France

Napoleon in 1815: The Second Reign

Napoleon returned to Paris in 1814 pledged to the concept of a liberal Empire. From the paradoxical experience of the Hundred Days, writes Harold Kurtz, sprang both the legend and reality of Bonapartism.

The Court of Henry III of France

The young men who surrounded the French king have been wrongly dismissed by some historians as effeminate, inconsequential sycophants. 

French Taste from 1800 to 1900

During the nineteenth century French taste reflected the social and political trends of the period; but it was also much influenced, writes Brian Reade,  by the work of English craftsmen.

Fraternization in the Peninsular War

“How different were our feelings” wrote a Scottish sergeant, “from many of our countrymen at home, whose ideas of the French character were drawn from servile newspapers and caricatures in print shops.”

Clement Marot, 1496-1544

In the reign of Francis I, writes Desmond Seward, the first modern and last medieval poet attended the French court.