The Russian Campaign was a war waged by Napoleon I against the Russian Empire from May 1812 to March 1813. The Emperor there lost more than 300,000 men and it will be the beginning of the end for the French Empire. The retreat will be marked by many scenes of atrocities where the barbarism of the Co
The coup of 18 Brumaire year VIII (November 9, 1799) of Bonaparte marks the end of the Directory and the beginning of the Consulate . Napoleon Bonaparte , who became First Consul, holds most of the powers. The conquests of the Revolution were consolidated (abolition of orders, guarantee of national
In France, the estates general were an assembly convened by the king from the Middle Ages to resolve political or financial crises. While the convocation of the representatives of the three orders (clergy, nobility and third estate) had not taken place since 1614, they met in 1789 by King Louis XVI
The storming of the Bastille July 14, 1789 is a highly symbolic event of the French Revolution. That day, the city of Paris was shaken by a series of riots caused by the dismissal of Necker, Louis XVIs only popular minister. Fearing a coup from the king, the people of Paris are looking for weapons.
The Egyptian campaign is a military expedition to the East led by General Bonaparte from 1798 to 1800, as part of the fight against England, the only power to maintain hostilities against Revolutionary France. Appointed by the Directory to lead the expedition to Egypt in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte sec
Claude Nicolas Ledoux , architect of neoclassical art and visionary of the Age of Enlightenment , by cubism, surrealism is recognized today as one of the very first architects of its time. Inspired by antiquity, he draws volumes with a precise and balanced geometry. His credo was the well-being of m
Elected King of Poland, Stanislaus I Leszczyński was forced to give up his throne in 1709, but regained it on the death of Augustus II (1733). If he is supported by France, Spain, Sardinia and Bavaria, his rival Augustus III (son of the deceased) receives for his part the support of Russia, Austria
The Encyclopedia of Diderot and DAlembert , composed of 28 volumes, was published between 1751 and 1772. The project of the Encyclopedia was originally to bring together the knowledge acquired by humanity and to promote the peoples access to knowledge. Materialism and the fight against Christianity
The Beast of Gévaudan claimed more than a hundred victims between 1764 and 1767, in the province of Gévaudan , in the south of Auvergne. The extremely unusual wounds, such as bite size and decapitation, could not be done by a wolf but only by a beast . Faced with the scale of the massacre and the in
Abel François Poisson, Marquis de Marigny was the Superintendent of Buildings during the reign of Louis XV, in charge of the maintenance and renovation of the palaces and royal residences. In each century, its First Architect and its Director of the Kings Buildings. These two characters, in the serv
The last great manifestation in Europe of the Plague dated 1720 and remains known as the “plague of Marseille . It will cause 40,000 victims out of the 75,000 inhabitants of the Marseille city, which is then experiencing its twentieth epidemic of this disease since antiquity. In the 15th century, th
The office is a dignity with public function according to the definition given by Charles Loyseau in 1610. It is a part of the public function delegated by the king, who creates and distributes the offices. The owner of an office is only its usufructuary. An officer, in modern times, is therefore th
Chevalier dEon , Charles de Beaumont (1728-1810) is a French secret agent famous for having disguised himself as a woman for a long time. Charged by Louis XV, in 1755, with a secret mission in Russia to the court of Empress Elisabeth Petrovna, he averted the suspicions of those around the Tsarina by
After a sad seventeenth century marked by numerous economic difficulties and social tensions, the eighteenth century was placed under the sign of mutations and significant evolutions. The Age of Enlightenment will see faith in the progress of reason and techniques prevail and become the workhorse of
The Iron Mask, died in the Bastille in 1703, is the most famous and mysterious of French prisoners, his true identity having been the subject of much speculation. In Le Siècle de Louis XIV, a work published in 1754, Voltaire was the first to mention the affair of the Iron Mask. Wearing a velvet mas
If it only had two or three hours of daily work, the day of Louis XIV was rigorously organized and suffered no whimsy. Saint Simon wrote about the Sun King:with an almanac and a watch, one could tell three hundred leagues from here what he was doing. In the three main rooms of the government:the Cab
Among the Sun Kings four First Valets de Chambre, Alexandre Bontemps remained in the history of France for having been the most famous, the most courteous, the most loved by the king, but the most feared of ministers. Saint Simon, who was not tender, had these words:a rare man of his kind, a man of
André Le Nôtre (1613-1700) is a famous French gardener and landscaper, inventor of a style of garden called French garden. Appointed gardener to King Louis XIV in 1645, André Le Nôtre designed the garden of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte with Louis Le Vau, the architect of this building. His greates
On the death of Louis XIII May 14, 1643, the traditional and famous formula The King is dead, Long live the King is pronounced in front of the remains of the sovereign, carried away by Crohns disease . But the kings last weeks were busy, as he had to think about his succession and baptize his heir.
In 1679, King Louis XIV ordered the construction of the Great Stable of the Château de Versailles , under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart. With the already existing Petite Ecurie, it will constitute the Royal Stables and become an equestrian center of excellence. As early as the 16th centur
Beginning in the 3rd century AD, the crisis of the Roman Empire was caused mainly by the fragmentation of its western part with the arrival and installation of the Germanic peoples. From the third century AD, the Roman Empire began its phase of decline and decay, which eventually resulted in the fr
Félix Lope de Vega was a Spanish poet and playwright who, along with Cervantes, Quevedo and Calderón de la Barca, is part of the plethora of literary artists of the Spanish Golden Age , born under the protection of the imperial splendor and the gradual decline and inquisitorial fury of the Habsburg
The First Balkan War had ended with Greece liberating a large part of its enslaved territories. However, Greece soon found itself confronted with its until then ally Bulgaria. The Bulgarians were keeping an eye on Macedonia and had sent a small force to Thessaloniki. However, as the situation ten
We finished the first entry of this series on the first exile of the Cid in the moment before the imposition of said penalty by King Alfonso VI. In the year 1081 the monarch launched a campaign against the Taifa of Toledo in support of his ally al-Qadir, dispossessed and evicted from the capital by