1.the name france came from the word latin francia
URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France
2.Absolute monarchy is an idealized form of government, a monarchy where the ruler has the power to rule his or her country and citizens freely with no laws or legally-organized direct opposition telling him or her what to do
URL:http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Absolute_monarchy
3.A.Louis XIII (27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France and Navarre from 1610 to 1643. Along with his First Minister Cardinal Richelieu, Louis "the Just" is remembered for the establishment of the Académie française and participation in the Thirty Years' War against the House of Habsburg.[1] France's greatest victory in the war came at the Battle of Rocroi, five days after Louis' death—apparently from complications of intestinal tuberculosis, "marking the end of Spain's military ascendancy in Europe."[2]
URL;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIII_of_France

B.Louis XIV, France's Sun King, had the longest reign in European history (1643-1715). During this time he brought absolute monarchy to its height, established a glittering court at Versailles, and fought most of the other European countries in four wars. The early part of his reign (1643-61), while Louis was young, was dominated by the chief minister Cardinal Mazarin. In the middle period (1661-85) Louis reigned personally and innovatively, but the last years of his personal rule (1685-1715) were beset by problems.
URL;http://www.louis-xiv.de/index.php?id=31

C.Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu (French pronunciation: [ʁiʃəljø]; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble, and statesman.

Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he fostered.

The Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King's "Chief Minister" or "First Minister." As a result, he is considered to be the world's first Prime Minister, in the modern sense of the term. He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve this goal. His tenure was marked by the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe.
URL;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

D.Jules Mazarin (French pronunciation: [ʒyl mazaʁɛ̃]; July 14, 1602 – March 9, 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazarino or Mazarini,[1] was a French-Italian[2] cardinal, diplomat, and politician, who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 until his death. Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu. He was a noted collector of art and jewels, particularly diamonds, and he bequeathed the "Mazarin diamonds" to Louis XIV in 1661, some of which remain in the collection of the Louvre museum in Paris.[3] His personal library was the origin of the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris.
His youth was full of excitement: he accompanied the future Cardinal Colonna to Madrid; he was in turn a captain of pontifical troops and then a pontifical diplomat in the Valtelline War (1624) and the Mantuan War of Succession (1628-30). The truce which he negotiated (26 October, 1630) between the French, on one side, and the Spaniards and the Duke of Savoy, on the other, won for him the esteem of Richelieu, who was well pleased at his letting Pignerol fall into the hands of the French.
URL;URL;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Mazarin

4.n France under the ancien r�gime, the States-General or Estates-General (in French: �tats-G�n�raux), was an assembly of the different classes of French citizenry. It owed its origin to the same causes which produced the Parliament of England, the Cortes of Spain, the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire and the Diets (in German: Landtage) of the states of Germany,
URL;http://www.fact-index.com/f/fr/french_states_general.html

5.
A.The Hundred Years War was a series of wars between England and France. The background of the Hundred Years War went as far back as to the reign of William the Conqueror. When William the Conqueror became king in 1066 after his victory at the Battle of Hastings, he united England with Normandy in France. William ruled both as his own.
The feudal system meant that knights had to provide the king with soldiers when the king demanded them. However, war had moved on from the time of the Battle of Hastings and the longbow was now the most feared of weapons and not the knight on horseback. The king's officials went around England looking for skilled archers. All young men in medieval villages were expected to practice archery so there were many skilled archers to be found. It was left to a village to decide who would actually go to fight but the village as a whole would have to look after the family or families affected by someone leaving. Those who went were paid three pence a day.
\URL;http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hundred_years_war.htm

2. Under the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 Lutheranism had been given official recognition in the Holy Roman Empire. Lands of the Roman church which had previously been taken by secular powers were retained by them. German rulers could also impose their religion on their subjects.

However, the Peace did not provide a permanent framework for religious settlement in Germany. A number of rulers became Calvinists and thus at least arguably outside the pale of the Peace. Protestants continued to take over Catholic properties, particularly in North Germany. The Catholics commanded a majority in most of the organs of government; the Protestants came to distrust these bodies and the machinery of government began to break down.

The Catholics and Protestants formed armed alliances to preserve their rights: the Catholic League under Maximilian I of Bavaria and the Protestant Union under Frederick V of the Palatinate.

Meanwhile, in Bohemia, Moravia and Austria dissension between the Habsburgs had enabled the local elites to extort religious freedom from their rulers. The Habsburgs gradually began to chip away at these concessions.
URL;http://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/TYWHome.htm

3.The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) was fought among several European powers, principally the Spanish loyal to Archduke Charles, the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Portugal and the Duchy of Savoy against the Spanish loyal to Philip V, France and the Electorate of Bavaria over a possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch

The war began slowly as Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor fought to protect the Austrian Habsburg claim to the Spanish inheritance. As Louis XIV began to expand his territories, other European nations (chiefly England, Portugal and the Dutch Republic) entered on the Holy Roman Empire's side to check French expansion.[5] Other states joined the coalition opposing France and Spain in an attempt to acquire new territories or to protect existing dominions. Spain was itself divided over the succession and fell into a civil war.

URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession
4.French Revolution began in 1789 with the meeting of the States General in May. On July 14 of that same year, the Bastille was stormed: in October, Louis XVI and the Royal Family were removed from Versailles to Paris. The King attempted, unsuccessfully, to flee Paris for Varennes in June 1791. A Legislative Assembly sat from October 1791 until September 1792, when, in the face of the advance of the allied armies of Austria, Holland, Prussia, and Sardinia, it was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the Republic. The King was brought to trial in December of 1792, and executed on January 21, 1793. In January of 1793 the revolutionary government declared war on Britain, a war for world dominion which had been carried on, with short intermissions, since the beginning of the reign of William and Mary, and which would continue for another twenty-two years.
URL;http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist7.html