Favorite Frenchman?

have a (you)

Jean Lafitte

youtube.com/watch?v=lJEZ4ODUuk4
Based, I love Richard too. He was the best crusader king and his rivalry with Saladin is worthy of admiration.

>Calling the literal protagonist of human history an
>overrated shit hole
Such is your brain on US citizenship

Richard Plantagenet

Thomas Sankara of course

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>Ever since the decline of the Carlovingian family, we languished more or less in this infirm state, merely for want of the benefit of a good administration...For a state to be powerful, the people must either enjoy a liberty founded upon laws, or the royal authority must be fixed beyond all opposition.
>For the space of nine hundred years, our genius has been almost always restrained under a Gothic government, in the midst of divisions and civil wars; destitute of any laws or fixed customs; changing every second century a language which still continued rude and unformed; the nobles were without discipline, and strangers to everything but war and idleness. The clergy lived in disorder and ignorance, and the common people without industry, and stupefied in their wretchedness.
>We had no share either in the great discoveries or admirable inventions of other nations: we have no title to the discoveries of painting, gunpowder, glasses, the telescope, the sector, compass, the air-pump, or the true system of the universe; we were making tournaments while the Portuguese and Spaniards were discovering and conquering new countries from the east to the west of the known world. Charles V. had already scattered the treasures of Mexico over Europe, before we had discovered the uncultivated country of Canada.
>The Italians called all the people on this side of the Alps by the name of Barbarians; it must be owned that the French in some degree deserved this reproachful epithet. Our forefathers...had hardly any of the agreeable arts among them...though we possessed of harbors on the Western Ocean, we were without ships; and we were hardly provided with the most common manufactures.
>The Jews, the Genoese, the Venetians, the Portuguese, the Flemish, the Dutch, and the English carried on in their turn the trade of France, which was ignorant even of the first principles of commerce. Louis XIII., on his accession to the crown, had not a single ship
-Voltaire

Voltaire was a polémiste(someone who creates controversy; a polemicist). A lot of what he said aimed to rile up public opinion and is not meant to be taken at face value. However, he did have a point when he said that we achieved less than we could have because our government was decentralized, but we still achieved more under Louis XIV than anyone else in Europe at the time.

But is he wrong? I don't think so. France really wasn't that great of a place until after Louis, and then not even that great until recently in the past 50 years

Voltaire is quite frankly the NPCest writer France has ever birthed
Read his Dictionnaire philosophique, it is a shame to think that he wrote that at the same time Rousseau wrote the Emile or just some years before Kant wrote the Kritik der reinen Vernunft.
Literaly an edgy highschooler with an attitude and some style

No, he's a blessing to France. He is right. I can't think of many great French artists before the 1600s. And if they are French, they were really Italian

you're a very dull troll

>But is he wrong?
He was being facetious on purpose, so I'll let you guess.

Why are you trying so hard to show your lack of understanding concerning arts and philosophy?
The display of your flag was already a good hint

That guy
He triggered an entire continent in one sentence

It's hard to argue against him. Medieval France was very weak, and was nearly conquered by England, a nation with only 1/4th its population. And all the famous "Frenchmen" are actually people who lived in England or Aquitaine or Brittany or Germany. During the Renesaiance, it didn't have that many achievements. It's great reputation comes after Napoleon.

Prove me wrong? England has always done everything better. Italy was better early on. So was Spain.

Gothic architecture, University of Paris, Chretien de Troyes, just to mention a few. Dumb yank.

Not artists per se but it's hard to think of anything medieval without thinking of France

either napoleon, charlemagne or rollo

François Villon, Pierre de Ronsard, Rabelais, Jacques Morel, Jean Pucelle

>Prove me wrong
Concerning writers before 1600?
Quite easy :
Chrétien de Troyes
Abélard
Rabelais
Clément Marot
Montaigne
Ronsard
Du Bellay
La Boétie

All the dead ones

>french were literally the lingua franca of nobles in Europe
>They were the hillbillies of Europe
never post again dirty mutt

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Gothic architecture isn't French. Also, England did it better. The world's tallest building was Lincoln Cathedral (bigger than Notre Dame in France)

Champagne was barely French, it didn't even answer to the French king, so Chretein really doesn't count desu. And also, everything he wrote was about British things.

>Abélard
He was a Breton

>Chrétien de Troyes
Would hardly call himself French

Anyways, not saying France didn't have good people, but just not as much as other places

>Implying feudal nobility gave a shit about the concept of "nations"
"French" and the "Middle English" common around that time were nothing at all like the languages we understand today. Calling yourself "French" in the 13th century would be like calling yourself European today. It wouldn't refer to any specific nation or culture, just a vague grouping of them.

Hell, the EU has more centralized control over it's territory than the Kings of France did. At least until absolutism became fashionable a few centuries later.

Yes, thank you Charlemagne and everyone pretending to be him for 500 years. Thank you also to Rome.

Normal people didn't speak it

Robespierre. Napoleon loved getting dabbed on

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Asterix

they still have no cohesive nation

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Gothic architecture was French. The first example of Gothic architecture was built in France.
Also, you don't need to pledge allegiance to the French king to be French, that's about as stupid as an argument gets. Murat Reis working under the Ottomans as a privateer doesn't make him any less Dutch.
>>Chrétien de Troyes
>Would hardly call himself French
Only because France wasn't a nation yet. Going by your logic, Italian and German people didn't exist then, because hardly anyone called themselves "Italian" or "German".

>Gothic architecture wasn't French
It was literally called "Ars Francigenum"

You're just baiting at this point. Shan't even bother addressing the other ridiculous points.

>Normal people didn't speak it
pleb like you didnt speak it*

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People did call themselves German, Italian, and French back then. But they also called themselves other things, which is what de Troyes would have done. Look up the history of Champagne. Those guys weren't French.

Normal people outside of ile-de-france and other regions around it. I believe Occitan was spoken elsewhere.

Even the guy in OP's picture spoke Occitan

it wasn't exclusively French

>it wasn't exclusively French
but it originated in france

>Would hardly call himself French
Ok so UK did not exist until, at least, 1707.
Germany not until, at least, 1815.
And Italy not until, at least, 1861.

napoleon idk

The difference is that England was a unified state by 1020. France was hardly unified. The king in Paris was considered to be extremely weak. Even his vassals were stronger than him.

Spyfu

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I know the history of Champagne, stop telling me about my own country. Someone who spoke French natively and was born in France(the region, not the state) can be considered French without trouble.
>Even the guy in OP's picture spoke Occitan
His native language though? The Poitou dialect of French.

It's wrong to see the Hundred Years' War as a conflict between France and England. It was a conflict between two royal families, and it's not like the house of Valois had access to the entire population of France to fight for them. Mass conscription didn't exist yet, and only noblemen took part in battles. The early English successes can largely be explained by their use of superior technology(longbows) and lack of cohesion on the French side, while the late French successes are explained by the advent of artillery.

Jacquie & Michel

Henry V hired longbowmen from the common population in a manner that is considered very similar to modern armies. And they weren't only Welsh.

Anyway there definitely was something resembling national consciousness among linguistic groups and the English nobility adopted a distinct English identity in the 14th/15th century.

Dude, you're talking out of your ass. It varied by degree but EVERY part of Europe at the time was decentralized & dominated by local warlords. It wasn't just a problem for the kings either, even the dukes & barons had their hands full trying to assert control over their lands.

I don't see it as England vs France. You're right, it's more about certain royal families, and in my opinion, the problem started back in 1066 when the Normans took over England. The de Blois family from Champagne is another example

His native language was problaby Old French. I don't know. He probably spoke many langauges

Sure, but those identities developed during the course of the war. At its core, the conflict was still dynastic in nature. You can't speak of a conflict between two nations in the modern sense of the term.

You're right, it did vary, but the king's of France struggled to get their entire geographic region under their control. Not as much as the Germans or Spanish or Italians, but they struggled with it more than the English

>you're talking out of your ass
Yeah he is. From what I gather, he has his own personal definition of what France is(and it doesn't include Brittany, Champagne and Aquitaine). Not only does this go against consensus, but it's also fallacious because he can just go "oh that person isn't French, they're not from Paris!". Utterly stupid.

Today they're part of France, but 800 years ago, it was up for debate and for many years, they weren't part of France.

>they weren't part of France
So what? The kingdom of France wasn't a nation. "French people" in the modern sense of the term existed both inside and outside of it. And it certainly took France(state) a while to conquer France(region).

I know, which is why this thread is stupid. Richard the Lionheart didn't belong to the French kingdom

No, but he was a Frenchman. You need to learn to distinguish ethnicity, nationality, and culture.

Edgy, gay and cringe. This is why you're the scandinavian country no one gives a shit about.

How was he French? Because you speak English, does that make you an Englishman?

Karolus Magnus :^)

Because his native language was French, his culture was French and his ancestry lied in France.

>Because his native language was French
He was native to England (born in Oxford). He spoke many languages. Speaking a language doesn't mean you are that ethnicity.

>his culture was French
The idea of France having a unique culture was non-existent in his time. And that's also a stupid thing to say, because we could just say that "French culture" was actually inspired by Italy or the Irish when they visited Charlemagne

>his ancestry lied in France.
He had a diverse ancestry that included Germans, Dutch, Scottish, French, and Anglo-Saxons. Some say even Moor

By your reasoning, I can learn French, wear a beret, and suddenly I'm French?

>Speaking a language doesn't mean you are that ethnicity.
Hence the distinction between "native language" and "language". Your native language is generally a good indicator of which ethnic group you belong to.

>The idea of France having a unique culture was non-existent in his time
Not true. Chanson de geste was exclusive to France, and as such its stories were named the "Matter of France" in 1215, two decades after Richard's death, showing that France was recognised as having a unique culture. And no, your argument about foreign influences is actually the stupid one, inspiration has no incidence on the origin of a work of art.

>He had a diverse ancestry that included Germans, Dutch, Scottish, French, and Anglo-Saxons. Some say even Moor
Still mostly French. His only close ancestors that weren't French included two Scottish and one Flemish great-grandparents. The rest was French.

Richelieu

Charlemagne ... The last French person to rule my birthplace. God bless u

Met one when I was a conscript, alright fella, so I'll go with that dude

Jeanne is the eternal #1 best girl in history

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