1.
French literature
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This article is a general introduction to French literature. For detailed information on French literature in specific periods, see the separate historical articles in the template to the right. Literature written in French language, by citizens of nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco. As of 2006, French writers have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, France itself ranks first in the list of Nobel Prizes in literature by country. French literature has been for French people an object of pride for centuries. The French language is a dialect derived from Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic. Today, French schools emphasize the study of novels, theater, the literary arts are heavily sponsored by the state and literary prizes are major news. The Académie française and the Institut de France are important linguistic and artistic institutions in France, Literature matters deeply to the people of France and plays an important role in their sense of identity. As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, a writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form. For most of the 20th century, French authors had more Literature Nobel Prizes than those of any other nation. M. G, le Clézio 2014 – Patrick Modiano Grand Prix de Littérature Policière – created in 1948, for crime and detective fiction. Grand Prix du roman de lAcadémie française – created 1918, Prix Décembre – created in 1989. Prix Femina – created 1904, decided each year by an exclusively female jury, Prix Goncourt – created 1903, given to the author of the best and most imaginative prose work of the year. Prix Goncourt des Lycéens – created in 1987, Prix Littéraire Valery Larbaud – created in 1957. Prix Médicis – created 1958, awarded to an author whose fame does not yet match their talent, Prix Renaudot – created in 1926. Prix Tour-Apollo Award – 1972–1990, given to the best science fiction published in French during the preceding year. Prix des Deux Magots – created in 1933, a short history of French literature Burgwinkle, William, Nicholas Hammond, and Emma Wilson, eds. The Cambridge history of French literature Cobb, Richard, Promenades, an appreciation of modern French literature Harvey, Paul. The Oxford companion to French literature Denis Hollier, ed, a New History of French Literature, Harvard University Press,1989,1150 pp. France, Peter
2.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
3.
Medieval French literature
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Medieval French literature is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in Oïl languages during the period from the eleventh century to the end of the fifteenth century. For historical background, see History of France, France in the Middle Ages or Middle Ages, for other national literary traditions, see Medieval literature. The language in southern France is known as langue doc or the Occitan language family, also known under the name of one of iys dialects, the Western peninsula of Brittany spoke Breton, a Celtic language. Catalan was spoken in the South, and Germanic languages and Franco-Provençal were spoken in the East, the various dialects of Old French developed into what are recognised as regional languages today. Languages which developed from dialects of Old French include Bourguignon, Champenois, Franc-Comtois, Francien, Gallo, Lorrain, Norman, Anglo-Norman, Picard, Poitevin, Saintongeais and Walloon. From 1340 to the beginning of the century, a generalized French language became clearly distinguished from the other competing Oïl languages. This is referred to as Middle French, the vast majority of literary production in Old French is in verse, the development of prose as a literary form was a late phenomenon. The French language does not have a significant stress accent or long and this means that the French metric line is not determined by the number of beats, but by the number of syllables. The most common lengths are the ten-syllable line, the eight-syllable line. Verses could be combined in a variety of ways, blocks of assonanced lines are called laisses, the choice of verse form was generally dictated by the genre. The Old French epics are written in ten-syllable assonanced laisses. The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, the first literary works written in Old French were saints lives. The Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the half of the ninth century, is generally accepted as the first such text. It is a poem that recounts the martyrdom of a young girl. The best known of the early Old French saints lives is the Vie de Saint Alexis, the life of Saint Alexis, a translation/rewriting of a Latin legend. Saint Alexis fled from his familys home in Rome on his wedding night and dwelled as a hermit in Syria until a mystical voice began telling people of his holiness. In order to avoid the earthly honor that came with such fame, he left Syria and was back to Rome. He was only identified later when the pope read his name in a letter held in the saints hand
4.
17th-century French literature
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In reality, 17th-century French literature encompasses far more than just the classicist masterpieces of Jean Racine and Madame de La Fayette. In Renaissance France, literature was largely the product of encyclopaedic humanism, a new conception of nobility, modelled on the Italian Renaissance courts and their concept of the perfect courtier, was beginning to evolve through French literature. In the mid-17th century, there were an estimated 2,200 authors in France, under Cardinal Richelieu, patronage of the arts and literary academies increasingly came under the control of the monarchy. Henry IVs court was considered by contemporaries a rude one, lacking the Italianate sophistication of the court of the Valois kings, the court also lacked a queen, who traditionally served as a focus of a nations authors and poets. Henrys literary tastes were largely limited to the chivalric novel Amadis of Gaul, in the 1620s, the most famous salon was held at the Hôtel de Rambouillet by Madame de Rambouillet, a rival gathering was organized by Madeleine de Scudéry. The word salon first appeared in French in 1664 from the Italian word sala, before 1664, literary gatherings were often called by the name of the room in which they occurred -- cabinet, réduit, alcôve, and ruelle. For instance, the term derives from literary gatherings held in the bedroom. Nobles, lying on their beds, would receive close friends, ruelle refers to the space between a bed and the wall in a bedroom, it became a name for these gatherings, often under the wing of educated women in the first half of the 17th century. In the context of French scholastica, academies were scholarly societies which monitored, fostered, academies first appeared in France during the Renaissance, when Jean-Antoine de Baïf created one devoted to poetry and music, inspired by the academy of Italian Marsilio Ficino. The first half of the 17th century was marked by a growth in private academies. Academies were generally more formal and more focused on criticism and analysis than salons, however, certain salons were closer to the academic spirit. In the mid-17th century, academies gradually came under government control and sponsorship, the first private academy to fall under governmental control was LAcadémie française, which remains the most prestigious governmental academy in France. Founded in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu, LAcadémie française focuses on the French language, in certain instances, the values of 17th-century nobility played a major part in the literature of the era. Most notable of these values are the aristocratic obsession with glory, the spectacle of power, prestige and luxury found in 17th-century literature may be distasteful or even offensive. The château of Versailles, court ballets, noble portraits, triumphal arches – all of these were representations of glory, the notion of glory was not vanity or boastfulness or hubris, but rather a moral imperative for the aristocracy. Nobles were required to be generous, magnanimous and to great deeds disinterestedly. Ones status in the world demanded appropriate externalisation, nobles indebted themselves to build prestigious urban mansions and to buy clothes, paintings, silverware, dishes and other furnishings befitting their rank. They were also required to show generosity by hosting sumptuous parties, conversely, social parvenus who took on the external trappings of the noble classes were severely criticised, sometimes by legal action
5.
18th-century French literature
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In common with a similar movement in England at the same time, the writers of 18th century France were critical, skeptical and innovative. Their lasting contributions were the ideas of liberty, toleration, humanitarianism, equality, and progress, the 18th century saw the gradual weakening of the absolute monarchy constructed by Louis XIV. France was forced to recognize the power of England and Prussia. The Monarchy finally ended with King Louis XVI, who was unable to understand or control the forces of the French Revolution. The new class began to challenge the cultural and social monopoly of the aristocracy, French cities began to have their own theaters, coffee houses and salons, the Rise of the Third Estate culminated in their political victory in the French Revolution. Faith in science and progress was the force behind the first French Encyclopedia of Denis Diderot. The Protestants achieved legal status in France in 1787, the exchange of ideas with other countries also increased. British ideas were important, particularly such ideas as constitutional monarchy and romanticism. Toward the end of the century, a sober style appeared, aimed at illustrating scenery, work. These writers, and others such as the Abbé Sieyès, one of the authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. They came from the upper class or Third Estate, sought a society founded upon talent and merit. Their ideas were influenced by those of John Locke in England. They introduced the values of liberty and equality which became the ideals of the French Republic founded at the end of the century and they defended the freedom of conscience and challenged the role of religious institutions in society. For them, tolerance was a value of society. When the Convention placed the ashes of Voltaire in the Pantheon in Paris, while the philosophes had widely different approaches, they all had as a common objective, both for mankind and for individuals, the ideal of happiness. Some, like Rousseau, dreamed of the happiness of the savage, rapidly disappearing, others, like Voltaire. The philosophes were optimists, and they saw their mission clearly, they did not simply observe, the comedies of Marivaux and of Beaumarchais also played a part in this debate about and diffusion of great ideas. The relaxing of morals under the French Regency brought the return in 1716 of the Comédie-Italienne and his major works include Les Fausses Confidences, le Jeu de lamour et du hasard, and lÎle des esclaves
6.
Francophone literature
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Francophone literature is literature written in the French language. Writings in the French language from Belgium, Canada and Switzerland were recognised as belonging to distinct traditions long before writings from colonial territories of France. Writing in French by Africans was formerly classified as colonial literature and discussed as part of studies for its ethnographical interest. Any texts in French from the colonies and territories that were considered to have merit were subsumed under the classification of French literature. It was only following the Second World War that a distinction started to be made in studies and anthologies between French literature and other writing in French. The term has historically used to refer only to literature from Francophone countries outside France. Francophone literature therefore applies to the whole French-speaking world in the broadest sense of the term
7.
Franco-Belgian comics
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Franco-Belgian comics are comics that are created for a Belgian and French audience. These countries have a tradition in comics and comic books, where they are known as BDs. In Europe, the French language is spoken not only in France but also by about 40% of the population of Belgium. The shared language creates an artistic and commercial market where national identity is often blurred, Flemish Belgian comic books are influenced by Francophone comics, yet have a distinctly different style, both in art as well as in spirit. Among the most popular Franco-Belgian comics that have achieved international fame are The Adventures of Tintin, Gaston Lagaffe, Asterix, Lucky Luke, the term bandes dessinées is derived from the original description of the art form as drawn strips. It was first introduced in the 1930s, but only became popular in the 1960s, the term bandes dessinées contains no indication of subject matter, unlike the American terms comics and funnies, which imply a humorous art form. Indeed, the distinction of comics as the art is prevalent in Francophone scholarship on the form, as is the concept of comics criticism. The publication of Francis Lacassins book Pour un neuvième art, la bande dessinée in 1971 further established the term and these were humorous short works rarely longer than a single page. In the Francophonie, artists such as Gustave Doré, Nadar, Christophe, in the early decades of the 20th century, comics were not stand-alone publications, but were published in newspapers and weekly or monthly magazines as episodes or gags. Aside from these magazines, the Catholic Church was creating and distributing healthy, in the early 1900s, the first popular French comics appeared, including Bécassine and Les Pieds Nickelés. In the 1920s, after the end of the first world war, Saint-Ogan was one of the first French-speaking artists to fully utilize techniques popularized and formulaized in the USA, such as word balloons. In 1920, the Abbot of Averbode in Belgium started publishing Zonneland, a magazine consisting largely of text with few illustrations, which started printing comics more often in the following years. One of the earliest proper Belgian comics was Hergés The Adventures of Tintin, with the story Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and it was quite different from future versions of Tintin, the style being very naïve and simple, even childish, compared to the later stories. The early stories often featured racist and political stereotypes that Hergé later regretted, the success was immediate, and soon other publishers started publishing periodicals with American series. This continued during the remainder of the decade, with hundreds of magazines publishing mostly imported material, the most important ones in France were Robinson, Hurrah, and Coeurs Vaillants, while Belgian examples include Wrill and Bravo. In 1938, Spirou magazine was launched, Spirou also appeared translated in a Dutch version under the name Robbedoes for the Flemish market. Export to the Netherlands followed a few years later, when Germany invaded France and Belgium, it became close to impossible to import American comics. The occupying Nazis banned American animated movies and comics they deemed to be of a questionable character, both were, however, already very popular before the war and the hardships of the war period only seemed to increase the demand
8.
Fantastique
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Fantastique is a French term for a literary and cinematic genre that overlaps with science fiction, horror, and fantasy. The fantastique is a genre within French literature. What is distinctive about the fantastique is the intrusion of supernatural phenomena into an otherwise realist narrative and it evokes phenomena which are not only left unexplained but which are inexplicable from the readers point of view. Instead, characters in a work of fantastique are, just like the readers and this refusal may be mixed with doubt, disbelief, fear, or some combination of those reactions. Fantastique literature is considered close to science fiction. The Fantastique is often linked to a particular ambiance, a sort of tension in the face of the impossible, a good deal of fear is often involved, either because the characters are afraid or because the author wants to provoke fright in the reader. However, fear is not a component of fantastique. In that case, the fantastique is nothing more than an area on a spectrum from magic realism to fantasy. Fantastique is a term that has also used to describe many television series. The fantastique began to become defined in the Middle Ages, the old Celtic, Frankish and Germanic myths were translated from religion into popular folklore. The root of thought about and artistic depiction of many things which are today often termed supernatural has its beginnings in this period. Concepts and characters such as Melusine, Harlequin, Oberon, Morgan Le Fay, the Fabliaux, satirical fables which relied on the tradition established by Aesop of using anthropomorphic animals such as Le Roman de Renart, generally attributed to poet Pierre de Saint-Cloud. The 16th century was marked by the emergence of new ideas and literary trends, the Renaissance bloomed in France during the reign of King Francis I who created a favorable environment for the development of letters, arts and sciences. It was during the French Renaissance that proto-science fiction first split from the fantastique, then, at the peak of his literary fame, he devoted several of his more famous Hymnes to supernatural subjects such as Daimons and astrology. Famous playwright Pierre Corneilles lesser-known but classic tragedies, Médée and Circé, popularized warlocks, the Malleus Maleficarum spawned a number of French imitations, among which were Jean Bodins La Démonomanie des Sorciers and Le Fléau des Démons et ses Sorciers. The 18th century was known as the Siècle des Lumières, or Age of Enlightenment, baroque was the link between the Merveilleux of the Renaissance and the more formalized fairy tales of the Enlightenment period. The precursor in the genre was Madame dAulnoy who, in 1690, introduced in her rambling novel Histoire dHyppolite, Comte de Douglas, in it, Perrault had carefully collected a number of popular folk tales and legends, such as Cendrillon a. k. a. Cinderella, La Belle au Bois Dormant a. k. a, donkey Skin, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, Barbe-Bleue, Le Chat Botté, etc
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Naturalism (literature)
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Naturalism is a literary movement that emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. Novelists writing in the naturalist mode include Émile Zola, Thomas Hardy, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Naturalism began as a branch of literary realism, and realism had favored fact, logic, and impersonality over the imaginative, symbolic, and supernatural. Dreiser, Crane, and Norris were also journalists, and thus attempted to immerse themselves in the world of fact via the assumption of detached observation. Although they considered themselves realists, naturalistic authors selected particular parts of reality, misery, corruption, vice, disease, poverty, prostitution, racism and they were criticized for being pessimistic and for concentrating excessively on the darker aspects of life. The novel would be an experiment where the author could discover and analyze the forces, or scientific laws, that behavior, and these included emotion, heredity. The paradox of naturalism is that it holds two contrary or conflicting views, human behavior is the result of free will, and yet also determined by natural laws, Naturalism Naturalism Philosophical naturalism Sociological naturalism Naturalism in 19th-century French literature Realism in the visual arts
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Symbolism (arts)
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
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Surrealism
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Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream, leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I, the word surrealist was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire and first appeared in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias, which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works, after the war, when they returned to Paris, the Dada activities continued. Meeting the young writer Jacques Vaché, Breton felt that Vaché was the son of writer. He admired the young writers anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition, later Breton wrote, In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most. Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and they began experimenting with automatic writing—spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine. Breton and Soupault delved deeper into automatism and wrote The Magnetic Fields, continuing to write, they came to believe that automatism was a better tactic for societal change than the Dada form of attack on prevailing values. They also looked to the Marxist dialectic and the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin, freuds work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness, as Salvador Dalí later proclaimed, There is only one difference between a madman and me. Beside the use of analysis, they emphasized that one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be−the greater its emotional power, the group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to people from false rationality, and restrictive customs. Breton proclaimed that the aim of Surrealism was long live the social revolution. To this goal, at various times Surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism, in 1924 two Surrealist factions declared their philosophy in two separate Surrealist Manifestos. That same year the Bureau of Surrealist Research was established, leading up to 1924, two rival surrealist groups had formed. Each group claimed to be successors of a revolution launched by Guillaume Apollinaire, the other group, led by Breton, included Louis Aragon, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Jacques Baron, Jacques-André Boiffard, Jean Carrive, René Crevel and Georges Malkine, among others. Goll and Breton clashed openly, at one point literally fighting, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, in the end, Breton won the battle through tactical and numerical superiority
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Existentialism
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While the predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience. Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered to have been the first existentialist philosopher and he proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely, or authentically. Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II, and strongly influenced many disciplines besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology. The term is seen as a historical convenience as it was first applied to many philosophers in hindsight. In fact, while existentialism is generally considered to have originated with Kierkegaard, Sartre posits the idea that what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence, as scholar Frederick Copleston explains. Sartre himself, in a lecture delivered in 1945, described existentialism as the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism and this assertion comes from two sources. The Norwegian philosopher Erik Lundestad refers to the Danish philosopher Fredrik Christian Sibbern, Sibbern is supposed to have had two conversations in 1841, the first with Welhaven and the second with Kierkegaard. This was then brought to Kierkegaard by Sibbern, the second claim comes from the Norwegian historian Rune Slagstad, who claims to prove that Kierkegaard himself said the term existential was borrowed from the poet. He strongly believes that it was Kierkegaard himself who said that Hegelians do not study philosophy existentially, on the other hand, the Norwegian historian Anne-Lise Seip is critical of Slagstad, and believes the statement in fact stems from the Norwegian literary historian Cathrinus Bang. The actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their true essence instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them, thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. However, an existentialist philosopher would say such a wish constitutes an inauthentic existence - what Sartre would call bad faith, instead, the phrase should be taken to say that people are defined only insofar as they act and that they are responsible for their actions. For example, someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, furthermore, by this action of cruelty, such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity. This is as opposed to their genes, or human nature, as Sartre writes in his work Existentialism is a Humanism. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards. Of course, the positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also implied, A person can choose to act in a different way. Here it is clear that since humans can choose to be either cruel or good, they are, in fact. Sartres definition of existentialism was based on Heideggers magnum opus Being and this way of living, Heidegger called average everydayness
13.
Nouveau roman
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The Nouveau Roman is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. Most of the authors were published by Les Éditions de Minuit with the strong support of Jérôme Lindon. Rejecting many of the features of the novel to date, Robbe-Grillet regarded many earlier novelists as old-fashioned in their focus on plot, action, narrative, ideas. Despite the assertions of nouveauté, this vision of the novel can be construed as developing from earlier writers suggestions, Alain Robbe-Grillet became an elected member of the Académie française on 25 March 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat No.32. Claude Simon is often identified with the nouveau roman movement, he is the 1985 Nobel Laureate in Literature, jean Ricardou is the theorist of the nouveau roman literary movement. The Nouveau Roman style also left its mark on screen as writers Marguerite Duras and their collaboration with director Alain Resnais resulted in critical successes such as Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year in Marienbad. They would later go on to direct their own films, French literature Francophone literature List of French language authors Antinovel Bernard Luscans, La représentation dans le nouveau nouveau roman, Chapel Hill, Université de Caroline du Nord,2008
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Jean Racine
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Jean Racine, baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine, was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. The latest attempt to translate Racines plays into English earned a 2011 American Book Award for the poet Geoffrey Argent, Racines dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both the plot and stage. Racine was born on 22 December 1639 in La Ferté-Milon, in the province of Picardy in northern France, orphaned by the age of four, he came into the care of his grandparents. At the death of his grandfather in 1649, his grandmother, Marie des Moulins, went to live in the convent of Port-Royal and he received a classical education at the Petites écoles de Port-Royal, a religious institution which would greatly influence other contemporary figures including Blaise Pascal. Port-Royal was run by followers of Jansenism, a theology condemned as heretical by the French bishops, Racines interactions with the Jansenists in his years at this academy would have great influence over him for the rest of his life. At Port-Royal, he excelled in his studies of the Classics and he was expected to study law at the Collège dHarcourt in Paris, but instead found himself drawn to a more artistic lifestyle. Racine eventually took up residence in Paris where he involved in theatrical circles. His first play, Amasie, never reached the stage, on 20 June 1664, Racines tragedy La Thébaïde ou les frères ennemis was produced by Molières troupe at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, in Paris. The following year, Molière also put on Racines second play, thus, Alexandre premiered for the second time, by a different acting troupe, eleven days after its first showing. From this point on the Hôtel de Bourgogne troupe performed all of Racines secular plays and he broke all ties with Port-Royal, and proceeded with Andromaque, which told the story of Andromache, widow of Hector, and her fate following the Trojan War. Amongst his rivals were Pierre Corneille and his brother, Thomas Corneille, tragedians often competed with alternative versions of the same plot, for example, Michel le Clerc produced an Iphigénie in the same year as Racine, and Jacques Pradon also wrote a play about Phèdre. Others, including the historian Warren Lewis, attribute his retirement from the theater to qualms of conscience, however, one major incident which seems to have contributed to Racines departure from public life was his implication in a court scandal of 1679. He got married at about time to the pious Catherine de Romanet. He and his wife eventually had two sons and five daughters, around the time of his marriage and departure from the theater, Racine accepted a position as a royal historiographer in the court of King Louis XIV, alongside his friend Boileau. He kept this position in spite of the scandals he was involved in. In 1672, he was elected to the Académie française, eventually gaining much power over this organization. Two years later, he was bestowed the title of treasurer of France, and he was distinguished as an ordinary gentleman of the king. Because of Racines flourishing career in the court, Louis XIV provided for his widow, Jean Racine died in 1699 from cancer of the liver
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Stendhal
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Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Born in Grenoble, Isère, he was a child, disliking his unimaginative father and mourning his mother, whom he passionately loved. He spent the happiest years of his life at the Beyle country house in Claix near Grenoble and his closest friend was his younger sister, Pauline, with whom he maintained a steady correspondence throughout the first decade of the 19th century. The military and theatrical worlds of the First French Empire were a revelation to Beyle and he was named an auditor with the Conseil dÉtat on 3 August 1810, and thereafter took part in the French administration and in the Napoleonic wars in Italy. He travelled extensively in Germany and was part of Napoleons army in the 1812 invasion of Russia, Stendhal witnessed the burning of Moscow from just outside the city. Stendhal was appointed Commissioner of War Supplies and sent to Smolensk to prepare provisions for the returning army and he crossed the Berezina River by finding a usable ford rather than the overwhelmed pontoon bridge, which probably saved his life and those of his companions. Stendhal arrived in Paris in 1813, largely unaware of the fiasco that the retreat had become. Stendhal became known, during the Russian campaign, for keeping his wits about him and he also maintained his daily routine, shaving each day during the retreat from Moscow. After the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau, he left for Italy and he formed a particular attachment to Italy, where he spent much of the remainder of his career, serving as French consul at Trieste and Civitavecchia. His novel The Charterhouse of Parma, written in 52 days, is set in Italy, Stendhal was a dandy and wit about town in Paris, as well as an inveterate womaniser who was obsessed with his sexual conquests. His genuine empathy towards women is evident in his books, Simone de Beauvoir spoke highly of him in The Second Sex. One of his works is On Love, a rational analysis of romantic passion that was based on his unrequited love for Mathilde, Countess Dembowska. This fusion of, and tension between, clear-headed analysis and romantic feeling is typical of Stendhals great novels, he could be considered a Romantic realist, Stendhal suffered miserable physical disabilities in his final years as he continued to produce some of his most famous work. Modern medicine has shown that his problems were more attributable to his treatment than to his syphilis. Stendhal died on 23 March 1842, a few hours after collapsing with a seizure on the streets of Paris and he is interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre. Before settling on the pen name Stendhal, he published under pen names, including Louis Alexandre Bombet. The only book that Stendhal published under his own name was The History of Painting, from the publication of Rome, Naples, Florence onwards, he published his works under the pseudonym M. de Stendhal, officier de cavalerie. He borrowed this nom de plume from the German city of Stendal, birthplace of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in 1807 Stendhal stayed near Stendal, where he fell in love with a woman named Wilhelmine, whom he called Minette, and for whose sake he remained in the city
16.
Gustave Flaubert
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Gustave Flaubert was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary, his Correspondence, the celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert. Flaubert was born on 12 December 1821, in Rouen, in the Seine-Maritime department of Upper Normandy and he was the second son of Anne Justine Caroline and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert, director and senior surgeon of the major hospital in Rouen. He began writing at an age, as early as eight according to some sources. He was educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, and did not leave until 1840, in Paris, he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful. He made a few acquaintances, including Victor Hugo, toward the end of 1840, he traveled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. In 1846, after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris, from 1846 to 1854, Flaubert had a relationship with the poet Louise Colet, his letters to her have survived. After leaving Paris, he returned to Croisset, near the Seine, close to Rouen and he made occasional visits to Paris and England, where he apparently had a mistress. According to his biographer Émile Faguet, his affair with Louise Colet was his only serious romantic relationship, with his lifelong friend Maxime Du Camp, he traveled in Brittany in 1846. In 1849–50 he went on a journey to the Middle East, visiting Greece. He spent five weeks in Istanbul in 1850 and he visited Carthage in 1858 to conduct research for his novel Salammbô. Flaubert was very open about his activities with prostitutes in his writings on his travels. He suspected that a chancre on his penis was from a Maronite or a Turkish girl and he also engaged in intercourse with male prostitutes in Beirut and Egypt, in one of his letters, he describes a pockmarked young rascal wearing a white turban. Flaubert was a worker and often complained in his letters to friends about the strenuous nature of his work. He was close to his niece, Caroline Commanville, and had a close friendship and he occasionally visited Parisian acquaintances, including Émile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Ivan Turgenev, and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. The 1870s were a time for Flaubert. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the War of 1870, after her death, he fell into financial difficulty due to business failures on the part of his nieces husband
17.
Marcel Proust
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He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Proust was born in Auteuil at the home of his great-uncle on 10 July 1871 and he was born during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the French Third Republic. Prousts father, Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist, studying cholera in Europe and he wrote numerous articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Prousts mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from Alsace, literate and well-read, she demonstrated a well-developed sense of humour in her letters, and her command of English was sufficient to help with her sons translations of John Ruskin. Proust was raised in his fathers Catholic faith and he was baptized and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never formally practiced that faith. He later became an atheist and was somewhat of a mystic, by the age of nine, Proust had had his first serious asthma attack, and thereafter he was considered a sickly child. Proust spent long holidays in the village of Illiers, in 1882, at the age of eleven, Proust became a pupil at the Lycée Condorcet, but his education was disrupted by his illness. Despite this he excelled in literature, receiving an award in his final year, thanks to his classmates, he was able to gain access to some of the salons of the upper bourgeoisie, providing him with copious material for In Search of Lost Time. As a young man, Proust was a dilettante and a social climber whose aspirations as a writer were hampered by his lack of self-discipline. His reputation from this period, as a snob and an amateur, contributed to his troubles with getting Swanns Way. It is through Mme Arman de Caillavet that he made the acquaintance of Anatole France, Proust had a close relationship with his mother. To appease his father, who insisted that he pursue a career, after exerting considerable effort, he obtained a sick leave that extended for several years until he was considered to have resigned. He never worked at his job, and he did not move from his parents apartment until after both were dead and his life and family circle changed markedly between 1900 and 1905. In February 1903, Prousts brother, Robert Proust, married and his father died in November of the same year. Finally, and most crushingly, Prousts beloved mother died in September 1905 and she left him a considerable inheritance. His health throughout this period continued to deteriorate, Proust spent the last three years of his life mostly confined to his bedroom, sleeping during the day and working at night to complete his novel. He died of pneumonia and an abscess in 1922. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, Proust was involved in writing and publishing from an early age
18.
Samuel Beckett
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Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. He is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century, Becketts work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd. Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and he was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. The Becketts were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland, the family home, Cooldrinagh in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, was a large house and garden complete with tennis court built in 1903 by Samuels father, William. Samuel Beckett was born on Good Friday,13 April 1906, to William Frank Beckett, a quantity surveyor and descendant of the Huguenots, and Maria Jones Roe, a nurse, Beckett had one older brother, Frank Edward Beckett. At the age of five, Beckett attended a local playschool, where he started to learn music, in 1919, Beckett went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. A natural athlete, Beckett excelled at cricket as a left-handed batsman, later, he was to play for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire. As a result, he became the only Nobel literature laureate to have played first class cricket, Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College, Dublin from 1923 to 1927. He was elected a Scholar in Modern Languages in 1926, Beckett graduated with a BA and, after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast, took up the post of lecteur danglais at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris from November 1928 to 1930. While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce by Thomas MacGreevy and this meeting had a profound effect on the young man. Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, one of which was research towards the book that became Finnegans Wake, in 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay entitled Dante. Becketts close relationship with Joyce and his family cooled, however, Becketts first short story, Assumption, was published in Jolass periodical transition. In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer, in November 1930, he presented a paper in French to the Modern Languages Society of Trinity on the Toulouse poet Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called le Concentrisme. It was a parody, for Beckett had in fact invented the poet and his movement that claimed to be at odds with all that is clear. Beckett later insisted that he had not intended to fool his audience, when Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, his brief academic career was at an end. He spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust, two years later, following his fathers death, he began two years treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychoanalyst Dr. Wilfred Bion. Aspects of it became evident in Becketts later works, such as Watt, in 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it
19.
Albert Camus
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Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. His views contributed to the rise of the known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as a follower of it, even in his lifetime. In a 1945 interview, Camus rejected any ideological associations, No, Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked. Camus was born in French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family and studied at the University of Algiers, in 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons to denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA. Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Dréan in French Algeria and his mother was of Spanish descent and could only hear out of her left ear. His father, Lucien, an agricultural worker of Alsatian descent, was wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during World War I. Lucien died from his wounds in an army hospital on 11 October. Camus and his mother, a house cleaner, lived without many basic material possessions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers. In 1923, Camus was accepted into the Lycée Bugeaud and eventually was admitted to the University of Algiers, after he contracted tuberculosis in 1930, he had to end his football activities, he had been a goalkeeper for a prominent Algerian university team. In addition, he was able to study part-time. To earn money, he took odd jobs, as a tutor, car parts clerk. Camus joined the French Communist Party in early 1935, seeing it as a way to fight inequalities between Europeans and natives in Algeria. He did not suggest he was a Marxist or that he had read Das Kapital, in 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party was founded. Camus joined the activities of the Algerian Peoples Party, which got him into trouble with his Communist party comrades, Camus then became associated with the French anarchist movement. The anarchist André Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in 1948 of the Cercle des Étudiants Anarchistes as a sympathiser familiar with anarchist thought, Camus wrote for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La révolution Prolétarienne, and Solidaridad Obrera, the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. Camus stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the uprising of 1953 in East Germany and he again allied with the anarchists in 1956, first in support of the workers uprising in Poznań, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian Revolution
20.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51
21.
French Consulate
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The Consulate was the government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804. By extension, the term The Consulate also refers to period of French history. Due to the institutions established during these years, Robert B. Holtman has called the Consulate one of the most important periods of all French history, Napoleon brought authoritarian personal rule which has been viewed as military dictatorship. French military disasters in 1798 and 1799 had shaken the Directory, an irregularity emerged in the election of Jean Baptiste Treilhard, who retired in favor of Louis Jérôme Gohier. Within days, Philippe-Antoine Merlin and Louis-Marie de La Revellière were driven to resign, Baron Jean-François-Auguste Moulin, the three new directors were generally seen as non-entities. A few more military disasters, royalist insurrections in the south, Chouan disturbances in a dozen departments of the part of France, Orléanist intrigues. In order to soothe the populace and protect the frontier, more than the French Revolutions usual terrorist measures was necessary, the new Directory government, led by Sieyès, decided that the necessary revision of the constitution would require a head and a sword. Jean Victor Moreau being unattainable as his sword, Sieyès favoured Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, but, success was reserved for Bonaparte, suddenly landing at Fréjus with the prestige of his victories in the East, and now, after Hoches death, appearing as sole master of the armies. In the coup of 18 Brumaire Year VIII, Napoleon seized French parliamentary and military power in a two-fold coup détat, the initial 18 Brumaire coup seemed to be a victory for Sieyès, rather than for Bonaparte. Sieyès was a proponent of a new system of government for the Republic, Bonapartes cleverness lay in counterposing Pierre Claude François Daunous plan to that of Sieyès, and in retaining only those portions of both which could serve his ambition. Ultimate executive authority was vested in three consuls, who were elected for ten years, popular suffrage was retained, though mutilated by the lists of notables. Napoleon vetoed Sieyès original idea of having a single Grand Elector as supreme executive, Sieyès had intended to reserve this important position for himself, and by denying him the job Napoleon helped reinforce the authority of the consuls, an office which he would assume. Nor was Napoleon content simply to be part of an equal triumvirate, by consolidating power, Bonaparte was able to transform the aristocratic constitution of Sieyès into an unavowed dictatorship. On 7 February 1800, a referendum confirmed the new constitution. It vested all of the power in the hands of the First Consul. A full 99. 9% of voters approved the motion, according to the released results and he gave everyone a feeling that France was governed once more by a real statesman, and that a competent government was finally in charge. Bonaparte had now to rid himself of Sieyès and of those republicans who had no desire to hand over the republic to one man, particularly of Moreau and Masséna, his military rivals
22.
First French Empire
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The First French Empire, Note 1 was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Its name was a misnomer, as France already had colonies overseas and was short lived compared to the Colonial Empire, a series of wars, known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars, extended French influence over much of Western Europe and into Poland. The plot included Bonapartes brother Lucien, then serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, on 9 November 1799 and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control. They dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès, although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, the Consulate, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul. He thus became the most powerful person in France, a power that was increased by the Constitution of the Year X, the Battle of Marengo inaugurated the political idea that was to continue its development until Napoleons Moscow campaign. Napoleon planned only to keep the Duchy of Milan for France, setting aside Austria, the Peace of Amiens, which cost him control of Egypt, was a temporary truce. He gradually extended his authority in Italy by annexing the Piedmont and by acquiring Genoa, Parma, Tuscany and Naples, then he laid siege to the Roman state and initiated the Concordat of 1801 to control the material claims of the pope. Napoleon would have ruling elites from a fusion of the new bourgeoisie, on 12 May 1802, the French Tribunat voted unanimously, with exception of Carnot, in favour of the Life Consulship for the leader of France. This action was confirmed by the Corps Législatif, a general plebiscite followed thereafter resulting in 3,653,600 votes aye and 8,272 votes nay. On 2 August 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life, pro-revolutionary sentiment swept through Germany aided by the Recess of 1803, which brought Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden to Frances side. The memories of imperial Rome were for a time, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne. The Treaty of Pressburg, signed on 26 December 1805, did little other than create a more unified Germany to threaten France. On the other hand, Napoleons creation of the Kingdom of Italy, the occupation of Ancona, to create satellite states, Napoleon installed his relatives as rulers of many European states. The Bonapartes began to marry into old European monarchies, gaining sovereignty over many nations, in addition to the vassal titles, Napoleons closest relatives were also granted the title of French Prince and formed the Imperial House of France. Met with opposition, Napoleon would not tolerate any neutral power, Prussia had been offered the territory of Hanover to stay out of the Third Coalition. With the diplomatic situation changing, Napoleon offered Great Britain the province as part of a peace proposal and this, combined with growing tensions in Germany over French hegemony, Prussia responded by forming an alliance with Russia and sending troops into Bavaria on 1 October 1806. In this War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon destroyed the armies of Frederick William at Jena-Auerstedt, the Eylau and the Friedland against the Russians finally ruined Frederick the Greats formerly mighty kingdom, obliging Russia and Prussia to make peace with France at Tilsit. The Treaties of Tilsit ended the war between Russia and the French Empire and began an alliance between the two empires that held power of much of the rest of Europe, the two empires secretly agreed to aid each other in disputes
23.
Bourbon Restoration
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The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history following the fall of Napoleon in 1814 until the July Revolution of 1830. The brothers of executed Louis XVI of France reigned in highly conservative fashion, and they were nonetheless unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution and Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna they were treated respectfully, but had to give up all the gains made since 1789. King Louis XVI of the House of Bourbon had been overthrown and executed during the French Revolution, a coalition of European powers defeated Napoleon in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ended the First Empire in 1814, and restored the monarchy to the brothers of Louis XVI. The Bourbon Restoration lasted from 6 April 1814 until the uprisings of the July Revolution of 1830. There was an interlude in spring 1815—the Hundred Days—when the return of Napoleon forced the Bourbons to flee France, when Napoleon was again defeated by the Seventh Coalition they returned to power in July. During the Restoration, the new Bourbon regime was a monarchy, unlike the absolutist Ancien Régime. The period was characterized by a conservative reaction, and consequent minor but consistent occurrences of civil unrest. It also saw the reestablishment of the Catholic Church as a power in French politics. The eras of the French Revolution and Napoleon brought a series of changes to France which the Bourbon Restoration did not reverse. First of all, France became highly centralized, with all decisions made in Paris, the political geography was completely reorganized and made uniform. France was divided more than 80 departments, which have endured into the 21st century. Each department had an administrative structure, and was tightly controlled by a prefect appointed by Paris. The Catholic Church lost all its lands and buildings during the Revolution, the bishop still ruled his diocese, and communicated with the pope through the government in Paris. Bishops, priests, nuns and other people were paid salaries by the state. All the old rites and ceremonies were retained, and the government maintained the religious buildings. The Church was allowed to operate its own seminaries and to some extent local schools as well, bishops were much less powerful than before, and had no political voice. However, the Catholic Church reinvented itself and put a new emphasis on personal religiosity that gave it a hold on the psychology of the faithful, education was centralized, with the Grand Master of the University of France controlling every element of the entire educational system from Paris
24.
Louis XVIII of France
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Louis XVIII, known as The Desired, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1814 to 1824 except for a period in 1815 known as the Hundred Days. Until his accession to the throne of France, Louis held the title of Count of Provence as brother of King Louis XVI, on 21 September 1792, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and deposed King Louis XVI, who was later executed by guillotine. When the young Louis XVII, Louis XVIs son, died in prison in June 1795, during the French Revolution and Napoleonic era, Louis XVIII lived in exile in Prussia, the United Kingdom and Russia. When the Sixth Coalition finally defeated Napoleon in 1814, Louis was placed in what he, Napoleon escaped from his exile in Elba, however, and restored his French Empire. Louis XVIII fled and a Seventh Coalition declared war on the French Empire, defeated Napoleon, Louis XVIII ruled as king for slightly less than a decade. The Bourbon Restoration regime was a constitutional monarchy, as a constitutional monarch, Louis XVIIIs royal prerogative was reduced substantially by the Charter of 1814, Frances new constitution. Louis had no children, therefore, upon his death, the passed to his brother, Charles. Louis XVIII was the last French monarch to die while reigning, as his successor Charles X abdicated and both Louis Philippe I and Napoléon III were deposed. Louis Stanislas Xavier, styled Count of Provence from birth, was born on 17 November 1755 in the Palace of Versailles, the son of Louis, Dauphin of France and he was the grandson of the reigning King Louis XV. As a son of the Dauphin he was a Fils de France, Louis Stanislas was christened Louis Stanislas Xavier six months after his birth in accordance with Bourbon family tradition, being nameless before his baptism. By this act, he also a Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit. The former died in 1761, leaving Louis Auguste as heir to their father until the Dauphins own premature death in 1765, the two deaths elevated Louis Stanislas to second in the line of succession, while Louis Auguste acquired the title Dauphin. Louis Stanislas found comfort in his governess, Madame de Marsan, Governess of the Children of France, as he was her favourite among his siblings. Louis Stanislas was taken away from his governess when he turned seven, Antoine de Quélen de Stuer de Caussade, Duke of La Vauguyon, a friend of his father, was named his governor. Louis Stanislas was an intelligent boy, excelling in classics and his education was of the same quality and consistency as that of his older brother, Louis Auguste, despite the fact that Louis Auguste was heir and Louis Stanislas was not. Louis Stanislas education was religious in nature, several of his teachers were men of the cloth. La Vauguyon drilled into young Louis Stanislas and his brothers the way he thought princes should know how to withdraw themselves, to like to work, and to know how to reason correctly. In the same month his household was founded, Louis was granted titles by his grandfather, Louis XV, Duke of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Perche
25.
Charles X of France
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Charles X was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. For most of his life he was known as the Count of Artois, an uncle of the uncrowned King Louis XVII, and younger brother to reigning Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him. His rule of almost six years ended in the July Revolution of 1830, which resulted in his abdication, exiled once again, Charles died in 1836 in Gorizia, then part of the Austrian Empire. He was the last of the French rulers from the branch of the House of Bourbon. Charles Philippe of France was born in 1757, the youngest son of the Dauphin Louis and his wife, Charles was created Count of Artois at birth by his grandfather, the reigning King Louis XV. As the youngest male in the family, Charles seemed unlikely ever to become king and his eldest brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, died unexpectedly in 1761, which moved Charles up one place in the line of succession. He was raised in childhood by Madame de Marsan, the Governess of the Children of France. At the death of his father in 1765, Charless oldest surviving brother, Louis Auguste and their mother Marie Josèphe, who never recovered from the loss of her husband, died in March 1767 from tuberculosis. This left Charles an orphan at the age of nine, along with his siblings Louis Auguste, Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence, Clotilde, Louis XV fell ill on 27 April 1774 and died on 10 May of smallpox at the age of 64. His grandson Louis-Auguste succeeded him as King Louis XVI of France, in November 1773, Charles married Marie Thérèse of Savoy. The marriage, unlike that of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, was consummated almost immediately, in 1775, Marie Thérèse gave birth to a boy, Louis Antoine, who was created Duke of Angoulême by Louis XVI. Three years later, in 1778, Charles second son, Charles Ferdinand, was born, in the same year Queen Marie Antoinette gave birth to her first child, Marie Thérèse, quelling all rumours that she could not bear children. Charles was thought of as the most attractive member of his family and his wife was considered quite ugly by most contemporaries, and he looked for company in numerous extramarital affairs. According to the Count of Hézecques, few beauties were cruel to him, later, he embarked upon a lifelong love affair with the beautiful Louise de Polastron, the sister-in-law of Marie Antoinettes closest companion, the Duchess of Polignac. Charles also struck up a friendship with Marie Antoinette herself. The closeness of the relationship was such that he was accused by Parisian rumour mongers of having seduced her. As part of Marie Antoinettes social set, Charles often appeared opposite her in the theatre of her favourite royal retreat. They were both said to be very talented amateur actors, Marie Antoinette played milkmaids, shepherdesses, and country ladies, whereas Charles played lovers, valets, and farmers
26.
July Monarchy
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The July Monarchy, was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under Louis Philippe I, starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848. It began with the overthrow of the government of Charles X. The king promised to follow the juste milieu, or the middle-of-the-road, avoiding the extremes of the supporters of Charles X. The July Monarchy was dominated by wealthy bourgeoisie and numerous former Napoleonic officials and it followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of François Guizot. The king promoted friendship with Great Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, by 1848, a year in which many European states had a revolution, the kings popularity had collapsed and he was overthrown. Louis Phillipe was pushed to the throne by an alliance between the people of Paris, the republicans, who had set up barricades in the capital, and the liberal bourgeoisie. However, at the end of his reign the so-called Citizen King was overthrown by similar barricades during the February Revolution of 1848, the Legitimists withdrew from the political stage to their castles, leaving the stage opened for the struggle between the Orleanists and the Republicans. Louis-Philippe was crowned King of the French, instead of King of France, Louis-Philippe, who had flirted with liberalism in his youth, rejected much of the pomp and circumstance of the Bourbons and surrounded himself with merchants and bankers. The July Monarchy, however, remained a time of turmoil, a large group of Legitimists on the right demanded the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne. On the left, Republicanism and, later Socialism, remained a powerful force, late in his reign Louis-Philippe became increasingly rigid and dogmatic and his President of the Council, François Guizot, had become deeply unpopular, but Louis-Philippe refused to remove him. The situation gradually escalated until the Revolutions of 1848 saw the fall of the monarchy, however, during the first several years of his regime, Louis-Philippe appeared to move his government toward legitimate, broad-based reform. And indeed, Louis-Phillipe and his ministers adhered to policies that seemed to promote the central tenets of the constitution, thus, though the July Monarchy seemed to move toward reform, this movement was largely illusory. During the years of the July Monarchy, enfranchisement roughly doubled, however, this still represented only roughly one percent of population, and as the requirements for voting were tax-based, only the wealthiest gained the privilege. By implication, the enlarged enfranchisement tended to favor the wealthy merchant bourgeoisie more than any other group, beyond simply increasing their presence within the Chamber of Deputies, this electoral enlargement provided the bourgeoisie the means by which to challenge the nobility in legislative matters. Thus, while appearing to honor his pledge to increase suffrage, Louis-Philippe acted primarily to empower his supporters, the inclusion of only the wealthiest also tended to undermine any possibility of the growth of a radical faction in Parliament, effectively serving socially conservative ends. The reformed Charter of 1830 limited the power of the King—stripping him of his ability to propose and decree legislation, one of the first acts of Louis-Philippe in constructing his cabinet was to appoint the rather conservative Casimir Perier as the premier of that body. Perier, a banker, was instrumental in shutting down many of the Republican secret societies, in addition, he oversaw the dismemberment of the National Guard after it proved too supportive of radical ideologies. He performed all of actions, of course, with royal approval
27.
Louis Philippe I
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Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 as the leader of the Orléanist party. He spent 21 years in exile after he left France in 1793 and he was proclaimed king in 1830 after his cousin Charles X was forced to abdicate in the wake of the events of the July Revolution of that year. His government, known as the July Monarchy, was dominated by members of a wealthy French elite and he followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of the French statesman François Guizot during the period 1840–48. He also promoted friendship with Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, notably the conquest of Algeria and his popularity faded as economic conditions in France deteriorated in 1847, and he was forced to abdicate after the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848. He lived out his life in exile in Great Britain, Louis Philippe was born in the Palais Royal, the residence of the Orléans family in Paris, to Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, and Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a Prince of the Blood and his mother was an extremely wealthy heiress who was descended from Louis XIV of France through a legitimized line. Louis Philippe was the eldest of three sons and a daughter, a family that was to have erratic fortunes from the beginning of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration. Louis Philippes father was exiled from the court, and the Orléans confined themselves to studies of the literature. Louis Philippe was tutored by the Countess of Genlis, beginning in 1782 and she instilled in him a fondness for liberal thought, it is probably during this period that Louis Philippe picked up his slightly Voltairean brand of Catholicism. When Louis Philippes grandfather died in 1785, his father succeeded him as Duke of Orléans, from October 1788 to October 1789, the Palais Royal was a meeting-place for the revolutionaries. Louis Philippe grew up in a period that changed Europe as a whole and, following his fathers support for the Revolution. In his diary, he reports that he took the initiative to join the Jacobin Club. In June 1791, Louis Philippe got his first opportunity to become involved in the affairs of France, in 1785, he had been given the hereditary appointment of Colonel of the 14th Regiment of Dragoons. With war on the horizon in 1791, all proprietary colonels were ordered to join their regiments, Louis Philippe showed himself to be a model officer, and he demonstrated his personal bravery in two famous instances. The young colonel broke through the crowd and extricated the two priests, who then fled, at a river crossing on the same day, another crowd threatened to harm the priests. Louis Philippe put himself between a peasant armed with a carbine and the priests, saving their lives, the next day, Louis Philippe dove into a river to save a drowning local engineer. For this action, he received a crown from the local municipality. His regiment was moved north to Flanders at the end of 1791 after the Declaration of Pillnitz, Louis Philippe served under his fathers crony, the Duke of Biron, along with several officers who later gained distinction in Napoleons empire and afterwards
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French Second Republic
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The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the 1851 coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, the Second Republic witnessed the tension between the Social and Democratic Republic and a liberal form of Republic, which exploded during the June Days Uprising of 1848. The industrial population of the faubourgs was welcomed by the National Guard on their way towards the centre of Paris, barricades were raised after the shooting of protestors outside the Guizot manor by soldiers. On 23 February 1848 Guizots cabinet resigned, abandoned by the petite bourgeoisie, the heads of the Left Centre and the dynastic Left, Molé and Thiers, declined the offered leadership. Odilon Barrot accepted it, and Bugeaud, commander-in-chief of the first military division, in the face of the insurrection which had now taken possession of the whole capital, Louis-Philippe decided to abdicate in favour of his grandson, Philippe, comte de Paris. The Republic was then proclaimed by Alphonse de Lamartine in the name of the government elected by the Chamber under the pressure of the mob. But this time the Palais Bourbon was not victorious over the Hôtel de Ville and it had to consent to a fusion of the two bodies, in which, however, the predominating elements were the moderate republicans. It was uncertain what the policy of the new government would be, the other party wished to maintain society on the basis of its traditional institutions, and rallied round the tricolore. The first collision took place as to the form which the 1848 Revolution was to take. On 5 March the government, under the pressure of the Parisian clubs, decided in favour of a reference to the people, and direct universal suffrage. This added the uneducated masses to the electorate and led to the election of the Constituent Assembly of 4 May 1848, the socialists thus formed a sort of state-within-a-state, complete with a government and an armed force. Even this pitiful dole, with no obligation to work, proved attractive, and all over France, workmen quit their jobs and traveled to Paris, where they swelled the ranks of the army under the red flag. The socialist economic plan was straining state finances, and as the émeute of 15 May had proven that it constituted a menace to the state. The socialist party was defeated and afterwards its members were deported, by the massacres of the June Days, the working classes were also alienated from it. The Duke of Wellington wrote at this time, France needs a Napoleon, the granting of universal suffrage to a society with Imperialist sympathies would benefit reactionaries, which culminated in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as president of the republic. The new constitution, proclaiming a republic, direct universal suffrage. Under the new constitution, there was to be a single permanent Assembly of 750 members elected for a term of three years by the scrutin de liste, the Assembly would elect members of a Council of State to serve for six years. Laws would be proposed by the Council of State, to be voted on by the Assembly and he was to choose his ministers, who, like him, would be responsible to the Assembly
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Second French Empire
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The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor
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Napoleon III
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Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the only President of the French Second Republic and, as Napoleon III, the Emperor of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I and he was the first President of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution, during the first years of the Empire, Napoleons government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until 1859, thousands more went into voluntary exile abroad, including Victor Hugo. From 1862 onwards, he relaxed government censorship, and his came to be known as the Liberal Empire. Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly, Napoleon III is best known today for his grand reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon, Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railway system, and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, Napoleon III negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier free trade agreement with Britain and similar agreements with Frances other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize, womens education greatly expanded, as did the list of required subjects in public schools. In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and he was a supporter of popular sovereignty and of nationalism. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War and his regime assisted Italian unification and, in doing so, annexed Savoy and the County of Nice to France, at the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. Napoleon doubled the area of the French overseas empire in Asia, the Pacific, on the other hand, his armys intervention in Mexico which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection ended in failure. Beginning in 1866, Napoleon had to face the power of Prussia. In July 1870, Napoleon entered the Franco-Prussian War without allies, the French army was rapidly defeated and Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan. The French Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris, and Napoleon went into exile in England, charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 20–21 April 1808. His presumed father was Louis Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter by the first marriage of Napoleons wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, as empress, Joséphine proposed the marriage as a way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile. Louis married Hortense when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen and they had a difficult relationship, and only lived together for brief periods
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French Third Republic
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It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s 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 Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again
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Romanticism
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Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was embodied most strongly in the arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of heroic individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art, there was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th century, Realism was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism, the decline of Romanticism during this time was associated with multiple processes, including social and political changes and the spread of nationalism. Defining the nature of Romanticism may be approached from the point of the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. The importance the Romantics placed on emotion is summed up in the remark of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich that the feeling is his law. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others believed there were laws that the imagination—at least of a good creative artist—would unconsciously follow through artistic inspiration if left alone. As well as rules, the influence of models from other works was considered to impede the creators own imagination, so that originality was essential. The concept of the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own work through this process of creation from nothingness, is key to Romanticism. This idea is called romantic originality. Not essential to Romanticism, but so widespread as to be normative, was a strong belief, however, this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone. Romantic art addressed its audiences with what was intended to be felt as the voice of the artist. So, in literature, much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves. In both French and German the closeness of the adjective to roman, meaning the new literary form of the novel, had some effect on the sense of the word in those languages. It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, the period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought. Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place roughly between 1770 and 1848, and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature, M. H. Abrams placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter a very typical view, and about 1830, however, in most fields the Romantic Period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier
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Realism (arts)
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Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in part a matter of technique and training. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the depiction of lifeforms, perspective. Realist works of art may emphasize the mundane, ugly or sordid, such as works of realism, regionalism. There have been various movements in the arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism. The realism art movement in painting began in France in the 1850s, the realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. Realism is the precise, detailed and accurate representation in art of the appearance of scenes. Realism in this sense is also called naturalism, mimesis or illusionism, realistic art was created in many periods, and it is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. It becomes especially marked in European painting in the Early Netherlandish painting of Jan van Eyck, however such realism is often used to depict, for example, angels with wings, which were not things the artists had ever seen in real life. It is the choice and treatment of matter that defines Realism as a movement in painting. The development of increasingly accurate representation of the appearances of things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the depiction of the anatomy of humans and animals, of perspective and effects of distance. Ancient Greek art is recognised as having made great progress in the representation of anatomy. Pliny the Elders famous story of birds pecking at grapes painted by Zeuxis in the 5th century BC may well be a legend, roman portraiture, when not under too much Greek influence, shows a greater commitment to a truthful depiction of its subjects. The art of Late Antiquity famously rejected illusionism for expressive force, scientific methods of representing perspective were developed in Italy and gradually spread across Europe, and accuracy in anatomy rediscovered under the influence of classical art. As in classical times, idealism remained the norm, intriguingly, having led the development of illusionic painting, still life was to be equally significant in its abandonment in Cubism. The depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects in art also has a history, though it was often squeezed into the edges of compositions. However these objects are at least largely there because they carry layers of complex significance, pieter Bruegel the Elder pioneered large panoramic scenes of peasant life
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Symbolist poetry
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
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Victor Hugo
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Victor Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers, outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables,1862, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,1831. In France, Hugo is known primarily for his collections, such as Les Contemplations. He produced more than 4,000 drawings and also campaigned for causes such as the abolition of capital punishment. He is buried in the Panthéon in Paris and his legacy has been honoured in many ways, including his portrait being placed on French currency. Victor Hugo was the son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie Trébuchet, his brothers were Abel Joseph Hugo. He was born in 1802 in Besançon in the region of Franche-Comté. Hugos childhood was a period of political turmoil. Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of the French two years after Hugos birth, and the Bourbon Monarchy was restored before his 13th birthday, since Hugos father was an officer, the family moved frequently and Hugo learned much from these travels. On a childhood trip to Naples, Hugo saw the vast Alpine passes and the snowy peaks, the magnificently blue Mediterranean. Though he was five years old at the time, he remembered the six-month-long trip vividly. They stayed in Naples for a few months and then headed back to Paris, at the beginning of her marriage, Hugos mother Sophie followed her husband to posts in Italy and Spain. Thereafter she dominated Hugos education and upbringing, as a result, Hugos early work in poetry and fiction reflect her passionate devotion to both King and Faith. It was only later, during the leading up to Frances 1848 Revolution. Young Victor fell in love and, against his mothers wishes, because of his close relationship with his mother, Hugo waited until after her death to marry Adèle in 1822. Adèle and Victor Hugo had their first child, Léopold, in 1823, on 28 August 1824, the couples second child, Léopoldine was born, followed by Charles on 4 November 1826, François-Victor on 28 October 1828, and Adèle on 24 August 1830. Hugos eldest and favourite daughter, Léopoldine, died aged 19 in 1843, on 4 September, she drowned in the Seine at Villequier, pulled down by her heavy skirts when a boat overturned. Her young husband also died trying to save her, the death left her father devastated, Hugo was travelling with his mistress at the time in the south of France, and first learned about Léopoldines death from a newspaper he read in a café
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Alexandre Dumas
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Alexandre Dumas, also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer. His works have translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. His novels have been adapted since the twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005 and it was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays and he also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books, his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris and his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, Dumas fathers aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans. He later began working as a writer, finding early success, decades later, in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. Upon leaving Belgium, Dumas moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy, in 1861, he founded and published the newspaper LIndipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864, he returned to Paris, though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs. In his lifetime, he was known to have at least four illegitimate or natural children and he acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père and Alexandre Dumas fils, among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress then less than half his age and at the height of her career. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his life, described him as the most generous. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth and his tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself. Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was born in 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy and he had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine and Louise-Alexandrine. Their parents were Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, at the time of Alexandres birth, his father was impoverished. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa, brought as a boy to France by his father and legally freed there, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. As an adult, Thomas-Alexandre used his mothers name, Dumas, as his surname after a break with his father, Dumas was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army
