History

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...

This Ile de la Cité street is Paris old and Paris new, all jammed into a rue 113 meters long and four meters wide. Two blocks away from Notre Dame, Rue des Ursins is...

In these days of political correctness gone mad and outright intolerance, the reopening of Voltaire’s ‘bastion of free speech’ hasn’t come a moment too soon. Following a three-year €9m renovation, the philosopher and all-round...

It arrived in a bundle of second-hand books intended for a fund-raising sale - "it" being the Histoire de France: cours moyen by one Ernest Lavisse (18th edition, 1921). Worn round the edges, as might...

Guy Hibbert delves into the Morvan’s little-known past as a breeding ground for nourrices... If you were a well-heeled Parisian lady in the 18th or 19th century, the last thing you needed to spoil the...

The region of France with the most tumultuous history is also that which produces some of its very best wines. Jeffrey T Iverson heads east Most oenophiles agree that complexity is the sine qua non...