France

Question 1

In 1974 he lost the French election with 49.19% to Giscard d’Estaing. In 1981 he beat him with 51.76%.

Answer 1

Francois Mitterand

Question 2

This French military once-hero was head of state during the Vichy government of WWII.

Answer 2

Philippe Petain

Question 3

Last January, the French government unsealed the confession of what 1917 firing squad victim, which is now on display in her Dutch hometown of Leeuwarden?

Answer 3

Mata Hari

Question 4

During France’s Reign of Terror, this wax modeler was forced to make death masks of freshly guillotined heads.

Answer 4

Madame Tussaud

Question 5

France’s 1852 to 1870 Second Empire was ruled by the third of this name, known as “the Sphinx” for his enigmatic nature.

Answer 5

Napoleon

Question 6

In 1913, this French aviator became the first person to fly non-stop across the Mediterranean Sea.

Answer 6

Roland Garros

Question 7

U.S. troops in Paris on July 4, 1917 visited his tomb, where Lt. Col. Charles Stanton famously said to him, “we are here!”

Answer 7

Marquis de Lafayette

Question 8

n 1784 the Marquis de Sade was transferred to this prison that gained fame of its own five years later.

Answer 8

The Bastille

Question 9

It was constructed in the Paris foundry of Gaget, Gauthier & Co. from 1875 to 1884.

Answer 9

The Statue of Liberty

Question 10

In 1795, while working at the Bureau of Topography of the Committee of Public Safety, Napoleon wrote this romantic novel.

Answer 10

Clisson et Eugénie

Question 11

In May 1793 this bloodthirsty French lawyer had a message for the people– “Rise in insurrection.”

Answer 11

Robespierre

Question 12

Published in L’Aurore on January 13, 1898, it caused its author to be convicted of libel.

Answer 12

J’Accuse

Question 13

In what Brittany city did Henry IV sign a 1598 edict granting more religious rights to French Protestants?

Answer 13

Nantes

Question 14

In 2015, two Islamist gunmen opened fire in the Paris offices of what satirical newspaper, killing twelve? The newspaper had attracted attention for the publication of controversial cartoons of Mohammed, and the slogan “Je suis Charlie” was adopted by free speech supporters in response to the incident.

Answer 14

Charlie Hebdo

Question 15

Named for their lack of a particular piece of clothing, this was the name given to the radicalized and militant common people of the lower classes of France who made up the bulk of the revolutionary army during the French Revolution.

Answer 15

Sans-culottes (“Without breeches”)

Question 16

Founded in 1789 by Maximilien Robespierre, this was the most influential political club during the French Revolution. Their time of political power is best known for the Reign of Terror in 1793.

Answer 16

Jacobins

Question 17

He was the founder of the Jacobins.

Answer 17

Maximilien Robespierre

Question 18

This is the name of the period after the Reign of Terror, during which moderate and conservative forces decentralized the power amassed under the radical leftist government of Robespierre. This period is named after the 11th month in the French republican calendar.

Answer 18

Thermidorian Reaction

Question 19

In 1919 France recovered Alsace-Lorraine from Germany in the Treaty of this.

Answer 19

Versailles

Question 20

Napoleon, Prince Imperial, the only son of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie, died at age 23 in 1879 in the Anglo-Zulu War in what is now this country.

Answer 20

South Africa

Question 21

Joan of Arc lost her life at the age of 19 in this French city.

Answer 21

Rouen

Question 22

This French explorer with his own lake on the U.S.-Quebec border reached the Great Lakes around 1615.

Answer 22

Samuel Champlain

Question 23

He was born in Corsica’s capital of Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, the same year the French took over.

Answer 23

Napoleon

Question 24

In the 1930s Corsican gangster Paul Carbone began the international drug-dealing racket known as this.

Answer 24

The French Connection

Question 25

Name the polarizing leader of the French far-right political party now known as National Rally (Rassemblement national), who holds the position previously held by her even-farther-right father when the party was still known as the National Front (Front national).

Answer 25

Marine Le Pen

Question 26

Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat are among the 18th-century Frenchmen associated with the "Society of the Friends of the Constitution" (Société des amis de la Constitution), a club that was best known informally by what name, taken from the monastery which was the club's frequent meeting place during the early 1790s?

Answer 26

Jacobin

Question 27

France’s national theater award, it’s named for a man who died in Paris in 1673

Answer 27

Molière

Question 28

In 1349, the future King Charles V of France purchased land which gave its name to the title of the eldest son of the reigning French monarch (until 1830). What was that title?

Answer 28

Dauphin

Question 29

By way of 1800's Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, in exchange for territories in Tuscany, Napoleon Bonaparte (re-)acquired what North American territory, which he subsequently sold three years later?

Answer 29

Louisiana