burgundy country holiday
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Humans have inhabited France for about 90,000 years. The Celtic Gauls arrived between 1500 and 500 BC; after several centuries of conflict with Rome, Gaul lost the territory to Julius Caesar in 52 BC, and by the 2nd century AD the region had been partly Christianised. In the 5th century the Franks (thus 'France') and other Germanic groups overran the country.
The Middle Ages were marked by a succession of power struggles between warring Frankish dynasties. The Capetian Dynasty was a time of prosperity and scholarly revivalism despite continued battles with England over feudal rights. During this period, France was also embroiled in the Crusades, a holy war instigated by the Church against non-Christians. The Capetian Dynasty waned by the early 15th century as France continued to fight England in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), which featured 17-year-old firebrand Jeanne d'Arc.
Religious and political persecution, culminating in the Wars of Religion (1562-98), continued to threaten France's stability during the 16th century. In 1572, some 3000 Protestant Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris. The Huguenots were later guaranteed religious, civil and political rights. By the early 17th century the country was held in thrall by Cardinal Richelieu, who moved to establish an absolute monarchy and increase French power in Europe.
Louis XIV (the Sun King) ascended the throne in 1643 at the age of five and ruled until 1715. Throughout his reign, he hounded the Protestant minority, quashed the feuding aristocracy and created the first centralised French state. But as the 18th century progressed, the ancien régime (old order) became dangerously out of sync with the rest of the country, and was further weakened by the Enlightenment's anti-Establishment and anticlerical ideas. France's involvement in the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and the American War of Independence (1776-83) was financially ruinous for the monarchy, and the latter provided ammunition for opponents of French absolutism.
By the late 1780s, most every French citizen had strong reasons for being fed up with Louis XVI and his swell-headed queen, Marie Antoinette. When the king tried to neutralise the power of reform-minded economists, the urban masses took to the streets. On 14 July 1789, a Parisian mob attacked the Invalides, seized weapons and stormed the Bastille prison, the ultimate symbol of the despotism of the ancien régime. At first, the Revolution was in the hands of moderates, but from this milieu emerged the radical Jacobins, led by Robespierre, Danton and Marat. They established the First Republic in 1792, holding virtual dictatorial control over the country during the Reign of Terror (1793-4), which saw mass executions and religious persecution. Ultimately the Revolution turned on its own, and many of its leaders, including Robespierre and Danton, were pruned by Madame la Guillotine.
Buoyed by a series of military victories abroad, mercurial Napoleon Bonaparte assumed domestic power in 1799, sparking a series of wars in which France came to control most of Europe. Ultimately, a disastrous campaign against Russia in 1812 led to Bony's downfall - he was banished to the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba. His escape and reinstallation as Emperor lasted 100 days before he was defeated by the English at Waterloo. The English exiled him to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.