A Popular History Of France - Livres de poche

POPULAR HISTORIES OF f GREAT NATIONS. A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE from fl e Stat xif EMILE DE BONNECHOSE AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE FIRST YEARS OF THE PRESENT REPUBLIC BY H. W. DULCKEN, Ph. D. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS. WARD, LOCK AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND MELBOURNE . All right reserved. JOAN OF ARC AND CHARLES VII. PREFACE. THE well-known and deservedly popular History of France by Emile de Bonnechose has been selected to form the basis of the present work because of its great intrinsic merits. It is in every way desirable that the English-speaking peoples, all over the globe, should become increasingly familiar with the history of the great French nation, with which they have been so intimately connected in the past, as friends and neighbours, with whom they have been, not unfrequently, in hostility, sometimes through misunderstandings which fuller knowledge and sympathy would have prevented, some times through the ambition and recklessness of kings and rulers, and sometimes undoubtedly for great principles. Ihe extent to which the various French provinces, with their diverse peoples, influenced English, Sco. tch and Irish life and history at successive stages, and the reacting influences of the British nation and cha racter upon France, cannot be comprehended without a study of the history of the French nation. English history alone gives but a one-sided view of matters, and few writers have been able to shake off the partiality of patriotism so as to be entirely fair to our neighbours and frequent opponents. Thus, the value to an English mans education of reading the romantic and varied narrative of French history, as told by a Frenchman of approved critical ability, can hardly beover-estimated. In this work there is presented to the reader, in a compact yet interesting form, the story of France, the complex product of via Preface. Celtic, Teutonic, Greek and Roman races and civilisations. The character of the French people impulsive, ardent, yet careful and thrifty ever enamoured of an ideal perfection in the organisation of a state, and not unfrequently forgetting the practical and rush ing into dangerous extremes excited into marvellous efforts and lofty enthusiasm by a passionate love of glory variable in its attachments, yet constant in its adhesion to those who consistently sacrifice personal interest to the good of France admiring the decorative, the artistic, the spectacular, to a degree only faintly comprehensible by solid stolid Britons emotional about liberty, fraternity, equality to a degree only felt by other nations about the sacred associations of religion, home and family this extraor dinary character will be found markedly illustrated by the story contained in the following pages. If its perusal lead many to a fuller understanding of and kindly feeling for the French people, the publishers will feel abundantly satisfied with the result of their undertaking. The study of the work will be greatly facilitated by the number ing of the sections, the full contents which precede each of the chapters, and the side-headings, which show at a glance the principal subjects dealt with on every page. The very numerous illustrations have been selected with a view to the elucidation of the text by portraits of kings, ministers and prominent men, by pictures of buildings and cities which have figured conspicuously in French history, and many other subjects ofinterest. The authors narrative has been taken up where he left it at the Revolu tion of 18485 and the story of the Republic and Second Empire has been completed...