After the Roman conquest, the Celtic Gauls adopted Roman culture and speech. The Germanic invasions ultimately transformed France into a Catholic feudal society. In this short history, Mary Duclaux traces the emergence of towns, the rise of the French monarchy, the calamitous Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion. We meet Joan of Arc, Charles VII, the gallant Henry IV, and the Sun King, Louis XIV, who drove France to the brink of bankruptcy. In the second half of the book Duclaux gives us the French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon: Louis XVI, sunk in "plump and smiling apathy," Marie Antoinette, who pleaded with France's enemies for rescue, the Paris mob who hated her, Danton, Saint-Just, Robespierre, and the Terror, and finally a sombre young Corsican officer with no small talk, the military and administrative genius, Napoleon Bonaparte. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)