France

J.H.M. Salmon shows how spiritual values and political objectives were deeply in conflict throughout the long reign of Louis XIV.

A characteristic product of eighteenth-century liberalism, the twenty-eight volumes of French Encyclopedia are here reviewed and reassessed by John Lough.

Nancy Mitford describes how the King himself, Racine, Bossuet and Fenelon all became involved in the stormy history of St. Cyr.

J.L. Carr documents the abolition of the powerful Society of Jesus, by royal decree and after long controversy, in France in 1764.

“Glory” and “good sense” were the watchwords adopted by Louis XIV for his reign, writes J.H. Salmon, and “good sense” on the whole prevailed so long as Colbert was the King's chief Minister.

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.