The Kingdom of France was a state that existed in western Europe for nearly a thousand years and which was a major international power from the 16th century until the advent of the French Republic. The "Emperor of the French" was a Bonapartist institution with no direct relation to the House of France, and since the 3rd Republic (1870) the institution has been completely abolished.
It originated from the Western portion of the Frankish empire, and consolidated significant power and influence over the next thousand years. Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, developed a powerful state and legal theory of absolute monarchy. Eventually, the influences of the French Enlightenment, the growing costs of the American War of Independence that France partially supported, the rise of political awareness and the bourgeois need of political empowerment caused the French Revolution, as the Kingdom gave way to the similarly named constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French First Republic.
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Famous quotes containing the words kingdom of, kingdom and/or france:
“...the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 4:20.
“It is easier to govern a kingdom than to rule a family.”
—Chinese proverb.
““Eh Bien you like this sacred pig of a country?” asked Marco.
“Why not? I like it anywhere. It’s all the same, in France you are paid badly and live well; here you are paid well and live badly.””
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)