It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
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En 1955, ce que l’on appelle communément la guerre d’Algérie (1954-1962) venait de commencer. Dans le quartier de la Goutte d’Or à Paris, la police fait face à des Nord-Africains à l’angle des rues de Chartres et de la Charbonnière
In 1955, the Algeria war (1954-1962) had just began. In the Goutte d’Or, a quarter of Paris, the police is facing North Africans at the crossroad of the rue de Chartes and de la Charbonnière.
“En cette année 1427, vint à Paris une femme nommée Margot, assez jeune, comme de 28 à 30 ans, qui était du pays de Hainaut, laquelle jouait le mieux à la paume qu’oncques homme eût vu, et avec ce jouait devant main derrière main très puissamment, très malicieusement, très habilement, comme pouvait faire un homme, et peu venait d’hommes à qui elle ne gagnât, si ce n’était les plus puissants joueurs.”
“In this year 1427 came to Paris a woman named Margot, quite young, around 28 or 30 years old, from the country of Hainaut, and she played the jeu de paume quite strongly, quite maliciously, quite skilfully, as a men, and there were few men she didn’t beat, outside of the best players”
Paragraphe 472 du Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, rééd. 1990, Paris, Le livre de poche
Le cimetière des Saint-Innocents vers 1550, gravure, fin XIXème siècleEngraving depicting the Saints Innocents cemetery in Paris, around the year 1550
The Saints Innocents Cemetery (French: Cimetière des Saints-Innocents or Cimetière des Innocents) is a defunct cemetery in Paris that was used from the Middle Ages until the late 18th century. It was the oldest and largest cemetery in Paris and had often been used for mass graves. It was closed because of overuse in 1780, and in 1786 the bodies were exhumed and transported to the unused subterranean quarries near Montparnasse known as the Catacombs. The place Joachim-du-Bellay in the Les Halles district now covers the site of the cemetery.
The cemetery took its name (referring to the Biblical Massacre of the Innocents) from the attached church of the Saints Innocents that has now also disappeared.
Paris 1914
Beautiful color images of Paris, from a century ago, serve as a record of how much some things have changed while others have remained the same.
A snuff box created to mark the July Revolution of 1830. Circa 1830-1848.
source: Coutau-Begarie Auctions
“L’Homme au Masque de Fer” (“The Man in the Iron Mask”). Anonymous print (etching and mezzotint, hand-colored) from 1789.
The Man in the Iron Mask (French: L’Homme au Masque de Fer) is a name given to a prisoner arrested as Eustache Dauger in 1669 or 1670, and held in a number of jails, including the Bastille and the Fortress of Pignerol (today Pinerolo). He was held in the custody of the same jailer, Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars, for a period of 34 years. He died on 19 November 1703 under the name of Marchioly, during the reign of Louis XIV of France (1643–1715). The possible identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed and has been the subject of many books, because no one ever saw his face, which was hidden by a mask of black velvet cloth.
In the second edition of his Questions sur l’Encyclopédie (French for “Questions on the Encyclopedia”), published in 1771, the writer and philosopher Voltaire claimed that the prisoner wore an iron mask and was the older, illegitimate brother of Louis XIV. In the late 1840s, the writer Alexandre Dumas elaborated on the theme in the final installment of his Three Musketeers saga: here the prisoner is forced to wear an iron mask and is Louis XIV’s twin brother.
What facts are known about this prisoner are based mainly on correspondence between his jailer and his superiors in Paris.
Combat de deux cavaliers, faubourg Saint Antoine sous les murs de la contre-escarpe de la Bastille.
Even though the painting is anonymous, the fight it depicts was famous during the Fronde. Since 1648, Cardinal Mazarin, with the support of the Queen Anne d’Autriche, is facing the hostility of the Parlement de Paris which tries to extend its prerogatives and the Princes, who considered themseves fit to participate to the government of the Kingdom.
The Fronde in some aspects look like a civil war. In 1652, the Parlement de Paris is a decisive stake. The Prince of Condé tries to unify the different groups opposed to Mazarin. His army is getting close to Paris, but the Parlement, despite its dislike of Mazarin, refuses to open the city to him. Condé’s armies were nearby the city walls when the Royal army led by Turenne and La Ferté attacked him on the 2nd of July. A disproportionned fight arrised near the Porte Saint Antoine and Condé’s army found a way out thanks to the courage of its leader and the actions of the Grande Mademoiselle, cousin of the King, which managed to open the door of Paris and made the Bastille canon shoot the royal army.
That’s the fight the anonymous author decided to represent as a fight between two cavalries. We can suppose it was ordered by someone close to the Royal power celebrating the last important battle of the Fronde.
Indeed, on the 4th of July of the same year, the Princes tried a coup againt the Hôtel de Ville but only managed to arise the defiance of the Parisian population. As the ralliement to the King grew, Condé left Paris on the 14th of October, and Louis XIV entered the city on the 21st.
Rampe de degré de perron sculptée d’un chien mordant un os, XVe siècle, ©Musée Carnavalet
Banister of a stoop, with a sculpted dog biting a bone, 15th century.
Qui nourrissent des cœurs les folles passions,
Je veux prendre aujourd’hui la vérité pour guide.
Par elle encouragé dans un âge timide,
De l’illustre Prosper j’ose suivre les pas.
Puissé-je comme lui confondre les ingrats !
Poème en quatre chants
1720
The second son of the dramatist Jean Racine, Louis Racine was born in Paris. Interested in poetry from childhood, he had been dissuaded from trying to make it his career by Boileau on the grounds that the gift never existed in two successive generations. In 1722, Louis Racine’s small means induced him to accept a position in the revenue in Provence, but a marriage with a certain Mademoiselle Presle secured his independence. In 1755 he lost his son in the disasters consequent on the Lisbon earthquake. This misfortune, commemorated by Écouchard Lebrun, broke Racine’s spirit. He sold his library, and gave himself up to the practice of religion.
In 1719 he had become a member of the Académie des Inscriptions, but had never offered himself as a member of the Académie Française, for fear, it is said, of incurring refusal on account of his Jansenist opinions. La Grace (1720) and Religion (1742), his most important work, are inspired by a sincere piety, and are written in verse of uniform clearness and excellence. His other works include epistles, odes, among which the Ode sur l’harmonie (1736) should be mentioned, Mémoires (1747) of Jean Racine, and a prose translation of Paradise Lost (1755).
