Charlemagne. Equestrian statuette, ninth century.
Saint Louis IX, with the Louvre and Tour de Nesle (of ill repute) in the background. Detail from the Parliament of Paris Altarpiece , French School, fifteenth century.
A lecture in Rhetoric at the Sorbonne. French School, thirteenth century.
Off to the Crusades: the French king and knights, backed up by monks. Chronicle of France or Saint Denis, fourteenth century.
Charles VII, with his court and Joan of Arc. French School, fifteenth century.
Agincourt, 1415. A very English view of triumph across the Channel. St. Alban’s Chronicle, late fifteenth century.
Henri II. French School, c. 1550.
Venus at her Toilet. Oil painting presumed to depict Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri II. Fontainbleau School, sixteenth century.
Engraving of Henri II being fatally wounded at a joust. French School, sixteenth century.
The assassination of Henri III and the execution of his killer, Jacques Clement. Coloured engraving by Franz Hogenberg, sixteenth century.
Benvenuto Cellini’s salt cellar, designed for François I, 1540–43.
Louis XIV. Still life with portrait of the king by Jean Garnier, 1672.
High life at Louis XIV’s Versailles. Perspective view of the chateau, as seen from the Neptune Fountain, by Jean Baptiste Martin, 1696.
Feeding the Sun King’s veterans. Engraving of the dining room at the Hotel Royal des Invalides, Paris, built in 1674 by Louis XIV. French School, eighteenth century.
How the other half lived: a peasant family during the reign of Louis XIV. Louis Le Nain, c. 1643.
Distribution of bread at the Tuileries Kiosk, during the winter food shortage in 1709. Engraving from the French School, eighteenth century.
The spirit of pre-revolutionary France? Bacchante Endormie by Jean-Honore Fragonard, eighteenth century.
Madame de Montespan. Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïse Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise de Montespan, French School, seventeenth century.
A new wind of change at Versailles: Madame de Maintenon. Portrait of Francoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, French School, eighteenth century.
And austerity in the Church. Portrait of Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, Dutch School, seventeenth century.
Flight to Varennes. The arrest of Louis XVI and his family at Varennes, 21 June, 1791. Le Sueur Brothers, eighteenth century.
Execution of Louis XVI, 21 January, 1793.
A deputy of the convention. Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Milhaud by Jacques Louis David, 1793.
Portrait of Napoleon I in his coronation robes, by Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson, 1804.
The Distribution of the Eagle Standards, 5 December, 1804 (detail), by Jacques Louis David, 1808–10.
The Battle of Wagram, 6 July, 1809, by Emile Jean Horace Vernet, 1836.
Last moments of Napoleonic glory. Russian POWs paraded in Paris after the Battle of Montmirail, 17 February, 1814. Pen and ink and watercolours on paper by Etienne Jean Delecluze.
Spirit of the Age of Enrichissez-Vous. Portrait of Madame Moitessiers, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1856.
Members of the Commune at the Hotel de Ville in Paris and field officers deliberating, 1871.
Emperor Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and his son, Prince Napoleon Eugene Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte, who was killed with the British Army during the Zulu wars. French School, nineteenth century.
The Second Empire. A poster, designed by Jules Cheret, advertising Jacques Offenbach’s operetta, La Vie Parisienne, 1886.
France restored: the Belle Epoque at the Moulin Rouge.
Haussmann builds Avenue de l’Opéra, 1858–78. Photograph by Charles Marville.
Dreyfus disgraced. The Traitor: The Degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, cover of Le Petit Journal, 13 January, 1895. Engraving by Henri Meyer.
Pétain: the hero of Verdun.
French Generals of World War I, de Castelnau (left), Joffre (centre) and Pau (right).
What World War I did to France; French propaganda photograph at a base hospital. Original caption, as printed by the New York Times in 1916, reads: “A Soldier Who Has Lost Bo Feet, Yet Walks Fairly Well With Clever Substitutes.”
The failed peace conference at the Quai d’Orsay, 1919 (centre, left to right: Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George). Painting by Sir William Orpen.
Peace: Dada, a short-lived craze. Front cover of Bulletin Dada No.6 , February 1920. Colour lithograph by Marcel Duchamp.
“Le Front Populaire Contre la Misère, le Fascime, la Guerre, pour le pain, la paix, la liberté,” cover of a brochure, 1936. Colour lithograph, French School, twentieth century.
“Le Front Populaire”; For and Against. Protest against the Popular Front, from Le Pèlerin magazine, 11 October, 1936. Colour lithograph by Eugene Damblans.
War again. Chic Parisiennes carrying gas masks during the phoney war, 1939–40.
Art under the Occupation: Pierre Reverdy, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Brassai (Gyula Halasz).
France defeated: Hitler in Paris, Summer, 1940.
Vichy: Appeal of Marshal Philippe Pétain, 1941. Coloured engraving, French School, twentieth century.
Liberation, 1945. Churchill and de Gaulle at the Arc de Triomphe.
Parisian students take to the streets, 1968. President de Gaulle and Premier Pompidou, Sunday Express cartoon by Cummings.
Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, Verdun, 1986.
Funeral of François Mitterrand, his mistress and their daughter.