Charles VII of France
Charles VII, called the Victorious or the Well-Served, was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461, the fifth from the House of Valois. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of France under desperate circumstances. Forces of the Kingdom of England and the Duchy of Burgundy occupied Guyenne and northern France, including Paris, the most populous city, Reims, the city in which the French kings were traditionally crowned. In addition, his father Charles VI had disinherited him in 1420 and recognized Henry V of England and his heirs as the legitimate successors to the French crown instead. At the same time, a civil war raged in France between the Burgundian party. With his court removed to Bourges, south of the Loire River, Charles was disparagingly called the “King of Bourges”, because the area around this city was one of the few remaining regions left to him. However, his political and military position improved with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a spiritual leader in France.
Joan of Arc and other charismatic figures led French troops to lift the siege of Orléans, as well as other strategic cities on the Loire river, to crush the English at the battle of Patay. With the local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates, which enabled the coronation of Charles VII in 1429 at Reims Cathedral; this long-awaited event boosted French morale. Following the battle of Castillon in 1453, the French expelled the English from all their continental possessions except for the Pale of Calais; the last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the future Louis XI of France. Born at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the royal residence in Paris, Charles was given the title of comte de Ponthieu at his birth in 1403, he was the eleventh child and fifth son of Charles VI of Isabeau of Bavaria. His four elder brothers, Charles and John had each held the title of Dauphin of France in turn. All died childless. After his accession to the title of Dauphin, Charles had to face threats to his inheritance, he was forced to flee from Paris on 29 May 1418 after the partisans of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had entered the city the previous night.
By 1419, Charles had established a Parlement in Poitiers. On 11 July of that same year and John the Fearless attempted a reconciliation by signing, on a small bridge near Pouilly-le-Fort, not far from Melun where Charles was staying, the Treaty of Pouilly-le-Fort known under name of Paix du Ponceau, they decided that a further meeting should take place the following 10 September. On that date, they met on the bridge at Montereau; the Duke assumed that the meeting would be peaceful and diplomatic, thus he brought only a small escort with him. The Dauphin's men reacted to the Duke's arrival by killing him. Charles' level of involvement has remained uncertain to this day. Although he claimed to have been unaware of his men's intentions, this was considered unlikely by those who heard of the murder; the assassination marked the end of any attempt of a reconciliation between the two factions Armagnacs and Burgundians, thus playing into the hands of Henry V of England. Charles was required by a treaty with Philip the Good, the son of John the Fearless, to pay penance for the murder, which he never did.
At the death of his father, Charles VI, the succession was cast into doubt. The Treaty of Troyes, signed by Charles VI in 1420, mandated that the throne pass to the infant King Henry VI of England, the son of the deceased Henry V and Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI. For those who did not recognize the treaty and believed the Dauphin Charles to be of legitimate birth, he was considered to be the rightful heir to the throne. For those who did not recognize his legitimacy, the rightful heir was recognized as Charles, Duke of Orléans, cousin of the Dauphin, in English captivity. Only the supporters of Henry VI and the Dauphin Charles were able to enlist sufficient military force to press for their candidates; the English in control of northern France, were able to enforce the claim of their king in the regions of France that they occupied. Northern France, including Paris, was thus ruled by an English regent, Henry V's brother, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, based in Normandy.
In his adolescent years, Charles was noted for his flamboyant style of leadership. At one point after becoming Dauphin, he led an army against the English dressed in the red and blue that represented his family. However, in July 1421, upon learning that Henry V was preparing from Mantes to attack with a much larger army, he withdrew from the siege of Chartres in order to avoid defeat, he went south of the Loire River under the protection of Yolande of Aragon, known as "Queen of the Four Kingdoms" and, on 22 April 1422, married her daughter, Marie of Anjou, to whom he had been engaged since December 1413 in a ceremony at the Louvre Palace. Charles, claimed the title King of Franc
Treaty of Paris (1259)
The Treaty of Paris was a treaty between Louis IX of France and Henry III of England, agreed to on 4 December 1259, ending 100 years of conflicts between the Capetian and Plantagenet dynasties. In 1204, Philip II of France had forced King John out of continental Normandy enforcing his 1202 claim that the lands were forfeit. Despite the 1217 Treaty of Lambeth, hostilities continued between the successive Kings of France and England until 1259. Under the Treaty, Henry acknowledged loss of the Duchy of Normandy. However, Philip had failed in his attempts to occupy the Norman islands in the Channel; the treaty held that "islands which the King of England should hold", he would retain "as peer of France and Duke of Aquitaine". Henry agreed to renounce control of Maine and Poitou, lost under the reign of King John but remained Duke of Aquitaine and was able to keep the lands of Gascony and parts of Aquitaine but only as a vassal to Louis. In exchange, Louis withdrew his support for English rebels, he ceded to Henry the bishoprics and cities of Limoges, Cahors and Périgueux and was to pay an annual rent for possession of Agenais.
Doubts about interpreting the Treaty began as soon as it was signed. The agreement resulted in the fact that the English kings had to pay homage liege to the French monarchs for territories on the continent; the situation did not help the friendly relationship between the two states, as it made two sovereigns of equal powers in their countries in fact unequal. According to professor Malcolm Vale, the Treaty of Paris was one of the indirect causes of the Hundred Years' War. List of treaties
Subprefectures in France
In France, a subprefecture is the administrative center of a departmental arrondissement that does not contain the prefecture for its department. The term applies to the building that houses the administrative headquarters for an arrondissement; the civil servant in charge of a subprefecture is the subprefect, assisted by a general secretary. Between May 1982 and February 1988, subprefects were known instead by the title commissaire adjoint de la République. Where the administration of an arrondissement is carried out from a prefecture, the general secretary to the prefect carries out duties equivalent to those of the subprefect; the municipal arrondissements of Paris and Marseille are divisions of the city rather than the prefecture, so are not arrondissements in the same sense. List of subprefectures of France List of arrondissements of France
July Monarchy
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 marks the end of the Bourbon Restoration, it began with the overthrow of the conservative government of Charles X, the last king of the House of Bourbon. Louis Philippe, a member of the more liberal Orléans branch of the House of Bourbon, proclaimed himself as Roi des Français rather than "King of France", emphasizing the popular origins of his reign; the king promised to follow the "juste milieu", or the middle-of-the-road, avoiding the extremes of either the conservative supporters of Charles X and radicals on the left. The July Monarchy was dominated by numerous former Napoleonic officials, it followed conservative policies under the influence of François Guizot. The king promoted friendship with Great Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, notably the conquest of Algeria. By 1848, a year in which many European states had a revolution, the king's popularity had collapsed, he was overthrown.
Louis Phillipe was pushed to the throne by an alliance between the people of Paris. However, at the end of his reign, the so-called "Citizen King" was overthrown by similar citizen uprisings and use of barricades during the February Revolution of 1848; this resulted in the proclamation of the Second Republic. After Louis-Philippe's ousting and subsequent exile to Britain, the liberal Orleanist faction continued to support a return of the House of Orléans to the throne, but the July Monarchy proved to be the last Bourbon-Orleans monarchy of France. The Legitimists withdrew from politics to their castles, leaving the way open for the struggle between the Orleanists and the Republicans; the July Monarchy is seen as a period during which the haute bourgeoisie was dominant, marked the shift from the counter-revolutionary Legitimists to the Orleanists. They were willing to make some compromises with the changes brought by the 1789 Revolution. For instance, Louis-Philippe was crowned "King of the French", instead of "King of France": this marked his acceptance of popular sovereignty.
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, ruled during a time of turmoil. A large group of Legitimists on the right demanded the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne. On the left and Socialism, remained a powerful force. Late in his reign Louis-Philippe became rigid and dogmatic and his President of the Council, François Guizot, had become unpopular, but the king refused to remove him; the situation escalated until the Revolutions of 1848 resulted in the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic. However, during the first few years of his reign, Louis-Philippe was taking action to develop legitimate, broad-based reform; the government found its source of legitimacy within the Charter of 1830, written by reform-minded members of Chamber of Deputies and committed to a platform of religious equality among Catholics and Protestants.
Louis-Phillipe and his ministers adhered to policies that seemed to promote the central tenets of the constitution. However, the majority of these policies were veiled attempts to shore up the power and influence of the government and the bourgeoisie, rather than legitimate attempts to promote equality and empowerment for a broad constituency of the French population. Thus, though the July Monarchy seemed to move toward reform, this movement was illusory. During the years of the July Monarchy, enfranchisement doubled, from 94,000 under Charles X to more than 200,000 men by 1848. But, this number still represented only one percent of population and a small number of those men of eligible age; as the qualifications for voting was related to payment of a certain level of taxes, only the wealthiest men gained this privilege. The extended franchise tended to favor the wealthy merchant bourgeoisie more than any other group. Beyond resulting in the election of more bourgeoisie to the Chamber of Deputies, this electoral expansion meant that the bourgeoisie could politically challenge the nobility on legislative matters.
Thus, while appearing to honor his pledge to increase suffrage, Louis-Philippe acted to empower his supporters and increase his hold over the French Parliament. The election of only the wealthiest men tended to undermine any possibility for growth of a radical faction in Parliament, served conservative ends; the reformed Charter of 1830 limited the power of the king—stripping him of his ability to propose and decree legislation, as well as limiting his executive authority. However, Louis believed in a kind of monarchy in which the king was more than a figurehead for an elected Parliament, as such, he was involved in legislative affairs. One of his first acts in creating his government was to appoint the conservative Casimir Perier as the premier of his cabinet. Perier, a banker, was instrumental in shutting down many of the Republican secret societies and labor unions that had formed during the early years of the regime. In addition, he oversaw the dism
Treaty of Brétigny
The Treaty of Brétigny was a treaty, drafted on 8 May 1360 and ratified on 24 October 1360, between King Edward III of England and King John II of France. In retrospect it is seen as having marked the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War —as well as the height of English power on the Continent, it was signed at Brétigny, a village near Chartres, ratified as the Treaty of Calais on 24 October 1360. The treaty was signed four years after John was taken as a prisoner of war at the Battle of Poitiers; the ensuing conflicts in Paris between Étienne Marcel and the Dauphin, the outbreak of the Jacquerie peasant revolt weakened French bargaining power. The exactions of the English, who wished to yield as few as possible of the advantages claimed by them in the abortive Treaty of London the year before, made negotiations difficult, the discussion of terms begun early in April lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty, Edward III obtained, besides Guyenne and Gascony, Poitou and Aunis, Agenais, Périgord, Quercy, the countship of Gauré, Rouergue, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Calais, Sangatte and the countship of Guînes.
The king of England was to hold these clear, without doing homage for them. Furthermore, the treaty established that title to'all the islands that the King of England now holds' would no longer be under the suzerainty of the King of France; the title Duke of Aquitaine was abandoned in favor of Lord of Aquitaine. On his side, the King of England gave up the duchy of Touraine, the countships of Anjou and Maine, the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders, he renounced all claims to the French throne. The terms of Brétigny were meant to untangle the feudal responsibilities that had caused so much conflict, and, as far as the English were concerned, would concentrate English territories in an expanded version of Aquitaine. England restored the rights of the Bishop of Coutances to Alderney, stripped from them by the King of England in 1228. John II had to pay three million écus for his ransom, would be released after he paid one million; the occasion was the first minting of the franc, equivalent to one livre tournois.
As a guarantee for the payment of his ransom, John gave as hostages two of his sons, Louis I, Duke of Anjou and John, Duke of Berry, several princes and nobles, four inhabitants of Paris, two citizens from each of the nineteen principal towns of France. This treaty was ratified and sworn to by the two kings and by their eldest sons, the Black Prince and the dauphin Charles on 24 October 1360 at Calais. At the same time, the special conditions relating to each important article of the treaty and the renunciatory clauses in which the kings abandoned their rights over the territory they had yielded to one another were signed. Edward III retired to England. While the hostages were held, John returned to France to try to raise funds to pay the ransom. In 1362, John's son, Louis of Anjou, a hostage in English-held Calais, escaped captivity. Thus, with his stand-in hostage gone, John felt honour-bound to return to captivity in England, he died in captivity in 1364 and his son, Dauphin Charles, succeeded him as Charles V, king of France.
In 1369, on the pretext that Edward III had failed to observe the terms of the treaty, the king of France declared war once again. By the time of the 1377 death of Edward III, English forces had been pushed back into their territories in the southwest, around Bordeaux; the treaty did not lead to lasting peace, but procured nine years' respite from the Hundred Years' War. In the following years, French forces were involved in battles against the Anglo-Navarrese and the Bretons. List of treaties Treaty of Troyes Burne, Alfred H; the Crecy War: Military History of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the Peace of Bretigny, 1360. Eyre & Spottiswoode: 1955. ISBN 0-8371-8301-4. Guignebert, Charles. A Short History of the French People. Vol 1. F. G. Richmond Translator. New York: Macmillan and Company
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France. Its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in the south of France, its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of 42,700 square kilometers; the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis fell to the Visigothic Kingdom from the 5th to the 8th centuries. Occupied by the Emirate of Córdoba in the 750s, it was conquered into the Kingdom of the Franks by Pippin the Short in 759 following the Siege of Narbonne. Under the Carolingians, the Counts of Toulouse were appointed by the royal court; this office became hereditary. Part of the territory where Occitan was spoken came to be called langue d'oc, Languedoc. In the 13thC, the spiritual beliefs of the area were challenged by the See of Rome and the region became attached to the Kingdom of France following the Albigensian Crusade; this crusade aimed to put an end to what the Church considered the Cathar heresy, enabled the Capetian dynasty to extend its influence south of the Loire. As part of this process, the former principalities of Trencavel were integrated into the Royal French Domain in 1224.
The Counts of Toulouse followed them in 1271. The remaining feudal enclaves were absorbed progressively up to the beginning of the 16th century; the territory falling within the jurisdiction of the Estates of Languedoc, which convened for the first time in 1346, shrank progressively, becoming known during the Ancien Régime as the province of Languedoc. The year 1359 marked a turning point in the history of the province; the three bailiwicks of Bèucaire and Tolosa had the status of bonnes villes. In that year, the three entered into a perpetual union, after which their contribution of royal officers was summoned jointly rather than separately for each of the three sénéchaussées. Towards the end of 14th century, the term "country of the three seneschalties" to become known as Languedoc, designated the two bailiwicks of Bèucaire-Nimes and Carcassona, the eastern part of Tolosa, retained under the Treaty of Brétigny. At that time, the County of Foix, which belonged to the seneschal of Carcassona until 1333 before passing to Toulouse, ceased to belong to Languedoc.
In 1542, the province was divided into two généralités: Toulouse for Haut-Languedoc, Montpellier for Bas-Languedoc. This lasted until the French Revolution in 1789. From the 17th century onward, there was only one intendance for the whole of Languedoc, with its seat in Montpellier; the traditional provinces of the kingdom of France were not formally defined. A province was a territory of common traditions and customs, but it had no political organization. Today, when people refer to the old provinces of France, they are referring to the gouvernements as they existed in 1789, before the French Revolution. Gouvernements were military regions established by the Crown in the middle of the 16th century. However, in some cases, small provinces were merged with a large one into a single gouvernement, so gouvernements are not the same as the traditional provinces; the region was called the County of Toulouse, a county independent from the kings of France. The County of Toulouse was made up of what would be called Languedoc, but it included the province of Quercy and the province of Rouergue, both to the northwest of Languedoc.
At some times it included the province of Agenais to the west of Languedoc, the province of Gévaudan, the province of Velay, the southern part of the province of Vivarais, all the northern half of Provence. After the French conquest the entire county was dismantled, the central part of it being now called Languedoc; the gouvernement of Languedoc was created in the mid-16th century. In addition to Languedoc proper, it included the three small provinces of Gévaudan and Vivarais, these three provinces being to the northeast of Languedoc; some people consider that the region around Albi was a traditional province, called Albigeois, although it is most considered as being part of Languedoc proper. The provinces of Quercy and Rouergue, despite their old ties with Toulouse, were not incorporated into the gouvernement of Languedoc, they were attached to the gouvernement of its far-away capital Bordeaux. This decision was intentional, to avoid reviving the independently spirited County of Toulouse. In the rest of this article, Languedoc refers to the territory of this gouvernement of Languedoc.
The province of Languedoc covered an area of 42,700 km² in the central part of southern France the region between the river Rhône and the Garonne, extending northwards to the Cévennes and the Massif Central. As the center of the County of Toulouse and the regional parlement, Toulouse is considered the "capital" of Languedoc. On maps (both ancient and mo
Toulouse
Toulouse is the capital of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the region of Occitanie. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, 150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea, 230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and 680 km from Paris, it is the fourth-largest city in France, with 466,297 inhabitants as of January 2014. In France, Toulouse is called the "Pink City"; the Toulouse Metro area, with 1,312,304 inhabitants as of 2014, is France's fourth-largest metropolitan area, after Paris and Marseille, ahead of Lille and Bordeaux. Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, ATR and the Aerospace Valley, it hosts the European headquarters of Intel and CNES's Toulouse Space Centre, the largest space centre in Europe. Thales Alenia Space, ATR, SAFRAN, Liebherr-Aerospace and Astrium Satellites have a significant presence in Toulouse; the University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe and, with more than 103,000 students, it is the fourth-largest university campus in France, after the universities of Paris and Lille.
The air route between Toulouse–Blagnac and Paris Orly is the busiest in Europe, transporting 2.4 million passengers in 2014. According to the rankings of L'Express and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city; the city was the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom in the 5th century and the capital of the province of Languedoc in the Late Middle Ages and early modern period, making it the unofficial capital of the cultural region of Occitania. It is now the capital of the second largest region in Metropolitan France. A city with unique architecture made of pinkish terracotta bricks, which earned it the nickname la Ville Rose, Toulouse counts two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Canal du Midi, the Basilica of St. Sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 because of its significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, on the axis of communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne and Hers-Mort. Toulouse has a humid subtropical climate, with too much precipitation in the summer months preventing the city from being classified as a Mediterranean climate zone; the Garonne Valley was a central point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa, it is of unknown meaning or origin from Aquitanian, or from Iberian, but has been connected to the name of the Gaulish Volcae Tectosages. Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 5th century, Tolosa fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its major cities, in the early 6th century serving as its capital, before it fell to the Franks under Clovis in 507. From this time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm. In 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse.
Odo's victory was a small obstacle to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe, Muslims occupied a large territory including Poitiers. Charles Martel, a decade won the Battle of Tours called the Battle of Poitiers; the Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century. The Battle of Toulouse of 844, pitting Charles the Bald against Pepin II of Aquitaine, was key in the Carolingian Civil War. During the Carolingian era, the town rose in status. In the 12th century, consuls took over the running of the town and these proved to be difficult years. In particular, it was a time of religious turmoil. In Toulouse, the Cathars tried to set up a community here, but were routed by Simon de Montfort's troops; the Dominican Order was founded in Toulouse in 1215 by Saint Dominic in this context of struggle against the Cathar heresy. The subsequent arrival of the Inquisition led to a period of religious fervour during which time the Dominican Couvent des Jacobins was founded.
Governed by Raimond II and a group of city nobles, Toulouse's urban boundaries stretched beyond its walls to the north and as far south as Saint Michel. In the Treaty of Paris of 1229, Toulouse formally submitted to the crown of France; the county's sole heiress Joan was engaged to Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, a younger brother of Louis IX of France. The marriage became legal in 1241, but it remained childless so that after Joan's death the county fell to the crown of France by inheritance. In 1229, University of Toulouse was established after the Parisian model, intended as a means to dissolve the heretic movement. Various monastic orders, like the congregation of the order of frères prêcheurs, were started, they found home in Les Jacobins. In parallel, a long period of inquisition began inside the Toulouse walls; the fear of repression obliged the notabilities to convert themselves. The inquisition lasted nearly 4
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