History

Louis XIV came to Fontainebleau to escape the pressures of Versailles and Napoleon chose it over any palace in France. His “true house of kings” still has no equal, writes Jennifer Ladonne Only 43 miles...

We’re offering one lucky reader the chance to win a reproduction of the original manuscript of De Beauvoir’s seminal feminist text, The Second Sex.. ❋ A precious window into the pioneering philosopher’s thought process and...

Berthe Morisot, one of the great Impressionists, was also the muse of Édouard Manet. The two may even have been in love – at least until she married his brother. Hazel Smith investigates. At a...

What's the story behind this street, the path taken by a beheaded saint? Running from Pigalle’s Église Notre-Dame-de-Lorette up to the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre, the rue des Martyrs is rumoured to have taken its name...

Dominic Bliss explores France’s northern coast, a glorious region of rolling coastal cliffs and vast sandy beaches, awash with history and gastronomy There are still dead bodies deep beneath the beach at Zuydcoote. When the...

Ten years since the legacy of France’s greatest military engineer was recognised by UNESCO, Sue Smith travels to Bourgogne-Franche-Comté to see the mark Vauban left on his homeland "Burgundy?” said my friends, eyes wide like...

As Remembrance Day approaches (November 11), we are reminded of the horrors of war and of the soldiers who have given their service and often their life in the name of freedom. The day...

This oasis of calm off the boulevard Saint-Germain hasn’t always been so refined and urbane. Jeffrey T Iverson discovers the dark past of a truly historic Parisian passageway... Generally speaking, the old business maxim of...

As centenary commemorations for the First World War draw to a close, Gillian Thornton discovers the story of the last French soldier to die Over the past four years I’ve seen an awful lot of...

How a street lost its ribald name (perhaps...) According to the story... One day Mary Queen of Scots asked an innocent question. Following her all-too-brief marriage to Francis II, the Dauphin of France, the teenage...