* 1656 – Claude de Forbin, French naval commander ( d. 1733 )

The Duke had assured the Dutch that if the French were to launch an offensive he would return in good time, but Marlborough calculated that as he marched south, the French commander would be drawn after him.

The French and Bavarians, however, were almost as disordered as their opponents, and they too were in need of inspiration from their commander, the Elector, who was seen – " ... riding up and down, and inspiring his men with fresh courage.

The French commander in the village, the Marquis de Blainville, numbered amongst the heavy casualties.

The Duke welcomed the French commander – " I am very sorry that such a cruel misfortune should have fallen upon a soldier for whom I have the highest regard.

The French infantry fought tenaciously to hold on to their position in Blenheim, but their commander was nowhere to be found.

The French moved first to Tirlemont, ( as if to threaten Zoutleeuw, abandoned by the French in October 1705 ), before turning southwards, heading for Jodoigne – this line of march took Villeroi ’ s army towards the narrow aperture of dry ground between the Mehaigne and Petite Gheete rivers close to the small villages of Ramillies and Taviers ; but neither commander quite appreciated how far his opponent had travelled.

Two hours later the Duke, accompanied by the Dutch field commander Field Marshal Overkirk, General Daniel Dopff, and the Allied staff, rode up to Cadogan where on the horizon to the westward he could discern the massed ranks of the French army deploying for battle along the four mile ( 6. 4 km ) front.

Although Villeroi had the option of enveloping the flanks of the Allied army as they deployed on the plateau of Jandrenouille – threatening to encircle their army – the Duke correctly gauged that the characteristically cautious French commander was intent on a defensive battle along the ridge-line.

" Heeding this advice the French commander began to transfer battalions from his centre to reinforce the left, drawing more foot from the already weakened right to replace them.

Villeroi meanwhile, was still moving more reserves of infantry in the opposite direction towards his left flank ; crucially, it would be some time before the French commander noticed the subtle change in emphasis of the Allied dispositions.

The Allied commander ordered his cavalry forward against the now heavily outnumbered French and Bavarian horsemen.

The incident was chronicled in the Boston News Letter, which called Teach the commander of a " French ship of 32 Guns, a Briganteen of 10 guns and a Sloop of 12 guns.

With the French army ashore, the fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay, a station northeast of Alexandria, in a formation that its commander, Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys D ' Aigalliers, believed established a formidable defensive position.

Alarmed by reports of French preparations on the Mediterranean coast, Lord Spencer at the Admiralty sent a message to Vice-Admiral Earl St. Vincent, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet based in the Tagus River, to despatch a squadron to investigate.

He instructed his naval commander, Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys D ' Aigalliers, to anchor in Alexandria harbour, but naval surveyors reported that the channel into the harbour was too shallow and narrow for the larger ships of the French fleet.

In 1727 the first French commander, M. Le Grand, took charge of the island and established a rudimentary government thus making Dominica formally a colony of France.

Eugene enhanced his standing during the War of the Spanish Succession where his partnership with the Duke of Marlborough secured victories against the French on the fields of Blenheim ( 1704 ), Oudenarde ( 1708 ), and Malplaquet ( 1709 ); he gained further success in the war as Imperial commander in northern Italy, most notably at the Battle of Turin ( 1706 ).

Military honours in Italy undoubtedly belonged to the French commander Marshal Catinat, but Eugene, the one Allied general determined on action and decisive results, did well to emerge from the Nine Years ' War with an enhanced reputation.

Yet the coup was less successful than hoped: Cremona remained in French hands, and the Duke of Vendôme, whose talents far exceeded Villeroi's, became the theatre's new commander.

* 1712 – Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French military commander ( d. 1759 )

Washington delivered the letter to the local French commander, who politely refused to leave.

During the War of the Spanish Succession Alberoni laid the foundation of his political success by the services he rendered to Louis-Joseph, duc de Vendôme, commander of the French forces in Italy, to whom the duke of Parma had sent him.

Alarmed by this display of weapons, I looked toward the bridge and there saw, stretched across the near side, a cordon of policemen, their bicycles forming a roadblock before which stood several French officers in uniform and a small waspish man in a brown derby.

Sure enough, mail began trickling in, delivered by a talkative, highly amused French postman who informed me there had been quite a debate at the post office as to whether that address would be recognized.

Though Catherine was vexed at the number of French officers streaming to the Turkish standard, there were several under her own, such as the Prince De Nassau ; ;

When the negotiations began, his quarrel with the king of France was temporarily in abeyance, and he had no intention of reviving it so long as there was hope that French money would come to pay the troops who, under Charles of Valois, the papal vicar of Tuscany, were so valuable in the crusade against the Colonna cardinals and their Sicilian allies.

This is important because, despite all the efforts of the French government, an appreciable segment of France's export trade in wines is still tainted with a misrepresentation approaching downright dishonesty, and there are many too many negociants who would rather turn a sou than amass a creditable reputation overseas.

British traders from South Carolina incited the Indians against the French, and there developed French and British Factions in the tribe.

there had been lessons in French from a small Polish nobleman with a really profound distaste for his pupils ; ;

He was a regent for the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems during the Nazi occupation of Vichy France which implemented the eugenics policies there ; his association with the Foundation led to allegations of collaborating with the Nazis.

The question whether there is a limit to the degree of cold possible, and, if so, where the zero must be placed, was first addressed by the French physicist Guillaume Amontons in 1702, in connection with his improvements in the air thermometer.

After the indecisive < ref name =" British historian Townsend Miller "> British historian Townsend Miller: “ But, if the outcome of < nowiki > battle of </ nowiki > Toro, militarily, is debatable, there is no doubt whatsoever as to its enormous psychological and political effects ” in The battle of Toro, 1476, in History Today, volume 14, 1964, p. 270 </ ref > Battle of Toro in 1476 against King Ferdinand II of Aragon, the husband of Isabella I of Castile, he went to France to obtain the assistance of Louis XI, but finding himself deceived by the French monarch, he returned to Portugal in 1477 in very low spirits.

These were differently sized in different countries, for instance, the historical French acre was 4, 221 square metres, whereas in Germany as many variants of " acre " existed as there were German states.

Conversely the use of true brass seems to have declined in Western Europe during this period in favour of gunmetals and other mixed alloys but by the end of the first Millennium AD brass artefacts are found in Scandinavian graves in Scotland, brass was being used in the manufacture of coins in Northumbria and there is archaeological and historical evidence for the production of brass in Germany and The Low Countries areas rich in calamine ore which would remain important centres of brass making throughout the medieval period, especially Dinant – brass objects are still collectively known as dinanterie in French.

HSL 1 runs from just south of Brussels to the French border, where it continues to Lille, and from there to Paris or London.

The French creation, made of iron and wood, developed into the " penny-farthing " ( historically known as an " ordinary bicycle ", a retronym, since there was then no other kind ).

In any case, Marlborough had promised to return to the Netherlands if a French attack developed there, transferring his troops down the Rhine on barges at a rate of a day.

The first option ( although it is debatable to what extent the Duke was committed to such an enterprise ) was a plan to transfer his forces from the Spanish Netherlands to northern Italy ; once there, he intended linking up with Prince Eugene in order to defeat the French and safeguard Savoy from being overrun.

The accomplished French officer, Colonel de la Colonie, standing on the plain nearby remembered – " this village was the opening of the engagement, and the fighting there was almost as murderous as the rest of the battle put together.

Now, far too late, Villeroi tried to redeploy his 50 unused squadrons, but a desperate attempt to form line facing south, stretching from Offus to Mont St André, floundered amongst the baggage and tents of the French camp carelessly left there after the initial deployment.

Meanwhile, on the Upper Rhine, Villars had been forced onto the defensive as battalion after battalion had been sent north to bolster collapsing French forces in Flanders ; there was now no possibility of his undertaking the re-capture of Landau.

Voltaire, however, in Histoire du siecle du Louis XIV records, ' the French lost there twenty thousand men '.

The majority of the population is French, but there are sizable groups of Italians, Spaniards ( Up to 20 % of the Bordeaux population claim some degree of Spanish heritage ), Portuguese, Turks, Germans and North Africans ..

Although written literature is only slowly evolving ( due to the predominance of French as the " language of the educated "), there exists a wealth of oral literature, which is often tales of kings and heroes.

Making rapid time on a direct route, Nelson reached Alexandria on 28 June and discovered that the French were not there.

However, he had made a serious misjudgement: there was enough room between Guerrier and the shoal for an enemy ship to cut across the head of the French line, allowing the unsupported vanguard to be caught in a crossfire by two divisions of enemy ships.