France

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France

(Mapping Specialists, Ltd.)

A country of western Europe on the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel. It was settled by the Franks after the retreat of the Romans, who had conquered Celtic Gaul in 58–51 B.C. Charlemagne made it the center of his Empire of the West after A.D. 800. In the Middle Ages France was split into numerous fiefdoms and kingdoms, most of which were incorporated into the royal domain by the time of Louis XI (reigned 1461–1483). Widespread poverty and discontent led to the French Revolution (1789) and the end of the monarchy. The First Republic (1792–1804) was followed by the First Empire (1804–1815) under Napoleon Bonaparte, a period of constitutional monarchy (1814–1848), and a succession of republics broken by the Second Empire (1852–1870) under Louis Napoleon. Much of France was occupied by Germany in World War II. Paris is the capital and the largest city. Population: 63,700,000.

 

Country in Western Europe. France entered World War II in September 1939 to join its ally, Poland, in its struggle against Germany. The German army invaded France itself in May 1940; in June the French surrendered and signed an armistice with the Nazis. France was then divided in two: northern France (the occupied zone) was put under German control, while southern France (the unoccupied zone) was put under the control of a new French government that was established in the spa town of Vichy. The Vichy government was headed by Marshal Philippe Petain, a World War I hero who was revered by the French people. At the same time French general Charles de Gaulle, who bitterly opposed Petain's surrender to the Germans, fled to Great Britain, where he set up a French government-in-exile and rallied around him other Frenchmen who wanted to free France from the tyranny of the Germans and the collaborating Vichy government.

In the summer of 1940, after France fell to Germany, there were 350,000 Jews living in France; more than half were not French citizens, but Jews who had moved to France after World War I and Jewish Refugees from Germany and other areas taken over by the Nazis. Almost immediately after the occupation, both the Jews living in the occupied zone and those in the unoccupied zone were subjected to the first wave of anti-Jewish measures. In the German-controlled zone, Jews were stripped of their jobs, their freedom of movement was restricted, and many were arrested. At the same time, the Vichy government also actively went ahead with persecuting the Jews. In October 1940 it passed a set of anti-Jewish laws called the Statut Des Juifs. These laws strictly defined who was to be considered a Jew, and called for the drastic cutback of Jewish involvement in French society. In March 1941 the Vichy authorities, under pressure from the Germans, set up an Office for Jewish Affairs under the direction of Xavier Vallat. The office was responsible to institute and carry out France's Anti-Jewish Legislation, including the confiscation of Jewish property and businesses (see also Aryanization). In November 1941 Vallat created the Union of French Jews under the impetus of Adolf Eichmann'S representative in France, Theodor Dannecker.

At first, the anti-Jewish measures put into effect by the Vichy government were mainly directed against those Jews who were not native French citizens. Thousands were sent to Forced Labor camps or imprisoned. However, at the end of April 1942 Pierre Laval joined the Vichy government as prime minister; Laval was proactively committed to collaborating fully with the Nazis. In May, the Office for Jewish Affairs' Vallat was replaced with a rabid antisemite named Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, who willingly persecuted all the Jews in France, those with and without citizenship. Then, after two years of inflicting suffering upon the Jews, the Germans and the Vichy authorities began Deportations.

The French Police agreed to round up and arrest the Jews for deportation in exchange for a great deal of independence. In June 1942 the Germans forced the Jews in the occupied zone to wear the Jewish badge for easy identification, began arresting large groups, and restricted the movements of the rest (see also Badge, Jewish). The roundups, carried out mostly by the French police, continued throughout the summer. In one horrible aktion that took place on July 16--17, they rounded up about 12,000 Jews in Paris, jamming some 7,000 of them into the Velodrome d'Hiver sports stadium for days without food, water, or toilets. Many thousands of Jews were arrested and sent by cattle car to a transit camp in the Paris suburb of Drancy, from which they were deported to the east. The Vichy authorities also arrested and deported Jews from their zone. Altogether, 42,500 Jews were sent to the east during 1942.

In November 1942 German and Italian forces took over the Vichy zone. Italy took control of a small area of southeast France, and protected the Jews who fled there seeking refuge from the Germans and Vichy authorities. The Italians even refused to implement any anti-Jewish laws in their zone. However, in September 1943, when Italy tried to surrender to the Allies, the Germans took over the Italian part of France, and began arresting the Jews who had found shelter there. Some Jews tried to escape southward to Spain or eastward to Switzerland, but the journey to those countries was extremely dangerous, and few Jews made it successfully. Some Jews were aided by French non-Jews, who hid the Jews at great risk to themselves and their families.

Despite Laval's stated commitment to collaborate with the Nazis, he faced protests from the French people when the deportation of Jews began to include French citizens, and not just Jewish refugees from other countries. In August 1943 Laval refused to strip French Jews of their citizenship in order to expedite their deportation. However, in spite of this and other minor protests, the deportations continued in 1943 and into 1944. In all, some 80,000 Jews were deported from France during the war, and all but 2,000 of them perished. Approximately 70,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz, while the rest were sent to Majdanek, Sobibor, and a small number to Buchenwald.

Throughout the war, a French resistance movement (the Maquis) under the leadership of Jean Moulin was active against the Nazis and the Vichy government; Moulin was the representative of General Charles de Gaulle. The Jews of France also participated in underground activities, both in the general French Resistance and in Jewish resistance organizations, such as a Jewish militia called the Armee Juive (see also Jewish Army, France). The Jewish underground worked very hard at hiding fellow Jews, especially Jewish children.

The Allies landed at Normandy in northwestern France on June 6, 1944. Two months later France was liberated, and de Gaulle marched victorious into Paris; the leaders of the defunct Vichy government fled to Germany.

For more information on France, visit Britannica.com.

To 1920

It is clear to historians today that two great nations, France and Britain, dominated photography in the 19th and early 20th centuries: in terms of inventions, numbers of major photographers, influence on the rest of the world, and diversity of the medium's applications. The explanation for this quasi-duopoly clearly derives from the two countries' ascendancy on the world stage. Their economic prosperity and colonial empires, and the fact that London and Paris were both cauldrons of intellectual and artistic activity, are sufficient to explain why photography, like other arts, technologies, industries, and fashionable pursuits, was particularly advanced there. However, this preliminary socio-economic observation does not explain everything: Berlin or Moscow, St Petersburg, Rome, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, or New York, even if not playing leading roles, might nevertheless have become significant centres of activity, as they did in other fields. In photography, however, this became true only to a limited extent. Although from pictorialism onwards the Italian, Belgian, German, Austrian, and American schools began to make major contributions, until the 1880s London and Paris were at the heart of photographic activity; Niépce, Daguerre, Talbot, Poitevin, Brewster, Archer, Le Gray, Maddox, Ducos, Charles Cros (1842-88), Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), the Lumière brothers, and other French and British figures were associated with the birth of photography and most of its key developments until c.1900.

This said, it is necessary to establish what was distinctive about 19th-century French photography. By its agreement with Daguerre, the French government acquired his and Niépce's invention in order to present it to ‘humanity’. For a while, the spectacular announcement in Paris in August 1839 eclipsed Talbot's quiet work in the English provinces. The invention, which became the object of an immediate craze, was almost universally perceived as French. A shock wave radiated outwards from Paris, but also engulfed the city itself. The portrait studios lampooned by wits and cartoonists like Honoré Daumier became a speciality of the French capital. The calotype, as Edmond de Valicourt vividly put it, seemed ‘stifled at birth’. Its resurrection at the end of the 1840s was also strongly linked to Paris; the improvements made by the Lille publisher Blanquart-Évrard and others, though the subject of disputes with Talbot, restored the process to centre stage, as the unique, expensive daguerreotype was beginning to lose its appeal. The ultimate refinements of the paper-negative process by Gustave Le Gray (1849-51), inventor of the waxed-paper process, succeeded in making the calotype completely practicable. From the late 1840s it enjoyed definite success, albeit different from that of the daguerreotype. The overwhelming majority of daguerreotypes were commercial products, studio portraits that rarely had artistic value, and other applications remained marginal. With the calotype, on the other hand, as the works of Talbot, then Hill and Adamson, demonstrated, photography entered the domain of the intellectual and artistic elite. As Eugenia Parry Janis has shown, this was particularly marked in France. In the hands of skilled amateurs and professionals, the calotype pushed forward the frontiers of the medium. Painters such as Delacroix and Courbet made early and considerable use of it, abundantly supplied with purpose-produced work by artists like Vallou de Villeneuve and Durieu.

The development of archaeology, and the study, restoration, and conservation of ancient and historical monuments, also came to rely heavily on photography, to which they offered enormous scope: for example, the project later known as the Mission Héliographique (1851), whose extraordinary results remain one of the jewels of early paper-negative photography in France. Notable too was Maxime Du Camp's visit to Egypt (1849-51), Eugène Piot's to Italy (1851), and Auguste Salzmann's archaeological work in Jerusalem (1854).

Having become a fashionable pursuit by the beginning of the 1850s, photography offered plenty of rewarding activity to rich amateurs. Olympe and Onésipe Aguado, Odet de Montault, Benjamin and Édouard Delessert, Roger du Manoir, the vicomte de Vigier, and many others were trained by Le Gray, whose personality and technical virtuosity gave substance and coherence to this French calotype school. Another, allied group was centred on the Sèvres porcelain works around its director, Henri-Victor Régnault, and the head of its decorative workshops, Louis-Rémy Robert. In the 1850s, photographic technique was discussed in France, as in England, in stately homes, town mansions, academies, museums, and learned societies. The yield was rich, varied, and often innovative, despite its frequent indebtedness to contemporary painting. Blanquart-Évrard, who between 1851 and 1855 published some of it in the form of thematic portfolios or books, helped to bring it to a wider public. The creation of the Société Héliographique in 1851, then the Société Française de Photographie in 1854, and numerous journals such as La Lumière, the Bulletin de la Société Française de Photographie, Le Cosmos, and the Revue photographique, promoted debates and exchanges of ideas outside the confines of commercial practice. Into the 1870s, amateurs coexisted harmoniously with professionals, collectors with technical experts, and devotion to art with business imperatives. Personalities like Nadar, the Bisson brothers, and Le Gray showed that dealing in art did not necessarily kill it.

As the wet-plate process spread like wildfire, adopted by every commercial enterprise in the years following its invention in 1851, the number of Paris studios multiplied still further. The stereo view and the carte de visite portrait in particular boosted the number of customers, whether affluent Parisians or foreign visitors passing through. As in the first years of the daguerreotype, commercial considerations tended to get the better of artistic aspirations. At the beginning of the 1860s figures like Nègre, Le Secq, Nadar, and Le Gray, for various reasons, left the field.

The universal exhibitions that took place in Paris in the second half of the 19th century (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, 1900) were also opportunities to display the richness and variety of French photography and keep abreast of developments abroad.

The wet-plate era in France produced an upsurge of spectacular works like the large editions of views and architectural pictures by firms like Braun, Bisson, and Delmaet & Durandelle, and artists such as Marville and Collard, who kept a close eye on the transformations of the urban scene, demolition, redevelopment, and major engineering projects. Official patronage was plentiful from the outset. After the Mission Héliographique, commissions to Baldus, the Bissons, Le Gray, and Marville produced lavish albums—iconographic splendour in the service of political power. Specific to France throughout the 19th century, though varying in style from one generation to the next, were photographic studies aimed at painters: views, forest studies, animals, and more or less ‘academic’ nudes. Paris, the world's leading art centre, had more resident painters than anywhere else, and photographic production reflected this fact. Vallou, Quinet, Famin, d'Olivier, Marconi, Cuvelier, and many secondary figures, provided them with a wealth of source material for their pictures.

From the beginning of the 1870s, after the fall of the Second Empire, the situation changed. Some large firms, such as Reutlinger, Nadar, Braun, Marville, and Delmaet & Durandelle, continued to flourish. But the aristocratic amateurs had vanished with the empire, as well as some of the artist-photographers. Photography's main energy was flowing in new directions—for example, scientific photography, which developed considerable momentum thanks to technical progress and the emergence of new fields of scientific interest. Marey, Londe, Richer, Hardy, and Montméja applied the medium's new capabilities to medicine and studies of the body in motion.

Amateurism, stimulated by rapid shutters and smaller, more user-friendly cameras, became more diverse and broadly based, to the point where it was no longer possible, as it had been 30 years before, to name its leading practitioners. However, it became feasible to classify amateurs and their pictures in sociological and iconographical terms. Their sources of inspiration, epitomized by the work of Jacques-Henri Lartigue, were fun rather than high culture: cycling, boating, motoring, sea bathing, amusements, gags, amateur theatricals, mostly—with the exception of geniuses like Lartigue—recorded with a degree of banality that persists to this day.

In reaction against this kind of amateur practice, which seemed to distance photography from art, an international movement emerged, pictorialism, whose French variant formed around a body of amateurs, the Photo-Club de Paris, founded in 1888. Among a host of minor talents, a few key figures soon stood out, such as Demachy, Puyo, Dubreuil, and Ferdinand Coste (1861-1932). In addition to subjects common to all the pictorialist schools, especially landscapes, pastoral scenes, and Symbolist portraits, French pictorialism distinguished itself by its images of the female nude, particularly the classically inflected ones of Puyo. This French proclivity was not peculiar to photography, but also common to painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. The pictorialist style flourished for a number of years, cultivated and replicated in the movement's numerous journals and exhibitions. But it had neither the capacity for self-renewal nor the germ of modernity; and unlike Austrian or, especially, American pictorialism, it lacked the impulse to break with the conventions of the 19th century and engage with the new world emerging in the 20th.

Thus France lost its position in the field of avant-garde photography until the 1930s. The exception, of course, was Eugène Atget, whose work (with hindsight) successfully synthesized the literal recording of reality and the formal innovations of ‘pure’ photography. But Atget was an isolated figure, and did not become a force to be reckoned with until the 1930s, when his work was discovered by the avant-gardes. He had no contact with or influence on the French photographic world of the pre-1914 period, which wore itself out with theoretical debates about the artistic status of the medium.Sylvie AubenasJammes, A., and Janis, E. Parry, The Art of French Calotype (1983). Brettell, R., Flukinger, R., Keeler, N., and Kilgor, S., Paper and Light: The Calotype Process in France and Britain 1839-1870 (1984). Buerger, J. E., French Daguerreotypes (1989). Marbot, B., and Poivert, M., Le Pictorialisme en France (1992). McCauley, E. A., Industrial Madness: Commercial Photography in Paris, 1848-1871 (1994). Aubenas, S., and Gunthert, A., La Révolution de la photographie instantanée, 1880-1900 (1996). Bajac, Q., ‘La Photographie à Sèvres sous le Second Empire: du laboratoire au jardin’, 48/14 La Revue du Musée d'Orsay, 5 (1997). L'Art du nu au XIXe siècle: le photographe et son modèle (1997). Bajac, Q., and Font-Réaulx, D. de, Le Daguerréotype français: un objet photographique (2003).

Since 1920

French photography in the 20th century has been strongly marked by two world wars and the social and political upheavals that followed and preceded them. In a broad sense this has led to two types of responses by photographers, one highly formalist, the other more socially responsive. For some of this period, France could still be considered as the cultural centre of the world, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, and the role of photography was both as a major contributor to modern art and the primary visual means of recording social and cultural change. Paris was important as a haven for cultural refugees from Central and Eastern Europe following the 1914-18 war and the Russian Revolution. It also attracted gifted and creative individuals from America and, to a lesser extent, Britain. The cultural melting pot had a corrosive effect on the pictorialist ethos of the pre-war French photography of Puyo, Demachy and their colleagues, which looked increasingly outmoded to a generation marked by the horror of the trenches and the advance of the machine age. Of greater interest to the avant-garde were Atget's documentary images of Paris. J.-H. Lartigue was creating a fascinating oeuvre out of his own somewhat gilded lifestyle, but this work was hardly known at the time outside his own social circle.

In the 1920s, modernist ideas from Germany and Soviet Russia—Dada, Constructivism, Neue Sachlichkeit—were rapidly taken up by the younger generation of French artists and photographers. In 1921, André Breton declared that ‘photography has dealt a fatal blow to the old forms of expression’, and the new medium remained at the heart of cultural innovation until 1939. The influx of foreigners, such as Andre Kertész, Man Ray, Berenice Abbott, Germaine Krull, Gisèle Freund, Brassaï, Ergy Landau, Alexander Liberman, Robert Capa, and many others, helped to make of Paris a vibrant centre of photography, though its preeminence began shifting to New York by the end of the 1930s as the shadows of war deepened.

A major factor in the dominance of Paris in the 1920s and 1930s is the emergence and success of a new form of publishing, the mass-circulation photographically illustrated magazine. Although the magazine concept was pioneered in Germany, the appearance of Vu from 1927 defined a new market in France for illustrative photography, one increasingly marked by the use of small portable cameras such as the Leica, Rolleiflex, and Contax, the dramatic compositions pioneered by the Constructivists and the Bauhaus photographers to record what one influential commentator of the era, Pierre Mac Orlan, famously termed the ‘social fantastic of the street’. This new photography—baptized ‘la nouvelle vision’—to the extent that it presented ordinary life to a mass audience, was infused with increasingly humanistic perspectives, strongly influenced by the socialist ideas of the Popular Front. The French Communist Party was especially adept at enrolling young French photographers—such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Willy Ronis—in front organizations such as the Association des Artistes et Écrivains Révolutionnaires, and used their pictures in its magazine Regards, and the daily paper Le Soir. Their work increasingly focused on social themes as political tensions increased towards the end of the 1930s.

The 1930s also witnessed the emergence of small independent picture agencies, distributing photographs to an increasingly international market in the press and publishing industries. Alliance-Photo (founded by Pierre Boucher) and Rapho (founded by the Hungarian Charles Rado) were two of the more successful of the many created during this era, which included Robert Capa's first essay at a forerunner of the photographers' cooperative that would later become Magnum, which briefly (1938-9) distributed his work and that of his friend Ronis.

With only one or two galleries showing photography (notably the Pléiade bookshop in Saint-Germain-des-Près), publication was the main form in which nouvelle vision photographs appeared in the 1930s. Periodicals such as Art et médecine, Arts et métiers graphiques, and Minotaure were notable for showcasing new work. Books or serials were a key outlet for innovative work such as Brassaï's Paris de nuit (1933), or François Kollar's La France travaille (1931-4). There was almost no market for print sales, and major art galleries did not show photography. Commercial photography—fashion, advertising, portraiture—became the primary domains in which nouvelle vision work could be displayed. Some central figures of the era, such as André Vigneau, Laure Albin-Guillot, Florence Henri, Jean Moral, and Remy Duval, were instrumental in exploring new compositional styles, as well as photograms, double exposure, collage, and solarization in their professional work. Perhaps against such tendencies, and certainly with an eye on the American Group f.64 movement, Emmanuel Sougez established the Groupe du Rectangle which opted for ‘photographie pure’. It reformed as the Groupe du XV after 1945, but by then was more of an occasional talking shop than a vibrant art movement.

The Second World War and the Occupation (1940-4) did not bring photography in France to an end, but led to a fundamental shift in its focus, with significant influence on the post-war period. Relatively little has been published about this sombre era. In the occupied zone, the Nazi authorities held a firm grip on the means of visual expression, while Vichy carefully controlled what appeared in the ‘zone libre’. Those photographers who remained in France and were not incarcerated either abandoned their work or were obliged to perform menial and ill-paid tasks—social portraiture, commercial and editorial photography for the heavily censored illustrated media of the period. A number took part in the Resistance from 1941, their skills of practical use in the forging of passes and documents. The liberation of Paris in August 1944 was a key moment in the emergence of a new, post-war style of photography, focused closely on the social and cultural problems faced by the Fourth Republic (1947-59). The humanist ethos was much concerned with contemporary issues of reconstruction and the need to redefine a French identity sullied by memories of war, defeat, occupation, and collaboration.

For the next two decades, French photography was marked by a fascination with a ‘poetic’ and often romantic style of image making, primarily in black-and-white and heavily concentrated on the way of life of ordinary French people—but with an emphasis on Paris. Made on the streets or in the bistro with available light and the ubiquitous small cameras of the day, it was in marked contrast with the ‘art’ photography of the USA. Most of the key works of this period were made by freelance editorial photographers, Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Ronis, Izis (Bidermanas), and Brassaï being the bestknown names. Their photographs appeared in the press, but their greatest impact came about through publication in monographs, often with an introductory text by a ‘literary locomotive’. The iconic works remain Doisneau's Banlieue de Paris (1949), Izis's Paris des rêves (1950), Ronis's Belleville-Ménilmontant (1954), Cartier-Bresson's Images à la sauvette (1952; better known by its English title, which defines the photographic orientation of all these photographers, The Decisive Moment). This approach was promoted by some key figures in the French press—Albert Plécy (editor of Point de vue and a keen supporter of humanist photography), Raymond Grosset of Rapho, the printer Braun, whose Mulhouse firm produced an outstanding quality of heliogravure reproduction, the advertising executive and publisher Robert Delpire, and Florence Arthaud (whose eponymous publishing house issued a number of the classic books of this genre). Many photographs by the French humanists appeared in Steichen's global blockbuster exhibition, The Family of Man.

By the late 1950s claims were being made that the photographic image could be a sort of universal language, an idea given credence by a UNESCO conference in 1958. Plécy was instrumental in forming Gens d'Images, which from 1955 awarded the annual Prix Niépce to promising young photographers, including Jeanloup Sieff, Doisneau, and Jean Dieuzaide; and a Prix Nadar for photography books. Several photographers began to devote serious attention in their work to trends in modern art—such as art brut and abstraction. The ‘social’ programme of humanism began to show signs of exhaustion as the conflicts within French society, its growing wealth and technological progress began to erode the consensus of French cultural identity evident in the immediate post-war era. Whereas in the 1930s it had looked eastwards, French photography was now more open to transatlantic influences. The challenge to the dominance of the humanist paradigm began to appear in the form of a more personal and often elliptical or confrontational approach influenced by American photography, made by a younger generation: Robert Frank's The Americans (published by Delpire in 1958) and Klein's New York (the Prix Nadar book of 1957), played important roles in this shift. Their approach was increasingly influential on younger reportage photographers such as Raymond Depardon and Gilles Caron.

The 1960s were a watershed for French photography in the era of the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, and a gathering political crisis in the Fifth Republic. By 1968, a new generation was emerging, often highly politicized and unafraid of using photography to show all aspects of the contemporary world. The events of 1968 were hardly covered by the humanists, who left the recording of the street battles to young Turks like Caron and Bruno Barbey. The 1960s and early 1970s also saw the emergence of Paris as global centre of the photojournalism industry, and the appearance of new photo agencies such as Sipa, Sygma, and Gamma which drew the best talent. A significant group of dedicated documentary photographers emerged and included Raymond Laboye, Guy Le Querrec, Claude-Raimond Dityvon (b. 1937), Martine Franck, Patrick Zachmann, and Christian Louis. As in the 1920s and 1930s, Paris was once more the ville lumière of photography. Fashion magazines became the source of much avant-garde work, for French ‘art’ photography—hitherto more or less non-existent, or carried on by minor figures—was increasingly associated with la mode. Magazines such as Vogue, Jardin de la mode, Elle, Marie-Claire all vied to publish photography that explored the limits of the medium. Photographers such as Sieff, Helmut Newton, Frank Horvat, and Guy Bourdin developed distinctive styles that were a foretaste of the obsession with the body and sexuality that marked art photography in the 1990s.

The 1970s and 1980s were a watershed in the wider cultural appreciation of photography. While the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu could devote a book to the subject and get away with calling it ‘a middlebrow art’ (‘un art moyen’) in the 1960s, by the 1980s such an idea was laughable, for photography had moved to centre stage in French cultural policy, with the formation of a number of important institutions, and the increasing presence of the photograph in leading public and private galleries and museums. Photography was both popular and a form of cultural distinction. Public bodies included the Centre National de la Photographie (f. 1982), with its remit to advance contemporary work, and the Patrimoine de la Photographie, which conserves important archives and donations; and a network of regional and local bodies. In addition, the history of photography—a subject largely ignored until the early 1970s—was increasingly well served and promoted by a dedicated group of curators in the Bibliothèque Nationale led by J.-C. Lemagny, and several museums (especially the Musée Carnavalet, Musée d'Orsay, and the pioneering Musée Français de la Photographie at Bièvres), and by the activities of an enlightened group of collectors, of whom the foremost were perhaps M. and Mme André Jammes. The state belatedly realized that its archives were a treasure trove of photographic gems, and there has been significant investment since the 1990s in making this work available in digitized form. It has also become a significant ‘client’ for photography, commissioning projects by leading documentary and art photographers.

The ‘rise’ of photography as a respected art medium since the 1970s has been inseparable from and greatly assisted by the emergence of the market in photographic prints. The first permanent galleries began to appear in the mid-1970s. By the 1990s Paris was probably second only to New York in the number and range of specialist outlets, and the number of regular Parisian cultural events built around photography is ever growing, with a biennial Mois de la Photo and an annual largely commercial festival at the Louvre. The Arles Festival was founded in 1970 and emulated by numerous others, including a Photo de la Mer festival launched at Vannes, Brittany, in 2003. Several important regional centres for photography have also developed over the same period, such as the Centre Régional Photographique Nord-Pas de Calais, despite their regular (and justified) complaint that Paris tends to hog both the limelight and the major part of the resources available.

— Peter Hamilton

Bibliography

• Saint-Cyr, A. de Gouvion, Lemagny, J.-C., and Sayag, A., Art or Nature: 20th-Century French Photography (1988).
• Phillips, C. (ed.), Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913-1940 (1989).
• La Photographie: état et culture (1992).
• 160 ans de photographie en Nord-Pas de Calais (2001)

Ballet in France originated from early entertainments at court which were composed of music, dance, and poetry. The seminal production Ballet comique de la reine (commissioned by Catherine de Médicis in Paris, 1581) set an example from which later examples of ballet de cour evolved. Most of the greatest dancers and ballet masters of the 16th and 17th centuries were associated with court ballet in Paris and in the late 17th century a systematic attempt to raise standards of dance was instituted, first with the founding of the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661 and secondly with the opening of a dancing school attached to the Académie Royale de Musique in 1672. In the same year Lully was appointed director of the Académie Royale de Musique and, working in close collaboration with Beauchamps, rapidly raised the status of dance. In his ballet Triomphe de l'amour (1681) Mlle de Lafontaine became the first female professional dancer to appear at the Palais Royal. During the 18th century travelling ballet masters like Noverre and Dauberval encouraged the spread of ballet to the provinces. Noverre's Caprices de Galatée (1758), remarkable for being the first ballet to be performed without any spoken text, was danced in Lyons while Dauberval's La Fille mal gardée (1789), the first notable ballet about everyday life and ordinary people, was premiered in Bordeaux. Ballet reached a pitch of popularity during the first half of the 19th century with Romantic classics like La Sylphide (F. Taglioni, 1832) and Coralli-Perrot's Giselle (1841). This was the great age of the ballerina and Taglioni, Elssler, Grisi, and Cerrito were starry rivals for the public's devotion and the critics' favour. This golden era ended with the death of Emma Livry, Taglioni's natural successor, and though fine dancers were still produced by the school, new ballets tended to be stale repetitions of old formulas. The public's enthusiasm was transferred to opera and Paris was no longer regarded as the ballet capital of the world. Saint-Léon's Coppélia (1870) and the premiere of Mérante's Sylvia at the opening of the opulent Palais Garnier theatre in 1876 were only temporary pauses in the decline of the art, the French having lost their greatest native choreographer, Marius, Petipa, to Russia. It was from Russia, though, that Paris received its next injection of energy, with the regular seasons given by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes between 1909 and 1929. Many French composers, painters, and writers collaborated with Diaghilev on new work, and ballet again became a highly fashionable art form. Jacques Rouché, director of the Paris Opera from 1914, was stimulated by the Russian competition and commissioned new ballet scores from composers like Dukas and Ravel as well as inviting Fokine, Pavlova, Spessivtseva, and others to work in his theatre. When Lifar took over direction of the Opera Ballet in 1929 he revitalized the company and enthused a new public (though he alienated the less disinterested balletomanes by closing the Foyer de la danse to the public—hence ending liaisons between dancers and their admirers at the Opera). After 1945 many new, small, adventurous companies emerged both within and outside Paris, such as Ballets des Champs-Elysées, the de Cuevas Ballet, the companies of Petit, Charrat, Babilée, and a few years later those of Béjart and Miskovitch. Lifar was recalled to the Opera in 1947 (after having left in 1944 for political reasons), and worked there until 1959. He was succeeded by a rapid turnover of directors and the Opera went into an artistic decline. During the 1970s it began to look to a younger audience by bringing in work by modern choreographers such as Cunningham and Carlson and between 1983 and 1989 entered a new, if controversial, period under the direction of Nureyev. He brought forward young stars like Guillem, Platel, Hilaire, and Jude and widened the repertoire with works by Forsythe, Tharp, and others. Dupond and his successor Brigitte Lefèvre also continued this trend bringing in works by younger choreographers like Angelin Preljocaj. Outside Paris the proliferation of dance activity has continued under the government's policy of decentralization. In 1966 André Malraux set up the first of the state Maisons de la Culture which provided important bases for all the arts, and the Ballet-Théâtre Contemporain, based first in Amiens (1968-72) and then in Angers (1972-8), led the way in developing an experimental new edge in ballet. Ballet du Rhin was founded in 1972 and in 1972 Petit took over Ballet National de Marseilles. Other regional ballet companies include Ballet du Nord and Ballet-Théâtre Français de Nancy. Although Béjart, France's most prolific contemporary choreographer, left to work in Brussels and later Switzerland, he has continued to maintain a strong presence in his native country. During the 1980s a large number of modern dance choreographers (several profiting from generous funding in regional choreographic centres) emerged, including Dominic Baguouet, Maguy Marin, Angelin Preljocaj, Jean Claude Gallotta, Daniel Larrieu, and Claude Brumachon. Together these have created a powerful international reputation for new French dance. Numerous festivals including those at Avignon, Paris, and Lyons as well as adventurous programming by venues like Paris's Théâtre de la Ville have ensured that a very wide range of international companies are seen in the country every year.

France (17th century to present) has a long, rich, and diverse tradition of literary fairy tales.

Although the ‘conte de fées’ (fairy tale) first appeared so named at the end of the 17th century, what we would now call fairy‐tale motifs are evident from the very beginnings of a written literature in French. Wonder tales and their elements are found throughout the fables and exempla used by the medieval Church. The ‘marvellous’ is also very much in evidence in medieval secular literature such as the Lais of Marie de France, numerous chansons de geste (e.g. ‘Huon de Bordeaux’), chivalric romances (e.g. those by Chrétien de Troyes), and plays, as well as in Renaissance prose fiction (e.g. Rabelais, du Fail, des Périers, Cent nouvelles nouvelles). Like the later literary fairy tales, almost all these precursors adapt motifs found in oral traditions. Yet, if the fairy tales that began to appear in France during the 1690s are part of a long‐standing literary tradition, they were recognized at the time as being something new and different as well: these stories rework (what are presented as) indigenous, ‘popular’ narratives at a time when the dominant literary aesthetic prescribed ancient Greek and Roman models, and they unabashedly offer for adult consumption narratives readily associated with children.

1. birth of a genre: 1690–1715

Although Marie‐Catherine d'Aulnoy holds the distinction of publishing the first literary fairy tale in France (‘L’Île de la félicité (‘The Island of Happiness’), published in her novel L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas, 1690), the flowering of the genre is actually a collective phenomenon. From at least the mid‐17th century, members of Parisian salons and perhaps even the French court had played a society game in which they told stories (supposedly) resembling those of governesses and nurses. Once fairy tales along these lines began to be published, they appeared rapidly in what is best described as a ‘vogue’. After a few more isolated stories (by d'Aulnoy, Catherine Bernard, Marie‐Jeanne Lhéritier de Villandon, and Charles Perrault), between 1697 and 1700 eight collections (by Louise d'Auneuil, d'Aulnoy, Rose de La Force, Jean de Mailly, Henriette‐Julie de Murat, and Perrault) appeared with over 75 tales in all. Women writers dominated the vogue, with two‐thirds of the tales published between 1690 and 1715 to their credit, which suggests that the genre offered them a means of expression and experimentation not available through other established literary forms. It was also women who coined the very expression ‘conte de fées’ (found in the title to d'Aulnoy's 1697–8 collection, Les Contes des fées, and Murat's 1698 Nouveaux contes de fées), which was translated to give the English ‘tales of the fairies’ (1699) and eventually ‘fairy tale’ (1724).

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the vogue was the mythic origin and the aesthetic its initiators created for the genre. Frontispieces and prefaces accompanying d'Aulnoy's, Lhéritier's, and Perrault's tales model the conte de fées on the storytelling by grandmothers, governesses, and nurses to young children. However real such storytelling may have been at the time and however undeniable the resemblance many contes de fées bear to folkloric narratives, the vogue's intertextual sources are diverse and decidedly literary. More than by oral traditions, the fairy tales of the first vogue were influenced directly or indirectly by Italian models, including the tales of Straparola and Basile but also the marvellous characters and episodes in works by Ariosto, Boiardo, and Tasso. The fairies, chivalry, and star‐crossed lovers of these Italian sources provided the material with which to create a (hitherto non‐existent) fairy‐tale aesthetic that exerted considerable influence on subsequent fairy tales. As studied by Raymonde Robert, this aesthetic includes three components, which are found in most French fairy tales of the 17th and 18th centuries: (1) the tales state from the very outset that the hero and heroine will ultimately triumph over their adversaries; (2) they highlight the exemplary moral and social destiny of the heroic couple; and (3) they establish the self‐sufficiency of the marvellous universe.

For writers and readers of late 17th‐century France, both the fairy tale's mythic origin and its aesthetic served a particular ideological function. The archetypal storytelling of lower‐class women assimilated the popular oral tradition into élite literary practice so as to obscure the reality of hierarchical social relations. At the same time, the seemingly fantastical aesthetic of the contes de fées none the less served to celebrate the values of the self‐contained social elite of late 17th‐century France, values which are readily visible in characters and descriptions. Only in tales by Perrault and Eustache Le Noble are the protagonists of this first vogue not royalty, and the other writers frequently incorporate the discovery of noble birth as a plot motif. Throughout these fairy tales, lengthy and tedious descriptions of luxurious settings recall (sometimes directly) the French court at Versailles. Given that French aristocrats and the court were experiencing severe economic difficulties at the time, both the protagonists and the settings of these fairy tales suggest that the genre was at least in part a form of compensation or escape from the pressures of the real.

Paradoxically, this aesthetic is much less evident in the most famous tales of the first vogue, those by Charles Perrault, than in those of his contemporaries. In fact, Perrault's are the most atypical of the first vogue. Unlike the other contes de fées, only half include a romantic plot, and almost all resemble folkloric tale types. Most distinctively, Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or Tales from Past Times, 1697), or Contes de ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose Tales) as they are perhaps best known, feature an infantilizing narrative voice and a succinct neo‐classical French style with limited description. Combined, these traits led 19th‐ and early 20th‐century folklorists and literary critics to consecrate Perrault's enormously popular tales as the cultural monument they had already become through reprints and chapbooks. So doing, however, scholars exaggerated Perrault's ‘faithfulness’ to the oral tradition and oversimplified the tales' complex ideological and psychological meanings. The appearance of Marc Soriano's seminal Les Contes de Perrault (1968) addressed these issues straight‐on and cleared the way for a critical reassessment of Perrault and his tales by historians, psychologists, semioticians, and feminists, among others. All of these approaches continue to shed light on the enduring popularity of Perrault's tales not only in France but throughout the world.

In spite of their instant success, the Mother Goose Tales did not inspire direct imitations among writers of fairy tales in 17th‐ and 18th‐century France. Contrary to what is often asserted, the other writers were not following Perrault's but a different and parallel path. To be sure, like Perrault's, many of their tales can be traced (probably indirectly) to folkloric sources; yet, they are also far more indebted to motifs from novels and make more prominent use of magic characters and settings. While Perrault's collection was recognized from the beginning as being exceptional, if not inimitable, many tales by his contemporaries were no less popular well into the 19th century. Almost all of the fairy tales published between 1690 and 1715 were republished and anthologized later in the 18th century, but d'Aulnoy's tales came the closest to matching the popularity of the Mother Goose Tales. None the less, Perrault's and d'Aulnoy's fairy tales were popular for different reasons. Whereas the concision of Perrault's tales made them accessible to children and their irony simultaneously appealed to adults, d'Aulnoy's expansiveness, both in style and descriptions (e.g. variety of animals), resonated with adult readers steeped in the adventure novels popular at the time. And whereas Perrault recycles an age‐old gaulois humour replete with misogynistic jibes, d'Aulnoy, like several other of the women writers of fairy tales, gives central billing to heroines and mothers, thereby probably appealing to women, the most avid readers of novels.

Notwithstanding the differences among their tales, all of these writers were conscious of developing a fashionable literary form for an élite public. Following the literary convention of their time, most of them presented their tales as ‘pleasing’ in order to be ‘instructive’, although their most immediate imperative was to create ‘bagatelles’ (‘trifles’) that entertained readers. Only a few critics took the trouble to dignify what they doubtless saw as a marginal and passing phenomenon, among them the austere abbé de Villiers, who in 1699 virulently denounced ‘this heap of tales that has plagued us for a year or two’. What this dismissive critic failed—or refused—to see was that the vogue was by no means insignificant, and this for two reasons. First, it was intricately linked to the ‘Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns’ that was shaking French cultural life at this time. In separate manifestos, both Perrault and his niece Lhéritier argue that the literary fairy tale demonstrates the superiority of indigenous French culture over ancient Greek and Roman models. And, implicitly, all the fairy tales from this period illustrate the ‘modernist’ position. Secondly, the vogue cleared the way for new forms of fantasy fiction in 18th‐century France, fantasy that is based only minimally on indigenous oral traditions and even less on Greek and Roman mythology and that is put to an ever‐wider array of uses, from humorous escapism to social and political critique.

2. the second vogue: 1722–78

Although a steady stream of fairy tales appeared over a period of almost 100 years (1690–1778), it is useful to distinguish between the 17th‐ and 18th‐century manifestations of the genre. After the explosion of 1697–1700, fairy tales were not published with anything resembling the same intensity until the 1740s. Overall, more tales appeared during the second vogue (approximately 144 between 1722 and 1778) than during the first (approximately 114). This increase in quantity was matched by an increase in diversity. In 18th‐century France, the genre blossomed into a myriad of forms, including oriental, sentimental, philosophical, parodic, satirical, pornographic, and didactic tales. This diversity is an indication of the distinct social and intellectual groups that produced fairy tales in this period, as opposed to the collective effort that provided the impetus for the earlier vogue. Many of the 17th‐century writers knew each other, met regularly in the same salons, and in some instances engaged in friendly competition with each other to compose stories based on the same plot (e.g. ‘Les Fées’ (‘The Fairies’) by Perrault and ‘Les Enchantements de l'éloquence’ by Lhéritier). The same cannot necessarily be said of the 18th‐century writers. Gatherings such as the salons of the duchesse du Maine at Sceaux, of Mme Le Marchand, and of Mlle Quinault, and the ‘Société du bout du banc’ were responsible for some of the fairy tales published during the second vogue (for example, Jean‐Jacques Rousseau probably composed ‘La Reine Fantasque’ for the salon of Mlle Quinault); but the majority of the writers of the second vogue conceived and published their tales independently. Moreover, a much smaller proportion of the 18th‐century tales were written by women than during the first vogue, suggesting that the conte de fées had entered the male‐dominated literary mainstream.

While respecting the aesthetic defined by their 17th‐century predecessors, the 18th‐century writers also produced fairy tales with far fewer discernible folkloric traces (one‐tenth of the second vogue vs. one‐half of the first vogue). It is a measure of both the genre's development and the changing literary climate that writers increasingly used it to give free rein to their imaginations rather than to adapt extant oral and written traditions. Numerous are the novel‐like fairy tales that continue to rely on the sentimental romance scheme so frequently employed by the 17th‐century women writers. However, in stories by Philippe de Caylus, Marie‐Antoinette Fagnan, Louise Levesque, Catherine de Lintot, Mlle de Lubert, Henri Pajon, Gabrielle‐Suzanne de Villeneuve, and others, stock fairy‐tale features are exaggerated and/or complicated; for instance, conflicts among good and evil fairies are sharply accentuated and the obstacles to the lovers' union become dizzyingly complex. Less apparent in these particular tales is the didactic imperative that their 17th‐century counterparts seek to uphold, even if only superficially. Indeed, prefaces by Lintot and Lubert define the genre for the first time as pleasurable, but not necessarily instructive. This shift by no means implies that the 18th‐century conte de fées was devoid of ideological, social, or philosophical import; rather, the ludic pleasure of fairy‐tale writing, only timidly and discreetly suggested during the first vogue, was openly recognized and accepted during the second vogue.

In addition to these novel‐like fairy tales, the 18th century produced other strains unlike those of the earlier period. Perhaps the single most significant of these is the oriental tale. Between the first and second vogues appeared the immensely popular 12‐volume translation/adaptation of The Arabian Nights (Les Mille et une nuits, 1704–17) by Antoine Galland, which included the first (and most influential) version in a Western European language of such famous stories as ‘Aladdin and the Magic Lamp’, ‘Ali Baba’, and ‘The Voyages of Sindbad’. If the fairy tales of the first vogue laid the groundwork for Galland's best‐seller, this work in turn rekindled interest in the conte de fées and spawned stories that incorporate vaguely ‘oriental’ motifs, characters, and decors. More often than not, such oriental ‘material’ is superimposed upon Western European folklore, as in Thomas‐Simon Gueulette's Mille et un quarts d'heure (Thousand and One Quarter‐Hours, 1715) and the abbé de Bignon's Aventures d'Abdallah (Adventures of Abdallah, 1712–14). The reverse is apparent in Gueulette's Soirées bretonnes (Breton Evenings, 1712) in which authentic ‘oriental’ folklore is given French dress. Arguably, the vast numbers and immense popularity of 18th‐century oriental wonder tales played a decisive role in the development of Western European ‘orientalist’ stereotypes that not only found their way into literary works of social critique (such as Montesquieu's Lettres persanes and Voltaire's Zadig) but that also prepared the way, ideologically, for 19th‐century European colonial expansion into North Africa and the Middle East.

No less numerous than the oriental tales were the 18th‐century satirical and ‘licentious’ (or pornographic) tales. The conte de fées was hardly the only literary form to include satire and ‘licentious’ descriptions at this time. Yet, the genre's predictable structures and moralizing pretext lent themselves particularly well to these subversive uses. Capitalizing on its (purported) innocence, writers such as Louis de Cahusac, Jacques Cazotte, Claude‐Prosper de Crébillon fils, Charles Duclos, Charles de La Morlière, Rousseau, Henri‐Charles de Senneterre, and Claude‐Henri de Voisenon satirize religious and political personages and, occasionally, social and philosophical norms. In tales by Cahusac, Crébillon, Senneterre, and Voisenon especially, such satire is put in starker relief—or overshadowed—by (usually euphemistic) anatomical and sexual descriptions. Although often highly coded, the critique in these tales is conveyed through blatantly obvious humour. In addition, several contes de fées are explicit illustrations of Enlightenment thought (e.g. La Morlière, Angola (1746) and Rousseau, ‘La Reine Fantasque’ (1754)). On the whole, however, these tales are by no means the most radical form of social and political critique in pre‐Revolutionary France, but instead portray the mores of the most privileged classes.

Central to the satirical and pornographic tales is parody of the fairy tale itself. Indeed, the humour in these strains of fairy‐tale writing derives from ridiculing the characters, descriptions, and plots used so frequently during the first vogue. Parody was not a uniquely 18th‐century phenomenon, however. In the midst of the first vogue, Anthony Hamilton wrote three fairy‐tale parodies (1703–4), although they were only published some 30 years later. In addition, two short fairy‐tale comedies (one by Dancourt and another by Dufreny de la Rivière), staged in 1699, poke fun at fairies and their magic. Yet, it was only during the second vogue that the fairy‐tale aesthetic was sufficiently well established to inspire numerous parodies. If the line between ‘serious’ and ‘parodic’ fairy tales is not always clear because some writers, notably Mlle de Lubert, delight in exaggerating the already hyperbolic features of the genre, several writers nevertheless state an unequivocal parodic intent through meta‐commentaries on the stories made by storyteller and listeners (e.g. Crébillon's ‘Ah quel conte!’ and Rousseau's ‘La Reine Fantasque’). That nearly one‐third of all 18th‐century fairy tales employ parody demonstrates the genre's significant contribution to the increasingly self‐reflexive literature of this period.

Decidedly ‘serious’ and unparodic are the tales in Marie Leprince de Beaumont's Magasin des enfants (Young Misses Magazine, 1757), which includes the most famous version of ‘La Belle et la bête’ (‘Beauty and the Beast’). These stories break with the established tradition of French fairy tales and blaze a new—and henceforth, dominant—path for the genre. Often considered to be the inaugural text of French children's literature, this primer written for English schoolgirls learning French is one of only two collections of tales written explicitly and exclusively for children during both the first and second vogues (the other is Fénelon's Fables, published posthumously in 1718). For the most part, Leprince de Beaumont's collection adapts—that is, reduces and simplifies—previously published fairy tales (her version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is a rewriting of a longer and more complex tale by Villeneuve) and always presents a clear moral lesson for each of the stories. Alternating between fairy tales and Bible stories, this text features a series of conversations between a governess and young girls who draw practical moral lessons from the stories told. Such an explicitly pedagogical approach shifted emphasis away from the genre's aristocratic roots and promoted a complex of bourgeois Christian values that was to be at the core of 19th‐century children's literature. In her own way, then, Leprince de Beaumont reinvigorated the injunction to ‘please’ and ‘instruct’ that was used by writers of the first vogue to justify the newly created genre but that was quickly and conveniently ignored as a conventional commonplace. Coming at the very end of the second vogue (only two short tales, by Rétif de la Bretonne, were to appear after hers), Leprince de Beaumont's Magasin des enfants created a new model for fairy‐tale writing in France. The pedagogical imperative it upholds even became a determining factor in the republication of fairy tales from the first and second vogues. At the end of the 18th century, when Charles‐Joseph de Mayer edited the massive 40‐volume Cabinet des fées (1785–9), he was careful to defend the genre as being morally instructive and, simultaneously, to exclude almost all parodic and ‘licentious’ tales.

Notwithstanding these attempts to rejuvenate it, the conte de fées had been used overwhelmingly throughout the 17th and 18th centuries to advocate an aristocratic ethos incompatible with emerging democratic ideals. And so it is understandable that, by the time of the Revolution, writers had long since ceased publishing fairy tales.

3. the 19th century

Early 19th‐century France did not share the enthusiasm for the literary fairy tale that swept romantic Germany. In France, unlike in Germany, folk and fairy tales were not used as a means of defining a national ‘essence’. (Ironically, though, the 17th‐ and 18th‐century contes de fées were an important source of inspiration for writers of the German romantic Märchen.) There was also resistance to including fairy tales in the growing corpus of children's literature. Several 18th‐ and early 19th‐century writers for children, including Stéphanie‐Félicité de Genlis, Arnaud Berquin, and J.‐N. Bouilly were openly critical of the literary fairy tale. Some writers, such as Genlis and Berquin, were highly suspicious of fairy‐tale magic and instead depicted natural wonders and Christian virtues. Institutional control of children's literature also thwarted the genre. Officially sanctioned children's literature for use in schools was controlled until 1871 largely by the Church, which was hostile to the idea of giving schoolchildren fiction, not to mention fairy tales. After the birth of the Third Republic (1871), control over schoolbooks was assumed by the State, whose ideological criteria were no less rigid than the Church's had been (although they were obviously of a different nature). The result was that little changed for the genre.

In spite of these obstacles, the fairy tale had a significant impact on readers from all walks of life, from the Parisian bourgeoisie to the provincial peasantry. With improvements in mechanical printing techniques came ever‐cheaper and more widely distributed chapbook and broadsheet versions of fairy tales, especially—but not exclusively—of Perrault's Mother Goose Tales. Although they had appeared throughout the 18th century, these versions literally flooded 19th‐century France (e.g. those published by the Oudot family of Troyes and the Imagerie d'Épinal), and it is difficult to overstate their importance. They transformed a small group of tales into ‘classics’ and engraved them into the collective French consciousness. They also had a knock‐back effect on the very oral tradition from which the fairy tales had been adapted—mostly indirectly—in the first place. No less consequential was the conception of the genre they promoted: the conte de fées, like many of the texts in the Bibliothèque bleue, was reduced to the status of a didactic tool that promoted conservative social norms.

At the same time as republishing existing fairy tales, 19th‐century France made its own contributions to the genre. Since they were excluded from both Church‐ and State‐sanctioned school curricula, contes de fées were published for domestic consumption. Among the most notable of collections were those produced by Pierre‐Jules Hetzel, perhaps the most prominent editor/publisher of secular, non‐official children's literature during the first half of the century. Besides a collection of 40 tales from the Cabinet des fées (Livre des enfants (The Children's Book, 1837)), he published the Le Nouveau magasin des enfants (The New Children's Magazine, 1844), which includes stories by Hans Christian Andersen but also by many of the period's best‐known French writers, including Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas père, Alfred de Musset, Charles Nodier, and George Sand. In addition to displaying their authors' deft use of a simple and direct style, the tales anthologized in this latter collection combine social realism with romantic fantasy. On the one hand, they repeatedly insist on the dignity of the economically disenfranchised; on the other, they depict a fantastical flight from modern life. Given the progressive bent (by the period's standards) of many of these tales, it is not surprising that they remained on the periphery of 19th‐century French children's literature.

More prominent were collections by two women writers, George Sand and the comtesse de Ségur. Although Sand's Contes d'une grand‐mère (Tales of a Grandmother, 1876) and Ségur's Nouveaux contes de fées (New Fairy Tales, 1857) share some superficial similarities (e.g. the minimal use of folkloric tale types and the nostalgic representation of country life), most aspects of their tales evince two very different conceptions of the genre. Sand's tales are by her own admission addressed to both children and adults and incorporate many of the philosophical and even scientific theories of her time. They are complex narratives that reveal a tension between social realism and nostalgic fantasy: Sand attempts to reconcile contemporary settings and characters with a muted fairy‐tale magic and an idealized country existence. Very different are the seven tales in Ségur's collection. Written explicitly for children in a simple, direct style, Ségur's fairy tales utilize interdiction‐transgression plots in order to convey a clear moral didacticism. In contast with Sand and the other contributors to Le Nouveau Magasin des enfants, Ségur gives scant attention to social problems but instead presents ethical dilemmas, solutions of which are meant to uphold solid bourgeois values. The publication history of Ségur's volume further distinguishes it from Sand's. Whereas Sand was already a successful writer when she published her tales (first individually and then as a collection) and continued to incorporate fairy‐tale motifs in subsequent works for both adults and children, Ségur used her Nouveaux Contes de fées to test the market before embarking on her phenomenally successful career as a writer of children's literature. However, never again did she return to the fairy tale.

Sand's and Ségur's examples notwithstanding, fairy tales constituted a relatively small portion of the overall output of children's literature by 19th‐century French writers. Far more numerous were the fairy tales that were written for adults during the second half of the century by writers such as Paul Arène, Théodore de Banville, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître, Léo Lespès, Jean Lorrain, and Catulle Mendès. Between 1862 and 1922, approximately 500 tales were published in what might best be termed a third vogue. Issuing from the ‘decadent’ movement, this corpus of contes de fées departs sharply from the earlier vogues. Whereas the 17th‐ and 18th‐century vogues respect the same basic aesthetic, the 19th‐century ‘decadent’ tales meld literary naturalism with the marvellous. The result is fairy tales that undermine the self‐sufficient, other‐worldly universe so typical of the genre up to this point. The marvellous no longer comforts and reassures but rather disturbs and threatens as eroticism, ugliness, and sex wars take centre stage. In further contrast to their 17th‐ and especially 18th‐century predecessors, the 19th‐century writers do not create new plot scenarios as much as they rework Perrault's Mother Goose Tales by imagining sequels, developing minor characters or details, and juxtaposing fairy‐tale and realistic settings. Their narrators also eschew the feigned naïveté of the earlier contes de fées in favour of a (supposedly) positivistic erudition, claiming to uncover intentions and details left unstated in the original. As the irony of this narrative stance indicates (obtaining as it does in wonder tales), this third vogue was in fact a reaction against the hegemony of science and realism in the late 19th century. Given a similar reaction in late 20th‐century culture, it is perhaps not unexpected that many narrative features of the ‘decadent’ contes de fées reappear in contemporary fairy tales (particularly in English), even if the fin‐de‐siècle corpus seems to have had only a limited influence on subsequent writers.

4. the 20th century

As the ‘decadent’ movement waned, the literary fairy tale was reshaped by important institutional and scholarly developments. Beginning in the 1880s, fairy tales started to appear on recommended reading lists for pre‐school and elementary school children. And to meet this need new collections were published, such as those by Maurice Bouchor (Les Contes transcrits d'après la tradition française, (Tales Transcribed from the French Tradition, 1911–13)), which aim to defend secular Republican ideals while simplifying the language and toning down the violence of his originals. More important still was the rise of folkloristics. During the period 1870–1914, folklorists hurried to transcribe oral narratives from regions all over France, aware that their country was far behind the similar projects of other European nations. If these transcriptions were intended primarily as enthnographic evidence affirming regional identity (in opposition to central State authority), many of them served as the basis for popularized series of folk tales. Among the most famous of these are Henri Pourrat's Le Trésor des contes (Treasury of Tales, 1948–62), which in spite of Pourrat's claims are in fact artful retellings of folk tales, and the ongoing Gallimard collection Récits et contes populaires (Popular Stories and Tales), edited by Jean Cuisenier.

In scholarly circles, the painstaking fieldwork of fin‐de‐siècle folklorists culminated in the catalogue Le Conte populaire français (1957–85) by Paul Delarue and Marie‐Louise Tenèze, which uses the Aarne–Thompson index to classify French and Francophone oral narratives and is enormously useful to students of French folklore and literary fairy tales alike. Over the past 30 years, the fairy tale has become an increasingly dynamic field of study in France and has attracted scholars from a variety of disciplines and approaches, including literary criticism (Marc Soriano, Raymonde Robert), psychoanalysis (Jean Bellemin‐Noël, François Flahault), semiotics (Claude Brémond, Louis Marin), and history (Catherine Velay‐Vallantin).

For writers of the literary fairy tale, the 20th century has been no less productive than for folklorists and pedagogues. During the first half of the century, several major literary figures, notably Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean Cocteau, produced fairy‐tale works designed, most decidedly, for adults. In different ways, both Apollinaire (poems in Alcools (1913) and Calligrammes (1918)) and Cocteau (film, La Belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast, 1946)) were prominent exponents of the search for alternatives to conventional experience and reality and found in the fairy tale a convenient cultural reference for their projects. But it is for children that the vast majority of fairy tales have been written during the 20th century. Renowned series of children's books, such as the stories of Babar (created by Jean and François de Brunhoff) and Père Castor (created by Paul Faucher), both inaugurated in the 1930s, employ fairy‐tale‐like motifs and characters, even if they are not fairy tales in the strictest (i.e. folkloric) sense of the word. Moreover, the fairy tale has been the form of choice for scores of writers who devoted only part of their work to children's literature. Among the most significant of these are Marcel Aymé, Les Contes du chat perché (Tales of the Perched Cat, 1937–9); Béatrix Beck, Contes à l'enfant né coiffé (Tales for the Child Born with a Hairdo, 1953); Léonce Bourliaguet, Contes de la folle avoine (Wild Oat Tales, 1946); Blaise Cendrars, Petits contes nègres pour les enfants des blancs (African Tales for White Children, 1928); Étienne Delessert, Comment la souris reçoit une pierre sur la tête et découvre le monde (How a Rock Falls on the Head of the Mouse and It Discovers the World, 1961); Paul Éluard, Grain d'aile (Little Wing, 1951); Maurice Maeterlinck, L'Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird, play, 1939); Antoine de Saint‐Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943); and Jules Supervielle, La Belle au bois (Beauty in the Woods, 1953).

Almost all of these fairy tales blend magic with realistic settings and psychology. More recent examples of the genre likewise use realism, but also make subversive use of the fairy‐tale form. Notable are Philippe Dumas and Boris Moissard (Contes à l'envers (Upside Down Tales, 1977)); Pierre Gripari (La Sorcière de la rue Mouffetard (The Witch of Mouffetard Street, 1967), Le Gentil petit diable (The Nice Little Devil, 1984), and Patrouille du conte (The Tale Patrol, 1983)); Grégoire Solotareff (Un jour, un loup (One Day a Wolf, 1994)); and Michel Tournier (Sept contes (Seven Tales, 1978–80)), who confront ecological, ethical, and social concerns through familiar day‐to‐day contexts, anti‐conformist characters, and role‐reversals. None of these writers hesitates to disturb rather than simply comfort young listeners/readers, sometimes through the depiction of vengeance and violence (e.g. Gripari); and all leave the ‘moral’ of their stories implicit rather than stating it explicitly. While such features underscore the double subversion at work in these tales (subversion of the ‘classic’ fairy‐tale form in order to produce subversive personal and social effects), they constitute a constructive more than a destructive use of parody.

When contrasted with literatures in English especially, it is striking that late 20th‐century French and Francophone literatures have produced so few literary fairy tales written primarily for adults. Be this as it may, those tales that have appeared attest to the rich diversity of contemporary writing in French. Beyond the use of fairy tales as important subtexts or cultural references (e.g. Daniel Pennac, Au bonheur des ogres (The Ogres' Happiness, 1985) and La Fée Carabine (The Fairy Gunsmoke, 1987)), Jean‐Pierre Andrevon (La Fée et le géomètre (The Fairy and the Geometer, 1978)), and Pierrette Fleutiaux (Métamorphoses de la reine (Metamorphoses of the Queen, 1985)) have reworked fairy‐tale plots so as to argue the necessity of ecological reform (Andrevon) and to depict erotic and even violent fantasies about feminine sexuality (Fleutiaux). By comparison, though, Francophone writers have of late contributed as much if not more to the genre than French writers. Benefiting from their own considerable knowledge of folklore in their homelands, writers such as the French Canadian Germain Lemieux (Les vieux m'ont conté (The Old People Told Me, 1977)), the Senegalese Birago Diop (Contes d'Amadou Koumba (Tales of Amadou Koumba, 1947) and Nouveaux contes d'Amadou Koumba (New Tales of Amadou Koumba, 1958)), and more recently the Martinican Patrick Chamoiseau (Au temps de l'antan: contes martiniquais (Creole Folktales, 1988)) artfully blur the distinction between transcription and adaptation while highlighting the specificity of indigenous folklore from Francophone countries. Of course, in addition to literary fairy tales by French and Francophone writers, countless translations of folk tales from all regions of the world remain popular among adults and children alike. As France and Francophone countries ponder their roles in a global economy and a much‐touted ‘new world order’, it is fitting that the fairy tale in French now encompasses such diverse—Francophone and non‐Francophone—national and ethnic traditions.

Bibliography

• Barchilon, Jacques, Le Conte merveilleux français de 1690 à 1790 (1975).
• Malarte‐Feldman, Claire‐Lise, ‘La Nouvelle Tyrannie des fées, ou la réécriture des contes de fées classiques’, French Review, 63.5 (April 1990).
• Marin, Louis, La Parole mangée (1986?).
• Palacio, Jean de, Les Perversions du merveilleux: ma Mère l'Oye au tournant du siècle (1993).
• Perrot, Jean (ed.), Tricentenaire Charles Perrault: les grands contes du XVIIe siècle et leur fortune littéraire (1998).
• Robert, Raymonde, Le Conte de fées littéraire en France (1982).
• Seifert, Lewis C., Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690–1715 (1996).
• Soriano, Marc, Les Contes de Perrault (1968).
• Storer, Mary Elizabeth, Un épisode littéraire de la fin du XVIIe siècle: la mode des contes de fées (1685–1700) (1928).
• Velay‐Vallantin, Catherine, L'Histoire des contes (1994).
• Zipes, Jack, Beauties, Beasts, and Enchantments (1989).

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Freud spent several months, from October 1885 to February 1886, studying in Paris with Jean Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière Hospital. This experience greatly determined his orientation toward psycho-pathology. In his article "Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses," published in French in 1896 in the Revue neurologique, the word psychoanalysis appeared for the first time.

In France, Jean Martin Charcot's legacy gave rise to bitter disputes on the nature of the mind, and Pierre Janet's theories were widely accepted in medical and philosophical circles. These two factors explain the poor reception given to Freud's ideas for many years. The article that Freud called "the first article on psychoanalysis written in France," by Doctor René Morichau-Beauchant, professor of medicine in Poi-tiers, appeared as late as November 14, 1911, in La gazette des hôpitaux civils et militaires. In 1913 a French translation of Freud's essay "The claims of psychoanalysis to scientific interest" in the Italian journal Scientia went unnoticed.

In 1914 Professor Emmanuel Régis and his assistant Angelo Hesnard, a naval doctor in Bordeaux, wrote the first book on psychoanalysis, La psychanalyse des névroses et des psychoses, but the First World War cut short further interest in the field. It was not until December 1920 that the Revue de Genève andÉditions Payot published a French translation of Freud's essay "On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement" (1914).

With Freud's support, Eugénie Sokolnicka, a Polish psychiatrist who had settled in France, began analyzing young psychiatrists working at the Clinique des maladies mentales at the Sainte-Anne Hospital under the direction of Professor Henri Claude. Psychoanalysis became fashionable in France around 1921: In October 1921 André Breton traveled to Vienna to meet Freud, the "greatest psychologist of our time." Henri-René Lenormand's play "Le mangeur de rêves" (1921) turned out to be a success. And the Belgian journal Le disque vert published a special issue in 1924 titled "Freud et la psychanalyse" (Freud and psychoanalysis).

Though the medical profession remained overtly hostile to psychoanalysis, a number of young psychiatrists interested in psychoanalysis, including René Allendy, Angélo Hesnard, René Laforgue, and Eugène Minkowski, decided to launch a journal that was clearly psychoanalytic in orientation. The first volume ofÉvolution psychiatrique appeared in 1925, followed by a second in 1927. In 1930 the journal founders formed a learned society of the same name, which was still in existence in 2005. In July 1926 these psychiatrists, along with Raymond and Ariane de Saussure, Édouard Pichon, and Adrien Borel, organized the Conférence des psychanalystes de langue française (Conference of French-Speaking Psychoanalysts) in Lausanne, the origin of the Congrès des psychanalystes de langues romanes (Congress of Romance Language Psychoanalysts) and the Congrès des psychanalystes de langue française (Congress of French-Speaking Psychoanalysts), which take place annually.

On November 4, 1926, the Société psychanalytique de Paris (SPP; Paris Psychoanalytic Society) was formed under the guidance and with the assistance of Princess Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon's great-grand-niece, who was being analyzed by Freud and who later become close friends with him. Her circle included Eugénie Sokolnicka, Angélo Hesnard, René Allendy, Adrien Borel, René Laforgue, Georges Parcheminey,Édouard Pichon, and Rudolf Loewenstein. (The last was a Polish Jewishémigré who, after training at the Berlin Institute, settled in France, where he became the first and best known teaching analyst. He was naturalized in 1930.) Also in her circle were a number of French-speaking Swiss analysts. They included Charles Odier, Henri Flournoy, and Raymond de Saussure (the son of the linguist), all of whom made important contributions to the growth of the new society. The first issue of the Revue française de psychanalyse appeared on June 25, 1927, and on January 10, 1934, the Institut de psychanalyse was created and remained active until 1940.

The development of psychoanalysis encountered some difficulties, however, notably with the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and because of Freud himself. The French welcomed Freud's "psychoanalytic method" but in general rejected Freudian "doctrine," to paraphrase the title of a critical essay by Roland Dalbiez published in 1936. Because of this tendency, Marie Bonaparte played a crucial role. She was not a physician, and by being jealously faithful to Freud, she prevented psychoanalysis in France from falling completely under the sway of institutional psychiatry (Mijolla, 1988b). She also began translating Freud's writings intermittently until 1988, when a team led by Jean Laplanche began a new translation of Freud's complete works (Mijolla, 1991).

During the 1936 international IPA congress in Marienbad, Czech Republic, the young Jacques Lacan presented a paper titled "Le stade du miroir" (The mirror stage, or phase). He became a member of the Société psychanalytique de Paris in December 1938, nine years after Sacha Nacht (October 1929) and eighteen months after Daniel Lagache (July 1937), his future rivals, both of whom, like Lacan, were analyzed by Rudolf Loewenstein. Though there were few truly innovative French presentations aside from Lacan's paper, many presentations helped spread Freudian theory and technique, which was for the most part based on the work of Sándor Ferenczi. The recommendations made by René Laforgue (on scotoma, schizonoia, and family neurosis) went unanswered, as did the many articles and essays by Angélo Hesnard, Édouard Pichon, and René Allendy.

Freud received assistance in emigrating from Austria from U.S. Ambassador William C. Bullitt and Marie Bonaparte, who paid the "departure tax" demanded by the Nazis and saved his antiquities collection. Following his departure from Vienna, Freud stayed in Paris on June 5, 1938, while waiting to embark for London. Because of Nazi persecutions, Jewish psychoanalysts had begun to leave Germany in 1933, usually passing through Switzerland or France. They included René Spitz and Heinz Hartmann. They too received help from Marie Bonaparte, as well as from Anne Berman (Bonaparte's secretary), René Laforgue, and Paul Schiff.

On June 13, 1940, the day before Hitler's troops entered Paris, Sophie Morgenstern, one of the first child analysts, committed suicide. The Société psychanalytique de Paris and the Institut de psychanalyse closed their doors, and the Revue française de psychanalyse ceased publication. There was no overtly psychoanalytic activity in France during the four years of German occupation. Rudolf Loewenstein succeeded in leaving for America, where he settled for good. Marie Bonaparte went into exile in Cape Town, South Africa. Sacha Nacht, who worked with the Free French forces, barely escaped deportation. Daniel Lagache continued teaching in Clermont-Ferrand, where the University of Strasbourg had temporarily reestablished itself. Paul Schiff joined the troops that would later liberate Italy and France, while Jacques Lacan, Françoise Dolto, Marc Schlumberger, and John Leuba continued their activities in Paris. Only René Laforgue attempted, from 1940 to 1942, to create a French section at the Göring Institute, but his efforts were in vain. His subservient attitude toward the occupation authorities resulted in his exclusion from the Société psychanalytique de Paris following liberation (Mijolla, 1988a).

After 1945 psychoanalytic activity resumed in France. A number of new figures appeared on the scene: Maurice Bouvet, Serge Lebovici, René Held, Maurice Bénassy, Francis Pasche. On July 25, 1946, the annual Congrès des psychanalystes de langue française (Congress of French-Speaking Psychoanalysts) resumed in Montreux, Switzerland. In November, Maryse Choissy founded the Centre d'étude des sciences de l'homme (Social Sciences Study Center) and launched the journal Psyché, both of which were influenced by the Catholicism of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. That same year the Centre psychopédagogique Claude-Bernard (Claude Bernard Psychopedagogical Center) was created, with Georges Mauco as nonmedical director. Juliette Boutonier was the medical director, but she turned the position over to André Berge in order to replace Daniel Lagache at the University of Strasbourg. Lagache had been appointed to a position at the Sorbonne, where he created a degree program in psychology. In 1948 a new publisher, Presses universitaires de France, began publishing the Revue française de psychanalyse.

The Cold War began, and the Communist journal La nouvelle critique published an article in 1949 referring to psychoanalysis as a "reactionary ideology." The article, written by four psychoanalysts, one of whom was Serge Lebovici, reinforced the criticisms made by Georges Politzer before the war. Years later, between 1973 and 1977, Lebovici was the first French psychoanalyst to be made president of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

The success of psychoanalysis continued to attract candidates and presented the problem of training them. Moreover, a suit brought against Margaret Clark-Williams between 1950 and 1952, a psychoanalyst but not a medical doctor, for illegally practicing medicine, though concluded in her favor, exposed the collective responsibility of the psychoanalytic community and the need to establish criteria for practice.

After three years of violent debate, flip-flopping alliances, and maneuvering between the three French leaders who acquired their positions after the war, the decision to create a new Institut de psychanalyse caused a split in the Société psychanalytique de Paris. None of the three were especially interested in making the institutions democratic, and they waged a kind of open warfare with one another that would leave scars on the psychoanalytic community in France for years to come. Aside from their personal ambitions, they had opposing ideas about the theory, practice, and institutional organization of psychoanalysis. Sacha Nacht wanted to remain faithful to the norms of the International Psychoanalytical Association and aligned with medical education. Daniel Lagache favored academic training. The third, Jacques Lacan, developed original theories and methods of therapy, and the latter, especially his "variable-length sessions," did not comply with international standards.

On June 16, 1953, a motion of no confidence was passed against Jacques Lacan, then president of the Société psychanalytique de Paris. Daniel Lagache, Juliette Favez-Boutonier, and Françoise Dolto then announced that they would be leaving the society to form the Société française de psychanalyse (SFP; French Society for Psychoanalysis). Lacan joined them and was followed by nearly half the students, who were behind the split. But the defectors, in their desire to create an institute free of Sacha Nacht's authority, had overlooked the fact that they would be excluded from the International Psychoanalytical Association and would have to undergo a lengthy period of scrutiny by the international community before they could prove their ability to train new analysts (Mijolla, 1996).

In September 1953, the sixteenth Conférence des psychanalystes de langues romanes took place and, at the end of the SPP meeting, Lacan presented to the members of his new society, the Société française de psychanalyse, his "Discours de Rome" on the function of language in psychoanalysis.

The Institut de psychanalyse de Paris (Paris Institute for Psychoanalysis) was officially established on June 1, 1954. Sacha Nacht remained the director until 1962, when Serge Lebovici replaced him. Through the Centre de diagnostic et de traitements psychanalytiques (Center for Diagnostics and Psychoanalytic Treatment), run by Michel Cénac and René Diatkine, Nacht was to become, for nearly thirty years, the symbol of traditional psychoanalysis in France, to the detriment of the Société scientifique, which did not return to its former prestige until 1986. To strengthen its image, the Twentieth International Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association was held in Paris in 1957. The IPA had met there once before, in 1938, and would meet in Paris again in 1973.

Around this time new directions in psychoanalysis were explored. For example, in Paris in 1958 Philippe Paumelle, Serge Lebovici, and René Diatkine created the Association de santé mentale (Mental Health Association), which provided doctors and social workers with training in psychoanalysis. Also established that year were the Groupe Lyonnais, the first regional branch of the Société psychanalytique de Paris, and the Séminaire de perfectionnement, an annual meeting for psychoanalysts working throughout France, similar to the Journées provinciales run by the Société fran-çaise de psychanalyse.

The rivalry that developed between the two societies promoted the growth of theoretical developments as well as new institutional forms. The work of Maurice Bouvet is a case in point. Through his writing, Bouvet attempted to counteract the growing interest in the ideas of Jacques Lacan. Unfortunately, he died at the early age of forty-nine in 1960. In 1962 an annual prize in psychoanalysis was created in his name.

There were a number of psychoanalysts for children working in France at this time. In the Société psychanalytique de Paris there were Serge Lebovici, René Diatkine, Roger Misès, Michel Soulé, Pierre Mâle, Jean Favreau, Ilse Barande, and Pierre Bourdier. In the Société française de psychanalyse there were Jenny Aubry, Françoise Dolto, Maud Mannoni, and Victor Smirnoff. In the field of psychosomatics were Jean-Paul Valabrega (SFP) and the team formed around Pierre Marty: Michel Fain, Michel de M'Uzan, and Christian David (all SPP members). David went on to found the Institut de psychosomatique (Institute of Psychosomatics). Those working in psychodrama and group psychoanalysis included Jean and Evelyne Kestemberg, Jean Gillibert, and Robert Barande (SPP), and Didier Anzieu, Angélo Bejarano, René Kaës, André Missenard, and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (SFP). Primary representatives in the field of psychogenesis and the treatment of psychosis were Sacha Nacht and Paul-Claude Racamier of the SPP, and Jean-Louis Lang, Serge Leclaire, François Perrier, and Guy Rosolato of the SFP. Worthy of note is that there was a certain coolness in France toward Melanie Klein's theories, which remained relatively unknown until the 1970s, following the work of James Gammil, Jean Begoin, and Florence Begoin-Guignard.

Jacques Lacan became increasingly important in French psychoanalysis and as a leader of young analysts. He published articles in La psychanalyse, the SFP review created in 1955 (the eighth and last number appeared in 1964), and in 1953 began giving his famous seminars. The increasingly well-attended sessions were held every Wednesday from 12 noon to 3 p.m., initially at the Sainte-Anne Hospital, then at the École normale supérieure, and finally at the Paris law school. On November 7, 1955, in Vienna, he introduced his call for a "return to Freud," which met with tremendous success. Interest in the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss and structuralism during the 1960s contributed to the dissemination of a conception of psychoanalysis unrelated to psychology and without any therapeutic aims (in 1957 Lacan had spoken of "excessive healing"). The impact of Lacan's ideas can be judged from the October 1960 Sixth Colloque de Bonneval, organized by Henri Ey on the unconscious. In the presence of Jean Hyppolite, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Eugène Minkowski, Henri Lefebvre, and Paul Ricoeur, members of the two societies confronted one another. In that setting the work of a number of hitherto unknown psychoanalysts came to light: André Green and Conrad Stein of the Société psychanalytique de Paris, and Jean Laplanche, Serge Leclaire, and François Perrier of the Société française de psychanalyse.

Lacan's success guaranteed him a role within the Société française de psychanalyse that did not always sit well with his colleagues, especially since his theoretical development, together with the unusual nature of his personal practice, made him persona non grata within the traditional international psychoanalytic community. There were increasing conflicts within the SFP over Lacan, and these grew worse as the conditions for the society's readmission to the Institut de psychosomatique were communicated to him in 1961 during the twenty-second international congress in Edinburgh, just as it received the status of a study group. The SFP was asked to adhere to the guidelines for didactic analysis and training (four sessions of forty-five minutes per week and a year of therapy after the beginning of supervised therapy). Everyone knew that Lacan would never accept these requirements.

In spite of diplomatic efforts by the three-member group within the SFP known as the "troika"—Wladimir Granoff, Serge Leclaire, and François Perrier—the situation grew worse until several members of the SFP, including some of Lacan's former analysts, urged that he, along with Françoise Dolto, be removed from the list of teaching analysts, a decision that was ratified in November 1963. This led to a split within the SFP. One group of members formed the Association psychanalytique de France (French Psychoanalytic Association), which chose Daniel Lagache as its first president and was accredited by the Institut de psychosomatique on July 28, 1965, during the twenty-fourth international congress in Amsterdam.

On June 21, 1964, Lacan founded theÉcole Freudienne de Paris (EFP; Freudian School of Paris), which, over a period of sixteen years, became one of the leading forces in the French psychoanalytic movement. Organized into groups known as "cartels," it published an annual list of members. This did not mean that the organization recognized them as psychoanalysts, for according to Lacan, "The psychoanalyst's authority can only come from himself." Since the school was intent on making a difference within the psychoanalytic community, some members were designated "EFP analysts," and on October 9, 1967, Lacan instituted a test to enable members to obtain the title. As a result of this action, Piera Aulagnier, François Perrier, and Jean-Paul Valabrega quit theÉcole Freudienne de Paris in January 1969 to create the Quatrième groupe, Organisation psychanalytique de langue française (The Fourth Group, or Francophone Psychoanalytic Organization). (Piera Aulagnier, in 1967, founded, together with Jean Clavreul and Conrad Stein, the journal L'inconscient, of which only eight issues were published.) This group introduced new criteria of membership admission and methods of training: "the fourth analysis."

Lacan's claim that "the unconscious is structured like a language" helped rally to the cause of psychoanalysis Marxists like Louis Althusser and several priests, including the Jesuit Louis Beirnaert. Subsequently, the French Communist Party and the Catholic clergy, both of which had been hostile to Lacan, softened their position. More significantly, Lacan won over to his cause the French intelligentsia, along with a number of foreign students, thereby mobilizing the forces for a media campaign unique in the field of psychoanalysis.

The ground for Lacan's success had already been prepared, as Serge Moscovici showed in his dissertation, "La psychanalyse: Son image et son public" (Psychoanalysis: its image and public), completed in 1961. In 1958 Jean-Paul Sartre worked on the screenplay for the first film about Freud. Freud: The Secret Passion, directed by John Huston, appeared in movie theaters in 1962. Between December 1962 and July 1963, Marthe Robert presented a series of radio broadcasts titled The Psychoanalytic Revolution: The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud.

The literature on psychoanalysis began to grow. The Presses universitaires de France published Freud's letters to Wilhelm Fliess and Ernest Jones's biography of Freud in its series Bibliothèque de psychanalyse (Library of Psychoanalysis), edited by Daniel Lagache and later Jean Laplanche. In 1961 Gérard Mendel founded the series Science de l'homme (Science of Man) atÉditions Payot. This was followed, in 1964, by the series Le champ Freudien (The Freudian Field), edited by Jacques Lacan, then by Jacques-Alain Miller, atÉditions du Seuil, and in 1973 by L'espace analytique (The Analytic Space), edited by Maud Mannoni and Patrick Guyomard at Denoël. This last press published memoirs about Vienna and the early years of psychoanalysis in its series Freud et son temps (Freud and His Time), edited by Jacqueline Rousseau-Dujardin. Gallimard launched the series Connaissance de l'inconscient (Knowledge of the Unconscious), edited by Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, as well as the journal Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse, which appeared in the spring of 1970 (it ceased publication in the fall of 1994 with number 50). Laplanche and Pontalis were also the authors of the celebrated Language of psychoanalysis, first published in 1967. A number of academic journals were launched at this time: Cahiers pour l'analyse in 1966, Scilicet in 1968, Topique andÉtudes freudiennes in 1969, Ornicar? in 1975, Confrontation in 1979, and L'écrit du temps in 1982. In 1965 Paul Ricoeur published De l'interprétation: Essai sur Freud, an example of what was most attractive about psychoanalysis to philosophers and academics.

Jacques Lacan'sÉcrits appeared at the end of 1966 as part of the series Le champ freudien, published by Éditions du Seuil. The book achieved considerable success with the public in spite of the difficulty of the author's style and ideas. As the popularity and longevity of Lacan's seminars show, theÉcole Freudienne de Paris and Lacanian thought in general began to occupy an increasingly prominent place in French psychoanalytic circles. Lacan's ideas soon spread around the world, especially in South America.

The student movements of May 1968 were attracted to a Marxist version of Freud inspired by Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich. In October of that year the school reforms led to the creation of a department of psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII in Vincennes by Serge Leclaire and Jacques-Alain Miller, Lacan's son-in-law, and a department of clinical social science at the University of Paris VII. In October 1968 Gérard Mendel, the founder of sociopsychoanalysis, published La révolte contre le père (A revolt against the father), an explanation of the student protests. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in 1969 there appeared L'univers contestationnaire (The universe of conflict) by Béla Grunberger and Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, writing under the pseudonym André Stéphane.

Opposition to psychoanalysis arose with the publication in 1969 in Les temps modernes of "L'homme au magnétophone" (The man with a tape recorder), with a commentary by Jean-Paul Sartre. Its publication led Jean-Bertrand Pontalis to resign from the journal's editorial board. In 1972, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari published Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and Pierre Debray-Ritzen published La scholastique freudienne, a caricature of past, present, and future criticisms of psychoanalysis in France.

In the 1970s the French psychoanalytic movement split into mutually exclusive factions. In 1974 René Major and Dominique Geahchan created the group Confrontation, which claimed to be independent of the various psychoanalytic societies but over time grew closer to the Lacanians. They organized animated discussions led by Serge Leclaire (1977) and representatives of the French feminist movement, led by Antoinette Fouque (1979). Although theoretical and clinical advances continued to be made in the Société françaisedepsychanalyseandthe Association psychanalytique de France, as well as the Quatrième groupe, public and media attention focused on Jacques Lacan and his students.

With age, Lacan's health and productivity declined. Jacques-Alain Miller undertook the publication of an "official" transcript of Lacan's seminars (often contested by Miller's adversaries) and assumed a guiding role in managing theÉcole Freudienne de Paris, which displeased Lacan's older students. In the face of all this dissension, Lacan, by now quite ill, ordered his school dissolved on January 5, 1980. This led to a court trial and the division of his followers into mutually hostile groups. In his letter to the thousand, Lacan announced, on February 21, 1980, the foundation of the Cause Freudienne. Shortly thereafter Jacques-Alain Miller founded theÉcole de la cause Freudienne. In the years that followed the school developed an international reputation and became especially well established in South America. Jacques Lacan died on September 9, 1981.

In November 1980 Dominique Geahchan helped create the Collège de psychanalystes (Council of Psychoanalysts), which, despite its name, was not a training organization. It ceased functioning in June 1994. Following the dissolution of theÉcole Freudienne de Paris, several new groups came into existence: in 1982 the Cercle Freudien (Freudian Circle) and the Association Freudienne internationale (International Freudian Association); in 1983 the Cartels constituants de l'analyse Freudienne (Constituent Cartels for Freudian Analysis), the Convention psychanalytique (Psycho-analytic Convention), and the Mouvement du coût Freudien (Freudian Cost Movement) theÉcole Lacanienne de psychanalyse (Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis); and in 1986 the Séminaires psychanalytiques de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Seminars). Also in 1982 the Centre de formation et de recherches psychanalytiques (Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research) formed around Octave and Maud Mannoni. Its dissolution in 1994 led to the creation, in 1995, of the Espace analytique (Analytic Space), of which Maud Mannoni was president until her death in 1998, and the Société de psychanalyse Freudienne (Freudian Society for Psychoanalysis), under the direction of Patrick Guyomard. Many of these associations were subject to internal dissension and disappeared (at least in their initial form) during the 1990s.

In France and elsewhere in the world, a crisis followed as a result of the excessive enthusiasm—in particular, excessive psychiatry and excessive ideology—generated by an idealized image of psychoanalysis. This enthusiasm was clearly associated with the personality and fame of Jacques Lacan. Subsequently, psychiatrists began to focus on the neurosciences. On another front, renewed enthusiasm for philosophy and religion led to a decline in interest in Freudian theory in the universities. Within the field of psychoanalysis, interactions over the years among the various psychoanalytic groups, which the first meetings of Confrontation had in its time attempted to establish, began to overcome the violent splits of the past.

The Société psychanalytique de Paris continued to assert its authority as the chief French psychoanalytic institution, partly through the increased readership of the Revue française de psychanalyse at a time when a number of publications ceased publication, many because of poor sales. In fact, the association came to be viewed as akin to a public institution by 1997. Around this time André Green became internationally well known for his writings on the "dead mother," "the narcissism of death," and "the negative," and Joyce McDougall became well known, especially in North America, for her work on the concept of normalcy and addiction. Although less well known, Conrad Stein, following the publication of his L'enfant imaginaire (The imaginary child; 1971) and the organization of a number of conferences throughÉtudes Freudiennes (Freudian Studies), continued his research on Freud and his criticism of the institutionalization of psychoanalysis.

Some APF members too made important contributions to the field. Worthy of mention are Guy Rosolato's work on the symbolic order and sacrifice, generalized seduction, and deferred action (a topic proposed by Jean Laplanche after a detailed reading of Freud); the theoretical work and fiction of Jean-Bertrand Pontalis; Daniel Widlöcher's work on change; and Didier Anzieu's research on Freud's self-analysis, the "skin ego," psychodrama, and group analysis, a field also investigated by René Kaës.

Through the publication of La violence de l'interprétation: Du pictogrammeà l'énoncé (The Violence of Interpretation: From Pictogram to Statement; 1975), Piera Aulagnier's work provided original theoretical material for understanding and treating psychosis (Mijolla-Mellor, 1998). Although somewhat less synthetic, the work of Octave and Maud Mannoni broadened the scope of psychoanalytic research, especially in the area of child psychoanalysis, a field greatly influenced by the work of Serge Lebovici, René Diatkine, and Michel Soulé. Françoise Dolto had a considerable impact on psychoanalysis in France through her original and provocative ideas, some of which generated considerable controversy. Her radio presentations and the creation of the Maisons vertes, psychoanalytic facilities for children, brought her considerable public recognition in France, and her books have remained successful.

A number of other authors—Béla Grunberger, Michel Fain, Jean Bergeret, Jean Guillaumin, Jean-Paul Valabrega, Serge Leclaire, François Perrier—made important contributions to specifically French psychoanalysis, which has been characterized by a tendency toward clinically based theorizations and is generally less empirical than the work of Anglo-American authors. In particular, Lacanian psychoanalysts have emphasized the importance of language and are probably closer to postwar French philosophy than any other branch of psychoanalysis. They have been influenced by thinkers as diverse as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida (who included psychoanalysis in the curriculum when he created the Collège de philosophie in 1983).

Psychoanalysts in France remain unlicensed in spite of several attempts by the government to institute licensing. Although psychoanalysts have managed to obtain a number of rights as private practitioners through psychoanalytic associations, it is as accredited psychologists that they are authorized to practice psychotherapy and analysis. The attempt in December 1989 by Serge Lebovici, then head of the Association pour une instance, to create a professional body consolidating all psychoanalysts in France was rebuffed by associations that were members of the International Psychoanalytical Association. These organizations had no desire to merge with the numerous practitioners operating in the Lacanian tradition, because they felt that training requirements in this tradition were inadequate.

There has been considerable interest in the history of psychoanalysis as well. In June 1985 the Association internationale d'histoire de la psychanalyse (International Association for the History of Psychoanalysis) was created. In 1984 this association merged with the Société internationale d'histoire de la psychiatrie (International Society for the History of Psychiatry), created in 1982, to became the Société internationale d'histoire de la psychiatrie et de la psychanalyse. In 1991, encouraged by Joseph Sandler, the International Psychoanalytical Association formed an Archives and History Committee within its organization.

French developments in psychoanalysis have also expanded and exerted influence outside the country. One sign of this is the election, in 1999, of Daniel Widlöcher as president of the International Psychoanalytical Association and of Alain Gibeault as secretary general, both of whom are French. Although no other French theoretician has achieved Jacques Lacan's global recognition or, like Lacan, has created schools and institutions, the body of theoretical and clinical research in French is considerable. In spite of the often irreconcilable differences within the French psychoanalytic community, this work has continued to enrich the development of psychoanalysis throughout the world.

Bibliography

Mijolla, Alain de. (1982). La psychanalyse en France, 1893-1965. In Roland Jaccard (Ed.), Histoire de la psychanalyse (Vol. 2, pp. 9-105). Paris: Hachette.

——. (1984). Quelques avatars de la psychanalyse en France.Évolution psychiatrique, 49 (3), 773-795.

——. (1985). Pulsion d'investigation, fantasmes d'identification et roman familial. Topique, 34, 33-59.

——. (1988a). Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts in France between 1939 and 1945. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 12, 136-156, 2003.

——. (1988b). Quelques aperçus sur le rôle de la princesse Marie Bonaparte dans la création de la Société psychanalytique de Paris. Revue française de psychanalyse, 52 (5): 1197-1214.

——. (1991). L'édition en français des œuvres de Freud avant 1940: Autour de quelques documents nouveaux. Revue internationale d'histoire de la psychanalyse, 4, 209-270.

——. (1992). France, 1893-1965. In Peter Kutter (Ed.), Psychoanalysis international: a guide to psychoanalysis throughout the world, Vol. 1: Europe (pp. 66-113). Stuttgart, Germany: Frommann-Holzboog.

——. (1996). La scission de la Société psychanalytique de Paris en 1953: quelques notes pour un rappel historique. Cliniques méditerranéennes, 49/50, 9-30.

Mijolla-Mellor, Sophie de. (1998). Penser la psychose: Une lecture de l'œuvre de Piera Aulagnier. Paris: Dunod.

Roudinesco,Élisabeth. (1990). Jacques Lacan & Co.: A history of psychoanalysis in France, 1925-1985 (Jeffrey Mehlman, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published in two vols., 1982, 1986.)

—ALAINDE MIJOLLA

France was both the largest state in early modern Europe and the most centrally situated. Its population of roughly 20 million dwarfed all rivals: in 1620 the country had ten times the population of the Dutch Republic, four times that of England, twice that of Spain, and a third more than that of all the German states combined. On both north and south it bordered territories of the Habsburg kings of Spain, and it adjoined other Habsburg territories to the east; to the west there was Britain, which until 1544 maintained small outposts on the mainland, and even after could easily invade. The combination of size and centrality shaped much of French history during the early modern period. Given its proximity to other great powers, France could never avoid entanglements and potential conflicts with its neighbors—but possessing resources so much greater than they, it rarely sought to avoid conflict. On the contrary, its kings repeatedly attempted to establish France as Europe's leading power, annexing territories of less powerful neighbors and bullying even loyal allies. As a result, France participated in most major international conflicts of the period and in the seventeenth century assembled the largest armies that Europe had ever seen. Organizing, justifying, and paying for military power on this scale encouraged the development of state organization, and for most of the period France was Europe's most intensively governed state, as well as its biggest. Its overdeveloped monarchy brought France important benefits but also placed heavy burdens on the nation's economy. By the eighteenth century, this form of government could survive only at the cost of radical reforms, efforts that in the end led to revolutionary upheaval.

The Geography and Politics of Diversity

Extending from the English Channel to the Mediterranean and from the Atlantic to the Rhine, early modern France included a diverse, imperfectly integrated set of territories. Geography accounted for some of this diversity; different regions had different climates and qualities of soil, and thus different systems of agriculture. The plains of northern France were among the richest grain-producing regions in Europe, whereas the center of the country was mountainous and heavily wooded. Southern France had a Mediterranean climate, which limited grain harvests but allowed farmers to grow olives and a variety of fruits, while the north was damp and cold. But cultural differences also contributed to the country's diversity. As late as 1863, it has been estimated, 12 percent of French children spoke no French, and a much larger share of the population mainly used some form of dialect. Until 1789, laws varied from one province of the country to another, creating differences in family organization, inheritance, and landholding patterns.

Such differences reflected the fact that this territory was an artificial creation, assembled mainly by military force over a period of centuries; the process would end only in the mid-nineteenth century. The plains around Paris, known as the Île de France, constituted the original home of the French monarchs, and from it during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they had extended their power as far south as the Mediterranean, making medieval France already an immense territory for its time. Even then the English retained control over a small territory in the north and a much larger area in the southwest, around the city of Bordeaux. The English kings dramatically increased their holdings during the political chaos of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, enlarging their long-held territories in the southwest and conquering the rich province of Normandy. At the same time the duchy of Brittany reasserted its independence, acknowledging only nominal French overlordship; and younger branches of the royal house established semi-independent principalities for themselves, notably in Burgundy, whose dukes pursued an independent foreign policy aimed at establishing their full autonomy.

But this late-medieval tendency to dissolution reversed itself in the mid-fifteenth century, and thereafter French history was marked by new territorial acquisitions and tightening control over outlying regions. Charles VII (ruled 1422–1461), goaded into action by Joan of Arc, supervised the expulsion of the English, who were finally driven out in 1453, retaining only Calais (even that was lost in 1544). His successor, Louis XI (ruled 1461–1483), ended the threat of an independent duchy of Burgundy: when its last duke was killed in battle, in 1477, Louis immediately seized much of Burgundy's territory and set up a series of French institutions in the duke's former capital, designed to ensure that French influence functioned vigorously there. In the following generations, successive kings married heiresses to the duchy of Brittany, ensuring that it too would be integrated into the French state. In these and other peripheral regions of the kingdom, kings sought to ensure provincial loyalty by establishing institutions modeled on those in Paris, staffing them with a mix of locals and men drawn from the royal entourage. Sensitive to regional traditions and eager to secure loyalty, kings also permitted these new provinces to retain significant tax advantages and some forms of local autonomy.

After 1515, the pace of territorial expansion slowed. In the mid-sixteenth century, King Henry II (ruled 1547–1559) established a French presence in the eastern region of Lorraine; in 1589 the small kingdom of Navarre, in the southwest, along the border with Spain, became part of France when its king became Henry IV (ruled 1589–1610) of France. In the course of his wars, Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715) added the Franche-Comté and Alsace to the east, Roussillon to the south, and part of Flanders and Artois to the north. Finally, after a long period of intermittent control, Louis XV (ruled 1715–1774) took over the previously independent duchy of Lorraine in 1740 and the island of Corsica in 1768. By this point France had nearly reached its modern limits; thereafter it added only Avignon (taken from the pope in 1791) and Savoy and Nice, acquired in 1860 from Italy.

Distance and the Process of Unification

Even travelers in a hurry might require three weeks to make their way across the territories thus assembled, and institutional barriers also helped ensure that the country's practical unity never matched its rulers' claims. Units of measure varied by region, and regional governments typically restricted trade across their borders in an effort to ensure local food supplies. But over the early modern period there was significant progress toward effective unification of this vast territory, especially after the end of the civil wars that had marked the sixteenth century. The French state pushed throughout the period to improve communications across the kingdom, and they sought in other ways to reduce its variety of institutions and customs. Already in 1464 Louis XI had established a postal service that crossed France, allowing travelers to exchange horses at fixed points. In the early seventeenth century, as France rebuilt from the Wars of Religion (1562–1598), Henry IV's chief minister, the duke of Sully, assumed control of French road building, setting standards for new construction and encouraging new projects. The state's interest in such projects continued to grow through the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, producing dramatic improvements in all forms of transportation. A specialized engineering service was established in the early eighteenth century to supervise construction, and in 1747 a state-run school was established to train its engineers. As a result of such efforts, between 1660 and 1789 travel times between Paris and the other major cities fell by about half, in some cases more: mid-seventeenth-century travelers had needed fifteen days to get from Paris to Bordeaux, but by 1789 this had fallen to only five days. Regularly scheduled coaches now served these roads, and the combination of better roads and improved coaches allowed travelers to make the trip in relative comfort. The government also supported efforts at canal building, linking the country's natural waterways into an effective national system, especially well suited for the distribution of heavy agricultural goods. The Canal du Midi, which permitted navigation from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was a wonder of the era when it opened in 1681.

Governments sought also to diminish the country's cultural and institutional diversity. Each province retained its distinctive law code, but successive revisions—with royal commissioners sent to investigate local practices and compile new collections—brought these more into line with one another. Other magistrates were sent into distant hinterlands to deal with reports of lawlessness and ensure compliance with the king's own laws. The later eighteenth century brought an attack on the political and economic barriers that divided the French territory. In the 1760s and 1770s, the governments of the Abbé Terray and of Turgot sought to end restrictions on free trade within the country, creating a single national market in place of the twenty or so distinct provinces. These efforts failed, partly because they provoked popular disturbances over higher food prices, but the direction of change was clearly toward national unity.

Phases of Royal Power, 1453–1589

Even in their darkest moments, French kings enjoyed important advantages in comparison with their rivals elsewhere in Europe. The Salic law, supposed to be of ancient origins but in fact instituted in the early fourteenth century, proclaimed that women could not inherit the throne, ensuring that it would never go via marriage to a foreign prince. In the coronation ceremony, French kings were anointed with holy oil, and they enjoyed other markings of sanctity. The popes had conferred on them the title "Most Christian King," associating them with the work of the church, and long tradition accorded them the power to cure some diseases by touching the afflicted. In 1440, they had acquired the more practical advantage of levying taxes in most of the country without seeking the consent of any representative institution. These traditions of respect for royal power proved especially important in the years after 1453 as France rebuilt from the disasters of the Hundred Years' War with England. The war had devastated much of the country, and it was only around 1500 that population returned to what it had been in 1337, when the fighting began. Under Charles VII and Louis XI, the work of reconstruction advanced quickly. Rebellions by great aristocrats were put down, and the core of an effective civil service was established. In the next generation, this concern with reestablishing internal peace and order yielded to an urge for external adventures. In 1494 the sickly Charles VIII (ruled 1483–1498), Louis's son, raised a large army and led it across Italy to conquer the kingdom of Naples; the venture expressed both dynastic ambition—the royal family's claim to Naples dated to a thirteenth-century ancestor—and crusading ideals, for Charles hoped to use Naples as a jumping-off point for a crusade to liberate Jerusalem. Neither he nor the aristocratic armies he led had relinquished medieval visions of politics; they fought not for national interest, but in the service of family and faith.

Charles's invasion inaugurated a half century of war over Italy, war that eventually ended in complete French defeat. Charles's army had easily conquered Naples, but Ferdinand, the king of Spain, quickly and effectively disputed his dominance, routing French armies and establishing Spain's dominance of the region. Charles died in 1498, but his successor (an elderly cousin who ruled as Louis XII) only widened these conflicts; he had his own claims to the duchy of Milan, in northern Italy, and thus French armies returned to Italy seeking to establish claims to both north and south. Francis I (1515–1547) and his son Henry II (1547–1559) continued these efforts despite repeated military disasters. Francis himself was captured in battle at Pavia in 1525, and his two sons were held hostage in Madrid for an enormous ransom. By the 1530s the Spanish had solidified their hold on Italy, and a last French defeat in 1557 (at St. Quentin, near the Netherlands border) finally ended French hopes. The drive for hegemony in Italy had produced only Spanish lordship over Milan and Naples and overwhelming Spanish influence elsewhere in the peninsula.

The peace settlement of 1559 brought its own problems. Without the distractions of foreign war, aristocratic clans competed with increased avidity for influence at court—the more intently because three of Henry II's weakling sons came in turn to the throne after his death in 1559. Neither they nor their mother, Catherine de Médicis, who exercised a large influence on royal policy over the next thirty years, had the personal authority to discipline these factions; despite the sacred trappings surrounding the French monarchy, kings' personal qualities still mattered to the success of their governments. But in the mid-sixteenth century the demands placed on kings had also become more difficult because of the arrival of Protestantism in France. Both John Calvin and his principal lieutenant Théodore de Bèze were French by birth, and they took considerable interest in bringing the Reformed religion to their native land. Calvinist missionaries sought to reach all levels of French society, but their greatest successes came among elites. By 1562 significant minorities of the bourgeoisie and nobility had turned to Calvinism, and in that year they launched a coordinated uprising. The royal army and the Catholic factions among the nobility defeated these movements, but 1562 proved to be the opening phase of a long civil war, the Wars of Religion, that merely paused in 1598 and came to a definitive conclusion only in 1629. Over these years, efforts to achieve religious toleration, embodied in short-lived peace treaties, alternated with moments of extreme religious violence. In 1572 King Charles IX's plan to have the Protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny assassinated turned into the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestants, first in Paris, then in other cities throughout the country. Contemporaries believed that they were witnessing both the breakdown of order inside the country and the decay of French standing within Europe, for the Spanish king Philip II contributed both funds and troops to the Catholic side.

Phases of Royal Power, 1589–1789

The crises of these years created broad support for stronger monarchy, and this became the dominant pattern of the seventeenth century. In 1589 the crown passed to Henry IV, a distant cousin of the previous kings and leader of the Protestant movement during the later Wars of Religion; his promise to convert to Catholicism secured the obedience of most of the country, and in 1598 the Edict of Nantes established a degree of religious peace. Rebellion, conspiracy, and civil war remained real threats, but they were brief interruptions of a trend toward stronger government—and of the revival of French efforts to dominate European power politics. As in the sixteenth century, Spain again provided the natural target of French ambitions as the dominant European power and as having several borders with France. Henry IV's sudden death in 1610, amidst plans to march against Spanish interests in the Rhineland, only postponed the fighting. His son Louis XIII (ruled 1610–1643) led French armies across the Alps in 1628 to establish a French duke in the small northern Italian principality of Mantua and then in 1635 launched France into full involvement in the Thirty Years' War against both Spain and its Habsburg ally, the Holy Roman emperor. The ensuing decades of war placed enormous burdens, both political and financial, on French resources. Rising taxes provoked popular rebellions in several provinces, and aristocratic plotting resumed, motivated by the eagerness of those around the king to attain more influence. The worst moments came in 1648, with the young Louis XIV on the throne and real power in the hands of his Spanish mother, Anne of Austria, and her Italian advisor, Cardinal Mazarin; during the four years of the Fronde, as the rebellions were called, a shifting coalition of urban crowds, royal judges, and great aristocrats twice drove Mazarin into exile and threatened to take over control of the government. But throughout this time France managed to sustain its armies against the still more severely strained Habsburg powers. The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia (with the empire) and the 1659 Peace of the Pyrenees (with Spain) provided territorial gains and more broadly established France as the new dominant power in Europe.

Asserting and expanding that power became the government's primary concern over the next fifty years. After Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV proclaimed himself fully in charge of French policy, and through the longest reign of European history (he died only in 1715, leaving the crown to his great-grandson) he devoted himself to asserting French supremacy, cultural and economic as well as military. Intermittent war resumed in 1666, with new military adventures coming in 1672, 1689, and 1702. The understanding of national ambition had evolved since the sixteenth century, however. By this point, expanding national territory and advancing trade had become the express motives of international policy, replacing the dynastic and crusading ideals of the sixteenth century. Spain had fallen to the second rank of European powers, and much of Louis's effort was directed to absorbing bits of Spanish territory; the last and greatest of his wars was directed to absorbing Spain itself, whose king had died childless. Parallel efforts asserted the place of French culture within Europe. Louis's new palace at Versailles was designed partly as an advertisement for French glory and elegance, and support for artists, writers, and musicians had the same goal, affirming French cultural supremacy within Europe and royal supremacy within France.

These efforts brought some additions to French territory, and they secured for one of Louis's grandsons the Spanish throne as Philip V, though only on condition that the two crowns never be joined. Versailles and its courtly rituals impressed many other rulers, and imitations sprang up in several countries. But Louis's ambitions also united the rest of Europe against him, especially after 1685, when, with the Edict of Fontainebleau, he revoked the Edict of Nantes and banished all Protestants from France. To contemporaries, he seemed a menace to the religious peace of Europe as well as to his neighbors' territories. With most other European powers allied against it, French militarism exhausted the country's resources and produced only small gains. His subjects greeted Louis's death with relief.

Taking note of war's human and financial costs, his successors were more cautious about military adventures. Louis XV entered the brief War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735), the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1747), and the Seven Years' War (1756–1763); Louis XVI, only the American Revolution (1778–1783). The first and the last of these conflicts were French successes, but the Seven Years' War was a humiliating failure, which seemed to teach a lesson that Louis XIV's last wars had already suggested: despite its immense population (which had risen to 26 million by the late eighteenth century), France had lost its dominant position within Europe. It remained Europe's largest country, but others were proving better able to mobilize their resources, for both military and civic ends. It had no equivalent to the Bank of England, which raised public loans for the government, nor could it match Prussia's extremely disciplined military organization. Already in the 1660s, government officials noted the superior economic performance of the Dutch Republic; in the eighteenth century, with the opening phases of the industrial revolution, England appeared to be growing far richer.

Diminished standing within the European state system produced a rising anxiety among French ruling elites, and led to a series of government-sponsored efforts at reform and modernization. During the last twenty-five years of the old regime, governments did away with guilds and established free trade in foodstuffs; they expelled the Jesuit order from France and instituted some toleration for Protestants; they funded agricultural societies throughout the country in hopes of improving farming techniques; they sought to reorganize the judiciary, and (immediately before the Revolution) set up an ambitious system of provincial legislatures. These were serious efforts at change, directed by thoughtful, strong-minded government ministers, who had been much influenced by their reading of Enlightenment political philosophy and economic theory. But several of these reforms lasted only briefly, falling victim to power struggles at Versailles, the kings' weakness, and the vocal opposition of groups whose interests they threatened. In the decades before 1789, the monarchy seemed incapable of sustaining a consistent policy.

So cumbrous and incoherent a system could not continue indefinitely, and in 1789 the sequence of increasingly radical government-sponsored reforms edged into revolution. By this point the crown found it difficult to finance even small successes in the competition among European states. To secure approval for new taxes, it called together a series of representative assemblies, culminating in the Estates-General of 1789. Though they believed in monarchical government, most members of the Estates from the outset demanded that radical changes be made in the country's organization. Within weeks of assembling, they had unilaterally declared themselves a National Assembly charged with creating a new constitution, and they made the king a mere executive of the nation, rather than its sovereign. Three years later, the monarchy was eliminated altogether.

The Character of Government

In 1515, France had few government officials, only one for every 4,700 inhabitants, according to one historian's estimate, but by 1665 the ratio had changed to one official for every 380 inhabitants, giving France one of the largest governments in early modern Europe. The state's massive expansion partly resulted from public demand. In the litigious world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both elites and ordinary people wanted more judges, and they wanted better control of public disorder; in response, Louis XIV established Europe's first professional police force. But the needs of royal ambition counted for more than popular demand for governmental services. The gigantic armies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries needed civilian officials to manage them, and they needed to be paid for, meaning that the number of tax officials grew as fast as the number of judges. In the seventeenth century, this effort to extract revenue merged with an additional governmental project, that of monitoring and stimulating economic activity. The idea that government should encourage economic development had circulated in the early seventeenth century, but it became especially prominent during the reign of Louis XIV, under the influence of his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. At Colbert's urging, government tax offices expanded to keep closer track of economic changes, and new officials were created specifically to inspect and encourage commercial activity. The French navy was strengthened to protect overseas trade, and direct subsidies were given to some industries. Such ideas continued to influence French officials through the eighteenth century, and they retained through 1789 a lofty view of themselves as guiding the nation's economic activity.

As the early modern period advanced, professional civil servants of this kind faced steadily less competition from other institutions. National representative assemblies, known as Estates-General, had been an important element of medieval French government, and they continued to meet frequently during the sixteenth century. But both the king and his leading officials viewed the Estates with suspicion, and after 1615 they ceased to meet. Provincial estates continued to play a role in governing some outlying regions, notably in Brittany and Languedoc, but in other regions these institutions too disappeared. Over most of the country, the French kings had established their right to levy taxes without consulting their subjects.

In some respects, this failure of French representative institutions added dramatically to the monarchy's power. But though French royal power was in some respects absolute, in other ways it faced significant limitations, many of them bound up with the character of its own civil service. Since the early sixteenth century, almost all offices in the French state had come to be articles of property, whose occupants could sell them or pass them on to their children. This system of venal office-holding was nearly unique in Europe. Probably it had originated from private bribery, but the government itself quickly began selling positions as a fundraising device. In 1522 Francis I established a bureau to sell new positions, and complicated rules were established giving the government a share in private sales. Both the government and potential buyers had an interest in the system's expansion, and expand it did. Numerous new offices were created, ranging from the loftiest judgeships to petty local positions, and individuals rushed to buy them, eager for the combination of status, power, and tax exemption they offered. Until the 1660s even this rising supply did not suffice to meet demand; office prices rose dramatically, and the most important offices cost enormous sums.

Venality complicated relations between royal officials and the king himself. Officeholders wanted to protect the value of their investments, and they reacted with hostility to royal plans that would diminish their importance or abolish outmoded positions; and they could oppose the king without risk of dismissal. Opposition was most vocal and most dangerous at the top of the official hierarchy, from the country's leading law courts. By 1789 these included fourteen parlements, appeals courts scattered across the country, each numbering dozens of judges, and about a dozen sister courts charged mainly with supervising tax collection. Though they spent much of their time deciding private litigation, the parlements also had important political and administrative functions. They regulated commerce and many other matters within their jurisdictions; more important still, new laws from the king required their formal endorsement and registration, a process that often involved contentious debates about royal policies, and that often included magistrates offering their own amendments.

As a result, politics in early modern France was marked by repeated conflicts between the central government and its own officials. Henry IV argued with the magistrates over religion and finally had to enforce their compliance with his policy of toleration for Protestants. In the next generation, struggles primarily concerned royal fiscal policy, culminating in outright rebellion—the Fronde of 1648—led by magistrates of the Parlement of Paris. After 1661, Louis XIV bullied the magistrates into submission, but in the eighteenth century they returned to opposing royal plans in matters of religion, taxation, and economic policy. Such disputes echoed far outside the government itself, for the magistrates proved adept at mobilizing public opinion in support of their views, making effective use of pamphlets to reach middle-class readers. However absolute they were in theory, French kings could never ignore alternative centers of political power. Even Louis XIV combined intimidation and negotiation in dealing with the magistrates, offering financial advantages and policy concessions to those who went along with government plans.

The Character of Society

The rising number of royal judges and officials was the most important change that French society underwent during the early modern period. By the seventeenth century, officials formed the richest group in most French cities, and they dominated urban politics and culture. At the highest levels, judges from the parlements and other important law courts shaded into the aristocracy, forming a distinctive class known as the nobility of the robe. Tensions remained with the older military nobility, the nobility of the sword, and the most distinguished families of the old nobility would not have considered placing their sons in judicial careers. But even these families often intermarried with members of the robe nobility, and farther down the social scale the merger between robe and sword nobilities was almost complete. Partly as a result, French nobles tended to leave the countryside after about 1650. Those who could afford to bought houses in Paris, Versailles, and the regional capitals, where they could enjoy an increasingly sophisticated urban life. By the later eighteenth century, observers claimed, only poor nobles resided permanently in the country; others visited their country estates only occasionally, for brief periods of rural relaxation, before returning to the pleasures of city and court. Other elements of the French bourgeoisie showed less dynamism in the period, and families often preferred the safety of official careers to the uncertainties of commerce. As a result, some of the most successful entrepreneurs in early modern France were foreigners; Italian bankers settled in sixteenth-century Lyon, making that city an important financial center, and Iberian merchants played an important role in the development of French commerce along the Atlantic seaboard. In the eighteenth century, however, French merchants became more adventurous, profiting from opportunities in the Atlantic colonial trade and investing in textile manufacturing and metallurgy. The Paris stock market was a relative latecomer, founded well after comparable institutions in Amsterdam and London, but it was a center of frenetic activity in the late eighteenth century. Even then, however, the greatest commercial fortunes tended to be associated with the state. Throughout the period, the French government desperately needed bankers who could supply loans to make up for inadequate tax receipts, and such figures increasingly took over tax collection themselves.

Because of the hesitant development of its commercial and manufacturing sectors, France remained an overwhelmingly rural society throughout the early modern period. In 1500, only thirty-two French cities had at least 10,000 inhabitants; only a dozen of these had 20,000 or more, and only three had 40,000. With a population of well over 100,000 inhabitants, Paris ranked as the largest city in northern Europe, and, as the capital of an increasingly powerful government, it expanded dramatically over the period, to about 600,000 on the eve of the Revolution. Other cities grew as well; by 1800 there were ten cities with at least 40,000 inhabitants and thirty-one with 20,000. But only a handful of commercial centers—Lyon, the Mediterranean port of Marseille, and the Atlantic ports of Bordeaux and Nantes—grew very quickly.

As a result, through 1789 at least three-fourths of French men and women lived in the countryside, in communities numbering only a few hundred residents. In settings of this kind, villagers necessarily had intimate knowledge of one another's lives, and many village institutions strengthened communal bonds. Many villages owned some communal lands, which residents could use for pasturing animals and collecting firewood, and in many regions villagers had common rights even to private land after the harvest had been collected. Religious rituals further strengthened community ties, since the village's borders followed those of the Catholic parish, and the parish church supplied the village's main public space. Bound together by so many ties, the village could form an effective political unit when its interests were threatened. The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed a wave of peasant rebellions against royal tax demands, and throughout the period villagers launched collective lawsuits against landlords and others. Despite such moments of collective action, however, the early modern village was also a deeply divided place, and divisions tended to become more serious as the period progressed. In the early sixteenth century, most French villages were dominated by a large middle class of farmers, most of whom controlled enough land to feed their families and produce a small surplus. Between 1550 and 1650, however, land came to be concentrated in very few hands as a result of multiple social pressures: population growth led families to divide parcels among their heirs; rising taxes and rents drove many middling farmers into economic difficulties; newly rich royal officials were buying up both large and small properties. By 1650, most villages were divided between a mass of impoverished agricultural laborers and a very small group of wealthy farmers.

These stark divisions within rural society were not a primary cause of the political explosions of 1789, and peasants played only marginal roles in the Revolution. But rural poverty contributed indirectly to the monarchy's collapse. At the end of the eighteenth century, France was a great power whose social problems stood in the way of its international ambitions. The men of 1789 believed that their nation required complete regeneration in order to return to greatness. The monarchy had visibly failed in the task of reconstruction; now representatives of the nation would undertake it.

Bibliography

Beik, William. Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution. Cambridge, U.K., 1997.

Benedict, Philip, ed. Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France. London, 1989.

Bloch, Marc. French Rural History: An Essay on Its Basic Characteristics. Translated by Janet Sondeimer. Berkeley, 1966.

Bluche, François. Louis XIV. Translated by Mark Greengrass. Oxford, 1990.

Briggs, Robin. Communities of Belief: Cultural and Social Tensions in Early Modern France. Oxford, 1989.

Collins, James. The State in Early Modern France. Cambridge, U.K., 1995.

Davis, Natalie Zemon. Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays. Stanford, 1975.

Doyle, William, ed. Old Regime France. Oxford, 2001.

Holt, Mack P., ed. Renaissance and Reformation France. Oxford, 2002.

Kelley, Donald R. The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation. Cambridge, U.K., 1981.

Kettering, Sharon. French Society, 1589–1715. Harlow, U.K., 2001.

Knecht, R. J. Francis I. Cambridge, U.K., 1982.

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The French Peasantry, 1450–1660. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Berkeley and London, 1987.

Maza, Sara. Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France. Berkeley and London, 1993.

Moote, A. Lloyd. Louis XIII the Just. Berkeley and London, 1989.

Ranum, Orest. The Fronde: A French Revolution, 1648–1652. New York, 1993.

——. Paris in the Age of Absolutism. New York, 1968.

Roche, Daniel. The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley and London, 1987.

Schneider, Robert. Public Life in Toulouse, 1463–1789: From Municipal Republic to Cosmopolitan City. Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1989.

Van Kley, Dale. The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791. New Haven and London, 1996.

—JONATHAN DEWALD

Nation in Europe bordered by Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany, Switzerland, and Italy to the east; the Mediterranean Sea and Spain to the south; and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its capital and largest city is Paris.

• During the reign of Louis XIV (1653-1715), France was a principal world power and cultural center of Europe.
• The French Revolution, organized by leaders of the middle class and lower class, brought about an end to the French absolute monarchy and forged a transition from feudalism to the industrial era. A bloody and chaotic period, the Revolution helped lay the foundations of modern political philosophy and ultimately engulfed much of Europe in the Napoleonic Wars. (See Napoleon Bonaparte.)
• In the French and Indian War in the 1750s, the British and colonial forces drove the French from Canada and the region of the Great Lakes.
• In World War I, France was one of the Allies; much of that war was fought on French soil.
• In World War II, France's military resistance to the German army collapsed in the spring of 1940. Germans occupied much of France from 1940 to 1944. In 1944, the Allies invaded France, along with French troops, and drove the Germans out of France, finally defeating them in 1945.
• France is known for its wine, cheese, and cooking.

The international dialing code for France is:   33

Local Time: Jul 5, 7:33 AM

France - Euro

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Introduction

Background:

Although ultimately a victor in World Wars I and II, France suffered extensive losses in its empire, wealth, manpower, and rank as a dominant nation-state. Nevertheless, France today is one of the most modern countries in the world and is a leader among European nations. Since 1958, it has constructed a presidential democracy resistant to the instabilities experienced in earlier parliamentary democracies. In recent years, its reconciliation and cooperation with Germany have proved central to the economic integration of Europe, including the introduction of a common exchange currency, the euro, in January 1999. At present, France is at the forefront of efforts to develop the EU's military capabilities to supplement progress toward an EU foreign policy.

Geography

Location:	metropolitan France: Western Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay and English Channel, between Belgium and Spain, southeast of the UK; bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and Spain French Guiana: Northern South America, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Brazil and Suriname Guadeloupe: Caribbean, islands between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Puerto Rico Martinique: Caribbean, island between the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean, north of Trinidad and Tobago Reunion: Southern Africa, island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar
Geographic coordinates:	metropolitan France: 46 00 N, 2 00 E French Guiana: 4 00 N, 53 00 W Guadeloupe: 16 15 N, 61 35 W Martinique: 14 40 N, 61 00 W Reunion: 21 06 S, 55 36 E
Map references:	metropolitan France: Europe French Guiana: South America Guadeloupe: Central America and the Caribbean Martinique: Central America and the Caribbean Reunion: World
Area:	total: 643,427 sq km; 547,030 sq km (metropolitan France) land: 640,053 sq km; 545,630 sq km (metropolitan France) water: 3,374 sq km; 1,400 sq km (metropolitan France) note: the first numbers include the overseas regions of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion
Area - comparative:	slightly less than the size of Texas
Land boundaries:	metropolitan France - total: 2,889 km border countries: Andorra 56.6 km, Belgium 620 km, Germany 451 km, Italy 488 km, Luxembourg 73 km, Monaco 4.4 km, Spain 623 km, Switzerland 573 km French Guiana - total: 1,183 km border countries: Brazil 673 km, Suriname 510 km Saint Martin - total: 10.2 km border countries: Netherlands Antilles (Sint Maarten) 10.2 km
Coastline:	total: 4,668 km metropolitan France: 3,427 km
Maritime claims:	territorial sea: 12 nm contiguous zone: 24 nm exclusive economic zone: 200 nm (does not apply to the Mediterranean) continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation
Climate:	metropolitan France: generally cool winters and mild summers, but mild winters and hot summers along the Mediterranean; occasional strong, cold, dry, north-to-northwesterly wind known as mistral French Guiana: tropical; hot, humid; little seasonal temperature variation Guadeloupe and Martinique: subtropical tempered by trade winds; moderately high humidity; rainy season (June to October); vulnerable to devastating cyclones (hurricanes) every eight years on average Reunion: tropical, but temperature moderates with elevation; cool and dry (May to November), hot and rainy (November to April)
Terrain:	metropolitan France: mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in north and west; remainder is mountainous, especially Pyrenees in south, Alps in east French Guiana: low-lying coastal plains rising to hills and small mountains Guadeloupe: Basse-Terre is volcanic in origin with interior mountains; Grande-Terre is low limestone formation; most of the seven other islands are volcanic in origin Martinique: mountainous with indented coastline; dormant volcano Reunion: mostly rugged and mountainous; fertile lowlands along coast
Elevation extremes:	lowest point: Rhone River delta -2 m highest point: Mont Blanc 4,807 m
Natural resources:	metropolitan France: coal, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, uranium, antimony, arsenic, potash, feldspar, fluorspar, gypsum, timber, fish French Guiana: gold deposits, petroleum, kaolin, niobium, tantalum, clay
Land use:	arable land: 33.46% permanent crops: 2.03% other: 64.51% note: French Guiana - arable land 0.13%, permanent crops 0.04%, other 99.83% (90% forest, 10% other); Guadeloupe - arable land 11.70%, permanent crops 2.92%, other 85.38%; Martinique - arable land 9.09%, permanent crops 10.0%, other 80.91%; Reunion - arable land 13.94%, permanent crops 1.59%, other 84.47% (2005)
Irrigated land:	total: 26,190 sq km; metropolitan France: 26,000 sq km (2003)
Natural hazards:	metropolitan France: flooding; avalanches; midwinter windstorms; drought; forest fires in south near the Mediterranean overseas departments: hurricanes (cyclones), flooding, volcanic activity (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion)
Environment - current issues:	some forest damage from acid rain; air pollution from industrial and vehicle emissions; water pollution from urban wastes, agricultural runoff
Environment - international agreements:	party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulfur 85, Air Pollution-Sulfur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:	largest West European nation

People

Population:	total: 63,713,926 note: 60,876,136 in metropolitan France (July 2007 est.)
Age structure:	0-14 years: 18.6% (male 6,063,181/female 5,776,272) 15-64 years: 65.2% (male 20,798,889/female 20,763,283) 65 years and over: 16.2% (male 4,274,290/female 6,038,011) (2007 est.)
Median age:	total: 39 years male: 37.5 years female: 40.4 years (2007 est.)
Population growth rate:	0.588% (2007 est.)
Birth rate:	12.91 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate:	8.55 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Net migration rate:	1.52 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Sex ratio:	at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.002 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.708 male(s)/female total population: 0.956 male(s)/female (2007 est.)
Infant mortality rate:	total: 3.41 deaths/1,000 live births male: 3.76 deaths/1,000 live births female: 3.04 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:	total population: 80.59 years male: 77.35 years female: 84 years (2007 est.)
Total fertility rate:	1.98 children born/woman (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:	0.4% (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:	120,000 (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:	less than 1,000 (2003 est.)
Nationality:	noun: Frenchman(men), Frenchwoman(women) adjective: French
Ethnic groups:	Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, Basque minorities overseas departments: black, white, mulatto, East Indian, Chinese, Amerindian
Religions:	Roman Catholic 83%-88%, Protestant 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 5%-10%, unaffiliated 4% overseas departments: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, pagan
Languages:	French 100%, rapidly declining regional dialects and languages (Provencal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Flemish) overseas departments: French, Creole patois
Literacy:	definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 99% male: 99% female: 99% (2003 est.)

Government

Country name:	conventional long form: French Republic conventional short form: France local long form: Republique francaise local short form: France
Government type:	republic
Capital:	name: Paris geographic coordinates: 48 52 N, 2 20 E time difference: UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) daylight saving time: +1hr, begins last Sunday in March; ends last Sunday in October
Administrative divisions:	26 regions (regions, singular - region); Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Basse-Normandie (Lower Normandy), Bourgogne, Bretagne (Brittany), Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Corse (Corsica), Franche-Comte, Guadeloupe, Guyane (French Guiana), Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy), Ile-de-France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Lorraine, Martinique, Reunion, Midi-Pyrenees, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Pays de la Loire, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Rhone-Alpes note: France is divided into 22 metropolitan regions (including the "territorial collectivity" of Corse or Corsica) and 4 overseas regions (including French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion) and is subdivided into 96 metropolitan departments and 4 overseas departments (which are the same as the overseas regions)
Dependent areas:	Bassas da India, Clipperton Island, Europa Island, French Polynesia, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Glorioso Islands, Juan de Nova Island, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Tromelin Island, Wallis and Futuna note: the US does not recognize claims to Antarctica; New Caledonia has been considered a "sui generis" collectivity of France since 1999, a unique status falling between that of an independent country and a French overseas department
Independence:	486 (Frankish tribes unified); 843 (Western Francia established from the division of the Carolingian Empire)
National holiday:	Fete de la Federation, 14 July (1790); note - although often incorrectly referred to as Bastille Day, the celebration actually commemorates the holiday held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (on 14 July 1789) and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy; other names for the holiday are Fete Nationale (National Holiday) and quatorze juillet (14th of July)
Constitution:	adopted by referendum 28 September 1958, effective 4 October 1958 note: amended concerning election of president in 1962; amended to comply with provisions of 1992 EC Maastricht Treaty, 1996 Amsterdam Treaty, 2000 Treaty of Nice; amended to tighten immigration laws in 1993; amended in 2000 to change the seven-year presidential term to a five-year term; amended in 2005 to make the EU constitutional treaty compatible with the Constitution of France and to ensure that the decision to ratify EU accession treaties would be made by referendum
Legal system:	civil law system with indigenous concepts; review of administrative but not legislative acts; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Suffrage:	18 years of age; universal
Executive branch:	chief of state: President Nicolas SARKOZY (since 16 May 2007) head of government: Prime Minister Francois FILLON (since 17 May 2007) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president at the suggestion of the prime minister elections: president elected by popular vote for a five-year term (changed from seven-year term in October 2000); election last held 22 April and 6 May 2007 (next to be held spring 2012); prime minister nominated by the National Assembly majority and appointed by the president election results: Nicolas SARKOZY wins the election; First Round: percent of vote - Nicolas SARKOZY 31.18%, Segolene ROYAL 25.87%, Francois BAYROU 18.57%, Jean-Marie LE PEN 10.44%, others 13.94%; Second Round: SARKOZY 53.1% and ROYAL 46.9%
Legislative branch:	bicameral Parliament or Parlement consists of the Senate or Senat (331 seats, 305 for metropolitan France, 9 for overseas departments, 5 for dependencies, and 12 for French nationals abroad; members are indirectly elected by an electoral college to serve nine-year terms; one third elected every three years); note - between 2006 and 2010, 15 new seats will be added to the Senate for a total of 346 seats - 326 for metropolitan France and overseas departments, 2 for New Caledonia, 2 for Mayotte, 1 for Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, 3 for overseas territories, and 12 for French nationals abroad; starting in 2008, members will be indirectly elected by an electoral college to serve six-year terms, with one-half elected every three years; and the National Assembly or Assemblee Nationale (577 seats, 555 for metropolitan France, 15 for overseas departments, 7 for dependencies; members are elected by popular vote under a single-member majority system to serve five-year terms) elections: Senate - last held 26 September 2004 (next to be held in September 2008); National Assembly - last held 10 and 17 June 2007 (next to be held on June 2012) election results: Senate - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - UMP 156, PS 97, UDF 33, PCF 23, RDSE 15, other 7; National Assembly - percent of vote by party - UMP 46.37%, PS 42.25%, miscellaneous left wing parties 2.47%, PCF 2.28%, NC 2.12%, PRG 1.65%, miscellaneous right wing parties 1.17%, the Greens 0.45, other 1.24%; seats by party - UMP 313, PS 186, NC 22, miscellaneous left wing parties 15, PCF 15, miscellaneous right wing parties 9, PRG 7, the Greens 4, other 6
Judicial branch:	Supreme Court of Appeals or Cour de Cassation (judges are appointed by the president from nominations of the High Council of the Judiciary); Constitutional Council or Conseil Constitutionnel (three members appointed by the president, three appointed by the president of the National Assembly, and three appointed by the president of the Senate); Council of State or Conseil d'Etat
Political parties and leaders:	Citizen and Republican Movement or MRC [Jean Pierre CHEVENEMENT]; Democratic and European Social Rally or RDSE [Jacques PELLETIER] (mainly Radical Republican and Socialist Parties, and PRG); French Communist Party or PCF [Marie-George BUFFET]; Greens [Yann WEHRLING]; Left Radical Party or PRG [Jean-Michel BAYLET] (previously Radical Socialist Party or PRS and the Left Radical Movement or MRG); Movement for France or MPF [Philippe DE VILLIERS]; National Front or FN [Jean-Marie LE PEN]; New Center of NC [Herve MORIN]; Rally for France or RPF [Charles PASQUA]; Socialist Party or PS [Francois HOLLANDE]; Union for French Democracy or UDF [Francois BAYROU]; Union for a Popular Movement or UMP [Nicolas SARKOZY]; Radical Party [Jean-Louis BORLOO]
Political pressure groups and leaders:	historically-Communist labor union (Confederation Generale du Travail) or CGT, approximately 700,000 members (claimed); left-leaning labor union (Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail) or CFDT, approximately 889,000 members (claimed); independent labor union (Confederation Generale du Travail - Force Ouvriere) or FO, 300,000 members (est.); independent white-collar union (Confederation Generale des Cadres) or CGC, 196,000 members (claimed); employers' union (Mouvement des Entreprises de France) or MEDEF, 750,000 companies as members (claimed) French Guiana: NA Guadeloupe: Christian Movement for the Liberation of Guadeloupe or KLPG; General Federation of Guadeloupe Workers or CGT-G; General Union of Guadeloupe Workers or UGTG; Movement of Independent Guadeloupe or MPGI; The Socialist Renewal Movement Martinique: Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance or ARC; Central Union for Martinique Workers or CSTM [Marc PULVAR]; Frantz Fanon Circle; League of Workers and Peasants; Proletarian Action Group or GAP Reunion: NA
International organization participation:	ABEDA, ACCT, AfDB, Arctic Council (observer), AsDB, Australia Group, BDEAC, BIS, BSEC (observer), CBSS (observer), CE, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, EIB, EMU, ESA, EU, FAO, FZ, G- 5, G- 7, G- 8, G-10, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IFTU, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, InOC, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, MIGA, MINURSO, MINUSTAH, MONUC, NATO, NEA, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OIF, OPCW, OSCE, Paris Club, PCA, PIF (partner), Schengen Convention, SECI (observer), SPC, UN, UN Security Council, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNIFIL, Union Latina, UNITAR, UNMEE, UNMIL, UNMOVIC, UNOCI, UNOMIG, UNRWA, UNTSO, UNWTO, UPU, WADB (nonregional), WCL, WCO, WEU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, ZC
Diplomatic representation in the US:	chief of mission: Ambassador Pierre VIMONT chancery: 4101 Reservoir Road NW, Washington, DC 20007 telephone: [1] (202) 944-6000 FAX: [1] (202) 944-6166 consulate(s) general: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco
Diplomatic representation from the US:	chief of mission: Ambassador Craig R. STAPLETON embassy: 2 Avenue Gabriel, 75382 Paris Cedex 08 mailing address: PSC 116, APO AE 09777 telephone: [33] (1) 43-12-22-22 FAX: [33] (1) 42 66 97 83 consulate(s) general: Marseille, Strasbourg
Flag description:	three equal vertical bands of blue (hoist side), white, and red; known as the "Le drapeau tricolore" (French Tricolor), the origin of the flag dates to 1790 and the French Revolution; the design and/or colors are similar to a number of other flags, including those of Belgium, Chad, Ireland, Cote d'Ivoire, Luxembourg, and Netherlands; the official flag for all French dependent areas

Economy

Economy - overview:	France is in the midst of transition from a well-to-do modern economy that has featured extensive government ownership and intervention to one that relies more on market mechanisms. The government has partially or fully privatized many large companies, banks, and insurers, and has ceded stakes in such leading firms as Air France, France Telecom, Renault, and Thales. It maintains a strong presence in some sectors, particularly power, public transport, and defense industries. The telecommunications sector is gradually being opened to competition. France's leaders remain committed to a capitalism in which they maintain social equity by means of laws, tax policies, and social spending that reduce income disparity and the impact of free markets on public health and welfare. The government in 2006 focused on introducing measures that attempt to boost employment through increased labor market flexibility; however, the population has remained opposed to labor reforms, hampering the government's ability to revitalize the economy. The tax burden remains one of the highest in Europe (nearly 50% of GDP in 2005). The lingering economic slowdown and inflexible budget items probably pushed the budget deficit above the eurozone's 3%-of-GDP limit in 2006; unemployment hovers near 9%. With at least 75 million foreign tourists per year, France is the most visited country in the world and maintains the third largest income in the world from tourism.
GDP (purchasing power parity):	$1.902 trillion (2006 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate):	$2.151 trillion (2006 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:	2.2% (2006 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:	agriculture: 2% industry: 20.7% services: 77.2% (2006 est.)
Labor force:	27.75 million (2006 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:	agriculture: 4.1% industry: 24.4% services: 71.5% (1999)
Unemployment rate:	8.7% (2006 est.)
Population below poverty line:	6.2% (2004)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:	lowest 10%: 3% highest 10%: 24.8% (2004)
Distribution of family income - Gini index:	26.7 (2002)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):	1.7% (2006 est.)
Investment (gross fixed):	20.5% of GDP (2006 est.)
Budget:	revenues: $1.152 trillion expenditures: $1.211 trillion (2006 est.)
Public debt:	64.2% of GDP (2006 est.)
Agriculture - products:	wheat, cereals, sugar beets, potatoes, wine grapes; beef, dairy products; fish
Industries:	machinery, chemicals, automobiles, metallurgy, aircraft, electronics; textiles, food processing; tourism
Industrial production growth rate:	0.2% (2006 est.)
Electricity - production:	543.6 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - consumption:	451.5 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - exports:	68.33 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - imports:	8.035 billion kWh (2005)
Oil - production:	73,500 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - consumption:	1.97 million bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - exports:	474,200 bbl/day (2005)
Oil - imports:	1.89 million bbl/day (2005)
Oil - proved reserves:	159 million bbl (1 January 2006)
Current account balance:	$-28.32 billion (2006 est.)
Exports:	$483.1 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Exports - commodities:	machinery and transportation equipment, aircraft, plastics, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, iron and steel, beverages
Exports - partners:	Germany 15.6%, Spain 9.6%, Italy 8.9%, UK 8.2%, Belgium 7.2%, US 6.7%, Netherlands 4% (2006)
Imports:	$520.8 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Imports - commodities:	machinery and equipment, vehicles, crude oil, aircraft, plastics, chemicals
Imports - partners:	Germany 19%, Belgium 11%, Italy 8.3%, Spain 7%, Netherlands 6.7%, UK 6.5%, US 4.6% (2006)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:	$98.24 billion (2006 est.)
Debt - external:	$3.461 trillion (30 June 2006)
Economic aid - donor:	ODA, $10.1 billion (2006)
Currency (code):	euro (EUR) note: on 1 January 1999, the European Monetary Union introduced the euro as a common currency to be used by financial institutions of member countries; on 1 January 2002, the euro became the sole currency for everyday transactions within the member countries
Exchange rates:	euros per US dollar - 0.7964 (2006), 0.8041 (2005), 0.8054 (2004), 0.886 (2003), 1.0626 (2002)
Fiscal year:	calendar year

Transportation

Airports:	476 (2007)
Airports - with paved runways:	total: 292 over 3,047 m: 14 2,438 to 3,047 m: 27 1,524 to 2,437 m: 97 914 to 1,523 m: 80 under 914 m: 74 (2007)
Airports - with unpaved runways:	total: 184 1,524 to 2,437 m: 4 914 to 1,523 m: 72 under 914 m: 108 (2007)
Heliports:	3 (2007)
Pipelines:	gas 14,588 km; oil 3,024 km; refined products 4,889 km (2006)
Railways:	total: 29,370 km standard gauge: 29,203 km 1.435-m gauge (14,778 km electrified) narrow gauge: 167 km 1.000-m gauge (2006)
Roadways:	total: 956,303 km (includes 5,083 km of roads in the overseas departments) paved: 951,220 km (metropolitan France; including 10,490 km of expressways) (2004)
Waterways:	metropolitan France: 8,500 km (1,686 km accessible to craft of 3,000 metric tons) French Guiana: 3,760 km (460 km navigable by small oceangoing vessels and coastal and river steamers, 3,300 km by native craft) (2006)
Merchant marine:	total: 141 ships (1000 GRT or over) 5,777,107 GRT/7,533,631 DWT by type: bulk carrier 2, cargo 1, chemical tanker 31, container 25, liquefied gas 14, passenger 3, passenger/cargo 32, petroleum tanker 22, roll on/roll off 7, vehicle carrier 4 foreign-owned: 56 (Belgium 6, China 5, Denmark 3, Germany 1, Italy 2, Japan 5, Norway 17, NZ 1, Saudi Arabia 1, Singapore 2, Sweden 10, Switzerland 3) registered in other countries: 145 (Antigua and Barbuda 1, Australia 1, Bahamas 43, Belgium 1, Bermuda 1, Cameroon 1, Gibraltar 1, Hong Kong 1, Indonesia 1, Isle of Man 2, Italy 5, South Korea 8, Liberia 5, Luxembourg 14, Malta 4, Morocco 13, Netherlands 1, Norway 3, Panama 15, Singapore 1, St Vincent and The Grenadines 7, Taiwan 1, UK 9, Wallis and Futuna 6) (2007)
Ports and terminals:	Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe), Bordeaux, Calais, Degrad de Cannes (French Guiana), Dunkerque, Fort-de-France (Martinique), La Pallice, La Trinite (Martinique), Le Havre, Le Port (Reunion), Marin (Martinique), Marseille, Nantes, Paris, Pointe-a-Pitre (Guadeloupe), Rouen, Strasbourg

Military

Military branches:	Army (includes marines, Foreign Legion, light aviation), Navy (includes naval air), Air Force (includes air defense), National Gendarmerie
Military service age and obligation:	17 years of age for voluntary military service; conscription ended in 1996; women serve in noncombat military posts (2005)
Manpower available for military service:	males age 17-49: 13,676,509 females age 17-49: 13,504,539 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service:	males age 17-49: 11,262,661 females age 17-49: 11,079,472 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military service age annually:	males age 17-49: 389,204 females age 17-49: 372,719 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:	2.6% (2005 est.)

Transnational Issues

Disputes - international:

Madagascar claims the French territories of Bassas da India, Europa Island, Glorioso Islands, and Juan de Nova Island; Comoros claims Mayotte; Mauritius claims Tromelin Island; territorial dispute between Suriname and the French overseas department of French Guiana; France asserts a territorial claim in Antarctica (Adelie Land); France and Vanuatu claim Matthew and Hunter Islands, east of New Caledonia

Illicit drugs:

metropolitan France: transshipment point for South American cocaine, Southwest Asian heroin, and European synthetics French Guiana: small amount of marijuana grown for local consumption; minor transshipment point to Europe Martinique: transshipment point for cocaine and marijuana bound for the US and Europe

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Recipes

Baguette (French Bread)
Baguette Sandwich
Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée (Onion Soup)
Croque-Monsieur (Ham and Cheese Sandwich)
Quiche au Saumon et Crevettes (Quiche)
Mousse au Chocolat (Chocolate Mousse)
Fromage (Cheese Board)
Bûche de Noël (Yule Log)
La Galette des Rois (King's Cake)

Geographic Setting and Environment

France is the second-largest country in Europe (after Russia). Much of the country is surrounded by mountains. The highest mountain, Mount Blanc, is near France's border with Italy. The climate and soil of France create good conditions for farming. Although only four percent of the French people earn their living from farming, the country is self-sufficient when it comes to growing its own food.

History and Food

The French have always been proud of their sophisticated way of cooking. Fertile soil provides fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, grains, and meat, nearly year-round. The soil is also suitable for growing grapes, which are used for making some of the finest wines in the world. Food and alcohol play important roles in French society—the way a person eats often reflects their French heritage, region of birth, social status, and health.

During the reign of Louis XIV (1661–1715), the nobility (upper class citizens) would hold twelve-hour feasts with over ten different dishes served. The presentation of the food was just as important as the taste and quality of the ingredients. Such elaborate feasts were too expensive and required too much time for the common people to prepare for themselves, but others were also able to enjoy exotic foods and spices, such as the kumquat fruit and yellow saffron, brought back from Africa and Asia by explorers. These foods were quickly incorporated into the French diet.

Foods of the French

The baguette, a long, thin loaf of crusty bread, is the most important part of any French meal. Everyone at the table is expected to eat a piece. It is eaten in a variety of ways, including being used to make sandwiches. Melted cheese spread on a baguette is often presented as part of a meal. A meal of grilled food (called la raclette) is sometimes served. Using an open grill, diners melt their own cheese with ham or beef slices, or fry their own egg. The grilled food is accompanied by potatoes. Sometimes diners spear pieces of bread on long-handled forks, and dip the bread into a pot full of melted cheese called la fondue.

The regions of France have varying cuisine: in Brittany (northwestern France), the main dish is crêpes (thin pancakes) with cider; and in the Alsace region (eastern France near Germany), a popular dish is cabbage with pieces of sausage, called la choucroute. The French from the Loire River Valley eat a special dish made of the Lotte fish that can only be found in the Loire River. On the coasts of France seafood is plentiful, including mussels, clams, oysters, shrimp, and squid. The French enjoy escargots (snails) cooked with garlic and butter, roast duck, and rabbit.

See Baguette (French Bread) recipe.

See Baguette Sandwich recipe.

See Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée (Onion Soup) recipe.

See Croque-Monsieur (Ham and Cheese Sandwich) recipe.

See Quiche au Saumon et Crevettes (Salmon and Shrimp Quiche) recipe.

See Mousse au Chocolat (Chocolate Mousse) recipe.

Food for Religious and Holiday Celebrations

Major French holidays include Christmas (December 25), New Year's Day (January 1), and Bastille Day (July 14). On Bastille Day, named for the prison that citizens stormed on July 14, 1789, the French celebrate their liberation (freedom) from the monarchy and the beginning of their Republic. There are fireworks, dances, and parties with picnics. Picnics almost always include fromage (cheese), such as Camembert, brie, chevre (goat's milk cheese), or Roquefort.

See Fromage (Cheese Board) recipe.

See Bûche de Noël (Yule Log) recipe.

See La Galette des Rois (King's Cake) recipe.

Mealtime Customs

When entertaining at home, the hosts pride themselves on making mealtime a memorable and positive experience. For everyday lunches and dinners, four courses are typically served: salad, main dish with meat, cheese with bread, and dessert. Bread and water are always served. Special occasions include even more courses such as an appetizer of savory pastries, or other finger foods. This is normally served with an alcoholic beverage, often French wine. Several bottles of wine may be served with the meal. Coffee is also served.

Restaurants in France are generally more formal than those in the United States. It is expected that patrons are there to have a full meal. Wine is ordered by the half or full carafe (a glass container). Waiters are rarely tipped because a fee for service is added to the bill for the meal. Eating out is a social occasion, and is a leisurely activity. It is considered rude to ask to have leftover food wrapped to be taken home. Several fast food restaurants such as Quick (a French version of McDonald's), and Pizza Hut are available. Sidewalk vendors and cafés or local boulangeries (bakeries) also offer quick.

The typical eating habits of the French include three meals a day, with tea served at 4 p.m. Breakfast often includes a fresh baguette and buttery croissants, sometimes filled with chocolate or almond paste. Coffee, café, is usually very strong; café au lait is coffee served with hot milk. Fresh fruit and yogurt are also common at breakfast. Lunch is the main meal of the day and takes more time to eat than the typical lunch in the United States. For this reason, many businesses are closed between 12 noon and 2 p.m. A school lunch might consist of a baguette filled with cheese, butter, meat, lettuce, and tomato. Dinner usually takes place after eight at night.

Politics, Economics, and Nutrition

The diet of the French people is generally considered healthy, and most citizens receive adequate nutrition. In 2001 the countries of Europe experienced outbreaks of two diseases, "mad cow disease" and "hoof and mouth disease" that affected the cattle and sheep herds. Many countries enacted laws and regulations restricting the import and export of meat during that period, until the diseases could be brought under control. In France, there have been protests at some fast food restaurants in an attempt to drive them out of the country to keep the traditional quality of French food and the French lifestyle.

Further Study

Books

Denny, Roz. A Taste of France. New York: Thompson Learning, 1994.

Fisher, Teresa. France. Austin: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1999.

Langer, William L. An Encyclopedia of World History. 5^th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Loewen, Nancey. Food in France. Vero Beach: Rourke Publications, 1991.

Web Sites

French Food and Cook. [Online] Available http://www.ffcook.com (accessed July 24, 2001).

French Information Center. [Online] Available http://www.france.com (accessed July 24, 2001).

Recipe Source. [Online] Available http://www.recipesource.com/ethnic/europe/french/ (accessed July 24, 2001).

Films

Babette's Feast. Rated G. (1987) This film is set in France in the late 1800s. During an uprising, a French chef named Babette is exiled to Denmark where she becomes maid and cook for two sisters. Babette spends years making simple meals for the sisters until one day she wins the French lottery. Babette uses her winnings to prepare an extravagant seven-course French meal for the sisters and ten other community members. The film depicts the lavish feast in detail, including the food preparation and consumption.

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Early Belief in Sorcery

According to occultist Éliphas Lévi, the practice of magic in pre-Roman France originated with the Druids and was nearly identical to that of the Draids in Britain, from which it derived. It is unlikely that Roman magic gained any footing in Gaul, but there is little evidence of whether this was or was not the case.

In his book The History of Magic (1913), Lévi states that in the early Frankish period of the Merovingian dynasty, Fredegond, wife of Hilperic, king of Soissons, destroyed many people apparently through sorcery, or malevolent magic. She also experimented with black magic, the calling up of spirit entities, and protected many practitioners of the art, Lévi says. On one occasion, she saved a sorceress who had been arrested by Ageric, bishop of Verdun, by hiding her in the palace.

The practice of magic was not punished under the rule of the early French kings, except on those occasions when (usually through poisonings) it intruded into the royal caste and thus became a political offense, as in the case of the military leader Mummol, who was tortured by command of Hilperic for sorcery. One of the Salic laws attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert stated: "If any one shall testify that another had acted as hèrèburge or strioporte [titles applied to those who carry the copper vessel to the spot where the vampires perform their enchantments] and if he fail to convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500 deniers, being 180 1/2 sous…. If a vampire shall devour a man and be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8,000 deniers, being 200 sous."

The Christian church also legislated against sorcerers and vampires, and the Council of Agde in Languedoc, held in 506C.E., pronounced excommunication against them. The first Council of Orleans, convened in 541, condemned divination and augury. The Council of Narbonne, in 589, excommunicated all sorcerers and ordained that they be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor. Those who allegedly had dealings with the devil were condemned to whipping.

Some extraordinary phenomena are said to have occurred in France during the reign of Pepin le Bref (714?-768): the air seemed to be alive with human shapes, mirages filled the heavens, and sorcerers were seen among the clouds, scattering powders and poisons with open hands. Crops failed, cattle died, and many people perished. Such visions may have been stimulated by the teachings of the famous Kabbalist Zedekias. He presided over a school of occult science, where he withheld the secrets of his art and contented himself with postulating his ideas about elemental spirits. The spirits he stated, had been subservient to him before the fall of man. The aforementioned visions might have been caused by mass belief that sylphs and salamanders were descending in search of their former masters. Lévi wrote as follows: "Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked of on all sides as we talk at the present day of animated tables and fluidic manifestations. The folly took possession even of strong minds, and it was time for an intervention on the part of the church, which does not relish the supernatural being hawked in the public streets, seeing that such disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to authority and to the hierarchic chain of instruction, cannot be attributed to the spirit of order and light. The cloud phantoms were therefore arraigned and accused of being hell-born illusions, while the people—anxious to get something into their hands—began a crusade against sorcerers. The public folly turned into a paroxysm of mania; strangers in country places were accused of descending from heaven and were killed without mercy; imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs or demons; others who had boasted like this previously either would not or could not unsay it; they were burned or drowned, and, according to Garinet, the number who perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds belief. It is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first parts are played by ignorance or fear.

"Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns following, and all the power of Charlemagne was put in action to calm the public agitation. An edict, afterwards renewed by Louis the Pious, forbade sylphs to manifest under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that in the absence of the aerial beings the judgments fell upon those who had made a boast of having seen them, and hence they ceased to be seen. The ships in air sailed back to the port of oblivion, and no one claimed any longer to have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic splendors of the great reign of Charlemagne furnished the makers of legends with new prodigies to believe and new marvels to relate."

Mysterious legends grew around the figure of Charlemagne. It was said that the Enchiridion of Pope Leo III, a collection of written magic charms, was presented to Charlemagne. Lévi illustrates the condition of affairs in Charlemagne's France: "We know that superstitions die hard and that degenerated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage lands of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons testified to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent, and (b) incapable of repression by moral force alone. All defeated forms of worship— Roman paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour— conspired against victorious Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place; thereat the conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of human victims; and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat, presided over festivals which might be called agapœ of hatred. In a word, the Sabbat was still celebrated in every forest and wild if yet unreclaimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were masked and otherwise unrecognisable; the assemblies extinguished their lights and broke up before daybreak, the guilty were to be found everywhere, and they could be brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore that Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own weapons.

"In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league with sectarians against lawful authority; female sorcerers were attached to castles as courtesans; bandits who frequented the Sabbats divided with nobles the bloodstained loot of rapine; feudal courts were at the command of the highest bidder; and the public burdens weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor. The evil was at its height in Westphalia, and faithful agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted with a secret mission. Whatsoever energy remained among the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice, whether among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by these emissaries together, bound by pledges and vigilance in common. To the initiates thus incorporated they made known the full powers which they carried from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal of Free Judges."

Lévi's observations must be taken with a grain of salt, however. It is unlikely that the Sabbat was celebrated to such an extreme. Also, the Vehmgericht was founded 450 years after Charlemagne's reign.

From the reign of Robert the Pious to that of St. Louis (1215-70), there is not much to stimulate the student of occult history. In St. Louis's time flourished the famous Rabbi Jachiel, a celebrated master of the Kabbalah. There is some reason to believe that he possessed electricity, because a radiant star was said to appear in his home at night, the light so brilliant that no one could look at it without being dazzled, and it gave off rainbow colors. It appeared to be inexhaustible and was never replenished with oil or any other combustible substance. When the rabbi was annoyed by intruders at his door he struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing a blue spark on the head of the nail and on the door-knocker, to which, if the intruder clung, he received a severe shock.

German scholar and scientist Albertus Magnus lived during the same period.

The twelfth century had seen the founding of the Knights Templars of the Temple of Solomon, a French-based religious order of military men dedicated to protecting pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. The order prospered until its prosecution by Philip the Fair (1268-1314), who accused the order of various occult crimes, including the worship of the devil in the form of the idol, Baphomet. Another prosecution for sorcery was that of the sadistic Gilles de Laval (1404-40), lord of Rais, the prototype of Bluebeard. Laval was a renowned sorcerer who, with two assistants, practiced diabolical rites at his castle of Machecoul, celebrating the black mass in an alarming manner. He slaughtered children as part of a ritual he hoped would assist him in his search for the philosophers' stone. Jeanne d'Arc, under whom Gilles had fought at the siege of Orleáns, was suspected of sorcery but was actually condemned as a heretic.

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

As early as the thirteenth century, a charge of sorcery was made as a means of branding the Waldenses, who were accused of selling themselves to the devil and of holding sabbatical orgies. About the middle of the fifteenth century France began to oppress suspected sorcerers.

In 1315 Enguerraud de Marigny, a minister of Philip the Fair who had conducted the execution of the Templars, was hung along with an adventurer named Paviot for attempting to kill the counts of Valois and St. Paul. In 1334 the countess of Artois and her son were thrown into prison on suspicion of sorcery.

In 1393, during the reign of Charles VI, his sister-in-law, the duchess of Orleans, who was the daughter of the Duke of Milan, was accused of driving the king mad by sorcery. The ministers of the court resolved to pit a magician against her, and a certain Arnaud Guillaume was brought from Guienne as a suitable adversary to the noble lady. He possessed a book Smagorad, and said the original was given to Adam by God to console him for the loss of his son Abel. Guillaume claimed that the possessor of this volume could hold the stars in subjection and command the four elements. He assured the king's advisers that Charles was suffering because of a sorcerer's malice but in the meantime the young monarch recovered, and Gillaume fell back into his original obscurity.

Five years later the king had another attack, and two Augustine friars were sent from Guienne to cure him. But their conduct was so outrageous that they were executed.

A third attack in 1403 was combated by two sorcerers of Dijon. They established themselves in a thick wood near the gates of Dijon, where they made a magic circle of iron that was supported by iron columns the height of an average man, to which 12 chains of iron were attached. The King's subjects were so anxious for his recovery that the two sorcerers were able to persuade 12 of the town's principal persons to enter the circle and allow themselves to be chained. The sorcerers then proceeded with their incantations, but without result. They were arrested and burned for their pretenses.

After the duke of Burgundy ordered the duke of Orleans murdered, he attempted to justify his crime by alleging that the dead duke had attempted to kill him by means of sorcery.

Witchcraft Persecutions

By the year 1400 belief in the nightly meetings of the witches' Sabbat was widespread. In Paris alone, in the time of Charles IX, there were said to be no less than thirty thousand sorcerers,and it was estimated that France contained more than three times that number during the reign of Henry III. Not a town or village was exempt from accusations and trials. The accused belonged to all classes, and generally met the same fate, regardless of rank, age, or sex. Children of the tenderest years and nonagenarians alike were committed to the flames. The terror of being publicly accused as a sorcerer hung like a black cloud over the life of every successful man because it was a charge readily available to an envious enemy who wished him destroyed.

England had no edict regarding witchcraft at this period, but in France and other Continental countries (especially Germany) a law had been taking shape. By the end of the fifteenth century there was an international belief in the efficacy of sorcery and a conviction that witchcraft was a religion of devil worshipers. In the 1480s the pope gave his official approval for the Inquisition to move against the supposed witches, and two Dominican fathers wrote a textbook describing them, their crimes, and the method of proceeding against them.

During the early sixteenth century witchcraft trials were rare in France, and there are few cases recorded before the year 1560. The first instance would almost be humorous if it were not a taste of things to come. In 1561 a number of persons were brought to trial at Vernon, accused of having held their Sabbat gathering in a ruined castle. The "witches" were accused of having arrived at the castle in the shape of cats. Witnesses were deposed who claimed to have seen the assembly and to have been attacked by the pseudofeline conspirators. After a good laugh and the proper expression of righteous indignation, the court dismissed the charges as worthy only of ridicule.

In 1564 three men and a woman were executed at Poitiers, having been forced to confess to various acts of sorcery. They said they had regularly attended the witches' Sabbat held three times a year, and that the demon who presided at it ended by burning himself to make powder for his agents to use in mis-chief. These first executions were followed by a series of others in the 1570s.

In 1571 a mere conjurer who played tricks with cards was thrown into prison in Paris, forced to confess that he was an attendant on the Sabbat, and was executed. In 1573 a man was burned at Dôle on the charge of changing himself into a wolf and devouring children. Several persons who confessed to having been at the Sabbats were condemned to be burned that same year in different parts of France. In 1578 another man was tried and condemned in Paris for changing himself into a wolf, and a man was condemned at Orleans for the same supposed crime in 1583.

Wolves were prolifie in France and people often connected their ravages with witchcraft. The belief in what were in England called werewolves (men-wolves) and in France loupsgarous was ancient and widespread.

In 1578 a woman was burned at Compiègne after she confessed that she had given herself to the devil, who appeared to her as a great black man on horseback, booted and spurred. Another supposed witch was burned the same year; she also stated that the Evil One came to her in the shape of a black man. In 1582 and 1583 several "witches" were burned.

Local councils of the time passed severe laws against witchcraft, and a significant number of victims were put to death in France under such accusations. In the course of only 15 years, from 1580 to 1595, in the province of Lorraine alone, the president Remigius burned nine hundred witches, and as many more fled the country to save their lives. About the close of the century, a French judge stated that the crime of witchcraft had become so common that there were not enough jails to hold the prisoners or judges to hear their cases. A trial he witnessed in 1568 induced physician Jean Bodin to write De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (1580), which became a standard French textbook on the subject of witchcraft.

Among English witches, the devil was generally said to come in person to seduce his victims, but in France and other countries this seems to have been unnecessary. Once initiated each person became seized with an uncontrollable desire to make converts, whom he or she carried to the Sabbat to be duly enrolled as witches. According to Bodin's imaginings, one witch was enough to corrupt five hundred honest persons. The infection quickly ran through a family and was generally carried down from generation to generation, which explained satisfactorily, according to his commentary on demonology, the extent to which witchcraft had supposedly spread in his day. The novice received a burlesque rite of baptism and was marked with the sign of the demon on some unexposed part of the body. The first act of compliance with the devil was then performed, and it was frequently repeated, the evil one presenting himself to the converts as a member of the opposite sex, as Bodin tells it.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century, infatuation with witchcraft had risen to its greatest height in France. Not only the lower classes but also persons of the highest rank in society were liable to suspicion of dealing in sorcery. Such charges were publicly made against King Henry III and Queen Catherine de Medici and early in the following century became grounds for state trials that had fatal conclusions.

In 1610, during the reign of Louis XIII, the cause cŒlèbre of the marechale d'Ancre occurred. Among Marie de Medici's servants was a certain Eleanora Dori, who married Concini, a prodigal spendthrift. As guardian to her son, Marie de Medici was ruler of France and considerable power was exercised by these favorite servants. Because of this favor the peers of France joined together against the upstarts, but with little result at first. Concini was named marechal of France, with the title of marquis d'Ancre.

His wife, who was very superstitious, became sick, which she blamed on sorcery. The result was that d'Ancre was assassinated by the nobles during a hunting expedition. The mob dragged d'Ancre's corpse from its grave and hanged it on the Pont Neuf. His wretched widow was accused of sorcery and bewitching the Queen.

The exorcists who had helped her free herself from illness advised her to sacrifice a cock, which was thought to be connected with the Devil. Also the astrological nativities of the royal family were found in her possession, as were several occult books, and a great number of magic symbols. After being tortured, she was beheaded and burned. Strangely enough the anger of the Parisian mob then turned to general commiseration.

Many other interesting cases occurred in France in the seventeenth century, including several cases of reputed demoniac possession among the Ursulines at Aix (see Louis Gaufridi), the nuns of Louviers, and the nuns of Auxonne. The case of the nuns of Loudon resulted in the burning alive of Urbain Grandier.

The Rise of Modern Occultism

The eighteenth century in France is rich in occult history. At a time when the Enlightenment was destroying the older supernatural magic, a new magic was beginning to evolve that made use of scientific information. While the eighteenth century was the low point in practice of the occult in Europe, the founders of modern occultism were emerging. Perhaps the most striking personality of this age was the Comte de Saint Germain, who was credited with possessing the secrets of alchemy and magic. His family connections were unknown, and he spoke as if he had lived for many centuries. Another mysterious adept was an alchemist calling himself Lascaris, who literally sowed his path through Europe with gold.

Then followed Cagliostro, who attained a fame unrivaled in the history of French occultism. He founded many Masonic lodges throughout the country, Freemasonry being credited with spreading the democratic beliefs underlying the French Revolution and the democratic upheavals across the continent during the next century.

A school of initiates was founded by Martinez de Pasqually, which appeared in some measure to have incorporated the teachings of the later European adepts. Another important figure at this time was Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, known as "le Philosophe Inconnu" (the unknown philosopher), who came under the influence of Pasqually, and later that of the writings of the mystical Jakob Boehme, whose works Saint-Martin translated. Jacques Cazotte was one of the first men associated with both magic and the Revolution. Much of the Revolutions inception is owed to those mysterious brotherhoods of France and Germany, which during the eighteenth century sowed the seeds of equality and Illuminism throughout Europe.

Loiséaut, a parishioner of Sainte-Mandé, formed a mystical society in 1772 that met in great secrecy, awaiting a vision of John the Baptist, who supposedly came to them to foretell the Revolution. The spiritual director of this circle was a monk named Dom Gerle, one of the first mesmerists in Paris, who was said to have foretold the dreadful fame of Robespierre through the seeress Catherine Théot. He was expelled by the members of the circle, who acted on the advice of member Sister Françoise André, who wanted to preserve the crown for the future reign of Louis XVII.

The appearance of Marie Lenormand, as a prophetess at the end of the eighteenth century, may be said to have ended a chapter of the occult history of that age. With the beginning of the nineteenth century the influence of Austrian physician Franz A. Mesmer (1733-1825) had led to a widespread interest in animal magnetism, which in turn culminated in the growth of Spiritualism. The Baron du Potet de Sennevoy did much to advance Mesmer's views which by this time were being seriously pursued by Cahagnet and others.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the new occultism was well established in Paris. A story by Alphonse Esquiros titled The Magician (1838) led to the founding of a school of magic fantasy, which was assiduously developed by Henri Delaage, who was said to have the gift of ubiquity and who collected recipes for acquiring physical beauty from the old magicians. In his works The Reform of Philosophy and Yes or No,J. M. Hoene-Wronski claimed to have discovered the first theorems of the Kabbalah and later beguiled rich persons of weak intellect into paying him large sums in return for knowledge of the Absolute.

Spiritual Healing

The celebrated Curé D'Ars, founder of the D'Ars "Providence," and many other noble works of charity, was born Jean Baptiste Vianney in the vicinity of Lyons in 1786. At school he was remembered as a somewhat dull student. Circumstances opened the way for his becoming a priest, although he had only enough Latin to say mass and no learning beyond the routine of his profession. His amiable nature and unaffected piety won him friends wherever he went. After some changes of fortune and the rejection of two good offers of rich positions, he accepted the pastoral charge of the little agricultural village of D'Ars, now in the arrondisement of Trevoux.

Very soon his reputation for beneficence drew to him a much larger circle of poor dependents than he could provide for, and it was then that he began his extraordinary life of faith, supplicating in fervent prayer for whatever means were necessary to carry out his divine mission of blessing his unfortunate fellow creatures. In this way the sphere of his benevolence and the wonderful results of the prayer he employed to maintain it reached remarkable proportions.

But a more wonderful thing was to happen in the blessed region of D'Ars. The sick began to experience sudden cures while praying before the altar or making confessions to the curé. The fame of this new miracle soon spread abroad, until the Abbé Monnin declared that more than twenty thousand persons annually came from Germany, Italy, Belgium, all parts of France, and even from England to see the curé, and that in less than six years, this number increased to an average of eighty thousand. Diseases of every kind that had been pronounced incurable were cured at once. The curé gave himself up to his work, heart and soul. His church stayed open day and night, and the immense crowds that surrounded it had to wait for hours and sometimes days to reach the healer.

No one was allowed to take precedence over others except in cases of extreme poverty or extreme suffering. Princes, nobles, and great ladies often drove up as near as they could to the church in grand carriages and were astonished when they found out they too had to wait in line.

The curé only allowed himself to sleep four hours a night, namely from 11:00 to 3:00, and when he woke the church was always packed. Omnibuses were established to convey patients from Lyons to D'Ars, and the Saône was crowded with boats full of anxious pilgrims.

Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism

The Comte d'Ourches was the first to introduce automatic writing and table turning to France. Baron Ludwig von Guldenstubbe, in his Practical Experimental Pneumatology; or, the Reality of Spirits and the Marvellous Phenomena of their Direct Writing (first published in French in 1857) gives an account of his discovery: "It was in the course of the year 1850, or about three years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping, that the author sought to introduce into France the circles of American spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester knockings and the purely automatic writings of mediums. Unfortunately he met with many obstacles raised by other mesmerists. Those who were committed to the hypothesis of a magnetic fluid, and even those who styled themselves Spiritual Mesmerists, but who were really inferior inducers of somnambulism, treated the mysterious knockings of American spiritualism as visionary follies. It was therefore only after more than six months that the author was able to form his first circle on the American plan, and then thanks to the zealous concurrence of M. Rousaan, a former member of the Sociètè des Magnètiseurs Spiritualistes, a simple man who was full of enthusiasm for the holy cause of spiritualism. We were joined by a number of other persons, amongst whom was the Abbé Châtel, founder of the Eglise Française, who, despite his rationalistic tendencies, ended by admitting the reality of objective and supernatural revelation, as an indispensable condition of spiritualism and all practical religions. Setting aside the moral conditions which are equally requisite, it is known that American circles are based on the distinction of positive and electric or negative magnetic currents.

"The circles consist of twelve persons, representing in equal proportions the positive and negative or sensitive elements. This distinction does not follow the sex of the members, though generally women are negative and sensitive, while men are positive and magnetic. The mental and physical constitution of each individual must be studied before forming the circles, for some delicate women have masculine qualities, while some strong men are, morally speaking, women. A table is placed in a clear and ventilated spot; the medium is seated at one end and entirely isolated; by his calm and contemplative quietude he serves as a conductor for the electricity, and it may be noted that a good somnambulist is usually an excellent medium. The six electrical or negative dispositions, which are generally recognised by their emotional qualities and their sensibility, are placed at the right of the medium, the most sensitive of all being next him. The same rule is followed with the positive personalities, who are at the left of the medium, with the most positive next to him. In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain.

"After a number of séances, certain remarkable phenomena have been obtained, such as simultaneous shocks, felt by all present at the moment of mental evocation on the part of the most intelligent persons. It is the same with mysterious knockings and other strange sounds; many people, including those least sensitive, have had simultaneous visions, though remaining in the ordinary waking state. Sensitive persons have acquired that most wonderful gift of mediumship, namely, automatic writing, as the result of an invisible attraction which uses the nonintelligent instrument of a human arm to express its ideas. For the rest, non-sensitive persons experience the mysterious influence of an external wind, but the effect is not strong enough to put their limbs in motion. All these phenomena, obtained according to the mode of American spiritualism, have the defect of being more or less indirect, because it is impossible in these experiments to dispense with the mediation of a human being or medium. It is the same with the table-turning which invaded Europe in the middle of the year 1853.

"The author has had many table experiences with his honourable friend, the Comte d'Ourches, one of the most instructed persons in Magic and the Occult Sciences. We attained by degrees the point when tables moved, apart from any contact whatever, while the Comte d'Ourches has caused them to rise, also without contact. The author has made tables rush across a room with great rapidity, and not only without contact but without the magnetic aid of a circle of sitters. The vibrations of piano-chords under similar circumstances took place on January 20, 1856, in the presence of the Comte de Szapary and Comte d'Ourches. Now all such phenomena are proof positive of certain occult forces, but they do not demonstrate adequately the real and substantial existence of unseen intelligences, independent of our will and imagination, though the limits of these have been vastly extended in respect of their possibilities. Hence the reproach made against American spiritualists, because their communications with the world of spirits are so insignificant in character, being confined to mysterious knockings and other sound vibrations. As a fact, there is no direct phenomenon at once intelligent and material, independent of our will and imagination, to compare with the direct writing of spirits, who have neither been invoked or evoked, and it is this only which offers irrefutable proof as to the reality of the super-natural world."

Spiritualism was popular in France for the rest of the century.

Mesmerism

After public attention was drawn to animal magnetism by Mesmer and D'Eslon, several distinguished scientists followed their experiments with great success. Among them was the Baron Du Potet, whose deep interest in the subject of magnetism led him to publish the periodical Journal du Magnètisme.

Du Potet's investigations began about 1836, and for the next decade he chronicled the production of remarkable phenomena and their attestation by scientific and eminent witnesses. The baron's magnetized subjects reportedly experienced clairvoyance, trance speaking, healing, stigmata (raised letters and figures on the subject's body), levitation, and insensibility to fire, injury, or touch. In the presence of the magnetized subjects, heavy bodies were moved without human contact and distant objects materialized through walls and closed doors (generally termed apports). Sometimes the "lucides" (magnetized clairvoyants) described scenes in the spirit world, found lost property, prophesied, and spoke in foreign languages.

In 1840 Du Potet wrote that he had "rediscovered in magnetism the magic of antiquity." "Let the savants," he stated, "reject the doctrine of spiritual appearances; the enquirer of to-day is compelled to believe it; from an examination of undeniable facts…. If the knowledge of ancient magic is lost, all the facts remain on which to reconstruct it."

But of all those to whom French Spiritualism was indebted for evidence of supermundane intercourse, none was more prominent than Alphonse Cahagnet, author of Magnètisme: Arcanes de la vie future dévoilés (2 vols., 1948-49), which was translated into English in 1850.

Cahagnet was a mechanic, though he was a sensible and interesting writer. He said he was a "materialist" when he was first attracted to the subject of animal magnetism, but he determined to devote all his leisure time to a thorough examination of its possibilities. When he found that he could induce the magnetic sleep in others, he proceeded with a task generally adopted by mesmerists—to substitute his own senses, mind, and will for those of the sleeper.

Cahagnet discovered that he could cure disease and determined to put all his energy into healing. However, a new obstacle arose to confound his philosophy and theories: some of his subjects, instead of representing what he willed, began to wander off to regions they persisted in calling the "land of spirits" and to describe people whom they emphatically affirmed to be the souls of the dead.

For a long time Cahagnet fought what he termed these "wild hallucinations," but when he found them recurring and saw that many of those who came to witness the experiments in magnetism recognized dead individuals in descriptions given by the somnambulists, he was compelled to admit there was another dimension to clairvoyance. After a long series of experiments Cahagnet wrote The Celestial Telegraph; or, Secrets of the Life to Come.

In her book Nineteenth Century Miracles (1884), Emma Hardinge Britten quotes from the anonymous author of Art Magic (1876): "The narrow conservatism of the age, and the pitiful jealousy of the Medical Faculty, rendered it difficult and harassing to conduct magnetic experiments openly in Europe within several years of Mesmer's decease. Still such experiments were not wanting, and to show their results, we give a few excerpts from the correspondence between the famous French Magnetists, MM. Deleuze and Billot, from the years 1829 to 1840. By these letters, published in 1836 [ sic ], it appears that M. Billot commenced his experiments in magnetizing as early as 1789, and that during forty years, he had an opportunity of witnessing facts in clairvoyance, ecstasy, and somnambulism, which at the time of their publication transcended the belief of the general mass of readers. On many occasions in the presence of entranced subjects, spirits recognised as having once lived on earth in mortal form would come in bodily presence before the eyes of an assembled multitude and at request bring flowers, fruits, and objects, removed by distance from the scene of the experiments.

"M. Deleuze frankly admits that his experience was more limited to those phases of somnambulism in which his subjects submitted to amputations and severe surgical operations without experiencing the slightest pain…. In a letter dated 1831 M. Billot, writing to Deleuze, says, 'I repeat, I have seen and known all that is permitted to man. I have seen the stigmata arise on magnetized subjects; I have dispelled obsessions of evil spirits with a single word. I have seen spirits bring those material objects I told you of, and when requested, make them so light that they would float, and, again, a small boiteau de bonbons was rendered so heavy that I failed to move it an inch until the power was removed.' "To those who enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of listening to the somnambules of Billot, Deleuze, and Cahagnet, another and yet more striking feature of unanimous revelation was poured forth. Spirits of those who had passed away from earth strong in the faith of Roman Catholicism—often priests and dignitaries of that conservative Church, addressing prejudiced believers in their former doctrine—asserted that there was no creed in Heaven, no sectarian worship, or ecclesiastical dogmatism there prevailing.

"They taught that God was a grand Spiritual Sun—life on earth a probation—the spheres, different degrees of comprehensive happiness or states of retributive suffering, each appropriate to the good or evil deeds done on earth. They described the ascending changes open to every soul in proportion to his own efforts to improve.

"They all insisted that man was his own judge, incurred a penalty or reward for which there was no substitution. They taught nothing of Christ, absolutely denied the idea of vicarious atonement, and represented man as his own Saviour or destroyer.

"They spoke of arts, sciences, and continued activities, as if the life beyond was but an extension of the present on a greatly improved scale. Descriptions of the radiant beauty, supernal happiness, and ecstatic sublimity manifested by the blest spirits who had risen to the spheres of Paradise, Heaven, and the glory of angelic companionships melts the heart, and fills the soul with irresistible yearning, to lay down life's weary burdens and be at rest with them."(The reference to the correspondence between Deleuze and Billot is probably to G. P. Billot's Recherches psychologiques sur la cause de phénomenes extraordinaires, published in two volumes in 1839, and the correspondence would have ceased before that date.)

Spiritualism and Spiritism

Spiritualism emerged in France, as in Germany, out of the awakening interest in psychic powers resulting from experiments in animal magnetism. It appears that although Spiritualism gained an immense foothold and exerted an influence upon the popular mind, one of the chief obstacles to its general acceptance was its lack of internal unity and the antagonism among its leaders.

Two leaders who figured most prominently in the drama of French Spiritualism, and in all probability exerted more influence upon public opinion than any other members of its drama-tis personae, were Allan Kardec and A. T. Pierart, the respective editors of the movement's two leading journals: La Revue Spirite and La Revue Spiritualiste. Pierart and Kardec may also be regarded as the representatives of the two opposing factions generally known as Spiritualists and Spiritists, the former teaching that the soul undergoes only one mortal birth and continues its progress through eternity in spiritual states, the latter affirming the doctrine of reincarnation and claiming that the human spirit can and does undergo many incarnations in different mortal forms. Kardec and his followers represented Spiritism, and Pierart led the opposing faction commonly called Spiritualists.

Kardec derived his communications chiefly from writings and trance mediums who proved the most susceptible to his influence, and is said to have persistently banished from his circles not only D. D. Home, M. Brédif, and other physical mediums but all those who did not endorse his favorite dogma through their communications.

In Nineteenth Century Miracles Britten noted how the schism in French Spiritualism reached out across Europe. In France, Kardec's personal influence fitted him for a propagandist and his opinions were generally accepted by his readers. Little or no Spiritualist literature had been disseminated in the French language when Kardec's works were first published. He pursued his beliefs with an indomitable energy that his rival Pierart lacked.

The doctrines of the reincarnationists, although defended ability by their propagandists—who included many of the most capable minds of France—were not allowed to pass without severe castigation by their English neighbors. In the London Spiritual Magazine of 1865 the editor, commenting on the ominous silence of the Spirite journals concerning Maldigny's opera, Swedenborg, states: "It is worthy of note that the journals of the Kardec school, so far as we have seen them, do not take the least notice of this opera. The Avenir of Paris, which appears weekly, but greatly wants facts, has not a word to say about it…. It is greatly to be regretted that the main object of the Kardecian journals seems to be, not the demonstration of the constantly recurring facts of Spiritualism, but the deification of Kardec's doctrine of reincarnation.

"To this doctrine—which has nothing to do with Spiritualism, even if it had a leg of reason or fact to stand on—all the strength, and almost all the space of these journals is devoted.

"These are the things which give the enemies of Spiritualism a real handle against it, and bring it into contempt with sober minds. Reincarnation is a doctrine which cuts up by the roots all individual identity in the future existence. It desolates utter-ly that dearest yearning of the human heart for reunion with its loved ones in a permanent world. If some are to go back into fresh physical bodies, and bear new names, and new natures, if they are to become respectively Tom Styles, Ned Snooks, and a score of other people, who shall ever hope to meet again with his friends, wife, children, brothers and sisters? When he enters the spirit-world and enquires for them, he will have to learn that they are already gone back to earth, and are somebody else, the sons and daughters of other people, and will have to become over and over the kindred of a dozen other families in succession! Surely, no such most cheerless crochet could bewitch the intellects of any people, except under the most especial bedevilment of the most sarcastic and mischievous of devils."

In the January 1866 issue a stronger article on this subject was written by William Howitt, who protests Spiritualists toying with the doctrine of reincarnation: "In the Avenir of November 2nd, M. Pezzani thinks he has silenced M. Pierart, by asserting that without Reincarnation all is chaos and injustice in God's creation: 'In this world there are rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, and without Reincarnation, God's justice could not be vindicated.' That is to say, in M. Pezzani's conception, God has not room in the infinite future to punish and redress every wrong, without sending back souls again and again into the flesh. M. Pezzani's idea, and that of his brother Re-incarnationists is, that the best way to get from Paris to London is to travel any number of times from Paris to Calais and back again. We English believe that the only way is to go on to London at once…. As to M. Pezzani's notions of God's injustice without Re-incarnation, if souls were reincarnated a score of times, injustice between man and man, riches and poverty, oppression and wrong, all the enigmas of social inequality would remain just then as now.

"In noticing these movements in the Spiritist camp in France, we should be doing a great injustice if we did not refer to the zealous, eloquent, and unremitting exertions of M. Pierart in the La Revue Spiritualiste, to expose and resist the errors of the Spirite to which we have alluded. The doctrine of Reincarnation, M. Pierart has persistently resisted and denounced as at once false, unfounded on any evidence, and most pernicious to the character of Spiritualism."

Allen Kardec died in 1869. Even though receiving communications through physical mediumship was not favored by his followers, physical phenomena of all kinds were recorded in Pierart's journal and others. Characteristic aspects of non-Kardecean Spiritualism in France may be found in such sources.

French Spiritualism

The first well marked impulse that Spiritualism received in France was owed to the visits of D. D. Home, the celebrated medium, and subsequently to the large influx of professional mediums who found in France an excellent field for the demonstration of their gifts.

Home's séances remain the most remarkable of their kind. His manifestations were given almost exclusively in the presence of persons of rank or those distinguished by literary fame. During his residence in Paris, under the Imperial régime, he was a frequent visitor at the court of Emperor Louis Napoleon. A record of the manifestations produced through his medium-ship was kept by command of the empress and frequently read to her favored friends. Among these memoranda is one published in the papers when it occurred. It concerns a séance held at the Tuileries when only the emperor, the empress, the duchess of Montebello, and Home were present:

Pen, ink, and paper were placed on the table and a spirit hand was seen. It dipped the pen into the ink and wrote the name of the first Napoleon, in perfect likeness of that monarch's handwriting. The emperor asked if he could kiss this wonderful hand. It instantly rose to his lips, subsequently passing to those of the empress, and Home. The emperor preserved this precious autograph, and inscribed it with a note that the hand was warm, soft, and resembled that of his great predecessor and uncle.

As evidence of the wide popularity Spiritualism had attained by 1869, Pierart quotes an article by Eugène Bonnemère from the Siécle, a leading paper that editorialized against the movement: "Although somnambulism has been a hundred times annihilated by the Academy of Medicine, it is more alive than ever in Paris; in the midst of all the lights of the age, it continues, right or wrong, to excite the multitude. Protean in its forms, infinite in its manifestations, if you put it out of the door, it knocks at the window; if that be not opened, it knocks on the ceiling, on the walls; it raps on the table at which you innocently seat yourselves to dine or for a game of whist. If you close your ears to its sounds, it grows excited, strikes the table, whirls it about in a giddy maze, lifts up its feet, and proceeds to talk through mediumship, as the dumb talk with their fingers.

"You have all known the rage for table-turning. At one time we ceased to ask after each other's health, but asked how your table was. 'Thank you, mine turns beautifully; and how goes yours on?' Everything turned; hats and the heads in them. One was led almost to believe that a circle of passengers being formed round the mainmast of a ship of great tonnage, and a magnetic chain thus established, they might make the vessel spin round till it disappeared in the depth of the ocean, as a gimlet disappears in a deal board. The Church interfered; it caused its thunders to roar, declaring that it was Satan himself who thus raised the devil in the tables, and having formally forbade the world to turn, it now forbade the faithful to turn tables, hats, brains, or ships of huge size. But Satan held his own. The sovereign of the nether world passed into a new one, and that is the reason that America sends us mediums, beginning so gloriously with the famous Home, and ending with the Brothers Davenport. One remembers with what a frenzy everyone precipitated himself in pursuit of mediums. Everyone wished to have one of his own; and when you introduced a young man into society, you did not say, 'He is a good waltzer,' but, 'He is a medium.' Official science has killed and buried this Somnambulism a score of times; but it must have done it very badly, for there it is as alive as ever, only christened afresh with a new name."

Among the many distinguished adherents of Spiritualism in France, most prominent were astronomer Camille Flammarion, authors Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, and Victorien Sardou, the renowned writer of French comedy. Sardou was himself a talented medium. He executed a number of drawings purporting to represent scenes in the spirit world. Among them was an exquisite and complex work of art entitled The House of Mozart.

In addition to Home and the Davenport brothers, many other famous mediums visited France, including Henry Slade, William Eglinton, Elizabeth d'Esperance, Florence Cook and Lottie Fowler. They stimulated interest in the scientific investigation of claimed phenomena.

Psychical Research and Parapsychology

The formation of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in Britain in 1882 led to scientific interest in Spiritualism all over the world. One of the pioneers of French psychical re-search was the physiologist Charles Richet, who was elected president of the SPR in 1905. Another notable Frenchman with an interest in the findings of psychical research was the philospher Henri Bergson, elected president of the SPR in 1913. (Bergson's sister was a devoted practitioner of magic.)

The engineer Gabriel Delanne had founded the Societé d'Etude des Phénomènes Psychiques and studied various mediums. In 1890 the Annales des Sciences Psychiques was first published under the direction of a Dr. Dariex and Richet (an English edition was published beginning in 1905).

In 1918, through the generosity of Jean Meyer, the Institut Métapsychique International was founded and Richet became its first honorary president. Meyer, a follower of Kardec, had founded Le Maison des Spirites to propagate knowledge of Spiritism, and he founded the Institut Métapsychique for psychical research. In 1920 the Revue Métapsychique became the official publication of the Institut and continued the excellent work of the earlier Annales des Sciences Psychique. The Revue Métapsychique is still the leading publication of its kind.

Richet's interest in psychical research stemmed from the work of Col. Eugen Rochas, who had experimented with hypnosis and human radiation. Other workers in the field of human radiations included Dr. Paul Joire, Hippolyte Baraduc, Emile Boirac, Dr. Joseph Maxwell, Prof. Blondlot, Jules Regnault, Louis Favre, and G. de Fontenay.

French workers in the field of psychical research included Paul Gibier, Alfred Binet, Pierre Janet, Gustave Geley, Theodore Flournoy, Eugèn Osty, René Sudre, and Rene Warcollier. Another notable researcher was Cesar de Vesme, whose Histoire du Spiritualisme experimentale (History of Experimental Spiritualism, 1928) was awarded a prize by the Paris Académie des Sciences. Geley experimented with the famous medium Eva C., who specialized in materialization phenomena; Flournoy investigated the strange talents of the medium Hélène Smith.

In the transition from psychical research to parapsychology, the Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches en Parapsychologie (GERP) was formed in 1971. GERP experimenters studied animal parapsychology and possible cases of psychokinesis. Other experiments include those of Paul and Christiane Vasse, who have studied plant germination and growth in relation to mental effects.

The Laboratory of Parapsychology was founded in Bordeaux by Dr. Jean Barry, who experimented with PK effects on fungi virus. Other PK experiments have been conducted by engineers G. Chevalier and De Cressac. Another modern researcher is Dr. R. Dufour, who experimented with clairvoyance and psychometry.

Among the more noteworthy modern developments was the establishment of the Centre d'Eclairagisme headed by Yvonne Duplessis, aided by a grant from the Parapsychology Foundation in New York. The center specialized in the subject of eyeless sight, first propagated by the great novelist Jules Romains, and volunteers have discovered the ability of blind persons to distinguish colors.

Radiesthesia and Out-of-the-Body Travel

An offshoot of interest in "human radiation" through the research of Baraduc and others has been French interest in such subjects as radiesthesia and astral projection. It has always been difficult to draw a line between such subjects as psychical research, Spiritualism, and radiesthesia, and in the past many prominent French psychical researchers endorsed Spiritualist beliefs and astral projection out of their belief in the reality of the human soul or subtle body. Some researchers who claim to have detected human radiation have also propagated concepts of the subtle body; Baraduc claimed to have photo-graphed it.

Radiesthesia, a French term for dowsing and divining for water and metals, is specifically concerned with subtle radiation, not only human but also animal and mineral. French experimenters have specialized in the use of the pendulum in place of the divining rod, and a number of exponents of radiesthesia were priests. Radiesthesiests developed the use of the pendulum in prospecting over a map of an area in order to trace minerals, water, or even detect the movement of individuals. Another interesting application of radiesthesia is in diagnosis of health and disease in individuals. In 1930 a society was formed under the name L' Association des Amis de la Radiesthesie, including among its members were engineers and doctors. The monthly journal La Chronique des Sourciers was issued under the editorship of its president le Vicomte Henry de France. It was superseded by two currently published journals: Radiésthesie and Les Amis de la Radiésthesie.

Closely associated with radiesthesia is the comprehensive study of psychotronics, described as the study of the relation-ship of man to the universe, interaction with other physical bodies and matter, and fields of energy, known or unknown. The Organisation pour la Recherche en Psychotronique publishes the Revue Française de Psychotronique at Siége Social Bureau 644, U.E.R. de Mathématiques, Universite Toulouse le Mirail.

A pioneer experimenter in out-of-the-body travel was a Frenchman, Marcel Louis Forhan, whose book Le Médecin de l'Âme was first published in English as Practical Astral Projection in 1935, under the pseudonym Yram. Yram's record of his personal experiences antedated the 1938 book Astral Projection, by Oliver Fox (Hugh G. Callaway), so important to the launching of research on the topic in English-speaking countries.

Sources:

Baraduc, Hippolyte. L'Âme humaine. Paris, 1896.

Cauzons, Theodore de. La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France. 4 vols. Paris, 1900.

De France, Henri Vicomte. The Elements of Dowsing. London: G. Bell & Son, 1948.

Delanne, Gabriel. Evidence for a Future Life. London: Philip Wellby/New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904.

Deleuze, J. P. F. Practical Instruction in Animal Magnetism. Rev. ed. New York: Samuel R. Wells, 1846.

De Vesme, Cesar. A History of Experimental Spiritualism. 2 vols. London: Rider, 1931.

Du Potet, Baron. Magnetism and Magic. London: Allen & Unwin, 1927.

Geley, Gustave. From the Unconscious to the Conscious. London: William Collins Sons, 1920.

Flournoy, Theodore. From India to the Planet Mars. New York & London, 1900. Huxley, Aldous. The Devils of Loudon. London, 1952. Reprint, New York: Harper, 1971.

Joire, Paul. Psychical and Supernormal Phenomena. London: William Rider & Son, 1916.

Kardec, Allan. The Mediums' Book (Experimental Spiritism). London, 1876.

Michelet, Jules. The Sorceress. London, 1905. Reprinted as Satanism and Witchcraft. Wehman, 1939.

Richet, Charles. Thirty Years of Psychical Research. London: W. Collins Sons, 1923. Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Summers, Montague. The Geography of Witchcraft. London, 1927. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1958.

——. The Werewolf. London, 1933. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1966.

Yram [Marcel Louis Forhan]. Practical Astral Projection. London: Rider, 1935. Reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, n.d.

La Marseillaise

1er couplet

Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'etendard sanglant est levé (bis)
Entendez vous dans les campagnes,
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Egorger nos fils, nos compagnes

Refrain

Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons Marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons

2ème couplet

Que veut cette horde d'esclaves,
de traitres, de rois conjures ?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,
Ces fers des longtemps preparés ? (bis)
Français pour nous, ah Quel outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer
De rendre à l'antique esclavage

3ème couplet

Quoi Ces cohortes étrangères
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers
Quoi Ces phalanges mercenaires
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers (bis)
Grand Dieu ! Par des mains enchainées
Nos fronts sous le joug ploiraient
De vils despotes deviendraient
Les maîtres de nos destinées

4ème couplet

Tremblez tyrans ! Et vous, perfides,
L'opprobre de tous les partis,
Tremblez Vos projets parricides
Vont enfin recevoir leur prix (bis)
Tout est soldat pour vous combattre.
S'ils tombent, nos jeunes heros,
La France en produit de nouveaux,
Contre vous tout prêts à se battre

5ème couplet

Français, en guerriers magnanimes,
Portez ou retenez vos coups
Epargnez ces tristes victimes,
A regret s'armant contre nous. (bis)
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,
Mais ces complices de Boulle,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère !...

6ème couplet

Amour sacré de la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs
Liberté, Liberté chérie,
Combats avec tes défenseurs (bis)
Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire
Accoure à tes males accents
Que tes ennemis expirants
Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire

7ème couplet

Nous entrerons dans la carrière
Quand nos aînés n'y seront plus;
Nous y trouverons leur poussière
Et la trace de leurs vertus. (bis)
Bien moins jaloux de leur survivre
Que de partager leur cercueil,
Nous aurons le sublime orgueil
De les venger ou de les suivre.

IN BRIEF: A country in Western Europe between the English Channel and the Mediterranean.

I like to visit France because of the wonderful art museums there.