France

One of Napoleon's most prominent enemies among authors cast the Duke, during the Allied Occupation of Paris, in the role of Saviour of France. She was not much mistaken, writes Harold Kurtz.

J.H.M. Salmon describes how lust for power was the consuming motive of Marie de Médicis' life, but also how she failed to identify her personal ambitions with the symbolic meaning of the French crown.

Few who met Napoleon Bonaparte failed to find him fascinating as well as formidable. Felix Markham portrays the Emperor as his Marshals, Ministers, servants and family saw him at the height of his power. 

Tudor Edwards introduces the Second-Empire architect who was at once a fanatical restorer in the Gothic style and a daring speculator in new architectural thought.

Alistair Horne describes how, during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, a fleet of balloons and a host of carrier pigeons kept the capital in touch with the outside world.

Half a century after the drama of Verdun, Alistair Horne describes the Paris meeting of two of the battle heroes, Eugen Radtke and Gustave Durassie.

During the years when France rose to predominance in Europe, writes J.H. Elliott, the Spanish Empire was governed by a man capable of gigantic designs, but lacking felicity in their outcome.

Established, by Louis IX at the burying-place of the French monarchy, in 1793 Saint-Denis was solemnly desecrated by order of the revolutionary Convention, determined to remove all “horrid memories” of the former royal line. By Peter Quennell.

Two very different French travellers, a romantic and a realist, have left us their opinions of the rising civilization of the United States. Arnold Whitridge assesses two contrasting historical viewpoints.

Robin Fedden takes us on a visit to snowy Alpine passes where, for three quarters of a century, at the end of the Dark Ages, Saracen forces dominated the chief land routes between Italy and France.