1.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
2.
Kingdom of France
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The Kingdom of France was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and it was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. France originated as West Francia, the half of the Carolingian Empire. A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, the territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself Roi de France was Philip II, France continued to be ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines—the Valois and Bourbon—until the monarchy was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution. France in the Middle Ages was a de-centralised, feudal monarchy, in Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine and Provence were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France, during the Late Middle Ages, the Kings of England laid claim to the French throne, resulting in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War. Subsequently, France sought to extend its influence into Italy, but was defeated by Spain in the ensuing Italian Wars, religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion. France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France, Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America, the Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the great powers in 1814. During the later years of the elderly Charlemagnes rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks, after Charlemagnes death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Viking advances were allowed to increase, and their dreaded longboats were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other waterways, wreaking havoc. During the reign of Charles the Simple, Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, that was to become Normandy. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years. Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married Frances newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne. The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line, under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman, so the throne passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois
3.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
4.
James II of England
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James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland, the second surviving son of Charles I, he ascended the throne upon the death of his brother, Charles II. Members of Britains Protestant political elite increasingly suspected him of being pro-French and pro-Catholic and he was replaced by his eldest, Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. James made one attempt to recover his crowns from William. After the defeat of the Jacobite forces by the Williamites at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 and he lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV. James, the surviving son of King Charles I and his wife. Later that same year, he was baptised by William Laud and he was educated by private tutors, along with his brother, the future King Charles II, and the two sons of the Duke of Buckingham, George and Francis Villiers. At the age of three, James was appointed Lord High Admiral, the position was honorary, but would become a substantive office after the Restoration. He was designated Duke of York at birth, invested with the Order of the Garter in 1642, as the Kings disputes with the English Parliament grew into the English Civil War, James stayed in Oxford, a Royalist stronghold. When the city surrendered after the siege of Oxford in 1646, in 1648, he escaped from the Palace, aided by Joseph Bampfield, and from there he went to The Hague in disguise. When Charles I was executed by the rebels in 1649, monarchists proclaimed Jamess older brother as Charles II of England, Charles II was recognised as king by the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of Ireland, and was crowned King of Scotland at Scone in 1651. Although he was proclaimed King in Jersey, Charles was unable to secure the crown of England and consequently fled to France, like his brother, James sought refuge in France, serving in the French army under Turenne against the Fronde, and later against their Spanish allies. In the French army James had his first true experience of battle where, according to one observer, he ventures himself, in the meantime, Charles was attempting to reclaim his throne, but France, although hosting the exiles, had allied itself with Oliver Cromwell. In 1656, Charles turned instead to Spain – an enemy of France – for support, in consequence, James was expelled from France and forced to leave Turennes army. James quarrelled with his brother over the choice of Spain over France. In 1659, the French and Spanish made peace, James, doubtful of his brothers chances of regaining the throne, considered taking a Spanish offer to be an admiral in their navy. Ultimately, he declined the position, by the year the situation in England had changed. After Richard Cromwells resignation as Lord Protector in 1659 and the subsequent collapse of the Commonwealth in 1660, although James was the heir presumptive, it seemed unlikely that he would inherit the Crown, as Charles was still a young man capable of fathering children
5.
James Francis Edward Stuart
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James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales, nicknamed the Old Pretender, was the son of the deposed James II of England and Ireland, VII of Scotland. As such, he claimed the English, Scottish and Irish thrones from the death of his father in 1701, following his death in 1766, he was succeeded by his son Charles Edward Stuart in the Jacobite Succession. Had his father not been deposed, Great Britain might have had two monarchs during his lifetime, his father and himself. Instead there were seven, his father, William III, Mary II, Anne, George I, George II and their attempts are remembered in history as Jacobitism. Prince James Francis Edward was born 10 June 1688, at St. Jamess Palace. He was the son of King James II of England and Ireland, and his Roman Catholic second wife, Mary of Modena, Mary and her younger sister Princess Anne, had been raised as Protestants. As long as there was a possibility of one of them succeeding him, in an attempt to scotch this myth, James published the testimonies of over seventy witnesses to the birth. On 9 December, in the midst of the Glorious Revolution, Mary of Modena disguised herself as a laundress, young James was brought up at the château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which Louis XIV had turned over to the exiled James II. Both the ex-king and his family were held in consideration by the French king and they were frequent visitors at Versailles where Louis XIV. On his fathers death in 1701, James was recognised by King Louis XIV of France, spain, the Papal States and Modena also recognized him as King James III of England and VIII of Scotland and refused to recognise William III, Mary II or Anne as legitimate sovereigns. As a result of his claiming his fathers lost thrones, James was attainted for treason in London on 2 March 1702, though delayed in France by an attack of measles, James attempted invasion, trying to land at the Firth of Forth on 23 March 1708. The fleet of Admiral Sir George Byng intercepted the French ships, James served for a time in the French army, as his father had done during the inter-regnum. A year later however the British government pushed for Jamess expulsion from France as a precondition for a treaty with France. In accordance with the Treaty of Utrecht, Harley and Lord Bolingbroke, Queen Anne became severely ill at Christmas 1713, and seemed close to death. In January 1714, she recovered but clearly had not much longer to live, through de Torcy and his London agent, Abbé François Gaultier, Harley kept up the correspondence with James, and Bolingbroke had also entered into a separate correspondence with him. They both stated to James that his conversion to Protestantism would facilitate his restoration, however James, a devout Catholic, replied to Torcy, I have chosen my own course, therefore it is for others to change their sentiments. In March, came Jamess refusal to convert, following which Harley and Bolingbroke reached the opinion that Jamess restoration was not feasible, though they maintained their correspondence with him. As a result, in August 1714, Jamess second cousin, the Elector of Hanover, George of Hanover, in the following year Scottish Jacobites started The Fifteen Jacobite rising in Scotland, aimed at putting James III and VIII on the throne
6.
Portrait
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A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person, for this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, nonetheless, many subjects, such as Akhenaten and some other Egyptian pharaohs, can be recognised by their distinctive features. The 28 surviving rather small statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Sumeria between c.2144 -2124 BC, show a consistent appearance with some individuality. Some of the earliest surviving painted portraits of people who were not rulers are the Greco-Roman funeral portraits that survived in the dry climate of Egypts Fayum district. These are almost the only paintings from the world that have survived, apart from frescos, though many sculptures. Although the appearance of the figures differs considerably, they are considerably idealized, the art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of a symbol of what that person looked like. In the Europe of the Early Middle Ages representations of individuals are mostly generalized, true portraits of the outward appearance of individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in tomb monuments, donor portraits, miniatures in illuminated manuscripts and then panel paintings. Moche culture of Peru was one of the few ancient civilizations which produced portraits and these works accurately represent anatomical features in great detail. The individuals portrayed would have been recognizable without the need for other symbols or a reference to their names. The individuals portrayed were members of the elite, priests, warriors. They were represented during several stages of their lives, the faces of gods were also depicted. To date, no portraits of women have been found, there is particular emphasis on the representation of the details of headdresses, hairstyles, body adornment and face painting. One of the portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vincis painting titled Mona Lisa. What has been claimed as the worlds oldest known portrait was found in 2006 in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old. Profile view, full view, and three-quarter view, are three common designations for portraits, each referring to a particular orientation of the head of the individual depicted. Such terms would tend to have greater applicability to two-dimensional artwork such as photography, in the case of three-dimensional artwork, the viewer can usually alter their orientation to the artwork by moving around it
7.
Nobility
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The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
8.
Hyacinthe Rigaud
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Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris. Hyacinthe Rigaud was born in Perpignan, the grandson of painter-gilders from Roussillon and he was trained in tailoring in his fathers workshop but perfected his skills as a painter under Antoine Ranc at Montpellier from 1671 onwards, before moving to Lyon four years later. It was in cities that he became familiar with Flemish, Dutch and Italian painting, particularly that of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Titian. Arriving in Paris in 1681, he won the prix de Rome in 1682, received into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1700, he rose to the top of this institution before retiring from it in 1735. Since Rigauds paintings captured very exact likenesses along with the costumes and background details. Rigaud was baptised with his Catalan name in the old cathédrale Saint-Jean de Perpignan on 20 July 1659 and he would not have become French had not Roussillon and the Cerdanya been annexed to France the following 7 November thanks to the Treaty of the Pyrenees. That Treaty also put an end to the wars that had taken place between France and Habsburg Spain since 1635 and married King Louis XIV of France to the infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, few of these have survived to the present. On 13 March 1647 Hyacinthes father Matias Rigau, married Thérèse Faget, widowed shortly after, he decided to speedily remarry, to Maria Serra, daughter of a Perpignan textile merchant, on 20 December 1655. In 1665, he acquired a house en lo carrer de las casas cremades, by his second marriage, he also acquired a house on place de lHuile, but he soon sold it. Unfortunately, little is known about Rigauds activities in Lyon, due to the lack of surviving documents, however, as per tradition, artists from Montpellier had strong ties with this city, as had, for example, Samuel Boissière who was trained in there, in Lyon. The identity of Rigauds future depicted models shows that he worked for the cloth merchants. Rigauds portrait of Jean de Brunenc, painted in 1687, a merchant, banker and consul of Lyon. In his first will, dated 30 May 1707, the artist left the bust to the Grand Dauphin, Louis XIVs son, also in the document, Rigaud bequeathed the portrait containing the two profiles of Maria Serra to the elder son of his brother Gaspard, named Hyacinthe. He also applied sketches of his sister Claire, accompanied by her husband and their first daughter, in spring 1696, Hyacinthe Rigaud returned to Paris, where he painted one of his most important portraits of the year. This was in fact sollicited by the duke of Saint-Simon, to depict Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, in 1709 he was made a noble by his hometown of Perpignan. In 1727 he was made a knight of the Order of Saint Michael, Rigaud died in Paris in 1743 at the age of 84. He was one of the most important portrait painters during the reign of King Louis XIV and his instinct for impressive poses and grand presentations precisely suited the tastes of the royal personages, ambassadors, clerics, courtiers, and financiers who sat for him. His œuvre reads as a portrait gallery of the chief movers in France from 1680 to 1740
9.
Baptism
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Baptism is a Christian sacrament of admission and adoption, almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally. The canonical Gospels report that Jesus was baptized—a historical event to which a degree of certainty can be assigned. Baptism has been called a sacrament and an ordinance of Jesus Christ. In some denominations, baptism is also called christening, but for others the word christening is reserved for the baptism of infants, Baptism has also given its name to the Baptist churches and denominations. The usual form of baptism among the earliest Christians was for the candidate to be immersed, in v.16, Matthew will speak of Jesus coming up out of the water. The traditional depiction in Christian art of John the Baptist pouring water over Jesus head may therefore be based on later Christian practice, other common forms of baptism now in use include pouring water three times on the forehead, a method called affusion. Martyrdom was identified early in Church history as baptism by blood, later, the Catholic Church identified a baptism of desire, by which those preparing for baptism who die before actually receiving the sacrament are considered saved. Today, some Christians, particularly Christian Scientists, Quakers, The Salvation Army, and Unitarians, do not see baptism as necessary, among those that do, differences can be found in the manner and mode of baptizing and in the understanding of the significance of the rite. Most Christians baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, much more than half of all Christians baptize infants, many others hold that only believers baptism is true baptism. Some insist on submersion or at least partial immersion of the person who is baptized, others consider that any form of washing by water, as long as the water flows on the head, is sufficient. The term baptism has also used to refer to any ceremony, trial, or experience by which a person is initiated, purified. The Greek verb baptō, dip, from which the verb baptizo is derived, is in turn hypothetically traced to a reconstructed Indo-European root *gʷabh-, the Greek words are used in a great variety of meanings. John the Baptist, who is considered a forerunner to Christianity, the apostle Paul distinguished between the baptism of John, and baptism in the name of Jesus, and it is questionable whether Christian baptism was in some way linked with that of John. Christians consider Jesus to have instituted the sacrament of baptism, though whether Jesus intended to institute a continuing, the earliest Christian baptisms were probably normally by immersion, complete or partial. Though other modes may have also been used, at the hour in which the cock crows, they shall first pray over the water. When they come to the water, the water shall be pure and flowing, that is, then they shall take off all their clothes. The children shall be baptized first, all of the children who can answer for themselves, let them answer. If there are any children who cannot answer for themselves, let their parents answer for them, after this, the men will be baptized
10.
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
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Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the suburbs of Paris,19.1 km from the centre of Paris. Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois or Saint-Germinois, with its elegant tree-lined streets it is one of the more affluent suburbs of Paris, combining both high-end leisure spots and exclusive residential neighborhoods. Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a sub-prefecture of the department, because it includes the National Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, it covers approximately 48 km2, making it the largest commune in the Yvelines. It occupies a large loop of the Seine, Saint-Germain-en-Laye lies at one of the western termini of Line A of the RER. Saint-Germain-en-Laye was founded in 1020 when King Robert the Pious founded a convent on the site of the present Church of Saint-Germain, in 1688, James II, King of England, exiled himself to the city due to religious conflicts in his own country. He spent the remainder of his days there, and died on 16 September 1701, prior to the French Revolution in 1789, it had been a royal town and the Château de Saint-Germain the residence of numerous French monarchs. The old château was constructed in 1348 by King Charles V on the foundations of an old castle dating from 1238 in the time of Saint Louis, francis I was responsible for its subsequent restoration. In 1862, Napoleon III set up the Musée des Antiquités Nationales in the erstwhile royal château and this museum has exhibits ranging from Paleolithic to Celtic times. The Dame de Brassempouy sculpted on a mammoths ivory tusk around 23,000 years ago is the most famous exhibit in the museum, kings Henry IV and Louis XIII left their mark on the town. Louis XIV was born in the château, and established Saint-Germain-en-Laye as his residence from 1661 to 1681. Louis XIV turned over the château to James VII & II of Scotland and England after his exile from Britain after the Glorious Revolution in 1688, James lived in the Château for 13 years, and his daughter Louisa Maria Stuart was born in exile here in 1692. James II is buried in the Church of Saint-Germain, Saint-Germain-en-Laye is famous for its 2. 4-kilometre long stone terrace built by André Le Nôtre from 1669 to 1673. The terrace provides a view over the valley of the Seine and, in the distance, during the French Revolution, the name was changed along with many other places whose names held connotations of religion or royalty. During his reign, Napoleon I established his cavalry officers training school in the Château-Vieux, the Treaty of Saint-Germain was signed in 1919 and was applied on July 16,1920. The treaty officially registered the breakup of the Habsburg empire, which recognized the independence of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, during the occupation from 1940 to 1944, the town was the headquarters of the German Army. Saint-Germain-en-Laye is served by Saint-Germain-en-Laye station on Paris RER line A and it is also served by two stations on the Transilien Paris – Saint-Lazare suburban rail line, Saint-Germain – Bel-Air – Fourqueux and Saint-Germain – Grande Ceinture. Saint-Germain-en-Laye is also served by Achères – Grand Cormier station on Paris RER line A and this station is located in the middle of the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, far away from the urbanized part of the commune
