Louis xiv: Did you mean...?

9th-century silver coin depicting Louis the Pious, Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Franks (r. 814-840). The British Museum, London.

The Albigensian Crusade (aka Cathars' Crusade, 1209-1229 CE), was the first crusade to specifically target heretic Christians - the Cathars of southern France. Not successful in repressing the heresy, the on-off campaigns over two decades...

Society in the Kingdom of France in the period of the Ancien Regime was broken up into three separate estates, or social classes: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. These classes and their accompanying power dynamics, originating...

Louise-Antoine, Compte de Bougainville (1729-1811) was a French explorer and former army colonel, who was also a brilliant mathematician. He was a contemporary of Captain James Cook (1728-1779) and a protegée of Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764...

Jacques Necker (l. 1732-1804) was a Swiss banker and statesman who served as finance minister to King Louis XVI of France (r. 1774-1792). He served in the king's ministry three separate times, tasked with navigating France through its dire...

The affair of the diamond necklace (1784-86) was a scandal that centered around Queen Marie Antoinette of France (l. 1755-1793). Although the queen was innocent of any involvement in a plot to steal a luxurious diamond necklace, the scandal...

The Storming of the Bastille was a decisive moment in the early months of the French Revolution (1789-1799). On 14 July 1789, the Bastille, a fortress and political prison symbolizing the oppressiveness of France’s Ancien Régime was attacked...

A 1767 oil on canvas portrait by Louis-Michel van Loo of the French author and philosopher Diderot (1713-1784). (Louvre Museum, Paris)

A 15th century CE painting depicting the death of French king Louis IX in 1270 CE during the Eighth Crusade at Tunis.

Louis-Antoine de Saint-Just (1767-1794), a leader of the Jacobin Club and of the Mountain political faction, oil on canvas portrait by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, 1793. Only 25 when he was elected to the National Convention, Saint-Just soon became...