In 1537, King François 1er issued the Ordonnance de Montpellier, by which one copy of each published book had to be deposited in the king’s library.
Today, the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France – BnF) consists of seven sites, and receives 70,000 books, 250,000 magazines and thousands of specialized documents every year.
The oldest site of the BnF is the Richelieu site. It was home to the king’s library since 1721. Located in the heart of the 2ndarrondissement, the former palace of Cardinal Mazarin (not to be confused with Mazarin’s library La Mazarine) was built in the 17th century and subsequently enlarged up until the 20th century.
The salle Ovale reading room is open to the public
The new BnF museum on the Richelieu site showcases exceptional objects from the BnF collections, among them the throne of King Dagobert (King of the Franks in the 7th century), Charlemagne’s chessboard or the largest gold piece ever found.
The Richelieu site of the Bnf is open to the public. The salle Ovale reading room has free access, for the museum you need to purchase a ticket. Guided tours are available. For access to the research libraries (of which Richelieu is only one site), you need to sign up advance.
The Salle Ovale is a reading room with over 20,000 volumes for reference, among which 9,000 comic books and mangas.
The Labrouste reading room was created for the Imperial Library. Today it hosts the library of the national institute for art history.
The location of the BnF-Richelieu on a map of Paris
The main entrance When the Louvre was a royal palace, its main entrance was on the east side, the majestic gate facing the church Saint Germain l’Auxerrois. The triangular bas-relief on the pediment consists of two stone slaps each 17.5 meters long and weighing several tons.
Louvre – east gate
Napoléon transformed into Louis XIV Napoléon Ier was represented at the center, with one of the Muses writing “Napoleon completed the Louvre”. This didn’t please King Louis XVIII, and the inscription was changed to “Ludovico Magno”, in reference to the Sun King Louis XIV. The crown was removed from Napoléon’s head and replaced with the curly wig of the Sun King. However, Napoléon’s face remained, along with a shield featuring his imperial eagle and his bees.
Napoléon transformed into Louis XIV
From castle to palace King François Ier (1494-1547) began the transformation of the Château du Louvre to the Palais du Louvre by knocking down the keep. His son and successor Henri II continued his project.
“1541 – François I starts the Louvre”
The Pyramids The Louvre Pyramid was a subject of controversy when its project was presented. It was at the center of a project improving access to the museum, which couldn’t handle the growing visitor influx. As confirmed by the Louvre, it consists of 673 panes, not 666 as myths will have it. (Count them if you want.)
The Louvre pyramid
The inverted pyramid is an upside-down version that you can see from the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall.
If you want to see the pyramid, don’t get off the métro at the stop Pyramides, however. This metro station is located on Avenue de l’Opéra [link], and the name is a reference to the Battle of the Pyramids of the French army under Napoléon Ier in 1798. Nothing to do with the Louvre pyramid, inaugurated in 1989.
Free Entry Did you know children have free entry to the Louvre Museum? In fact, up to the age of 18, entry is free, and if your country of residence belongs to the European Economic Area (EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), it’s even up to 26 years.
The pyramid is also the main entrance to the Louvre museum
Brittany is the westernmost part of France, jutting out into the Atlantic ocean. It has over 1.100km of coastline, double that if you include the numerous islands.
Traditionally, you distinguish between the Armor or Arvor, the coastal or maritime area, and the Argoat, the interior.
The climate in Brittany is temperate, with more rain than the French average, but the southern coast and its beaches get less rain and more sunshine than the Monts d’Arrée mountains in the interior. (Mountains being a big word, as they culminate at 385m.)
The administrative region Brittany is divided into four départements: Ille-et-Vilaine (35) in the east, with the regional capital Rennes; Cotes d’Armor (22) in the north, Finistère (29) in the west, and Morbihan (56) in the south. Historically, the département Loire-Atlantique (44) with its main city of Nantes, also belongs to Brittany. Actually, Nantes was the seat of the Duke of Brittany, the château des ducs de Bretagne is still there to prove it.
Château des Ducs de Bretagne (Ducal Palace), Nantes
Fun facts: The numbers behind the département names correspond to their numbers in French nomenclature, which includes the first two numbers of the postal code and the number on the right side of the license plate, above the regional logo. Many Bretons living in the Loire-Atlantique replace the Pays-de-la-Loire regional logo with a sticker of the Brittany logo (the Gwenn ha Du).
The Morbihan is the only French département (of which there are 94 in mainland France (not counting Corsica and the overseas ones) whose name is not in French. Morbihan means “little sea” in Breton and refers to the Golfe du Morbihan.
Brittany was annexed to France in the 16th century. King Charles VII married Anne de Bretagne who brought her Duchy into the marriage. In order to make sure Brittany was attached to France no matter what, the wedding contract included a clause that if Charles died without a heir, Anne would have to marry his successor. Which is exactly what happened – Charles VII died an untimely accidental death (he hit his head against a door frame despite being only 1,52m tall) and Anne married his successor Louis XII. They didn’t have any male children either. Louis’ successor François Ier married the daughter of Louis and Anne, Claude, who inherited the Duchy of Brittany from her mother but who couldn’t inherit the throne of France from her father. Long story short: François and Claude had several sons, and in 1532 Brittany became officially part of France.
Many French kings were named Louis, and their combined reigns stretch over hundreds of years of French history.
Louis Ist, born in 778, was the third son of Charlemagne, and became his successor after the death of his two older brothers. His grandson was Louis II, whose son in turn was Louis III, but it was his brother Charles who became the father of Louis IV and great-grandfather of Louis V.
Are you lost yet? Me too.
Louis VI at Saint Denis Basilica (bottom left)
Let’s leave the Carolingian dynasty for the Capetians. After Louis V who died in 987, it took a change of dynasty to get to Louis VI, born in 1084. His son was Louis VII, his great-grandson Louis VIII and with the following generation we finally get to someone interesting: Louis IX, better known as Saint-Louis. We’re in the 13th century now, and Louis is king for over forty years. His reign is seen as the golden age for the kingdom of France which reached economic and political summits during this era. He had a reputation of being very pious and a high moral integrity. He was canonized in 1297, twenty-seven years after his death, and remains the only French king to receive that distinction from the Catholic church.
Following his death, it took three generations to get to Louis X, the last Louis of the Capetian dynasty. And even after entering the Valois dynasty, it was some time before Louis XI became king in 1423. (He was the son and successor of Charles VII who was crowned with the help of Joan of Arc, with whom you might be more familiar than any of these kings.)
Onward, to cousin Louis XII, who died without giving the kingdom a successor, so the crown went to yet another cousin, François d’Angoulême (the first king named François). Contrary to Louis XII, he had a number of children, yet none of them was named Louis. (His daughter Louise died aged 3 but she couldn’t have become queen anyway.)
Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne at Saint Denis Basilica
Enter the Bourbon dynasty and the reigns of the most famous kings named Louis:
Louis XIII with his prime ministers Cardinal Richelieu and Mazarin, arch-enemies of the Three Musketeers
Louis XIV, the Sun King, who built the glorious palace of Versailles to escape the dangerous streets of Paris
Louis XV who lent his name to the architectural style Louis Quinze and reconciled France and Austria, sealing the alliance with the marriage between his grandson Louis and Marie-Antoinette. Can you see it coming? That grandson is none other than Louis XVI who lost his head during the French Revolution. Which makes his brother, Louis XVIII, who returned to the throne after the first fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1814, the last king of France by that name (and one of the last kings of France full stop).
Louis XVIII at Saint Denis Basilica
You’ll wonder what happened to Louis XVII and what possessed the parents to name two of their sons Louis, especially as they were born only one year apart? I can only answer the first question: Louis XVII, or Louis Charles, was the second son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. He was considered Dauphin after the death of his older brother but died aged ten during the French Revolution, 19 years before his uncle claimed back the throne.
Did you know that in French, a “hotel” isn’t always a place where you can book a room for a night? A hôtel-Dieu, for example, was originally a hospital for the poor run by the Catholic Church, Dieu being the French word for God. The most famous of all these hospitals is also the oldest in Paris, created in the year 651 by the Parisian Bishop Saint Landry. Today you can find the hospital building right next to Notre Dame on Cité Island.
A hôtel particulier is no more a hotel than a hôtel-Dieu, but a grand townhouse or mansion. Their main characteristic is that they will be free-standing, most often located between the main courtyard and the garden, and of course, be in a city.
The Hôtel de Sens is a hôtel particulier built in the 15th century in the 4tharrondissement, near the Seine river. At the time, Paris did not have its own archbishop but belonged to the archbishopric of the Archbishop of Sens, a town 100km to the southeast of Paris. The archbishop had this hôtel particulier built as his pied-à-terre when he was in Paris. Several archbishops resided there, in fact, over time, as well as other notable figures such as Antoine du Prat, chancellor and prime minister under King François 1er, Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme, a prince from the royal family, or Louis de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine.
One resident, however, had a more eventful stay than the others: Marguerite de Valois, better known as La Reine Margot (granddaughter of François 1er and first wife of King Henri IV). Her marriage with King Henri IV was annulled in 1599. She lived at the Hôtel de Sens from 1605 to 1606. Legend has it that she had a fig tree at the door cut down because it was in the way of her carriages. Whether it is true or not, the street now bears its name.
Marguerite had a number of lovers. According to another legend, two of them fought it out just below her window. One was killed, the other executed in the same spot.
Main entrance of the Hôtel de Sens on the corner of Rue du Fauconnier and Rue du Figuier
During the Revolution, the Hôtel de Sens became property of the state, was sold and housed, like many hôtels particuliers in the area at the time, shops, workshops, or factories. During the 1830 Revolution (commemorated by the July Column at Bastille), a cannonball hit the façade and lodged so deep within the wall it became impossible to remove. It is still there today, visible to any passersby, with the date engraved beneath.
