French Revolution
Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793.
External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity.
Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, nationalism, socialism and secularism, among many others. The Revolution witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France.
In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
Bastille
The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the conflicts of France. The Bastille was built to defend the approach to the city of Paris from the English threat in the Hundred Years War. The innovative design proved influential in both France and England and was widely copied, the fortress was declared a state prison in 1417, this role was expanded first under the English occupiers of the 1420s and 1430s, and under Louis XI in the 1460s. The defences of the Bastille were fortified in response to the English and Imperial threat during the 1550s, the Bastille played a key role in the rebellion of the Fronde and the battle of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was fought beneath its walls in 1652. Louis XIV used the Bastille as a prison for members of French society who had opposed or angered him including, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. From 1659 onwards, the Bastille functioned primarily as a state penitentiary, although inmates were kept in relatively good conditions, criticism of the Bastille grew during the 18th century, fueled by autobiographies written by former prisoners.
Reforms were implemented and prisoner numbers were considerably reduced, in 1789 the royal governments financial crisis and the formation of the National Assembly gave rise to a swelling of republican sentiments among city-dwellers. On 14 July the Bastille was stormed by a revolutionary crowd, seven remaining prisoners were found and released and the Bastilles governor, Bernard-René de Launay, was killed by the crowd. The Bastille was demolished by order of the Committee of the Hôtel de Ville, souvenirs of the fortress were transported around France and displayed as icons of the overthrow of despotism. Almost nothing is left of the Bastille except some remains of its foundation that were relocated to the side of the Boulevard Henri IV. The Bastille was built in response to a threat to Paris during the Hundred Years War between England and France, in 1357, Marcel expanded the city walls and protected the Porte Saint-Antoine with two high stone towers and a 78-foot-wide ditch. A fortified gateway of this sort was called a bastille, and was one of two created in Paris, the other being built outside the Porte Saint-Denis, Marcel was subsequently removed from his post and executed in 1358.
In 1369, Charles V became concerned about the weakness of the side of the city to English attacks. Charles instructed Hugh Aubriot, the new provost, to build a larger fortification on the same site as Marcels bastille. Work began in 1370 with another pair of towers being built behind the first bastille, the fortress was probably not finished by the time Charles died in 1380, and was completed by his son, Charles VI. Built to the height, the roofs of the towers. Each of the six towers had underground cachots, or dungeons, at its base
Library
A library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing. It provides physical or digital access to material, and may be a building or room, or a virtual space. Libraries range in size from a few shelves of books to several million items, in Latin and Greek, the idea of a bookcase is represented by Bibliotheca and Bibliothēkē, derivatives of these mean library in many modern languages, e. g. French bibliothèque. The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Sumer. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC. In the 6th century, at the close of the Classical period. A library is organized for use and maintained by a body, an institution. In addition to providing materials, libraries provide the services of librarians who are experts at finding and organizing information, Libraries often provide quiet areas for studying, and they often offer common areas to facilitate group study and collaboration.
Libraries often provide facilities for access to their electronic resources. Modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats, the first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing—the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in temple rooms in Sumer, some dating back to 2600 BC. These archives, which consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory. Things were much the same in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt, the earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit, besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. There is evidence of libraries at Nippur about 1900 BC, philosopher Laozi was keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty. Also, evidence of catalogues found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians, the Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world.
It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The library was conceived and opened either during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter or during the reign of his son Ptolemy II, an early organization system was in effect at Alexandria. The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, now part of Selçuk, Turkey was built in honor of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus by Celsus’ son, the library was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC
Archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organizations lifetime, in general, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value. Archival records are normally unpublished and almost always unique, unlike books or magazines for which many copies exist. This means that archives are quite distinct from libraries with regard to their functions and organization, a person who works in archives is called an archivist. The study and practice of organizing and providing access to information, the physical place of storage can be referred to as an archive, an archives, or a repository. When referring to historical records or the places they are kept, the computing use of the term archive should not be confused with the record-keeping meaning of the term.
The adjective formed from archive is archival, the practice of keeping official documents is very old. Archaeologists have discovered archives of hundreds of clay tablets going back to the third and second millennia BC in sites like Ebla, Amarna, Hattusas and these discoveries have been fundamental to know ancient alphabets, languages and politics. Archives were well developed by the ancient Chinese, the ancient Greeks, they have been lost, since documents written on materials like papyrus and paper deteriorated at a faster pace, unlike their stone tablet counterparts. Archives of churches and cities from the Middle Ages survive and have kept their official status uninterruptedly till now. They are the tool for historical research on these ages. Modern archival thinking has many roots from the French Revolution, genealogists, demographers and others conduct research at archives. The research process at each archive is unique, and depends upon the institution that houses the archive. While there are kinds of archives, the most recent census of archivists in the United States identifies five major types, business, non-profit.
There are four main areas of inquiry involved with archives, material technologies, organizing principles, geographic locations and these areas help to further categorize what kind of archive is being created. Archives in colleges and other facilities are typically housed within a library. Academic archives exist to preserve history and serve the academic community. Access to the collections in these archives is usually by prior appointment only, users of academic archives can be undergraduates, graduate students and staff, scholarly researchers, and the general public
Bourbon Restoration
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 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 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
Germain Boffrand
Germain Boffrand was a French architect. A pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Germain Boffrand was one of the creators of the precursor to Rococo called the style Régence. His uncle, Philippe Quinault, introduced him to prospective clients among the aristocracy of Paris, in 1709, he was placed in charge of the interior apartments of the Hôtel de Soubise, where he soon succeeded the architect Pierre-Alexis Delamair. None of his early interiors survive, largely replaced by his spectacular Rococo work of the years following 1735, Boffrand was received by the Académie royale darchitecture in 1709. The following year he was among those employed in the additions to the Palais Bourbon, in 1732, he was appointed inspecteur général des ponts et chaussées and produced plans for restructuring Les Halles. He was a participant in the competition for the design of Place Louis XV, named chief architect to the hôpital général in 1724, he constructed in the Île de la Cité a foundling hospital, the Hôpital des Enfants Trouvés.
Boffrand worked for the hospitals at the Salpêtrière, at Bicêtre and he built a series of hôtels particuliers in Paris as speculative business enterprises. Boffrands pavilion of 1712-15 that inaugurated the new quarter of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré was purchased, Boffrand worked for the Duke of Lorraine, where he was appointed Premier Architecte to Duke Léopold in 1711, but little of significance remains. He constructed a fountain and a hunt pavilion, Bouchefort, in the gardens of the schloss belonging to the Elector of Bavaria, in 1724 Boffrand worked on site at Würzburg with Balthasar Neumann, who had been consulting him in Paris, on the Prince-Bishops Residenz. His designs were carried out in the suite of rooms. Among the architects trained in his atelier were François Dominique Barreau de Chefdeville, Charles-Louis Clérisseau and Emmanuel Héré de Corny, Boffrands two sons collaborated in the office, both dying young, in 1732 and 1745. Boffrands folio, Livre darchitecture, was published in 1745, there are no surviving caches of his drawings.
In January 1745 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Germain Boffrand died in Paris in 1754 at age 86. The following commissions of Boffrand are largely taken from Fiske Kimball, Hôtel Le Brun,49 rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, for Charles II Le Brun, the nephew and heir of the premier peintre du roi Charles Le Brun and a relative of Boffrands. One of the first hôtels particuliers noted and commended by contemporary critics, remodelling of the Hôtel de Mesme. Remodelling of the Hôtel de Livry, Hôtel de Soubise,60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, and the suite of interiors, Boffrands last major work and his masterpiece, for the prince de Rohan and his wife Marie Sophie de Courcillon. Façade of the Convent of Fathers of Mercy,45 rue des Archives, built for the prince de Soubise to provide a suitable sdtreet front opposite his new hôtel. Renovation for Anne Henriette of Bavaria, princess Palatine, widow of the Henri Jules, much of Boffrands decoration survives, including the staircase with its coved cornices filled with scrolls and foliage and rounded corners
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning action, which is derived from I do, the two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia was the Muse of comedy, while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the mode has been contrasted with the epic. The use of drama in a narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example and it is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe drama as a genre within their respective media. Radio drama has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a performance, it has been used to describe the more high-brow. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production, the structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception.
The early modern tragedy Hamlet by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama, a modern example is Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill. Closet drama describes a form that is intended to be read, in improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance, performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. Western drama originates in classical Greece, the theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama, tragedy and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of celebrating the god Dionysus. The competition for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BCE, tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays, which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BCE, five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia, each offering a single comedy.
Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between old comedy, middle comedy and new comedy, following the expansion of the Roman Republic into several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome encountered Greek drama. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, from the beginning of the empire, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BCE, five years later, Gnaeus Naevius began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived, by the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers had been formed
Charles X of France
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, 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, 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, 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 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 and country ladies, whereas Charles played lovers and farmers
Paris
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, fashion 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 a rail 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, 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 been known as Panam in French slang.
Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are 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
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality. He was a proponent of freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion. The words sadism and sadist are derived from his name, during the French Revolution, he was an elected delegate to the National Convention. Many of his works were written in prison and he was his parents only surviving child. He was educated by an uncle, the Abbé de Sade, in Sades youth, his father abandoned the family, his mother joined a convent. He was raised with servants who indulged his every whim, which led to him becoming known as a rebellious, in his childhood, Sade was sent to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, a Jesuit college, for four years. While at the school, he was tutored by Abbé Jacques-François Amblet, in life, the Abbé testified at one of Sades trials, saying that Sade had a passionate temperament which made him eager in the pursuit of pleasure but had a good heart.
At the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he was subjected to corporal punishment, including flagellation. At age 14, Sade began attending a military academy. At age 15, he was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant on 14 December 1755 after 20 months of training, becoming a soldier. After 13 months as a sub-lieutenant, he was commissioned to the rank of cornet in the Brigade de S. André of the Comte de Provences Carbine Regiment and he eventually became Colonel of a Dragoon regiment and fought in the Seven Years War. In 1766, he had a theatre built in his castle. In January 1767, his father died, the men of the Sade family alternated between using the marquis and comte titles. His grandfather, Gaspard François de Sade, was the first to use marquis, occasionally, he was the Marquis de Sade, but is identified in documents as the Marquis de Mazan. The Sade family were noblesse dépée, claiming at the time the oldest, Frank-descended nobility, so, at Court, precedence was by seniority and royal favor, not title. There is father-and-son correspondence, wherein father addresses son as marquis, for many years, Sades descendants regarded his life and work as a scandal to be suppressed.
At that time, the marquis of legend was so unmentionable in his own family that Xavier de Sade only learned of him in the late 1940s when approached by a journalist. He subsequently discovered a store of Sades papers in the family château at Condé-en-Brie and his youngest son, the Marquis Thibault de Sade, has continued the collaboration
