aircraft with 167 more damaged.
• The Final Declaration at Geneva, dated 21 July 1954, called the military demarcation line 'provisional' and set general elections for July 1956. Those elections never took place.

Sources: Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China, 21 July 1954 (Avalon Project); History.com: Battle of Dien Bien Phu; Wikipedia: Battle of Dien Bien Phu

The Algerian War (November 1, 1954 to July 1962)

The war began on 1 November 1954 with attacks by the FLN, the Algerian National Liberation Front. In the Battle of Algiers, from 1956 to 1957, French paratroopers under General Massu broke the FLN's urban network, and the army's use of torture became a major controversy in France. The crisis helped bring down the Fourth Republic in 1958. The Évian Accords of 18 March 1962 set a ceasefire from 19 March, and a referendum in Algeria on 1 July 1962 approved independence.

• Estimates of Algerian dead run from about 400,000 to 1.5 million, depending on who gives the figure. French military dead are put at 23,196 to 25,600 (Wikipedia).
• About 900,000 to 1 million pieds-noirs left for France within months of independence. The fate of the harkis, Algerians who had served with the French army, is much debated, and estimates of those killed after the ceasefire vary widely.
• A US State Department editorial note records that the OAS, a far-right paramilitary group, renewed its campaign of terrorism in Algeria after the Évian accords, and that a temporary truce was agreed in Algiers on 1 June 1962.

Sources: Les accords d'Évian: full text, including the cease-fire agreement of 19 March 1962 (Université Laval, CEFAN); Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963, vol. XXI, document 65: editorial note on the OAS after the Évian accords; Sénat: Responsabilité de la France à l'égard des harkis et de leurs familles (exposé des motifs); Wikipedia: Algerian War

The Fifth Republic (September 28 to October 4, 1958)

The Fifth Republic was established on 4 October 1958 under a constitution drafted by Charles de Gaulle's government, after the Algiers crisis. In the referendum of 28 September 1958 the constitution won 82.6 percent of valid votes, according to the Conseil constitutionnel. The system is semi-presidential: a president is head of state and a prime minister heads the government. Michel Debré, who led the drafting, was the first prime minister, serving from 1959 to 1962.

• Article 16 lets the president take emergency measures when the institutions of the Republic, the independence of the Nation or the integrity of its territory are under 'serious and immediate threat'.
• On 28 October 1962 a referendum approved direct election of the president, replacing the electoral college. It passed with 62.25 percent of valid votes.
• A referendum in 2000 shortened the presidential term from seven years to five. It passed with 73.21 percent of valid votes on a turnout of about 30 percent.

Sources: Constitution of 4 October 1958, English text (Conseil constitutionnel); Conseil constitutionnel: Tableau récapitulatif des référendums de la Ve République; Assemblée nationale: 4 octobre 1958, la Constitution de 1958 et l'instauration de la Ve République

May 1968 (March to June 1968)

Protests began on 22 March when about 150 students occupied an administration building at Nanterre. On 3 May students met at the Sorbonne to oppose the closure of Nanterre, and the night of 10 to 11 May saw street battles and barricades in the Latin Quarter. A general strike followed and spread to factories. The Grenelle agreements were signed on 27 May. On 30 May de Gaulle announced on the radio that he would not withdraw and dissolved the National Assembly, and his party and its allies won a large majority in the elections of 23 and 30 June.

• Estimates of strikers range from about 7 million (Larousse, at the peak) to about 10 million (ABC and Wikipedia).
• The Grenelle agreements promised a 10 percent wage rise and a 35 percent rise in the minimum wage, but union members rejected them and the strike continued.
• On 29 May de Gaulle secretly left for Baden-Baden in West Germany. In the June election, according to Wikipedia, the Gaullists and their allies won about 354 of the 487 seats, though its pages give slightly different totals.

Sources: De Gaulle, radio address of 30 May 1968: 'Je ne me retirerai pas. Je dissous aujourd'hui l'Assemblée nationale' (Fondation Charles de Gaulle); Larousse encyclopédie: événements de mai 1968; ABC News (Australia): May 1968, the French general strike that changed the world; Wikipedia: May 68

Georges Pompidou (June 1969 to April 1974)

Georges Pompidou, President of France 1969 to 1974, Fifth Republic · Gaullist

Pompidou was born in Montboudif in 1911, trained at the École normale supérieure and became general manager of the Rothschild bank. He was de Gaulle's prime minister from April 1962 to July 1968, the longest tenure of any prime minister of the Fifth Republic. As president he continued the modernisation drive, backing Concorde, the TGV and nuclear and aerospace programmes. He decided in 1969 to build a national art and culture centre at Beaubourg, which opened in 1977 as the Centre Pompidou.

How they came to power: After de Gaulle resigned following the failed 1969 referendum, Pompidou won the June 1969 presidential run-off against Alain Poher with about 58 percent of the vote (11,064,371 votes to 7,943,118).

How it ended: He died in office on 2 April 1974 of Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, a rare blood cancer whose severity had been officially concealed. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing succeeded him.

• He was appointed prime minister on 14 April 1962 and left the post in July 1968, so he led the government through the May 1968 crisis.
• He is credited with facilitating Britain's entry into the European Community, which took effect on 1 January 1973 (Wikipedia).
• His presidency oversaw large Paris projects, including the Les Halles redevelopment and an expressway along the right bank of the Seine.

Sources: Conseil constitutionnel, décision n° 69-22 PDR du 19 juin 1969: proclamation of Georges Pompidou as President of the Republic; Assemblée nationale: Il y a 50 ans, Georges Pompidou (biographie); Centre Pompidou: chronology of the Beaubourg project (decision of December 1969, competition, inauguration 1977); Wikipedia: Georges Pompidou

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (May 1974 to May 1981)

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of France 1974 to 1981, Fifth Republic · Centre-right

Giscard d'Estaing was finance minister before winning the presidency. His government lowered the voting age to 18, modernised divorce law and backed Simone Veil's law legalising abortion. With West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt he helped create the European Monetary System and the summit group that became the G7. The oil crisis weighed on his economic record, and his government pursued austerity under Prime Minister Raymond Barre.

How they came to power: He won the 19 May 1974 runoff against François Mitterrand with about 50.8 percent of the vote (some sources give 50.7).

How it ended: He lost the 10 May 1981 runoff to Mitterrand, taking 48.2 percent of the vote. The Diamonds Affair, over gifts from the Central African leader Bokassa, damaged his reputation before the vote. He died on 2 December 2020 at Authon, aged 94, of complications linked to Covid-19, and is described as the longest-lived French president.

• Simone Veil, his health minister, told the National Assembly on 26 November 1974 that abortion 'should remain the exception, the last resort for situations with no other option'.
• She pointed to 300,000 abortions a year, and the bill passed with support from the left-wing opposition (France 24).
• After office he chaired the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted the EU constitutional treaty that French voters rejected in 2005. He was elected to the Académie française on 11 December 2003, the first former French head of state to join it (France 24 and the Académie).

Sources: Simone Veil's speech before the National Assembly, 26 November 1974 (English translation, Translorial); France 24: Key dates in the life of former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing; Académie française: Décès de M. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing; France 24: Simone Veil, French Holocaust survivor who championed women's rights; Wikipedia: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

François Mitterrand (May 1981 to May 1995)

François Mitterrand, President of France 1981 to 1995, Fifth Republic · Socialist

Mitterrand began on the Catholic nationalist right, served under Vichy in its early years, then joined the Resistance and moved left. He led the Socialist Party and won the presidency in 1981. His first term brought nationalisations, the 39-hour week and the abolition of the death penalty, before economic pressure pushed him toward austerity. He twice governed alongside conservative cabinets, in 1986 to 1988 and 1993 to 1995. With Chancellor Helmut Kohl he pushed European integration through the Maastricht Treaty.

How they came to power: He narrowly lost the 1974 election to Giscard d'Estaing, led the Socialists and won the presidency in the runoff of 10 May 1981.

How it ended: He left office in May 1995 and died in January 1996, less than eight months later, of prostate cancer that he had largely concealed during his presidency.

• On 16 March 1981, during the campaign, he declared himself against the death penalty. Abolition became law on 9 October 1981.
• The 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, ordered by his government, caused a major controversy during his presidency.
• He won the 10 May 1981 runoff against Giscard d'Estaing with 51.7 percent of the vote (France 24).

Sources: Robert Badinter, speech of 17 September 1981 on abolishing the death penalty (Assemblée nationale); France 24: Robert Badinter, the lawyer who fought to end the death penalty in France; France 24: Key dates in the life of former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1981 result); Wikipedia: François Mitterrand

Abolition of the death penalty (September 17 to October 9, 1981)

Robert Badinter, justice minister in Pierre Mauroy's government, presented the abolition bill to the National Assembly on 17 September 1981. It was a commitment of Mitterrand's presidential campaign. The bill passed the Assembly on 18 September according to France 24 and Wikipedia, and after both chambers voted the law was promulgated on 9 October 1981. All seven remaining death sentences were commuted. Article 66-1 of the Constitution, adopted in 2007, now says no one can be sentenced to death.

• The last execution was of Hamida Djandoubi, guillotined at Marseille on 10 September 1977.
• Badinter's client Roger Bontems was executed in 1972 for complicity in a killing, and Badinter later said that after witnessing it he swore to become an activist against the death penalty.
• The vote count is reported two ways. The Assemblée nationale's page gives 363 for, 113 against and 117 abstentions, while France 24 and Wikipedia give 363 to 117.

Sources: Robert Badinter, speech of 17 September 1981 (Assemblée nationale, Grands discours parlementaires); French Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Abolition of the death penalty; France 24: Robert Badinter, the lawyer who fought to end the death penalty in France; Wikipedia: Capital punishment in France

Jacques Chirac (May 1995 to May 2007)

Jacques Chirac, President of France 1995 to 2007, Fifth Republic · Gaullist / centre-right

Chirac was president from 17 May 1995 to 16 May 2007. His term includes the 2000 referendum that cut the presidential term from seven years to five. In July 1995 he became the first French leader to acknowledge his country's wartime responsibility for crimes against Jews. In 2002 he won re-election in a runoff against Jean-Marie Le Pen. He opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in 2005 French voters rejected the EU constitution.

How they came to power: He was elected in 1995 and took office on 17 May. In the second round of 2002 he won 82.2 percent of the vote against the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen.

How it ended: His term ended on 16 May 2007, when Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded him. In December 2011 he was found guilty of corruption in a political funding case and received a two-year suspended sentence. He died on 26 September 2019, aged 86.

• On 16 July 1995 he said that 'France, on that day, committed an irreparable act' and that 'our debt to them is inalienable', speaking at the Vel d'Hiv commemoration (English translation).
• On 18 March 2003, a day after the American ultimatum to Iraq, he said Iraq was 'certainly not an immediate danger to anybody' (Dawn, 19 March 2003).
• In the 2005 referendum on the EU constitution, 54.67 percent voted No on a turnout of 69.37 percent (Conseil constitutionnel).

Sources: Speech of President Jacques Chirac, 16 July 1995, Vel d'Hiv commemoration (English translation, Provence 1940-1944); The Jewish Chronicle: July 16, 1995, Chirac admits France's role in Nazi crimes; Dawn: Iraq is no danger, says Chirac (19 March 2003); Conseil constitutionnel: Tableau récapitulatif des référendums de la Ve République; Wikipedia: Jacques Chirac

The euro (January 1, 1999 to January 1, 2002)

The euro launched on 1 January 1999 as an accounting currency. Euro cash followed on 1 January 2002, replacing national currencies at fixed conversion rates. France joined in 1999, with cash arriving in 2002. Under the Council regulation on the introduction of the euro, the notes and coins became legal tender, with a dual circulation period of up to six months.

• Greece adopted the euro in 2001, with cash from 2002. Bulgaria is listed by the ECB as using the euro since 2026.
• The ECB says euro cash is legal tender in 21 of the 27 EU Member States. Every EU country except Denmark, which has an opt-out, is expected to join in time.
• Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City use the euro under formal arrangements, while Montenegro and Kosovo use it without one.

Sources: Council Regulation (EC) No 974/98 on the introduction of the euro (text as retained on legislation.gov.uk); European Central Bank: Our money (the euro's history and member states); Wikipedia: Euro

Nicolas Sarkozy (May 2007 to May 2012)

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France 2007 to 2012, Fifth Republic · UMP / centre-right

Sarkozy had been mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and minister of the budget, the interior and finance before the presidency. His term covered the 2008 financial crisis, the Russo-Georgian War, for which he negotiated a ceasefire, and the Arab Spring. He pushed through university reform in 2007 and pension reform in 2010.

How they came to power: He won the 2007 election with 53.1 percent against Ségolène Royal.

How it ended: He lost the 2012 election to François Hollande by about 3 points. Courts later convicted him in two cases. In September 2021 a court found him guilty of illegal campaign financing in the Bygmalion affair, with a one-year sentence that could be served at home with an electronic bracelet; his lawyer said he would appeal. In September 2025 a Paris court found him guilty of criminal conspiracy over Libyan funding for his 2007 campaign and sentenced him to five years, while acquitting him of the other charges. An appeal trial ran from March 2026, with a verdict expected in the autumn. He is living.

• On 21 March 2008, at Cherbourg, he said French nuclear deterrence 'is strictly defensive' and that the use of nuclear weapons would be conceivable only 'in extreme circumstances of legitimate defense'.
• The occasion was the presentation of Le Terrible, 'the fourth and latest addition to our strategic fleet'.
• The Bygmalion court found he spent at least 42.8 million euros on his 2012 campaign, nearly double the 22.5 million euro limit (France 24).

Sources: Speech by Nicolas Sarkozy, Presentation of Le Terrible in Cherbourg, 21 March 2008 (English text from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via Disarmament Diplomacy); France 24: Sarkozy to serve a year of house arrest for illegal campaign financing; France 24: 'I'm innocent': Sarkozy challenges conviction over alleged Libya funding (April 2026); Wikipedia: Nicolas Sarkozy

François Hollande (May 2012 to May 2017)

François Hollande, President of France 2012 to 2017, Fifth Republic · Socialist

Hollande, born in Rouen in 1954, led the Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008. His government legalised same-sex marriage in 2013, reformed labour law and withdrew French combat forces from Afghanistan, and he authorised a military intervention in Mali in January 2013. He led France through the 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Nice attack, and Paris hosted the 2015 UN climate conference.

How they came to power: He won the May 2012 presidential election, defeating Nicolas Sarkozy, and took office that month.

How it ended: On 1 December 2016 he announced he would not seek re-election, and Emmanuel Macron succeeded him in May 2017. In 2024 he returned to the National Assembly, winning the Corrèze 1st constituency. He is living.

• On 16 November 2015, three days after the attacks that killed at least 129 people, he opened a speech to Parliament at Versailles with 'La France est en guerre.'
• In that speech he said France would intensify its operations in Syria, announced a bill extending the state of emergency for three months and proposed a constitutional revision for crisis situations.
• He also proposed that people convicted of terrorism could lose French nationality if they held another one, 'même s'il est né français', and announced 5,000 additional police and gendarmerie posts over two years.

Sources: François Hollande, address to Parliament in Congress at Versailles, 16 November 2015 (Presidency press service, French text); Sénat: Les messages du Président Hollande devant le Parlement réuni en congrès; Wikipedia: François Hollande

Emmanuel Macron (May 2017 to today)

Emmanuel Macron, President of France since 2017, Fifth Republic · Renaissance

Macron was born in Amiens on 21 December 1977. He trained at the École nationale d'administration and worked as a finance inspector and then as an investment banker at Rothschild & Co. He was deputy secretary-general of the Élysée from 2012 to 2014 and minister of the economy until 2016. His first term included labour, tax and pension reforms, along with the yellow vests movement and a major pension strike.

How they came to power: He founded his party in 2016 and won the 2017 runoff against Marine Le Pen with 66.10 percent of valid votes, becoming France's youngest president at 39. He took office on 14 May 2017 and was re-elected on 24 April 2022 with 58.55 percent.

How it ended: He is living and still in office. After 2022 his coalition lost its majority in the National Assembly, and a 2023 law raised the retirement age to 64 and led to further strikes.

• In his Sorbonne speech of 26 September 2017 he said 'I have come to talk to you about Europe' and built it around six 'keys' to sovereignty.
• He proposed a common European intervention force, a common defence budget and a common doctrine, and a euro-zone budget under a common minister.
• As president of the Republic he is also, by that office, a co-prince of Andorra, a role he has held since 14 May 2017.

Sources: Macron's 2017 speech on a new initiative for Europe, Sorbonne (official translation, Wikisource); Conseil constitutionnel, décision n° 2017-171 PDR du 10 mai 2017: proclamation of the result of the presidential election; Conseil constitutionnel: results of the second round, proclamation of 27 April 2022; Wikipedia: Emmanuel Macron

The Notre-Dame fire (April 15, 2019 (reopened December 7, 2024))

The fire broke out at 18:18 CEST on 15 April 2019, with the alarm sounding at 18:20. The spire collapsed at about 19:50 and the fire was under control by 21:45. Most of the wooden roof and the spire were destroyed, but the stone vaulting largely contained the damage. Nobody died. In a televised address on 16 April Macron said he wanted the cathedral rebuilt and finished within five years, and it reopened on 7 December 2024.

• The roof carried over 400 metric tonnes of lead (Wikipedia).
• Investigators believed the fire was caused by either a cigarette or a short circuit. No definitive cause has been established, and on 26 June 2019 the Paris prosecutor found no evidence of a criminal motive.
• More than 1 billion euros was pledged by 22 April 2019, though by September 2021 over 840 million had actually been contributed by at least 320,000 donors (Wikipedia).

Sources: Emmanuel Macron, address to the French, 16 April 2019: 'je veux que cela soit achevé d'ici à cinq années' (INA transcript); Public Sénat: Conseil des ministres au chevet de Notre-Dame, que Macron veut rebâtir d'ici cinq années; France 24: Paris prepares to host 50 heads of state at high-security reopening of Notre-Dame (December 2024); Wikipedia: Notre-Dame de Paris fire