Honey, Weights, and ..1Ieasura. —For the money, weights, and measures now nsed in F., see FRANC, METER, LITER, GRAMME.
Colonies.—Algeria (which, according to the constitution of 1852, is not a colony, but an integral part of F.) is treated of in a separate article. In the larger French colonies, the administrative power is vested in a governor, who exercises supreme military com mand, and is assisted by a general council, specially charged to vote the budget of the -province. Three officers act under the orders of the governor—viz., the " ordonnator," director of the interior, and procurator-general. There is also in each colony a colonial controller, who presides over the financial and other departments of general adminis tration.
See Statistique gen6r. methodiq. at compl. de la France. by J. H. Schnitzler; Diction. et Annuaires de l'Administ. Franc.; Bulletin des Lois (1878); Statistique de France (1878): Dictionnaire general de la Politique, by M. Maurice Block (1873).
llistory. —Gallia (Eng. Gaul) was the ancient name under which F. was designated by the Romans, who knew little of the country till the time of Csar, when it was pied by the three races of the Aquitani, Celt, and Belgm, who respectively inhabited the s.w., tile w. and central, and the n. and n.e. parts. There were also some tribes of Germans, Liguriaus, and Greeks, but the latter never penetrated far beyond the shores of the Mediterranean, where they planted colonies, the most important of which was Massalia (Marseilles). Under Augustus, Gaul was divided into four provinces, which, under subsequent emperors, was dismembered; and subdivided into seventeen. In the decline of the Roman power, Gaul was ravaged by neighboring hordes, and in the 5th c. it fell completely under the power of the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks. In 486 A.D., Clovis, a chief of the Salian Franks, raised himself to supreme power in the north. His dynasty, known as the Merovingian, ended in the person of Childeric III., who was deposed, 752 A.D., after the kingly power had already passed into the hands of the former Maire du Palais, Pepin d'Heristal, and, after him, into those of Charles Martel and Pepin le Bref. The accession of Pepin gave new vigor to the monarchy, which, under his son and successor Charlemagne, crowned emperor of the west in 800 (768-814), rose'to the rank of the most powerful empire of the west. Christianity, civ ilization, and letters were protected during his reign, and before his death he had stretched the limits of his empire from the Eider and the German ocean to the Ebro and the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the Baltic. With him, however, this vast fabric of power crumbled to pieces, and his weak descendants completed the ruin of the Frankish empire by the dismemberment of its various parts among the younger branches of the Carlovingian family. Intestine wars desolated tile land, and foreign assailants threatened it on every side. In 911 A.D., the ravages of the Northmeu had assumed so persistent a character, that Charles le Simple was glad to purchase immu nity from their encroachments by the cession of the territory subsequently known as Normandy. Anarchy reigned paramount; the various governors established an heredi tary authority in their several governments, and the crown was by degrees deprived of the noblest part of its appanages. The power of some of the vassals surpassed that of the kings; and on the death of Louis V. the Carlovingian dynasty was replaced by that of Hugues, count of Paris, whose son, Hugues Capet, was elected king by the army, and consecrated at Rheims, 987 A.D. At this period, the greater part of F. was held by almost independent lords, and the authority of the Capetian kings extended little beyond Paris and Orleans. Louis le Gros (1108-37) was the first of the race who reinstated order. He promoted the establishment of the feudal system, abolished serfdom on his own estates, secured corporate rights to the cities under his jurisdiction, and gave efficiency to the central authority of the crown. A greater degree of general order was thus secured, while a new element in the state was generated by the foundation of a free burgher class. Louis carried on a war against Henry I. of England; and when the latter allied himself with the emperor Henry V. of Germany against F., he brought into the field an army of 200,000 men, whose ready appearance afforded the first instance of the existence of a common national feeling of patriotism, ready to respond to the appeal of the sovereign. The orifiamme is said to have been borne aloft for the first time on this occasion as the national'standard. Louis VII. (Le Jeune), who took part in the second crusade (1137-80), was' almost incessantly engaged in war with Henry II. of England. His son and successor, Philippe Auguste (1180-1223), recovered Normandy, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou from John of England, and increased the power of the crown in various other parts of France. He took an active personal share in the crusades, and permitted the pope to organize a cruel persecution against the Albigenses in the south ern parts of the country. Philippe was the first to levy a tax for the maintenance of a standing army, and in his reign a chamber of peers, of six secular and six ecclesiast ical members, was instituted, to act as a council of state. Many noble institutions date their origin from this reign, as the university of Paris, the Louvre, etc. By the amend ment of the administration of justice, the right of appeal to the royal courts was estab lished, and the arbitrary power of the great vassals crippled. Improvements in the mode of administering the law were continued under his son, Louis VIII. (1223-26), and his grandson, Louis IN_ ti226-70), who caused a code of laws (Etablissements de St. Louis) to be promulgated. St. :Louis also effected many modifications in the fiscal department, and, before his departure for the crusades, secured the rights of the Galilean church by a special statute, in order to counteract the constantly increasing assumptions of the papal power. Under his son, Philippe III. (1270-85), titles of nobility were first con ferred by letters-patent. He added Valois and the comtes of Toulouse and Venaissin to the crown. Philippe IV. (1285-1314), surnamed Le Bel, acquired Navarre, Champagne, and Brie by marriage. With a view of securing support against the secular and eccle siastical nobility, with whom he constantly at war, Philippe gave prominenoe to the burgher element in the nation, and on 28th Mar., 1302, he, for the first time, called together the etats generaux, or general estates, at which the tiers etat, or burgher class, appeared together with the nobles and clergy. These changes were, however, accom panied by aitrary innovations in the fiscal and other departments of the government, which were effected with reckless haste and violence. With a view of securing to the crown the great fiefs, he abrogated the right of females to succeed to landed property. His tyrannical persecution of the Templars showed the extent to which the regal power could be stretched; and under his successors, Louis X. (1314-16), Philippe V. (1316-21), and Charles IV. (Le Bel), (1321-28), the last direct descendant of the Capetian line, the rule of the kings of F. became even more unlimited, whilst the court was given up to every species of luxurious indulgence known to the age. Philippe VI., the•first of the house of Valois (1328-1350), a distant relative of Charles IV., and the nephew of Philippe IV., succeeded in right of the Salic law. His reign, and those of his successors, Jean (1350-64) and Charles V. (Le Sage), (1364-80), were disturbed by constant wars with Edward III. of England, who laid claini to the throne in right of his mother, a daugh ter of Philippe le Bel. The war began in 1339; in 1346, the battle of Crecy was fought; at the battle of Poitiers (1356), Jean was made captive; and before its final close after the death of Edward (1377), the state was reduced to bankruptcy, the nobility excited to rebellion, and the mass of the people sunk in barbarism. Falsification of the coin age, onerous taxation, and arbitrary' conscriptions brought the country to the verge of irretrievable ruin, while the victories of England humbled the sovereign, annihilated the French armies, and cut down the flower of the nation. The long and weak minor ity of Richard II. diverted the English from the prosecution of their groundless claims
to the kingdom of F., which revived somewhat from the effect of its long and disas trous warfare; but during the regency for the minor, Charles VI. (Le Bien !lime), (1380 1422), the war was renewed with increased vigor on the part of the English nation, who were stimulated by the daring valor of Henry V. The signal victory won by the English at Azincourt in 1415;.the treason and rebellion of the French princes of the blood, who governed the larger provinces; the ambition of the several regents, the ulti mate imbecility of the king, the profligacy of his queen, and the love of pleasure early evinced by the dauphin; all combined to aid Henry in his attempts upon the throne. But the premature death of Henry, the persevering spirit of the people, and the extraor dinary influence exercised over her countrymen by the maid of Orleans, concurred in bringing about a thorough reaction, and, after a period of murder, rapine, and anarchy, Charles VII. (Le Victorieux) (1422-61) was crowned at Rheims. Be obtained from the estates general a regular tax (tattle) for the maintenance of paid soldiers, to keep in check the mercenaries and marauders who pillaged the country. The policy of his successor, Louis XI. (1461-83), the first king entitled " his most Christian majesty," favored the burgher and trading classes at the expense of the nobles, while he humbled the power of the crown-princes. He was a crafty ruler, who managed the finances well, and succeeded, by policy and good luck, in recovering for the crown the territo ries of Maine, Anjou, and Provence; while he made himself master of some portions of the territories of Charles the bold, duke of Burgundy. Charles VIII. (1483-98), by his marriage with Anne of Brittany, secured that powerful state, and consolidated the increasing power of the crown. With him ended the direct male succession of the house of Valois. Louis XII. (1498-1515) (La Pere du Peuple) was the only representative of the Valois-Orleans family. The tendency of his reign was to confirm the regal suprem acy, while the general condition of the people was ameliorated. He and his successor, Francis I. (1515-47), of the Valois- Angoulerne branch, wasted their resources in futile attempts to establish their hereditary claims to Lombardy, and were thus perpetually embroiled with the house of Austria. A concordat with the pope, signed in 1516, secured the nomination of the Gall ican bishops to the king. In this reign, the assembly of nota bles and deputies superseded the general estates. The defeat of Francis at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and his subsequent imprisonment at Madrid, threw the affairs of the nation into the greatest disorder, and embarrassed the public finances to a most ruinous extent. Arts and literature were encouraged in this reign, and in that of the succeed ing monarch, Henri II. (1547-59), who continued the disastrous Italian war. In the latter reign began the persecutions of the Protestants, which were carried on with still greater cruelty under Henri's three sons, Francis II. (15'59-60), Charles IX. (1560-74), and Henri III. (1574-89), the last of this branch of the Valais. The massacre of St. Bar tholomew (1572)was perpetrated under the direction of the queen-mother, Catharine de' Medici, and the confederation of the league, at the head of which were the Guises. The wars of the league, which were carried on by the latter against the Bourbon branches of the princes of the blood-royal, involved the whole nation in their vortex. The suc cession of Henri IV. of Navarre (1589-1610), a Bourbon prince, descended from a younger son of St. Louis, allayed the fury of these religious wars, but his recantation of Protestantism in favor of Catholicism, disappointed his own party. The early part of his reign was perpetually disturbed by the mutinies of the troops and the rebellions of the nobles. By degrees, however, Henri, through the astute counsels of his minister Sully, and by his own personal popularity, raised the power of the crown higher than ever, while he began a system of thorough administrative reform, which was only arrested by his assassination by tho fanatic Ra.vaillac. During the minority of his son, Louis XIII. (1610-1643), cardinal Richelieu, under the nominal regency of Marie de' `Medici, the queen-mother, ruled F. with a firm hand, although his oppression of the Protestants at home, and his co-operation with them abroad, in endeavoring to humble the house of Austria, entailed long and costly wars with little fame on France. Cardi nal Mazarin, under the regency of the queen-mother, Anne of Austria, exerted nearly equal power for some time during the minority of Louis XIV. (1643-1715). The wars of the Fronde, the misconduct of the parliament, and the humbling of the nobility, gave rise to another civil war, but with the assumption of power by young Louis, a new era commenced, and till near the close of his long reign, the military successes of the French were most brilliant, and the boundaries of F. were enlarged very nearly to what they were before the war of 1870-71. The military glory of the kingdom was main tained by a host of gallant commanders, amongst whom stood conspicuous the names of Turenne,•Vauban, Luxembourg, Catinat, Vendome, Bouffiers, and Crequi, while, by the farsighted policy of the minister Louvoie, a well-organized army and a newly-cre ated navy made the power of F. formidable to all neighboring nations. The progress of the people in the arts of peace was not less marked. At the close of his rule, the oppressive war-taxes, the prodigality of the court, the luxurious lives of the clergy, and the absolutism and bigotry of the aged monarch, combined to undermine the founda tions of national prosperity and freedom, and at his death the state was left trammeled with a debt of 3,500 millions of livres. and his youthful heir, Louis XV. (1715-75), suc ceeded to a heritage whose glory was tarnished, and whose stability was shaken to its very foundations. The long inglorious reign of Louis XV.presents nothing worthy of notice except the gradual rise of those sentiments of infidelity and license which pre pared the overthrow of all the ancient institutions of the country. The regency of the profligate Orleans paved the way for the miseries which followed, while his corrupt financial administration brought the nation into the most overwhelming monetary embarrassments. In this reign, Corsica was added to France. The thorough disorgan ization of the state, and the neglect of the fleet and army, prevented all attempts at conquests either on sea or land. The colonies were left a prey to the attacks of other powers, while the capricious change of policy which the king's mistress, Mine. Pompa dour, forced upon the government, brought contempt upon the country. The peace of Paris, 1763, by which the greater portion of the colonial possessions of F. were given up to England, terminated an inglorious war, in which the French had expended 1350 millions of francs. The close of this unhappy reign was still further disturbed by the cabals of the Jesuits, who were finally banished in 1764. In 1774, Louis XVI., a well meaning, weak prince, succeeded to the throne. His first ministers, Maurepas, Turgot, and Malesherbes, had not the vigor to' carry out the reforms which their sense and patriotism suggested to them, and they were soon compelled to yield to the intrigues of the nobility, and resign their places. They were succeeded by the financier Necker, who endeavored, by economy and method, to arrest the impending bankruptcy of the state, and succeeding ministers made futile attempts to diminish these financial disor ders by new forms of taxation, which were generally opposed either by the assembly or the Court. The American war of freedom had disseminated republican ideas among the lower orders, while the assembly of the notables had discussed and made known to all classes the incapacity of the government, and the wanton prodigality of the court. The nobles and the tiers itat were alike clamorous for a meeting of the states; the for mer wishing to impose new taxes on the nation, and the latter determined to inaugurate a thorough and systematic reform. After much opposition on the part of the king and court, the etats generaux, which had not met since 1614, assembled at Versailles on the 25th of May, 1789.