Henri II, who married his sister with the duke of Savoy and his daughter with king d' Espagne, gave the most brilliant festivals, balls, masquerades, feasts, tournaments and tournaments where the largest lords appeared.

The last Henri day descended itself in the string which it had made establish at the end of the street Saint-Anthony, opposite the royal hotel of the Small towers, and it was made there admire by his strength and its address, but, at the time to withdraw itself, it wanted jouter with its captain of the guards, the count de Montgommery: the two riders ran up so violently that the two lances broke, and that the glares of that of Montgommery were inserted under the visor of the king, burst the eye, and penetrated to the brain.

Henri expired after eleven days of sufferings; he was old only forty and one years (July 1559).

The duke of Nemours did not deserve any pity, but the cruelty of Louis XI was odious: it ordered itself to the judges to torture it "quite narrow", to tear off great cries to him; then it made it decapitate.

The Bastille had been started in 1370 and had been finished in 1383: it was composed of eight gigantic turns connected the ones to the others by thick walls of eight feet, with broad and deep ditches.

With the advent of Charles VII, the Bastille, the large fortress of Paris, was with the capacity of the English.

When Pierre the Hermit had told with sobs the sufferings of the Holy Land Christians, the pope Urbain II rose on his throne and harangua innumerable crowd: "Men of France, says it, time had extinguished between you any hatred, and had just linked your forces against the enemies of God.

If you feel retained by the love of your children, your parents and your wives, think of the eternal life and with the imperishable glory which awaits you "A these words an immense cry burst" God wants it ", then all the multitude prosterna against ground so that the pope gave him the discharge.

The States General were composed of deputies of the nobility, the clergy and the third state; but the noble ones, cut down by their defeats, had lost very ascending on the Parisian ones; they were withdrawn and any more but did not think of fighting; the clergy, directed by Robert Lecoq, bishop of Laon, supported the third state in its complaints; the influence passed thus to people of the trades, and mainly to the clothier Étienne Marcel.

With the death of Louis XI the lords were agitated to seize the capacity; the duke of Orleans, which was Louis XII later, put himself at their head, and madly took the weapons with the duke of Brittany; the royal army reached revolted with Saint-Aubin-of-Cormier, not far from Ferns, and cut them in parts: four thousand men remained on the battle field, and the duke of Orleans was made prisoner (1488).

A few days after funerals of Louis XIV, September 12, 1715, the young person Louis XV was brought of Vincennes in Paris by his Villeroi tutor, and held in the Palais Royal a bed of justice, i.e.

a solemn assembly, where the duke of Orleans was proclaimed regent, contrary to the wills of Louis XIV.

The foreign war and the heavy taxes had plunged the people in most dreadful misery, but holy Vincent of Paul traversed France, preaching charity, and when it had joined together alms, it collected the found children, the old men and the patients, that the "Sisters of St-Vincent-of-Paul looked after".

The knights were covered with iron of the head to the feet: they had the heaume at the head, the haubert with the back, the ecu with the left arm and the lance with the fist.

The people of Paris had been assembled in great number on June 20, birthday day of the oath of the Play of Palm, to protest against the reference of the ministers of Gironde.

Led by the Santerre brewer, the mob invades the room of the assembly, then located in the garden of Tileries, then went in the place of the Carrousel, forced the door of the palate, and penetrated while vociferating in the royal apartments.

The king, overpowered insults and threats, was constrained of drinking wine glass to the health of the people, and putting on on his head a red bonnet.

The queen, more insulted even than the king, had the life only with the energy of some national guards.

Crowd did not put less than five hours to weary itself of this wretched play.

Robert the Fort, having learned that the Norman ones had plundered the city of Mans, solved to cut the road of Angers to them and to take again the spoils to them: he reached them in Brissarthe, beat them and locked up them in the Church.

The day seemed finished and Robert, exhausted heat, had removed his armour and his helmet, when suddenly the Norman ones spring on the dispersed French: Robert, without giving time to take again his armour, precipitates in the fray and fall bored blows on the steps from the Church (July 866).

Luxembourg pointed out the large Cop by his impetuosity and its audacity.

Surprised in Steinkerque by the king of England, it rejoined its troops and restores the combat by marvellous operations.

The cavalry of the house of the king and the dragons of Boufflers were illustrated by splendid loads, which completed the victory.

King Guillaume lost 8000 men and folded up himself on Brussels (August 1692.)

The Clotaire 1st, youngest of son of Clovis, had about fifteen years with died of his father.

It took part in the wars against Thuringiens, Burgondes and the Visigoths, but it was a malicious and brutal barbarian who announced himself especially by his crimes.

The invasion had upset the company; manners became again wild, and the Church alone prevented civilization from perishing.

King de Pologne of 1704 to 1712, duke of Lorraine in 1758, died in 1766.

Several ministers underwent the last torment, and so that the assistants could not hear their exhortations, of the drums beat with the foot of the scaffold.

Eudes was worthy of his Robert father the Fort, it made with Norman terrible war; one did not speak any more but about his victories, still grown by popular imagination.

Thus the Abbon poet tells that in Montfaucon in Argonne, Eudes, with thousand warriors only, overcame nineteen thousand Norman, passed half to the son of the sword, and killed their chief in singular combat from there.

This legend even shows which services returned men like Eudes, and how much the people were grateful to them.

Louis XIV had seen dying before him his son and the elder one of his grandsons: it was its great-grandson, five years old, who succeeded to him under the name of Louis XV.

After the battle of Arch, Henri IV went quickly on Paris to remove it from a blow of hand; supported by the fog, it surprised the suburbs of left bank, Saint-Germain, Saint-Jacob, Saint-Marceau and Saint-Victor, and seized some with the cry "Saint-Barthélemy": he had not enough world to be maintained there, but its soldiers, who had not been paid for a long time, withdrew themselves only while taking along large spoils, guns and four hundred prisoners, among whom many monks.

Marshal of France in 1625, Schomberg drove out the English of the island of D, was useful with glory with the seat of the Small rock, then in the war against Savoy, and died in 1632, after having overcome Montmorency.

Louis XI who wanted all to know, all to see and to do everything by itself, started his reign by visiting the provinces of his kingdom; the adventure which arrived to him close to Bordeaux shows which were then the dangers of a voyage; while descending the Gironde on a boat, little was necessary of it that it was not removed by an English corsair, who was boldly advanced in the river; the king of France escaped only by making force from oars, and while hiding several hours in tufts of reeds.

Coligny had fought bravely in the wars against Charles-Quint and Philippe II.

After the death of Henri II, it was made calvinist, taken share with the wars of religion and became the chief of the party protesting with died of Cop in 1569.

Impatient to reign, the Louis dolphin had been put at the head of noble that the reforms of Charles VII dissatisfied; but the middle-class men and a part of noble decided vigorously against this revolt which benefitted the English.

The Dolphin, abandoned as of his, came to kneel in front of his father and to beseech his grace: "Be welcome, tells him the king, if you are determined not to fall down in similar faults; if not, the doors are open for you; we will ask others to help us to maintain our honor "

The GUI of oak was with the eyes of Gallic marvellous and crowned object; the priests chaired the gathering of the GUI, as a religious ceremony; a druid vêtu of white went up on the tree, cut the GUI with a gold bill hook, and threw it in a white linen so that it was not profaned by the contact of the ground.

Pascal, born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1623, died in Paris in 1662. - Pascal is also a large philosopher, a genious thinker: its Thoughts are one of the strongest works which produced the human spirit.

Incomparable writer, it added to the clearness and the elegance of French prose.

Finally it was at the same time, like Descartes, large mathematician and large physicist.

Become Christian, Clovis was looked like the soldier of God, and when it had overcome the Visigoths heretics, a supernatural capacity was allotted to him, and one told of him marvellous things.

One day that it sought a ford to pass overflowed Vienna, a hind appeared and crossed the river without putting itself at the stroke; the Franks, which had been about to kill her, thanked God and crossed Vienna without bridge and boats.

The place still names the Ford of the Hind.

Colbert gave to France the richness, Louvois the force; Hugues de Lionne gave him alliances.

Secretary of State to the Foreign Affairs of 1663 to 1671, it contributed by his skilful negotiations to the success of the first wars of Louis XIV.

TheSaint-Simon historian calls it the Prime Minister for the reign.

The French were awaited by more than one people like liberators: in Rome, as soon as they appeared, the pontifical government was reversed, the democrats met in the old Forum and y proclaimed the re-establishment of the Roman Republic (February 1798).

Gaston de Foix, young person general of twenty-three years, returned one moment the victory to France.

He had as much prudence than the old Generals, and he astonished more the brave men by his courage.

After having driven out Switzerland of the Milanese, removed Bologna with the Spaniards and Brescia with Venetian, it attacks in Ravenne the Spaniards and the army of the Pope.

Thanks to a terrible cannonade and with furious loads, the battle was gained and the enemy fled, when Gaston, seeing two Spanish companies which were withdrawn proudly with the small step, sprang on them au.galop with some men; soon surrounded and désarçonné, it refused to go, and, new Roland, it defended himself a long time with blows of sword, but to the fifteenth wound, it fell (April 1512).

Gaston de Foix was not replaced, and the fortune of France succumbed with him.

Marie Leczinska was girl of Stanislas Leczinski, former king de Pologne, who lived obscurely in Alsace.

Married to Louis in 1725, it was very unhappy.

In 1636 France ran a great danger: its territory was invaded in North and the East; enemy runners were announced close to Saint-Denis, but with this news Paris had a splendid dash of patriotism: the old marshal of the Force is established on the perron of the town hall to receive the names of the volunteer: noble and middle-class, rich and poor engaged as a crowd; the enthusiasm of Paris gained the provinces: the army was reinforced with forty thousand men, the enemy stopped and France was saved.

When Henri III saw his died enemy, it went down in his mother, reserve with the bed by the drop: it had not prevented it its intentions against the duke of Own way, and Catherine, whose apartment was located below that of the king, wondered while trembling what had just occurred.

The disaster news struck it stupor; forced to recognize itself in her son, it felt too criminal to reproach him a crime; overpowered by the old age and the disease, tormented of anguish and remorse, forsaken and which cursed, she died in prey with despair, twelve days only after the duke of Own way (January 5, 1589).

Louis XI, to decide the English with peace, made them give to the doors of Amiens a great feast which was prolonged during four days: it, had said Commines there, of large tables charged with good meats which gave desire for eating, and the best wines; nothing missed except water, that nobody claimed.

The English lords accepted money, and soon peace was signed (1475).

Louis XIV and Louvois had about the same age; they were all the two young people, burning, quarrelsome, impassioned for military glory; they were included/understood.

Louvois had happiness to always have the confidence of the king, and, sure of the following day, it could undertake one of these works which are not possible that under the long ministries.

Its task was difficult, but it was not wearied, and thanks to him the French Army could resist the coalitions and supplement our border by invaluable conquests.

After the death of Louvois (1691), the abuses reappeared, and France felt which man it had lost.

The Bastille, where the absolute royalty had locked up its enemies a long time, rebellious, Protestant, writers critical, were for the people of Paris most odious of the prisons of State and like the symbol of Ancien Régime; the storming of the Bastille was celebrated like a great victory: its destruction seemed to inaugurate one era of democracy and freedom; one made some disappear to the least vestiges, and the evening of July 14, 1790 the people expressed his joy while dancing on the site of the Bastille.

In the history of architecture the seventeenth century is the century of the castles, as the thirteenth one is that of the cathedrals.

Hardouin Mansard raised the castles of Versailles, Marly, Trianon, Dampierre; François Mansard built that of Houses, the frontage of the Carnavalet hotel and the hotel of Vrillière, where is the Bank today.

Perrault is the author of the Colonnade of the Louvre; the castle of Be worth, that Fouquet was made build in 1653, is the work of Levau.

Ours drew the parks and the gardens.

Vienna, after a bombardment of a few hours, directed only against the fortifications, opened its doors with Napoleon: it had been hardly a month that the war was started (May 1809).

The castle of Angers, high under saint Louis (1228-1238), formed a formidable place of war; its thick walls, strongly sat on the rock and bathed on a side by Maine, were flanked of seventeen forty meters high towers; built out of slates with stone cords, the castle of Angers is still about such as at the thirteenth century; men one only demolished the top of the turns.

The constable of Clisson, which had passed the evening in the king, left the hotel Saint-pol., around one hour of the morning, without armour and with an escort of eight servants of which two carried torches, when suddenly, with the entry of the street Culture-Holy-Catherine, forty brigands with horse, embusqués in the shade, melted on him and its people: "Which are you", Clisson exclaimed by drawing its dagger "I am Pierre de Craon, your enemy, answered the gang leader, and it is necessary that you die" Clisson tried to defend yourself, but it accepted a serious wound with the head, and fell from horse.

The assassins, in a hurry to flee, did not dare to put foot at ground to make sure that he had died.

A baker gave alarm, and Clisson at once collected by the king and looked after, recovered from his wounds, with the great spite of his enemies.

Henri III, feeling that his wound was mortal, wanted to designate his successor: "My brother, says it to Henri Bourbon, you are legitimates it heir to my crown, but make you catholic, if you want to reign on France; "then addressing itself to the lords who surrounded it: "I request from you, says it, I order to you, to recognize after my death my brother that here, and to lend oath my involved to him".

All swore, when Henri had expired, around two hours of the morning, Henri de Bourbon became Henri IV.

Napoleon, raising the camp of Boulogne, transported in twenty days on the Rhine the eight his army corps; then, leaving Augereau in reserve, it went up Mein with Lannes, Murat, Ney, Soult, Davout, Marmont and Bernadotte, turned the Austrian army by admirable operations, and cut it in several sections in Vertingen, in Memmingen and in Elchingen, rejected the principal body on Ulm and de.toutes.parts wrapped it, by keeping the heights; the Mack General, despaired, capitulated with 33 000 soldiers, 60 guns and 40 flags (October 20, 1805); of 100 000 Austrians there remained only runaways, which our cavalry continued; Napoleon had not lost more than 3 000 men.

Under Louis XII the French navy, up to that point of no importance, starts to compete of glory with the army, and the two names of Prégent and Primoguet deserve to be engraved in touts the memories.

Attacked by the English fleet (April 25, 1513), Prégent de Bidoux, which had only four small galères, was withdrawn in the handle of Conquet, not to be surrounded, and awaited the attack of the enemy in a narrow master key where the number became useless; the first ship which was presented was that of the admiral Howard; Prégent lets it approach, is thrown on him with the boarding, shapes with body with the admiral and extends it dead to its feet.

A second English ship, which advances with the help of the first, runs up against rocks and sinks.

The fleet moves away from the coasts of France, and Prégent, in its turn, will devastate the coasts of England.

After Louvois the abuses had reappeared in the army: the ranks were given to the favour, and the incapacity of the Generals brought disasters.

With Casement bolt, Villeroi, which could not be kept, was made prisoner the night, with his headquarters, by imperial riders, and the French, dispersed in the barracks, ran the greatest danger; they could fortunately join and drive out the enemy of the city, so that they had the double advantage of preserving Crémone and of having lost Villeroi. (February 1702.)

During the Sling of the lords (1650), the Parliament and the people, understanding that they did not have the same interests that the noble ones, refused to revolt with them; but, when the lords were overcome, the Parliament, anxious triumph of Mazarin, asked for its reference, and the people rose again.

The surprised court was captive in the Palais Royal; even one night, the multitude penetrated in its apartments, and until the room of the young deadened king, to be of course that it was not escaped (févr. 1651).

The French navy, which had just overcome the Dutchmen and the Spaniards, was the first of the world.

Louis XIV made use of it glorieusement against the barbaresque ones.

The bombardment of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli was used as lesson to the pirates.

Génois, which built ships for Spain, were punished in their turn as if they had been the vassal rebellious ones; Duquesne, forced to carry out the orders of the king, destroyed a part of the city, and the doge of Genoa had to come to Versailles to beseech the forgiveness of Louis XIV (1684).

Enthusiasm was so large that more than 60,000 pilgrims, men, women and children, left at once with Pierre the Hermit, without taking time to organize itself.

In France, they easily found to be nourished, but when they were inserted in Germany and Hungary, they suffered cruelly from the hunger: weakest died exhausted on the ways; the others, forced to plunder to live, had to deliver to the inhabitants terrible combat: they lost ten thousand of them under the walls of Nissa, and when they arrived to minor Asia, opposite the Turks, they succumbed under the number; all the men were exterminated, even the old men and the children.

The women were taken along to far in slavery.

After the battle of Oudenarde, prince Eugene came to besiege Lille with the head of 35 000 men and 200 guns (August 1708).

Boufflers, with 10 000 soldiers only and a few thousands of inhabitants, step by step defended all the outer works of the place, and made several exits which threw the disorder in the enemy batteries, but at the end of two months the garrison, reduced by half, was with end of force, the walls beaten in breach collapsed de.toutes.parts.

Boufflers capitulated for the city, was withdrawn in the citadel, and left there only in December, with the honors of the war.

Clovis was informed in the catholic religion by saint Remi, archbishop of Rheims.

The account of the passion of Jesus-Christ moved it deeply, and it exclaimed with indignation: "That I with my Franks was not there! "When holy Remi considered it worthy to be Christian, it baptized it in a solemn ceremony, which took place in Rheims the day before of Christmas 496. Three thousand frank soldiers and a crowd of women and children wanted to receive the baptism at the same time as Clovis.

The legend tells that in the passing of the Pyrenees, Roland, who ordered the rear-guard, was encircled by Buckwheats; his friend Olivier pressed it to sound horn to call Charlemagne: Roland refused proudly, awaited the attack of the enemies there, and head held to them for a long time.

However as it felt its exhausted forces, it carried its horn to its mouth, and sounded so extremely, that the veins of its temples broke.

After the departure of the Crossed first, the Holy Land was reduced with a small number of defenders, and in 1144 the town of Edesse fell down to the capacity of the Moslems who massacred all the Christians there.

Saint Bernard preached one second crusade.

In Vézelay where the king and the largest lords had met to hear it, of the thousands of Christians asked to leave with the king: as the crosses missed, holy Bernard cut his coat in thin straps, and soon all the chests were decorated same symbol, just as all the hearts beat same enthusiasm (1146).

The Franks tackled the Roman Empire as of the middle of the third century, and started to be established between the Rhine and the North Sea; at the fourth century one sees them often beaten by Constantin, Julien, by Théodose, but they benefit skilfully from the disorders of the Empire to make buy their services and to firmly get a foothold in the north of Gaule.

At the fifth century, one their kings, Clodion the Hairy one, seizes Turned, Cambric, and extends its conquests until the Sum (451).

Jeanne d' Arc was a young country-woman of Domrémy, in Lorraine; as of its childhood, it had been pilot misfortunes of the war, it had seen the English plundering his village, and it felt selected by God to drive out them France: its patriotism and its piety made of it a heroin and holy: "I must go to the help of the king, says it; to make the war with the saint kingdom of France, it is to even make the war with God ", and it left its village, covered an armour and rode a horse, then it went to find the king with the castle of Chinon, admitted it without never having seen it, and managed to involve it him and all its court; then, with a small troop, it was thrown in Orleans through the enemy lines (April 29), had communicated to besieged soon its confidence as a God, and with the head of enthusiastic people, it took by storm the English bastilles the ones after the others; May 8, Orleans was delivered, France returned to the life, and the discouraged English understood that the time of their victories had passed.

Friedland was another Austerlitz: Napoleon, after having crossed into two the Russian army, threw himself on the principal part, wrapped it, drove back it in Alle in the small town of Friedland, and covered the bridge of grapeshot; the Russians, who did not have an other line of retirement, threw themselves to water to flee, and much drowned: the battle cost them 40 000 died men, wounded or taken (June 14, 1807).

The English admiral Nelson had his victory with a movement of a great boldness: the French vessels were arranged on line with little distance of the coast; Nelson, launching a part of its vessels between the shore and the French fleet, took it between two fires and struck down our ships the ones after the others; the French admiral Brueys died bravely on his bench of quarter; Villeneuve flees in Malta with four ships, all the remainder of the French fleet was taken or destroyed, and Bonaparte found insulated in Egypt (August 1798).

Louis XVI died as a king and a Christian.

Awaked at 5 hours of the morning to be led to the torment, it heard the mass and communia; after having made its last provisions quietly, he says itself of a firm voice: "Let us leave"; the way lasted a great hour of the Temple in the place of the Harmony; Louis went down from car as if it had entered his palate, assembled the degrees of the scaffold without trembling, and delivered themselves to the executors; he tried to speak to crowd, but a drum roll covered its voice, and the torturer made fall the head from the king de France (10 hours of the morning, January 21, 1793).

Henri II was of a beautiful imposing presence and a great bravery, like his François father 1st; there was not at the court of more skilful player of palm nor of rider more consumed, but its spirit was as heavy as its body was flexible: not very able to act itself, it was dominated all its life by its advisers, especially by Montmorency, François de Guise and Saint-Andrew.

Lower than his father by the intelligence, Henri II was however happier than him in his wars in his policy.

The town of Rennes, besieged by the duke of Lancaster since October 1356, started to suffer from the famine, when Of Guesclin ran to its help, forced the English lines with its small troop, and penetrated in the place, with the great joy of the inhabitants (March 1357).

At once the situation changes: the English are badgered day and night: they is only surprised, blows of hand and skirmishes from where Of Guesclin always some prisoner or some spoils brings back.

Once it forces the enemy camp and y removes hundred carts charged with corn, meat and wine; another time it puts fire at a large wood tower which threatened the ramparts; all the English knights who defy it in singular combat bite dust the ones after the others, and the duke of Lancaster, discouraged, decides to raise the seat.

It should not be forgotten that this success was gained by Of Guesclin almost at the following day of the battle of Poitiers.

When the army arrived for the Pyramids, imperishable monuments of the antique Egyptian civilization: "Soldiers, exclaimed Bonaparte, think that top of these Pyramids forty centuries contemplate you" the army, seizure of surprised and admiration, burned to achieve wonders, as if it had had as witnesses all the heroes of antiquity.

Formed in squares, it opposed an insuperable barrier to the cavalry of the Mamelukes and put it in rout.

Two days after Bonaparte entered to Cairo (July 1798).

César, to take Bourges, had built high wood towers which dominated the walls.

The Gallic ones succeeded in setting fire to one of them, and activated the flame with tallow balls and pitch; they could the throw only of one very perilous place, exposed to the features of the enemy, but, as soon as a man fell, another replaced it, and as long as the tower was upright, the Gallic ones were concerned at this station honor.

The new duke of Savoy and the Spaniards, his allies, signed a truce with France (Sept. 1630), but it observed it badly: the negotiations seemed broken; already the French Army and the Spanish army were in presence under the walls of Casal (Oct. 1630), and the mousquetade engaged, when a rider ran au.galop on the battle field between two lines of fire, while shouting: "peace, peace".

It brought on behalf of the Pope a treaty acceptable for the two parties; the combat ceased and peace was done: a great battle had been avoided.

This bold rider was not other than Mazarin, unknown the day before still: all the eyes were fixed on him, and its fortune started.