Pictures
Feb 13-17, toured all around Paris, such a vibrant city. Visited the Lourve, Montmartre, Eiffel tower, Invalides, Arc de Triumph, Picasso museum, Bastille, Notre Dame, Holocast memorial, Lourve gardens, Sacre Courte. I took 3 tours: Montmartre, French Revolution, Napolean.
I’ve been to Paris 3 times before:
1. Christmas 1989, with Arlene who was visiting me after I’d only been in Germany for 2 months. We took a bus tour, which arranged accommodations, but all I recall from that trip is visiting the Notre Dame cathedral on Christmas day.
2. ??. I have to confirm the time, but I went to visit Sherisse who was living in Paris for ~6 months, working on the construction of Euro Disney. I don’t recall much from this trip, either. 🙁
3. With Steffi and friends (Brad and Laurel at least), New Years Eve 1991.
I learned nothing of France during those 3 trips, so I had a lot of homework to do this time around. This is some of what I learned.
During the Iron Age France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people.
51BC. Rome annexed the area.
476. The Germanic Franks formed the Kingdom of Francia.
843. The Treaty of Verdun partitioned Francia into East Francia, Middle Francia and West Francia.
987. West Francia became the Kingdom of France.
1337-1453. The Hundred Years’ War, essentially between England and France which emerged as a major European power following its victory.
16th century. Dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).
17th Century. France became Europe’s dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV.
1643-1715. King Louis XIV was King of France. His reign of 72+ years is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. With the help of his Mom he slowly transitioned France to an absolute monarchy (meaning parliament and the church were subservient to the Royal court). Money was usually a problem as 1% of the population were Noble and 1% were with the Church, neither of which paid taxes. Louis XIV continued the concept of the divine right of kings from the Middle Ages, the idea that God had granted earthly power to the monarch, just as He had given spiritual authority and power to the church. This is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy and was a key element for legitimising many absolute monarchies.
1681-1685. Louis dramatically increased the persecution of Protestants.
– banned emigration and effectively insisted that all Protestants must be converted
– issued the Edict of Fontainebleau which revoked the Edict of Nantes and repealed all Protestant privileges.
– no longer tolerated the existence of Protestant groups, pastors, or churches in France. No further churches were to be constructed, and those already existing were to be demolished.
It wasn’t until the 1787 Edict of Versailles (also known as the Edict of Tolerance) under Louis XVI which restored to non-Catholics their civil rights and the freedom to worship openly. After the French Revolution Protestants were granted equal rights with their Roman Catholic counterparts.
1682. The Declaration of the clergy of France increased royal authority at the expense of papal power. King Louis XIV moved the Royal Court from the Louvre to the Palace of Versailles; by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit Palace of Versailles, he succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy and achieved increased control over the French aristocracy. For a little more than 100 years the Palace of Versailles was the seat of government for France. In some ways this may have been the start of the Revolution 100 years later; with the court in Versailles, the populace felt disconnected from the monarchy.
1689-1815. The “Second Hundred Years’ War”, almost continuous level of worldwide conflict mostly between France and Great Britain.
1756-1763. The Seven Years’ War. The four greatest powers “switched partners” and split Europe into two coalitions:
A. Great Britain, Prussia, Portugal. Britain aligned itself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution, which was the reversal of longstanding alliances in Europe around 1750 triggered by a separation of interests between Austria, Britain, and France. Austria went from an ally of Britain to an ally of France, while Prussia became an ally of Britain. The change was part of the stately quadrille, a constantly shifting pattern of alliances throughout the 18th century.
B. vs France, the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Spain, and Sweden. France and Austria put aside their ancient rivalry to form a grand coalition of their own to curtail Britain’s and Prussia’s influence. This was also centered on Austria’s desire to recover Silesia (mostly in Poland), which had been a part of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy since 1526 but was conquered by Prussia in 1742.
C. Holland, Denmark-Norway, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire did not participate
1. 1754–1756. The British attacked disputed French positions in North America
2. 1756. The Treaty of Versailles between France and Austria offering mutual assistance if attacked by Great Britain or Prussia; this is despite the France–Habsburg rivalry. The Habsburgs were the largest and most powerful royal house of the Holy Roman Empire, controlling (principally through marriage) the Habsburg Netherlands (1482-1794), Habsburg Spain (1504–1700) and the Holy Roman Empire (1438–1806). All these lands formed the Habsburg ring around France causing border friction. The rivalry became a cause for several major wars, including the Italian Wars 1494–1559; the Thirty Years’ War 1618–1648; the Nine Years’ War 1688–1697; the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748), and later the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).
3. 1756. Realizing that war was imminent, Prussia pre-emptively struck Saxony and formed an alliance with Britain
4. 1757. The Holy Roman Empire declared war on Prussia. Reluctantly, most of the states of the empire joined Austria’s cause.
5. 1762. Russia, originally aligned with Austria, switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III.
Losses:
Prussia: 260,000+
Great Britain: 135,000+
Austrian: 373,588
French: 350,000+
Russia: 138,000
Spain 34,000+
Sweden 28,000
Penalty:
France cedes its possessions east of the Mississippi River, Canada, the island of Grenada, and the Northern Circars in India to Great Britain.
France cedes Louisiana and its territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain.
Spain cedes Florida to Great Britain.
1774. Louis XVI becomes King at 20 years old; he was never groomed for the role, as he had 2 older brothers but they were both killed.
1789-1799. French Revolution. The fortress Bastille (a prison, where armory was also stored) was stormed by Parisian rioters effectively starting the Revolution which eventually (1792) overthrew the absolute monarchy, establishing one of modern history’s earliest republics and drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The Louvre was then converted to a museum. It was prefaced by the National Council, a progressive movement of ministers meeting in Versailles. The grassroots effort at reform never took off, as progressive ministers were being bribed by the King, who was returned to Louvre and forced to remain there for 2 years. When Louis tried to escape France but was caught, he was beheaded and things got worse. That’s when most people fully gave up on the idea of working within a monarchy. There was non-stop power turmoil; Religion was outlawed (and the Gregorian calendar was not followed for a few years), ministers vying for power would align then betray others. In 1792 France, needing money, took money from the church. Europe monarchies were threatened by anti-monarchy movement in France and thus France was fighting both a civil war (commons vs nobility) and a Royal war (commons vs Europe). Finally Napoléon, a powerful and popular General by this time, was handed power and became a benevolent dictator with a hand picked parliament.
1804-1814. Napoleon established the First French Empire. Napoleonic Wars with about all of Europe.
1812. Napoleon attacked Russia and ultimately was defeated, exiled to an island (twice)
1815–1830. The Bourbon monarchy was re-established, with new constitutional limitations and Louis younger brother at the helm.
1830. The July Revolution, overthrow of Charles X by his cousin Louise Phillip, a shift from one constitutional monarchy to another, which established the constitutional July Monarchy.
1848. The February Revolution and the end of the July Monarchy and the start of the (more conservative) Second Republic.
1852. The president of the French Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoleon I’s nephew, was proclaimed emperor of the second Empire, as Napoleon III. He suspended the elected assembly, establishing the Second French Empire, and he went on to become the de facto last French monarch.
1870. Franco-Prussian War. The French declared war on Prussia due to Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and shift the European balance of power. The German forces were superior in numbers, had better training and leadership and made more effective use of modern technology, particularly railroads and artillery. Napoleon III was captured and the army of the Second Empire decisively defeated. A third empire was immediately created and moved its capital to Tours as Paris was under siege. France ultimately lost most of Alsace and some parts of Lorraine to Germany. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine along with British apprehension about the balance of power became factors in the causes of World War I (as well as post WWI).
1871. The Paris Commune, a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris for 2 months in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. It was bloodily suppressed by the regular French army at the end of May 1871. Karl Marx described the Paris Commune as an example of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
1875. Sacré-Cœur construction begins. The origins of the Church are contrversial; it is seen as a double monument, political and cultural, both a national penance for the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and for the subsequent Paris Commune of 1871, as well as an embodiment of conservative moral order (which some attribute to the Church simply wanting the monarchy to return). At this time calls for the re-establishment of the monarchy dominated, but growing support for the republican form of government among the French populace and a series of republican presidents in the 1880s gradually quashed prospects of a monarchical restoration. Republicanism in the 1870s was considered “the form of government that divides France least”; however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution. On the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Third Republic endured for seventy years.
1889 – French engineer Gustave Eiffel spent two years working to erect this iconic monument for the World Exhibition
1914-1918. WWI. France exacts revenge on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles.
1940. Occupation by Germany.
1944. A Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War (1954-1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. It was an important decolonization war).
1958. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s, with most retaining close economic and military connections with France.
