1. Where did the name France came from?
-The name "France" comes from the Latin Francia, which means "country of the Franks".[25] There are various theories as to the origin of the name of the Franks. One is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca.[26] Another proposed etymology is that in an ancient Germanic language, Frank means free as opposed to slave.
2. What is absolute monarchy? Tell how it ended as a system of government in France?
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Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government where the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, thus wielding political power over the sovereign state and its subject peoples. In an absolute monarchy, the transmission of power is twofold; hereditary and marital. As absolute governor, the monarch’s authority is not legally bound or restricted by a constitution as in a limited monarchy.
3. Tell something about the following leaders in France ( their role, achievements, accomplishments)
- a. King Louis XIII
Louis XIII (27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France and Navarre from 1610 to 1643. Along with his First Minister Cardinal Richelieu, Louis "the Just" is remembered for the establishment of the Académie française and participation in the Thirty Years' War against the House of Habsburg.[1] France's greatest victory in the war came at the Battle of Rocroi, five days after Louis' death—apparently from complications of intestinal tuberculosis, "marking the end of Spain's military ascendancy in Europe."[2]
b. King Louis XIV
Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) ruled as King of France and of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death just prior to his 77 birthday. He acceded to the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his first minister (premier minister), Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Louis XIV, known as The Sun King (in French Le Roi Soleil) or as Louis the Great (in French Louis le Grand, or simply Le Grand Monarque, "the Great Monarch"), ruled France for 72 years—the longest reign of any French or other major European monarch. Louis XIV increased the power and influence of France in Europe, fighting three majorwars—the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession—and two minor conflicts—the War of Devolution, and the War of the Reunions.Under his reign, France achieved not only political and military pre-eminence, but also cultural dominance with various cultural figures such as Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Rigaud, Le Brun and Le Nôtre. These cultural achievements contributed to the prestige of France, its people, its language and its king. As one of France's greatest kings, Louis XIV worked successfully to create an absolutist and centralized state. Louis XIV became the archetype of an absolute monarch. The phrase "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the State") is frequently attributed to him, though this is considered by historians to be a historical inaccuracy and is more likely to have been conceived by political opponents as a way of confirming the stereotypical view of the absolutism he represented. Quite contrary to that apocryphal quote, Louis XIV is actually reported to have said on his death bed: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." ("I am going away, but the State will always remain").
c. Cardinal Richelieu
The magnitude of Richelieu's achievement grows when one considers his relations with the king. Louis XIII cordially disliked him, and would gladly have got rid of him if he had not been able to convince the king of the wisdom of everything he did. Thus obliged to assume the unpleasant role of tutor when delicate flattery was often most needful, the minister lectured and cajoled his master, always, until towards the last, giving credit to the king for his own successes, and overawing opposition by his imperious presence even when Louis was dabbling in plots against him (as in the case of Cinq Mars) behind his back. The king's consciousness of his weakness was combined with a sense of duty, and it was upon these two chords that Richelieu played. Besides, he was eternally on the alert. Spies in every salon in Paris and every court in Europe kept the grim courtier informed of every change in his master's disposition and every intrigue against himself. The piquant comments of his platonic friend, Mademoiselle de Hautefort, upon Richelieu were relished by the king until he was informed of others said to have been made by her upon himself. Then it was easy to supplant her with another favorite, Mademoiselle de Lafayette. When this devout maiden began to denounce the ungodly cardinal who was allied with heretics, her confessor -- in Richelieu's service -- succeeded in inducing her to become a nun. Father Caussin, the king's confessor, ventured the same comments, and Louis plotted like a schoolboy to turn his devotions into secret criticisms of state policies. Caussin was sent into Brittany, and the judicious and learned Jesuit, Jacques Sirmond, who succeeded him, kept clear of politics. Such was the atmosphere of the court in which Richelieu had to maintain his authority
.d. Mazarin
Cardinal Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino (1602-1661) was a French cardinal and statesman who controlled the French government while Louis XIV was young. Mazarin was a conservative who followed the aims of Cardinal Richelieu, his main sponsor. Their goals were to support the Catholic Church, to secure and maintain royal absolutism in France, and to make France the leading power of Europe. His main achievements were the ending of the Thirty Years War through the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and his defeat of the Fronde in 1653. Using an elaborate network of personal relations, he restored royal authority to the point at which the king could rule alone. Mazarin attained his aims by both scrupulous and unscrupulous means, inspired love in some and hatred in others, and was controversial in his own time and ever since.
4. What is a General Estates in France? What is its composition? Describe each.
In France under the Ancient Regime, the States-General or Estates-General (French: états généraux, IPA: [eta ʒeneʁo]), was a legislative assembly (see The Estates) of the different classes (or estates) of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king. It had no true power in its own right—unlike the English parliament it was not required to approve royal taxation or legislation[1] instead it functioned as an advisory body to the king, primarily by presenting petitions from the various estates and consulting on fiscal policy[2]. The Estates-General met from intermittently until 1614 and rarely afterwards, but was not definitively dissolved until after the French Revolution[2].
It is comparable to similar institutions across Europe, such as the States-General of the Netherlands, the Parliament of England, the Estates of Parliament of Scotland, the Cortes of Spain, the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Diets (German: Landtage) of the historic states of Germany.5. Tell something about the following events in the history of France:
1. Hundred YearsWar
The Hundred Years' War (French: Guerre de Cent Ans) was a series of wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The House of Valois claimed the title of King of France, while the Plantagenets claimed to be Kings of France and England. The Plantagenet kings were the 12th century rulers of the Kingdom of England, and had their roots in the French regions of Anjou and Normandy.
The conflict lasted 116 years but was punctuated by several periods of peace, before it finally ended in the expulsion of the Plantagenets from France (except the Pale of Calais). The war was eventually a victory for the house of Valois, who succeeded in recovering the Plantagenet gains made initially and expelling them from the majority of France by the 1450s. However, the war nearly ruined the Valois, while the Plantagenets enriched themselves by gaining huge amounts of plunder from the mainland. France itself likewise suffered greatly from the war, as most of the conflict occurred on the continent.
The "war" was in fact a series of conflicts and is commonly divided into three or four phases: the Edwardian War (1337–1360), the Caroline War (1369–1389), the Lancastrian War (1415–1429), and the slow decline of Plantagenet fortunes after the appearance of Joan of Arc (1412–1431). Several other contemporary European conflicts were directly related to this conflict: theBreton War of Succession, the Castilian Civil War, the War of the Two Peters, and the 1383-1385 Crisis. The term "Hundred Years' War" was a later term invented by historians to describe the series of events.
2. Thirty Years War
The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. The war was fought primarily in what is nowGermany, and at various points involved most of the countries of Europe.Naval warfare also reached overseas and shaped the colonial formation of future nations.
The origins of the conflict and goals of the participants were complex, and no single cause can accurately be described as the main reason for the fighting. Initially, the war was fought largely as a religious conflict betweenProtestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, although disputes over the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire played a significant part. Gradually, the war developed into a more general conflict involving most of the European powers.[9][10] In this general phase, the war became more a continuation of the Bourbon–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, and in turn led to further warfare between Franceand the Habsburg powers, and less specifically about religion.[11]
3. War of Spanish Successions
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) was fought among several European powers, principally the Spanish loyal to Archduke Charles, the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Portugal and the Duchy of Savoy against the Spanish loyal to Philip V, France and the Electorate of Bavaria over a possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. Such a unification would have drastically changed the European balance of power. The war was fought mostly in Europe but includedQueen Anne's War in North America and it was marked by the military leadership of notable generals including the Duc de Villars, the Jacobite Duke of Berwick, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy. It resulted in the recognition of Philip as King of Spain while requiring him to renounce any claim to the French throne and to cede much of the Spanish Crown's possessions to the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Savoy and Great Britain, partitioning the Spanish Empire in Europe.
4. French Revolution
The French Revolution (French: Révolution française; 1789–99) was a period of radicalsocial and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship andinalienable rights.
The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution witnessed members of the Third Estate proclaiming theTennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of theDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march onVersailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a conservative monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine—achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed.[1] After the fall ofRobespierre and the Jacobins, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.
