Curated playlist
Burials at the Basilica of Saint-Denis
- Claude of FranceClaude of France was born on the 13th of October 1499 in Romorantin-Lanthenay, and she entered a world already thick with political calculation. Her very name carried her mother's desperation: Anne of Brittany had invoked the intercession…
- Charles VIII of FranceCharles VIII of France was born on the 30th of June 1470 at the Château d'Amboise, and he died in that same place under circumstances that still puzzle historians today. He was thirteen years old when he inherited the French throne in…
- Louis XIVLouis XIV ruled France for 72 years and 110 days, the longest reign of any sovereign monarch in history. He came to the throne on the 14th of May 1643, a boy of four, after the death of his father Louis XIII. He would not loosen his grip…
- Louis XVIIILouis XVIII spent twenty-three years as a king without a kingdom. Born on the 17th of November 1755 at the Palace of Versailles, he outlasted the Revolution that killed his brother, the exile that scattered his court, and the emperor who…
- Francis I of FranceFrancis I of France was born on the 12th of September 1494, in a château in the town of Cognac, and from the moment he arrived, his path to the throne was nothing anyone would have predicted. His family held the county of Angoulême, not…
- Francis II of FranceFrancis II of France was fifteen years old when Henry II died in a jousting accident on the 10th of July 1559. The French throne passed suddenly to a teenager who was fragile, inexperienced, and had never governed anything larger than a…
- Philip II of FrancePhilip II of France was born on the 21st of August 1165 in Gonesse, the only son of King Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne. His birth was so longed for, arriving so late in his father's reign, that the boy was nicknamed…
- Marie de' MediciOn the 26th of April 1575, Maria de' Medici was born inside the Palazzo Pitti of Florence. Her father Francesco I ruled Tuscany as Grand Duke while her mother Joanna of Austria descended from Spanish royalty. The family wealth made her a…
- Louis XVILouis XVI asked one last question on the morning of his execution: "Any news of La Pérouse?" The explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, had been sent on a voyage around the world in 1785 at Louis's personal direction, and…
- Henry II of FranceHenry II of France died from a splinter of wood. On the 30th of June 1559, a jousting tournament was held near the Place des Vosges to celebrate a hard-won peace with the Habsburgs and the marriage of his daughter Elisabeth to King Philip…
- Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette stepped down from an open cart in the Place de la Revolution on the 16th of October 1793. She trod on her executioner's shoe and apologized: "Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose." Minutes later she was beheaded by…
- Catherine de' MediciCatherine de' Medici was born on the 13th of April 1519 in Florence, and within a month both her parents were dead. Her mother Madeleine died of puerperal fever on the 28th of April. Her father Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died on the 4th of…
- Louis IX of FranceLouis IX of France was crowned at Reims Cathedral on the 29th of November 1226, when he was just 12 years old. His father, Louis VIII, had died three weeks earlier. The boy who knelt before the bishop of Soissons would become the only king…