France

At the dawn of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte liquidated the French empire in America, selling the vast Bourbon heritage along the banks of the Mississippi to the United States. Why?

A.H. Burne describes how, 500 years ago at the Battle of Castillon, where the Great Talbot lost his life, the English crown forfeited its 300-year-old dominion over Aquitaine.

The observations of Edmond Geraud, a schoolboy pursuing his studies in Paris, throw fresh light on the stormiest years of the French Revolution.

Allen Cabaniss investigates rumour, propaganda and freedom of thought in the ninth century life of the late Carolingian empire.

Only the infirmity of purpose displayed by the key-figure at the top, John Wheeler-Bennett writes, prevented the revolt against Hitler, which had failed in Berlin, from being continued successfully from Paris

Christopher Sykes revisits Compiègne during the hunting season, the scene of some of the most splendid and ostentatious diversions of the Second Empire.

His refusal to learn by experience, C.S. Forester suggests, was largely responsible for Napoleon’s ultimate failure

‘If ever a house radiated cheerfulness, that house is Versailles.’ Nancy Mitford on the royal palace in the middle years of Louis XV.

Elizabeth Wiskemann recounts the story of one of Europe’s richest and most hotly-disputed industrial territories

Arthur Bryant looks at how “The Bones of Shire and State” were formed before the Normans came.