The wild ancestors of man - hominins lived in France two million years ago, traces of the first settlements of sentient beings were found in the south of the country and in the department of the Upper Loire. Over the millennia they were replaced by Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.

In historical epochs (three thousand years ago), France was inhabited by Celtic tribes. The highest point of the heyday of the Celtic civilization is in the 3-2 century BC. The Celts in the fertile French lands were replaced by the Romans, whose power was to some extent preserved until the period called by historians the Great Migration of Nations, which led to the demise and destruction of the Roman Empire. As a result, in the middle of the 9th century, France was formed on the territory of Galia.

The French went to the crusades, captured the popes (the residence of the papal court forcibly was in Avignon for 70 years), fought against England during the Hundred Years War (which in fact lasted 116 years, and the turning point in the war that led to the surrender of the English , associated with the appearance on the historical stage of Joan of Arc), actively participated in religious wars (the peak of which was the mass genocide of Protestants during the St. Bartholomew's Night in Paris).

On the throne were replaced by numerous Ludovici (and the secret administration of the country was handled by the gray cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin), until in 1789 the French Revolution did not happen in France and the republican form of government was established.

A decade later, Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in France, later proclaiming himself emperor and making an almost successful attempt to capture world domination.

Further in the history of France, the periods of the restoration of the monarchy are interspersed with revolutions until the proclamation of the Third Republic (in 1870), which put a fat point in the monarchical history of France. Now the adventures of noble Frenchmen and palace intrigues come to life only on the pages of books by Alexandre Dumas and Maurice Druon.

Ancient ruins of Arlya

Archaeological work in Burgundy

Castles of France - dumb witnesses of the country's history