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1 day ago · The French colonial empire ( French: Empire colonial français) comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates, and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the " First French colonial empire ", that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost or sold ...
6 days ago · Napoleon was born on Corsica shortly after the island’s cession to France by the Genoese. He was the fourth, and second surviving, child of Carlo Buonaparte, a lawyer, and his wife, Letizia Ramolino. His father’s family, of ancient Tuscan nobility, had emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century. Carlo Buonaparte had married the beautiful and ...
- Napoleon I, also called Napoléon Bonaparte, was a French military general and statesman. Napoleon played a key role in the French Revolution (1789–...
- Napoleon first seized political power in a coup d’état in 1799. The coup resulted in the replacement of the extant governing body—a five-member Dir...
- Napoleon served as first consul of France from 1799 to 1804. In that time, Napoleon reformed the French educational system, developed a civil code...
- After a series of military defeats in 1812–13, Napoleon was forced to abdicate the French throne on April 6, 1814. Napoleon returned to power in ea...
- No! “Le Petit Caporal” wasn’t petite—at least not by 19th-century standards. The estimated average height of a French man in 1820 was 5 feet 4 inch...
May 19, 2024 · France developed out of the Frankish kingdoms that succeeded the Roman Empire, and more directly, out of the declining Carolingian Empire. The latter had been established by the great Charlemagne but began splitting into pieces soon after his death. One of these pieces became the heart of France, and French monarchs would struggle to build a ...
May 17, 2024 · French Revolution, revolutionary movement that shook France between 1787 and 1799 and reached its first climax there in 1789—hence the conventional term ‘Revolution of 1789,’ denoting the end of the ancien regime in France and serving also to distinguish that event from the later French revolutions of 1830 and 1848.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The French Revolution was a period of major social upheaval that began in 1787 and ended in 1799. It sought to completely change the relationship b...
- There were many reasons. The bourgeoisie—merchants, manufacturers, professionals—had gained financial power but were excluded from political power....
- King Louis XVI of France yielded to the idea of a new constitution and to the sovereignty of the people but at the same time sent emissaries to the...
- In some respects, the French Revolution did not succeed. But the ideas of representational democracy and basic property rights took hold, and it so...
May 23, 2024 · In 1532, Brittany was incorporated into the Kingdom of France. France engaged in the long Italian Wars (1494–1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. Francis I faced powerful foes, and he was captured at Pavia. The French monarchy then sought for allies and found one in the Ottoman Empire.
May 24, 2024 · The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire after 1809 and also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 3 May 1814 and again briefly from 20 March ...
On this matter historian Jules Michelet remarked, “England is an empire, Germany is a nation, a race, France is a person.” Statesman Charles de Gaulle, too, famously complained, “Only peril can bring the French together. One can’t impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 kinds of cheese.”
