Asimov Isaac. The Shaping of France

Houghton Mifflin, 1972. — 281 p. — ISBN 978-0395138915, 0395138914.This is the History of France, 987 to 1454 AD; from the last Carolingian king to the invention of the printing press.
In « The shaping of France», the author turns his attention to France, picking up where «The dark ages» left off and showing the other side of the picture painted in «The shaping of England». The book begins with the death of Louis the Do-Nothing, important only because he was the last of the Carolingians who had dominated French history for so long. The book ends in 1453 with the close of the Hundred Years War and covers a host of strong personalities, Hugh Capet, William of Normandy, Philip II, Joan of Arc—and major events—the Crusades, the Battle of Agincourt, the Babylonian Captivity.
This was a period when kings and Popes and aristocracy reigned supreme and the people were only beginning to gain the organization and weaponry necessary to challenge them. They were active, exciting times and Isaac Asimov recounts them with all the verve they call for.The new line
The last Carolingian
The first Capetian
Crown and Clergy
King and Duke
War in the Far East
The first crusade
Louis The Wide-awake
The sons of the conqueror
The second crusade
Duel with the Angevins
Divorce and Remarriage
Progress and Paris
The third crusade
Philip Augustus!
The climb upward
The orthodoxy of Philip
The last Angevin flicker
The Saint-king
The last crusades
At the peak
Sicilian knives and Flemish pikes
The popes bow
The templars die
The three sons
Catastrophe!
Cousin versus nephew 129
Disaster by sea
Disaster by land
The black death
The slide downward
The king is taken
The wise Dauphin
The shrewd general
The king's uncles
To the bottom
Civil war
Disaster against all odds
Collapse
At the point of death
Recovery
Miracle at Orleans?
Charles is crowned
Joan is burned
Philip is convinced
Victory
The changing scene
The last battles
The end of an era
Forecast
Table of dates
index
Genealogies