Ancient history

• Strategy

  Pirates used many strategies to capture ships or cities. Generally, they preferred small, light, fast and maneuverable boats to heavy merchant galleons or military buildings heavily equipped with guns. Thus, the pirates embarked few guns for the benefit of a maximum of men in order to carry out lig

• The corsairs

  In the Caribbean, the use of privateers was particularly popular. The cost of maintaining a fleet to defend the colonies was beyond the capabilities of national governments in the 16th and 17th centuries. These governments therefore granted private vessels a letter of marque (or commission of war)

• buccaneers

  The denomination of buccaneer was specific to the Caribbean. They appeared around 1630 and lasted until the end of the piracy period around 1730. The first buccaneers were often escapees from the colonies. Originally coureurs de bois on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Santo Domingo and Haiti),

• The Poison Affair

  Famous case of poisoning and bewitchment which, during the reign of Louis XIV, led to the constitution of a fiery chamber, finally closed by the king because it involved people too close to him.Poison, like sorcery, was very fashionable during the reign of Louis XIV. We talk about it, we talk about

• End of reign and succession

  Succession problems and the degraded health of the king darken the end of his reign. In 1711, his son Louis de France (the Grand Dauphin) died of smallpox at the age of 49. The following year, his grandson who had become a dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy (29 years old) and his second son (5 years old)

• Its cultural policy

  Louis the Builder In the mind of the king, the greatness of a kingdom must also be measured by the embellishment of it. On the advice of Colbert, one of the kings first projects will be the restoration of the palace and the Tuileries Garden entrusted to Louis Le Vau and André Le Nôtre. The interior

• His religious policy

  Religious reforms Louis XIV is a supporter of Gallicanism, a unified Christian France but independent of the pope. On December 13, 1660, the King informed Parliament that he had decided to eradicate Jansenism, which did not prevent him from choosing Simon Arnauld de Pomponne as Secretary of State i

• Its economic policy

  Its economic policy Economy The economic policy of Louis XIV is simple:the king spends on war all the money that Mazarin and then Colbert strive to bring into the coffers of the state. Under Mazarin, this fiscal pressure is at the origin of many rebellions both at the level of the aristocracy (the

• His foreign policy

  Since the birth of Louis XIV, France has continuously been at war with Spain and more generally with Habsburg hegemony in Europe. It participates directly in the last third of what was then called the Thirty Years War concluded in 1648 by the Treaties of Westphalia. France must then manage internal

• Policy

  Policy The peak of absolutism Also known as Louis the Great, Louis XIV strengthens the monarchy which becomes absolute monarchy by divine right. On April 13, 1655, the king decreed 17 edicts aimed at replenishing the state coffers. The legend says that on this occasion, he would have declared to th

• Personality of the Sun King

  The sun as an emblem Louis XIV chose the sun as his emblem. It is the star that gives life to everything, but it is also the symbol of order and regularity. He reigned in sunshine over the court, the courtiers and France. Indeed, the courtiers attended the kings day as the daily course of the sun.

• The youth of a king

  Louis Dieudonne Son of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, Louis is the fruit of multicultural political unions since his paternal grandparents Henri IV and Marie de Médicis were French and Italian. His maternal grandparents, Philip III and Margaret of Austria were Spanish and Austrian, although both H

• Louis XIV The Sun King

  Birth September 5, 1638Saint-Germain-en-LayeDeath September 1, 1715Versailles Title King of France(May 14, 1643 - September 1, 1715)King of Navarre Predecessor Louis XIIISuccessor Louis XV Son of Louis XIII and Anne of AustriaSpouse Maria Theresa of AustriaChildren Louis of France (1661-1711)Anne

• reign and death

  Beneath a light, frivolous, whimsical exterior, whose chronicle has above all retained the earthiness of character and an overflowing gallantry, Henri IV therefore reveals himself to be a politician. In a vast country delivered for three decades to anarchy, he immediately showed a concern to lower t

• Henry IV

  For the future Henri IV begins the third part of the triptych:claim, confirmation, consecration. The task is all the more difficult to carry out since, like Charles VII, King of Bourges, facing the English, Henri is in fact only the King of the Huguenots of the South-West, even he came to lay siege

• King of Navarre

  A quick-witted and observant man, Henri de Navarre knew how to adapt marvelously to circumstances. His judgment is sure, his always realistic observation and his common sense as a “Béarnais peasant” allow him to avoid pitfalls, to sniff out pitfalls and, very often, to return compromised situations

• Henry's youth

  (Pau, 1553 - Paris, 1610.) King of Navarre (1572-1610) and King of France (1589-1610). The most popular, the most truculent also of the French sovereigns could have been born in the Loir Valley, where his father, Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme then resided. But, we are assured, the maternal gr

• Voltaire

  Voltaire was an 18th century French writer and philosopher. From his real name François Marie Arouet, Voltaire was born on November 21, 1694 (although he claimed to have been born on February 20 of that year) in Paris where he died on May 30, 1778. He was admitted to the French Academy in 1746. F

• Turenne (Henri II de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of)

  o (Sedan, 1611 - Salzbach, Baden, 1675.) Marshal of France. Youngest son of the previous and of Elisabeth of Nassau, he was brought up in Protestantism.He started his career in his fifteenth year under the guidance of his uncles Maurice and Henri de Nassau. It was in 1630 that Louis XIII called him

• Sebastien Le Prestre by Vauban

  Sébastien Le Prestre de VaubanBirth 15 May 1633Saint-Léger-de-FoucheretsDeath 30 March 1707ParisCountry FranceTitle Engineer and military architect Military rank Marshal of France Sébastien Le Prestre, seigneur de Vauban (1633 - 1707) was a French military engineer and architect to Louis XIV in th