This course covers the history of France from the reign of Henri IV to the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, or the period that begins with the Wars of Religion and ends with the rise of the First Empire. The period in French history from 1594 to 1789 is dominated by the rise and fall of the Bourbon dynasty, and is better known by the name the Revolution gave it: l'ancien regime or the Old Regime. This period saw France complete its recovery from the religious civil wars and instability of the sixteenth century, and rise to a position of political and cultural dominance in Europe. The period from 1789 to 1804 is a turbulent time in France's history that is punctuated by the events of the Revolution, the establishment and fall of the Republic, and the emergence of the First Empire. How did France evolve across these two periods--politically, socially, and culturally--and what explains these developments? And--to ask a question as old as the Revolution itself--is it possible to find the origins of the French Revolution and subsequent governments within the political and social history of the Old Regime?
This course will move through two sections, which chart the rise and fall of the Old Regime's political culture in social and intellectual context. Part One focuses on the age of Louis XIV (1643-1715) and addresses such topics as the nature of ‘absolutism;' the workings of court culture; the social structure of France; and religion and culture in the seventeenth century. Part Two covers 1715-1815, the century during which the Old Regime gives way to the First Republic, and then, the First Empire. This half covers the French Enlightenment; public opinion and political culture; sociability, material culture, and gender roles; the history of Paris; colonial history; the origins and events of the Revolution; and the Napoleonic period.