French Empire Timeline: Napoleonic Victory | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||
| Motto: "Liberté, Ordre Public" "Liberty, Public Order" |
||||||
| Anthem: "Chant du départ" "Song of the Departure" |
||||||
Great Seal  |
||||||
 French Empire at it's height (c. 1812)
|
||||||
| Capital | Paris | |||||
| Other cities | Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille, and Nice | |||||
| Official languages | French | |||||
| Religion | 51% Christianity 40% No religion 5% Islam 3% Other 1% Undeclared |
|||||
| Demonym | French | |||||
| Government | Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy |
|||||
| - | Emperor | Napoleon VII | ||||
| Legislature | Parliament of France | |||||
| - | Upper house | Sénat conservateur | ||||
| - | Lower house | Corps législatif | ||||
| Currency | Franc (FRC) |
|||||
| Drives on the | right | |||||
| Internet TLD | .fr | |||||
French Empire, officially the French Republic (before 1809), though commonly referred to as France, is a country primarily located in Western Europe. The country is a Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille, and Nice.
During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls. The area was annexed by Rome in 51 BC, developing a distinct Gallo-Roman culture that laid the foundation of the French language. The Germanic Franks arrived in 476 and formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia becoming the Kingdom of France in 987. In the High Middle Ages, France was a highly decentralized feudal kingdom in which the authority of the king was barely felt. King Philip Augustus achieved remarkable success in the strengthening of royal power and the expansion of his realm, doubling its size and defeating his rivals. By the end of his reign, France had emerged as the most powerful state in Europe.
In the mid-14th century, French monarchs were embroiled in a series of dynastic conflicts with their English counterparts, collectively known as the Hundred Years' War, from which they ultimately emerged victorious. Disputes with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire soon followed during the Renaissance. Meanwhile, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world. The second half of the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots), which severely weakened the country. But France once again emerged as Europe's dominant cultural, political, and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV following the Thirty Years' War. Despite the wealth of the nation, an inadequate financial model and inequitable taxation system coupled with endless and costly wars meant that the kingdom was left in a precarious economic situation by the end of the 18th century. Especially costly were the Seven Years' War and American War of Independence. The French Revolution in 1789 saw the fall of the absolute monarchy that characterized the Ancien Régime and from its ashes, rose one of modern history's earliest republics, which drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The declaration expresses the nation's ideals to this day.