départements and then further to communes, which in 2013, numbered 36,681 (Paris, the country’s capital city, is a commune as well as a département). In 2017, the population of France and its overseas regions was almost 67 million. This map details the 86 départements that made up France in 1816, the year after Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo. Each département was usually named after a physical feature such as a river or mountain. P.A.F. Tardieu, a member of a family of famous French engravers, produced the map.]]> ___]]> Maps]]> Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry, perhaps one of the most famous Book of Hours in the world. Dutch painters Herman, John and Paul Limbourg were commissioned by John of Berry (1340-1416), a superb patron of the arts, to create this beautiful work. It was completed by another artist and Jean Colombe in 1485. The manuscript is now in The Cloisters library in New York. Just two of the 94 full-page illuminations are on display: the ‘Adoration of the Magi’ and ‘Flight into Egypt’.]]> [Jean Colombe]]]> Books]]> ___]]> Pamphlets]]> Le Temps on 14 February 1887 on what is perhaps today the cultural icon of Paris – and France: the Eiffel Tower. Conceived by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, and finally patented by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), this 324-metre structure was constructed between 1887–89 as the entrance to the Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair held to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. The Tower is one of the most visited monuments in the world; 6.91 million ascended it in 2015.]]> ___]]> Pamphlets]]> Fables are like a basket of strawberries. You begin by selecting the largest and best, but, little by little, you eat first one, then another, till at last the basket is empty’. So wrote the famed memorialist Madame de Sévigné (1626–1696) on Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables, produced in several volumes from 1668 to 1694. The 239 stories – many of them morality tales that highlight the foibles of human nature – derive from classical fabulists such as Aesop and Phaedrus, earlier French writers like Rabelais and Clément Marot, and from the East, like this one: ‘The Bear and the Gardener’ (L’ours et l’amateur des jardins), a tale warning against making foolish friendships. La Fontaine’s work is a classic and requires little enhancement. However, in 1868, Gustave Doré (1832-1883), the French artist, produced his timeless illustrations for the text. This is a late 19th century English language reprint.]]> Jean de La Fontaine]]> Books]]> Hardouyn]]> Manuscripts]]> Robertus Stephanus) took up printing. In 1539, he became ‘typographer Royal’, having produced many fine works, especially those by the Church Fathers and classical writers. In fact, the reign of François I (1515-1547) is called the ‘Golden Age of French typography’. In 1550, Estienne fled to Geneva, and was the first to divide the chapters of the Bible into numbered verses. This less than elegant Cicero is one of his small format Parisian productions.]]> Marcus Tullius Cicero]]> Books]]> La légende dorée, a French translation of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea sanctorum. This was the first book printed in the French language. Importantly, it was executed in Lyon, the one city that rivalled Paris in the burgeoning print industry in France. The town boasted such masters as Johann Treschel; Johann Klein; Sebastian Greyff, and type designers like Robert Granjon. One 16th century printer was Benoist Rigaud, famed for printing Les Propheties by Nostradamus in 1568. Here is a less controversial publication, the works of Philippe Desportes (1546-1606), a courtier poet famed for sonnets and elegies; many in an imitative Italian style.]]> Philippe Desportes]]> Books]]> langue d’oc (in the south), langue d’oïl (north), and Gallo (the Celtic Breton area). In his dedication to this eight edition of The Complete French Master, Abel Boyer (c.1667-1729), an Anglo-French lexicographer, writes that French was ‘reckoned part of a genteel education’. Many of the 80-90 million native speakers of French today would heartily agree.]]> Abel Boyer]]> Books]]> François de Mézeray]]> Books]]> Lucy Norton]]> Books]]> Mélite, which gave him some success when it was performed in Paris in 1630. His El Cid, produced in 1636 and considered his masterpiece, broke theatrical conventions of unity of time, place, and action. This ‘tragicomedy’ was judged dramatically implausible and morally defective by Cardinal Richelieu and his ‘cultural watchdog’, the Académie française. Public performances of El Cid were suppressed. Later editions, like this 1692 publication, were termed ‘tragedy’ and printed as such.]]> Pierre Corneille]]> Books]]> Médée, Pierre Corneille's first true tragedy, produced in 1635.]]> Pierre Corneille]]> Books]]> Jodelet, ou le Maître Valet (Jodelet, or the Valet as Master, 1645) and Roman Comique (1651-1657), which is regarded as his best work. In his own day, his Virgile Travesti (1648-1653), a parody of the Aeneid, was highly regarded. This elegant production of 1655, with its engraved frontispiece, reflects something of its past standing. Today this satiric ‘travesty’ is little read.]]> Paul Scarron]]> Books]]> L’École des Femmes (1662); Tartuffe (1664); Le Misanthrope (1666); and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670). His L’Amour Médecin (Love Is the Doctor) was ‘a sketch, a little impromptu’ that was presented by order of Louis XIV at Versailles on 22 September 1655. He was famous for attacking hypocrisy; the medical fraternity are the target in this play. He has one medico (Filerin) state the position: ‘Thanks to Heaven people are infatuated with us, so let us not disabuse them, let us profit from their stupidity’. Molière, whom Voltaire called the ‘painter of France’, was a true master of comedy. This bi-lingual edition is a later printing of 1755.]]> Molière]]> Books]]> La Pucelle d’Orléans (‘The Virgin of Orléans’), experienced visions of saints from a young age. These compelled her to fervently support Charles VII’s bid for the crown during the Hundred Years’ War against England. Be it through military prowess or divine right, Joan claimed victory for the French at the siege of Orléans. Two years later, aged 19, she was captured by the English and burnt at the stake under the contrived conviction of ‘cross-dressing’. In the posthumous retrial of 1456, she was declared innocent. Joan was canonised as a patron saint of France in 1920.]]> Pierre Le Moyne]]> Books]]> Madame Déficit because of her infamous spending habits, she was one of the catalysts of the French Revolution, which ultimately led to the bloody downfall of the French dynastic line.]]> Antonia Fraser]]> Books]]> La Princesse de Clèves (above) is credited as France’s first historical-psychological novel, marking a significant departure from the flimsy romances of old. Although first published anonymously in 1678, the work was later attributed to Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693), a prolific French novelist. While her years in the Austrian royal court formed her literary education, it was La Fayette’s time at the French court, and her fascination with the past king, Henry II, that became the basis for La Princesse de Clèves. The novel, a tale of adultery, was noted for its historical accuracy and scandalous intrigue.]]> ___]]> Books]]> Modern Housewife, takes the form of an epistolary recipe exchange between two fictitious housewives, Eloise and Hortense.]]> Alexis Soyer]]> Books]]> Alexis Soyer]]> Books]]> Costume History contains examples of the ‘over-the-top’ styles popularised by Marie Antoinette – impractical wigs and headwear (les poufs) worn with elaborate dresses. Today, Paris is still at the very centre of all things fashionable.]]> Auguste Racinet]]> With kind permission © 2015 TASCHEN GmbH, Hohenzollernring 53, D-50672 Köln, www.taschen.com]]> Books]]> pouf that depicted the bizarre, contemporary scene of Louis XVI’s inoculation against smallpox. In Langlade’s biography of the celebrated Bertin, he describes Marie Antoinette’s reign as ‘one of futility and chiffon’. Unfortunately, the Queen’s love of extravagance fanned the flames of the Revolution that would be her downfall.]]> Émile Langlade]]> Books]]> Jodocus Sincerus [Justus Zinzerling]]]> Books]]> Mrs Charles Stothard (Anna Eliza Bray)]]> Books]]> des villes, des bourgs, des villages, et généralement de tous les lieux remarquables de la France’ – ‘cities, market towns, villages, and generally all of the remarkable places in France’. This engraving shows the spring in Fontaine de Vaucluse, a small town 25 kilometres from Avignon in the southeast of France. Vaucluse literally means ‘closed valley’, and it is at the end of the valley that the famous spring – ‘fontaine’ – is located, the biggest in France. Every year 630 million cubic metres of water flows from the spring, the bottom of which has never been ascertained. The little town is still a popular tourist destination today.]]> [Pierre Girault]]]> Books]]>