Category Archives: history

Brittany in France

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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.

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L is for Louis

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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.

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July 14 in Paris

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July 14 is the French national holiday, known in the English-speaking world as Bastille Day. The Bastille was a fort meant to defend the Porte Saint Antoine on the east side of the Charles V city wall, and it was stormed and taken by the people on July 14, 1789 and later demolished.
The Storming of the Bastille is commemorated on July 14 since 1880.

In Paris, the celebrations of the 14-juillet, as it is called in French, start on the night before with the Bal des pompiers (the fire-fighters ball) held in the city’s various fire stations. In other French towns, it is either the Bal des pompiers, or the Bal Populaire (the people’s ball), often organized just outside the local town hall. Some towns have their fireworks on July 13, others on July 14.

In Paris, the day begins with the famous parade on the Champs Élysées that is traditionally opened with a fly-over by the Patrouille de France in the national colors bleu-blanc-rouge.

Then the president descends the avenue, accompanied by the Garde Républicaine,  and takes place on the platform installed on the place de la Concorde, where he watches the parade with the government, members of the national assembly and the senate, assorted dignitaries and guests.

The parade descends from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. It is composed of military units on foot, on various motorized vehicles, on horseback, and in the air. The Foreign Legion marches in last place because their step is slowest.
The loudest applause from the spectators along the avenue is always for the firefighters who close the parade with all their different vehicles, for the Paris firefighters are part of the military. (They were founded by Napoléon Bonaparte after a fire broke out during a reception at the Austrian Embassy in 1810 during which around a hundred people died.)

During the day, the public has the occasion to meet the military, notably on the Esplanade des Invalides between the Dome des Invalides and the Seine river, where l’Armée de Terre (the army), l’Armée de l’air (the air force) and la Marine (the navy) are represented.

Show events include visiting tanks and helicopters, parachutists jumping from helicopters in the sky, and more.

The day concludes with a concert on the Champ de Mars that is transmitted live on television and the famous fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.

Spectators on the quays hoping for a good view
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Les colonnes Morris

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The round green columns covered in theatre and movie posters that you find on Paris sidewalks are called colonnes Morris, after the printers Mr Morris & Son, who won a contest in 1868 to design the new “colonnes-affiches” (poster columns). Previously, posters for shows were pinned on wooden boards on the outside of public urinals set up by the municipality. They were improved upon under Napoléon III by the engineer Adolphe Alphand who made sure people couldn’t be seen when inside and installed gas lighting inside. The masonry was replaced with cast iron, but the double function of urinal and poster display didn’t sit well with critics.

Morris senior and junior took inspiration from the German Litfaßsäulen (after their creator Ernst Litfaß), introduced in Germany in 1854 to fight fly-posting. They gave the columns a distinctive domed roof to protect the posters from the weather. Baron Haussmann gave them a monopoly for the columns. The last of the urinal-poster columns disappeared in 1877. Twenty-one years later, the capital counted 225 Morris columns.

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Over a hundred years and a few controversies later, you can still find these emblematic columns all over Paris. The posters advertising theatre plays and movies are protected by plexiglass panes, some are illuminated at night, some are rotary to better display the posters.

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Le Château du Louvre

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You have never seen it. You haven’t queued for tickets, and you haven’t been inside to see the Mona Lisa. I know you haven’t because le château du Louvre is not what you think it is. It is not the giant palace in the center of Paris housing one of the most famous museums in the world. That would be the Louvre Palace, le palais du Louvre.

Nit-picking, you say? Tell that to King Philippe-Auguste (reign: 1180-1223) who had the château du Louvre (the Louvre Castle) built to reinforce the wall he had built around the city.

Location of the Château du Louvre and the Philippe Auguste city wall (in brown) on a map of Paris

The château du Louvre was built near the river at the western end of the city, where the risk of an attack was highest as the English occupied Normandy less than 100km away. Philippe Auguste also wanted a safe place for his treasure and for his archives which had been lost in a battle with Richard Lionheart but since been reconstituted. The château du Louvre was roughly square with a moat surrounding it and a round keep at the center.

model of the château du Louvre at the Louvre Museum

At the time of King Charles V (reign: 1364-1380), Paris had spread past the old city wall, and Charles V had a new wall built. The château du Louvre lost most of its military significance, and the king could sacrifice some of the protective building aspects to make it more habitable while still providing a safe place for the king, notably after the revolt of 1358 led by the Prévôt des Marchands Étienne Marcel.

During the Hundred Years War, the English under King Henry V were allied with the Burgundians who held Paris, so the English could enter the city and occupied the château du Louvre without a fight. They stayed from 1420 to 1436.

Successive French kings demolished the château little by little and built new structures on top. During works in the 19th century, it was discovered that the foundations of the château du Louvre hadn’t been destroyed completely. The basis of the keep and two walls were cleared during the works for President François Mitterrand’s Grand Louvre project, and can be seen today during a visit of the Palais du Louvre’s famous museum, the Musée du Louvre.

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The Institut de France

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The Institut de France is a French institution founded in 1795, located in the 6tharrondissement. It assembles the scientific, literary and artistic elites of France so they can work together. It regroups five Académies, the best-known of which is the Académie française.
The Académie française was founded in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu to normalize the French language and is tasked with publishing an official dictionary of the French language. Its 40 members hold office for life, they are called the “immortals”.

The building also houses the Bibliothèque Mazarine, the oldest public library in France, founded by Cardinal Mazarin under King Louis XIV. It was his private library at first but was opened to the public in 1691.

Cardinal Mazarin in his library, the so-called “Mazarine”
Location of the Institut de France
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Le Val de Grâce

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In 1645, seven-year-old Sun King Louis XIV, and his mother, Anne of Austria, laid the first stone of the Val de Grâce church. The queen mother this fulfilled an oath she had made earlier, to thank God for giving her a son.

Up until the French Revolution, the ^Val de Grâce was the church of the Royal Val de Grâce Abbey. It is located on the grounds of the Val de Grâce hospital. Thanks to the Benedictine nuns providing medical care to injured revolutionaries, the church was spared much of the desecration and vandalism churches such as Notre Dame and Saint Eustace suffered during the French Revolution. Still, it became a military teaching hospital in 1796.

It remained a military hospital until 2016 and treated normal patients as well as the French presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy during their respective mandates.

Today, only the training, research and museum activities remain on site. In 2020, the French president Emmanuel Macron announced it would house three new research institutes, a campus to be completed by 2028.

Location of the Val de Grâce
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The Paris Observatory

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The Paris Observatory was founded in 1667 under Sun King Louis XIV and is the oldest observatory in the world still in operation.

It was to be situated on the Paris Meridian (today at 2°20′ East),  which was for a long time in competition with the Greenwich meridian. On Solstice Day 1667, mathematicians traced the lines on the ground where the observatory was to be built. The Paris meridian bisected the site. Today, it is traced on the ground inside the observatory, and the Avenue de l’Observatoire runs along its axis.

The Paris Meridian can also be traced in the city of Paris by the Arago medallions. 135 originally, some of them have disappeared since 1994. They are named after François Arago, director of the Observatory in the 19th century.

The first directors of the Observatory were four generations of Cassinis: Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Jacques Cassini, César François Cassini de Thury and Jean Dominique Comte de Cassini. They held the office until the French Revolution.

The copula of the observatory houses the Arago telescope. Completed in 1854, it was the biggest of its time, and remained in use for over a hundred years. In the 1880, it conducted photometry measurements of Jupiter’s moons (only four were known at the time, though).

Location of the Paris observatory
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La Sorbonne

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The Sorbonne is a building in the 5th arrondissement in the Latin Quarter. It is named after 13th-century theologist Robert de Sorbon, founder of the Sorbonne College of the Université de Paris, college of theology. The term Sorbonne is also used as metonym for the former Université de Paris (1200-1793 and 1896-1971).

The Baroque façade belongs to the Saint Ursula chapel, completed in 1642. Following the law of the separation between Church and State, it was deconsecrated and is now used for receptions and exhibitions.
It was at the Sorbonne that Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

Today, the Sorbonne is the seat of the Paris Board of Education. It also houses part of the activities of the universities Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and Sorbonne Université. The Sorbonne University Library serves all these universities and the Université de Paris.

Location of the Sorbonne
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The Panthéon – for great men and women

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The Pantheon is located on the Sainte Geneviève mountain in the heart of the Latin Quarter. Built in the 18th century, it was originally meant to accommodate relics of Sainte Geneviéve, the patron saint of Paris, but since the French Revolution, it honors distinguished French citizens, as the inscription on the front says:

AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE
To the great men, from a grateful nation

When the remains of a distinguished person are transferred to the Panthéon, they obtain a almost mythical status. Only very few panthéonisés have been directly buried there, such as Victor Hugo.
The “grands hommes” are still in a large majority men, the first woman was the wife of a grand homme whose family only agreed to the transfer if his wife’s remains could accompany his. The first woman to accede to Pantheéon status on her own merits was Marie Curie. Only three more women have followed her since, two Résistantes, and more recently, Simone Veil.

How do you become a grand homme? Only the national assembly can propose new candidates for the Panthéon, the final decision is made by the president.

On November 30, 2002, Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, was transferred to the Panthéon.
Location of the Panthéon
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