{"product_id":"la-belle-france-isbn-9781400034871","title":"La Belle France","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"A useful and charming introduction to a nation that has oh-so-definitely helped make the modern world what it is... Horne does a service in helping the reading navigate the complexities of French history.\" —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the aclaimed British historian and author of \u003ci\u003eSeven Ages of Paris \u003c\/i\u003ecomes a sweeping, grand narrative written with all the verve, erudition,  and vividness that are his hallmarks. It recounts the hugely absorbing story of the country that has contributed  to the world so much talent, style, and political innovation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeginning with Julius  Caesar’s division of Gaul into three parts, Horne leads us through the ages from  Charlemagne to Chirac, touring battlefields from the Hundred Years’ War to Indochina  and Algeria, and giving us luminous portraits of the nation’s leaders, philosophers,  writers, artists, and composers. This is a captivating, beautifully illustrated,  and comprehensive yet concise history of France.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\"Fascinating. . . . Engaging. . . . Filled with 'hot-blooded' kings, royal mistressesÉand tales of cruelty, treachery and even, occasionally, heart-warming loyalty.\" –\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Horne] is a virtuoso of the character sketch and the illuminating vignette. . . . \u003ci\u003eLa Belle France\u003c\/i\u003e, with its refreshingly subjective style, possesses more treasures than a whole wall full of textbooks.\" –\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A breathtaking tour of French history, from its earliest kings through the Mitterrand government. . . . There are few countries with a more fascinating history than France.\" –\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"A useful and charming introduction to a nation that has oh-so-definitely helped make the modern world what it is. . . . Horne does a service in helping the reader navigate the complexities of French history.\" –\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Alistair Horne is the author of eighteen previous books, including \u003ci\u003eA Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954—1962\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Price of Glory: Verdun 1916\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHow Far from Austerlitz?: Napoleon 1805—1815\u003c\/i\u003e and the official biography of British prime minister Harold Macmillan. He is a fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, and lives in Oxfordshire. He was awarded the French Légion d’Honneur in 1993 and received a knighthood in 2003 for his work on French history.When Occupied Vichy’s Admiral Darlan was assassinated by a young French  zealot in Algiers in December 1942, Winston Churchill observed to the  House of Commons—in exasperation moderated with great sympathy—that the  “Good Lord in his infinite wisdom did not choose to make Frenchmen in  the image of the English.” Some, on both sides of the Channel, may  shout “Bravo!” or “Hear Hear!” but the fact is incontrovertible. With  even less likelihood of challenge, the same could be said of the two  nations. Geography, as much as history, though hand in hand, is what  creates a nation. Over the centuries, while England lay protected from  the invader (often, indeed, from outside influence) by the Channel, the  North Sea and the Atlantic, France had nothing to guard her from the  “barbarian at the gates.” As Guderian and Rommel proved in May 1940,  not even her great but sleepy rivers like the Meuse, the Oise, the  Somme and the Marne could prevent an invader from sweeping across the  boundless flat plains of northern France to threaten her capital city,  Paris—any more than the Vistula and the Niemen could preserve Poland,  with a geography that was so similar. (And see what a deal history  dealt to the Poles!) West of the Rhine, all through her history, France  had no topographical boundaries on which she could rely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThus much of her first two millennia encompasses an eternal hunt for  security, on the one hand through strengthening herself at home; on the  other, by aggressively pursuing expansionism abroad—often under the  slogan of la gloire. In the pursuit of security, opposing instincts of  the libertarian versus the authoritarian would repeatedly vie against  each other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the beginning, France consisted of little more than an embattled  island in the middle of the River Seine, surrounded by bristling  palisades, in what is now Paris’s Île de la Cité. The Romans founded\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Lutetia,” as they called it, at a time when, as readers of Asterix  know, Gaul was divided into three parts under Julius Caesar. (The word  “Lutetia,” romantic as it sounds, in fact derived from the Latin for  “mud”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—appropriately enough, as its long-suffering denizens would discover  over many successive centuries.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFortunately, Emperor Julian (ad 358) found Lutetia, with its vineyards,  figs and gentle climate, so thoroughly agreeable that he refused a  summons to lead legions to the Middle East. Surprisingly, he even found  the Seine “pleasant to drink, for it is very pure and agreeable to the  eye.” Already in Roman times Lutetia became prosperous and alluring  enough for it to be worth assault, and burning, by marauders from  across the Rhine. About the same time as Nero watched Rome burn, the  whole of the wooden settlements on the left bank were razed by fire.  The city contracted, the Parisians withdrawing, once again, into the  highly defensible fastness of the Île de la Cité. One of the first of  many Germanic invasions was seen off by Emperor Julian, after the  Alamanni had come to within only twenty-five leagues away—roughly the  same spot as their grey-clad kinsmen reached under the Kaiser in 1914.  The prayers of Sainte Geneviève, patron saint of Paris, reputedly  caused Attila the Hun to swing away from the city in 451, and over the  ages intercessions to her were to be made to save Paris from latter-day  Huns—with varying degrees of success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRome gave Paris her first revolutionary martyr, Saint Denis,  decapitated at what became the “Mons Martyrum”—or Montmartre. The  fields around his place of execution were said to have “displayed a  wonderful fertility.” Ever after, the Roman tradition would run like a  vital chord all through French history, summoned up and referred back  to at crucial moments. In his godlike splendour, the “Roi Soleil”  tapped into it, content to see himself portrayed as Hercules on the  Porte Saint-Martin. The Great Revolution and its heirs reinvented such  artefacts as consuls and senators, tribunes and togas. Napoleon I had  himself crowned Emperor, then emulated Trajan’s Column to vaunt his  victories over his foes at Austerlitz in the Place Vendôme; Napoleon  III, also assuming the title of Emperor, reverently clad the statue of  his great uncle atop it in a toga, and when things were going badly for  him in 1869, went to seek inspiration at the Roman ruins of Lutetia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEqually, the Seine was, and is, and always will be, Paris. From  earliest days the navigable river and the north-south axis that  intersected it at the Île de la Cité formed one of Europe’s most  important crossroads. The island itself constituted a natural fortress,  all but unassailable. In marked contrast to the estuarial, shallow and  narrow Thames, the Seine’s waters were not too swift and were capable  of carrying heavy loads, ideal for commerce in wine, wheat and timber.  It enabled Paris to dominate trade in the north as Lyons on the Rhône  did in the centre, and Bordeaux on the Garonne and Nantes on the Loire  in the west—thus making Paris a natural commercial capital early in the  Middle Ages; never to lose this primacy. Resting on the river like a  great ship, Paris appropriately adopted the motto of Fluctuat Nec  Mergitur (“She Floats But Does Not Sink”), retaining it as city burst  far beyond its island bounds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA dynasty of Frankish rulers, mostly yobbish louts whose name  appropriately derived from the Latin word for “ferocious,” now pushed  in from the east and devastated the Gaul lands as they went. Once  established in France, having moved to Paris from the temporary capital  of Rheims they came to be known as the Merovingians.* Over  two-and-a-half dark centuries they wrangled and split among themselves,  beginning with the first Merovingian king, Clovis, who killed off most  of his family; “after each murder,” writes Maurice Druon, with some  acidity: “Clovis built a church.” They were not gentle, or nice people,  these Frankish forebears of the modern-day Parisian—especially the  women, who were strong, dominating, often ferocious, and who lived to  great ages. There was Queen Fredegonda (545–97), described as glowing  “like the eye of a nocturnal carnivore,” who had women burned alive on  flimsy allegations of being responsible for the deaths of her children,  and for whose fierce pleasures her lover, King Chilperic, had his first  two wives murdered within the same week. Even after Fredegonda’s death,  her bitter rival, Brunhilda (543–613), now a venerable septuagenarian,  was brutally put to death. Tortured for three days, her last  descendants slain before her eyes, chroniclers have it that she was  then hoisted onto a camel (possibly a somewhat rare spectacle in  contemporary France) and paraded in front of her deriding army. Finally  she was “tied, by one arm, one leg and her white hair, to the tail of  an unbroken horse,” allegedly along what is now the Rue des  Petits-Champs, stronghold of bankers in the 2nd arrondissement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring the ascendancy of these formidable early Frenchwomen, precursors  of Reine Margot and Madame Defarge, convents were burned to the ground  with their inmates inside, leaders assassinated in conjugal beds,  children abducted and murdered, hands severed, eyes gouged, lovers  defenestrated, and cunning poisons developed in the name of statecraft.  Byzantium had nothing more deplorable to show than the Merovingians.  But at least, under Clovis, the notion of Paris as a capital city first  became accepted, from which—in the brief three last years of his grisly  life—Clovis administered a kingdom even larger than modern France. His  descendant, Dagobert, died of dysentery, aged only thirty-six, but his  interment at Saint-Denis established the principle for the burial of  subsequent kings of France. In a curiously progressive fashion, none of  the Merovingian rulers was ever crowned, they were all elected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe throne of France would have fallen into Muslim hands if, a hundred  years later, the usurping strong-man and bastard, Charles Martel, had  not halted the Saracens at Poitiers. As it was, the closing years of  the century saw the last of the Merovingians and the arrival of  Charlemagne, a rather less attractive character than his portraits and  subsequent canonisation would suggest. He was more German than French  (and looked it), and an absentee ruler who did little for France, or  Paris; it has mystified many that a statue was erected to him in front  of Notre-Dame. It was more for his greatness than his goodness: crowned  Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas day in the year 800, Charlemagne fought  forty-seven campaigns in as many years; he married four times (he  divorced his first wife, and then three died—to be replaced by four  concubines). He forbade his daughters to marry, preferring them to live  at home and populate the court with bastards. Charlemagne’s Carolingian  dynasty would last another 200 years. His empire extended from the  Pyrenees to the Elbe—but he ran it all from Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen),  rather than Paris.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe great empire was short-lived. Under Charlemagne’s son, the first of  eighteen named Louis (nicknamed “the Pious”), it was dismembered into  seven parts. As the Carolingians wrangled, and all Europe sank into a  kind of lethargy, in the ninth century a new and unknown warrior race  emerged to the north—Norsemen, surging out of Scandinavia to invade the  British Isles and Russia as far as Kiev, and even reaching  Constantinople. In 843, Nantes was sacked, the bishop killed on the  steps of his altar. Only two years later, 120 long-boats, terrifyingly  decorated and with thirty pairs of oars, attacked Paris unexpectedly  from up-stream. Once again the population fled; the Norsemen departed,  carrying off tons of booty—including the magnificent bronze roof of  Saint-Germain-le-Doré. They appeared everywhere, like some terrible  plague of locusts, even sailing up the Rhône to pillage Valence, and  striking at Pisa in Italy. Defenceless Paris was sacked—and more  churches lost their roofs—another five times over the next twenty  years. How these dauntless seaborne marauders were able to strike, with  such impunity and effect, so far inland remains something of a mystery.  Meanwhile the useless Charles the Bald occupied himself by putting out  the eyes of his son, suspected of plotting against him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs in the time of Attila, Paris shrank back into the original  twenty-five acres of the Île de la Cité. In 885, with Charlemagne’s  legacy disintegrating and the throne of France to all intents vacant,  there came the first siege of Paris. Setting forth from England, a  force of Norsemen captured Rouen and headed on up the Seine. Fourteen  hundred boats, said to have “covered two leagues of the river” and  bearing a formidable force of some 30,000 hirsute warriors, reached  Paris. To have woken up and seen this terrifying array on the Seine  must have been shattering for the Parisians. These Norsemen constituted  a besieging force comparable only to the Prussians who were to invest  the city almost exactly a thousand years later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLed by a heroic Comte de Paris, Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, Paris  refused to surrender—the first time that any city had resisted the  terrible Norsemen. Eudes was to prove himself France’s homme fort, but  the siege lasted ten grim months. Natural forces even allied themselves  with the attackers; on 6 February a flood swept away the Petit Pont,  enabling the Norsemen to capture one of the châtelet fortresses. Next  famine broke out. In despair, Eudes slipped out of the city and  galloped to Germany to demand assistance from the Emperor, Charles the  Fat. Charles set out unwillingly, but the size of his ponderous army  moving down from Montmartre caused the fatigued Norsemen to hesitate.  Dubious negotiations were entered into, in which the Parisians bribed  the Norsemen with 700 livres of silver and a free passage of the Seine,  both ways—encouraging them to carry the war upstream to Burgundy, and  leave Paris in peace. It was a deal which, subjecting the unhappy  Burgundians to the worst winter they had ever known, would lead to  centuries of instinctive mistrust and hatred between the principality  of Burgundy and France, culminating during the Hundred Years War in an  alliance with the English.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a result of his brave defiance towards the Norsemen, two years later  Count Eudes found himself elected as king by the nobles in preference  to a German princeling: just to pile chaos on chaos, for a while there  were in fact two Kings of France of East and West—but in Paris\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eit was Eudes who mattered. In 911, he bought off the Norsemen by giving  them the duchy of Normandy. From then on their eyes were encouraged to  turn northwards, with cheerful projects of conquering Saxon England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow a great-nephew of Eudes, Hugues Capet, saw off the Germanic Emperor  Otto II on the slopes of Montmartre (close to where Saint Denis was  separated from his head). In 987, in the city of Senlis, he was elected  king by assembled French barons, and a month later Capet was crowned in  Rheims Cathedral, thereby establishing a fresh precedent, like  Dagobert’s interment at Saint-Denis. He ruled for only nine years  (987–96), but for the first time Paris had a French, not Frankish, king  and a new French dynasty. Forced to give up title to Lorraine and  concede the already historic fortress of Verdun to the Germans,  however, the domain of France inherited by Hugues Capet looked like a  tiny kernel surrounded by a mass of hostile pulp comprising Burgundy,  Flanders, Normandy, Aquitaine and Lorraine. As the energetic Norsemen,  now Normans, swarmed across the English Channel and began to reorganise  the sleepy and backward Saxon England they had conquered, Capetian  France remained poor, its vassals powerful, its rulers in thrall to the  Church and inhibited by the lack of a common language. But by 1328,  when the Capetian dynasty had run its course, the kingdom of France had  become the most united and potent in western Europe.*\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are no portraits of Hugues Capet (although the surname came as a  sobriquet because of the abbeys whose “cappa” he wore). He died young  of smallpox, but he had arranged a dynastic marriage for his eldest  son, Robert, and assured his succession as rex designatus. The only  text attributed to him was his coronation oath:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI, who am about to become king of the Franks, by divine favour, on this  day of my coronation, in the presence of God and the saints, . . .  promise to distribute justice to the people who are in my care,  according to their rights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was to be repeated by all his successors down to the revolution.  Although he seems to have been a timid and anomalous character, herein  lies Hugues Capet’s claim to fame; from him would be descended nearly  forty kings who would succeed each other over a period of more than 800  years.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300098789605,"sku":"NP9781400034871","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400034871.jpg?v=1767730883","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/la-belle-france-isbn-9781400034871","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}