It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
Feel free to submit!
The Monuments Men of World War II
The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered had expertise as museum directors, curators, art scholars and educators, artists, architects, and archivists. The Monuments Men job description was simple: to save as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.
Powder flask
- Place of origin:
France (made)
- Date:
1574 (dated)
This powder flask is of carved staghorn and is made by an unknown artist in France in 1574.
The flask is decorated with a scene depicting Samson killing the lion.
Powder flasks are portable containers of wood, horn, metal, leather or ceramic used to hold the priming powder or gunpowder for firearms. They normally terminated in a metal nozzle which also served as a powder measure, closed by a plug or spring cap, and are often highly decorated.
1) “Retour à la normale”
1) Affiche, 64 x 88 cm - Sans tampon [Beaux-arts]BnF, Département des Estampes et de la photographie, ENT QB-(1968) /W36582) “Mai 68, début d’une lutte prolongée”Affiche, 49,5 x 76,5 cm - Atelier populaire de l’ex-École des beaux-artsBnF, Département des Estampes et de la photographie, QB-1 (1968-05)- BOITE FOL3) “CRS SS”Affiche, 43 x 55 cm - Atelier populaire de l’ex-École des beaux-artsBnF, Département des Estampes et de la photographie, ENT QB-(1968) /W3692
The beginning of Mai 68
Following months of conflicts between students and authorities at the University of Paris at Nanterre, the administration shut down the university on 2 May 1968. Students at the Sorbonne University in Paris met on 3 May to protest against the closure and the threatened expulsion of several students at Nanterre. On Monday, 6 May, the national student union, the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF) — still the largest student union in France today — and the union of university teachers called a march to protest against the police invasion of Sorbonne. More than 20,000 students, teachers and supporters marched towards the Sorbonne, still sealed off by the police, who charged, wielding their batons, as soon as the marchers approached. While the crowd dispersed, some began to create barricades out of whatever was at hand, while others threw paving stones, forcing the police to retreat for a time. The police then responded with tear gas and charged the crowd again. Hundreds more students were arrested.
![Fort Saint-Jean à Marseille
@credits
Fort Saint-Jean is a fortification in Marseille, built in 1660 by Louis XIV at the entrance to the Old Port. Since 2013 it is linked by two thin bridges to the historical district Le Panier and to the first French national museum outside Paris called Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée.
Fort Saint-Jean was built on a site earlier occupied by the Military Order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John, from which the new building deprived its name. Fort Saint-Nicolas was constructed at the same time on the opposite side of the harbour. Commenting on their construction, Louis XIV said, “We noticed that the inhabitants of Marseille were extremely fond of nice fortresses. We wanted to have our own at the entrance to this great port.” [1] In fact, the two new forts were built in response to a local uprising against the governor, rather than for the defence of the city: their cannons pointed inwards towards the town, not outwards towards the sea.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/6fcbd2c6784d561e1b4fa4400d20adea/tumblr_mm4lbh1qnL1r4iw2yo1_500.jpg)
Fort Saint-Jean à Marseille
Fort Saint-Jean is a fortification in Marseille, built in 1660 by Louis XIV at the entrance to the Old Port. Since 2013 it is linked by two thin bridges to the historical district Le Panier and to the first French national museum outside Paris called Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée.
Fort Saint-Jean was built on a site earlier occupied by the Military Order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John, from which the new building deprived its name. Fort Saint-Nicolas was constructed at the same time on the opposite side of the harbour. Commenting on their construction, Louis XIV said, “We noticed that the inhabitants of Marseille were extremely fond of nice fortresses. We wanted to have our own at the entrance to this great port.” [1] In fact, the two new forts were built in response to a local uprising against the governor, rather than for the defence of the city: their cannons pointed inwards towards the town, not outwards towards the sea.
Provins
The fortified medieval town of Provins is situated in the former territory of the powerful Counts of Champagne. It bears witness to early developments in the organization of international trading fairs and the wool industry. The urban structure of Provins, which was built specifically to host the fairs and related activities, has been well preserved.
A gauche, le poteau frontière au musée du souvenir à Saint-Cyr l’Ecole après la guerre. A droite, le même poteau au musée du Souvenir à Coëtquidan aujourd’hui.
On the left, border post between France and Germany in the Memory museum of Saint Cyr after WW1. On the right the same one in the museum of Saint Cyr Coëtquidan.
N’ai-je donc tant vécu que pour cette infamie ?
Et ne suis-je blanchi dans les travaux guerriers
Que pour voir en un jour flétrir tant de lauriers ?
Don Diègue , Acte 1 , Scène 4, Le Cid
Le Cid is based on the legend of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (nicknamed ‘El Cid Campeador’), a military figure in Medieval Spain.
The original 1637 edition of the play was subtitled a tragicomedy, acknowledging that it intentionally defies the classical tragedy/comedy distinction. Even though Le Cid was an enormous popular success, it was the subject of a heated argument over the norms of dramatic practice, known as theQuerelle du Cid or The Quarrel of Le Cid. Cardinal Richelieu’s Académie Française acknowledged the play’s success, but determined that it was defective, in part because it did not respect the classical unities of time, place, and action (Unity of Time stipulated that all the action in a play must take place within a twenty-four hour time-frame; Unity of Place, that there must be only one setting for the action; and Unity of Action, that the plot must be centred around a single conflict or problem).
Accusations of immorality were leveled at the play in the form of a famous pamphlet campaign. These attacks were founded on the classical theory that the theatre was a site of moral instruction.
This “war of pamphlets” eventually influenced Richelieu to call upon the French Academy (l’Académie Française) to analyze the play. In their final conclusions, the Academy ruled that even though Corneille had attempted to remain loyal to the unity of time, “Le Cid” broke too many of the unities to be a valued piece of work.
In 1960, Garanger, a 25-year-old draftee who had already been photographing professionally for ten years, landed in Kabylia, in the small village of Ain Terzine, about seventy-five miles south of Algiers. Garanger’s commanding officer decreed that the villagers must have identity cards: “Naturally he asked the military photographer to make these cards,” Garanger recalls. “Either I refused and went to prison, or I accepted.
“I would come within three feet of them,” Garanger remembers. “They would be unveiled. In a period of ten days, I made two thousand portraits, two hundred a day. The women had no choice in the matter. Their only way of protesting was through their look.”
Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/04/23/women-unveiled-marc-garangers-contested-portraits-of-1960s-algeria/#ixzz2RUaQLNXJ
Les fortifiacations de Vauban: ville de Neuf-Brisach, citadelle de Besançon et Tour Vauban
Fortifications of Vauban consists of 12 groups of fortified buildings and sites along the western, northern and eastern borders of France. They represent the finest examples of the work of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), a military engineer of King Louis XIV. The serial property includes towns built from scratch by Vauban, citadels, urban bastion walls and bastion towers. There are also mountain forts, sea forts, a mountain battery and two mountain communication structures. This property is inscribed as bearing witness to the peak of classic fortifications, typical of western military architecture. Vauban also played a major role in the history of fortification in Europe and on other continents until the mid-19th century.
L’œuvre de Vauban comprend 12 groupes de bâtiments fortifiés et de constructions le long des frontières nord, est et ouest de la France. Ils constituent les meilleurs exemples du travail de Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), l’architecte militaire de Louis XIV. Cette série comprend des villes neuves créées ex-nihilo, des citadelles, des enceintes urbaines à bastions et des tours bastionnées. Y figurent aussi des forts de montagne, des forts de côte, une batterie de montagne et deux structures de communication en montagne. Ces sites sont inscrits en tant que témoins de l’apogée de la fortification bastionnée classique, typique de l’architecture militaire occidentale. Vauban a joué un rôle majeur dans l’histoire des fortifications en influençant l’architecture militaire en Europe, mais aussi sur les autres continents jusqu’au milieu du XIXe siècle.
PS: French motto for Vauban? Town besieged by Vauban will be taken. Town defended by Vauban can’t be.
A carnival in France…
Le Roman de Fauvel, par « FRANÇOIS DE RUES » et « CHAILLOU DE PESTAIN », interpolé de chansons notées, motets, ballades, rondeaux, etc.
1301-1400, France
