Early Modern States of France and the Low Countries: Map & History

The Union of Utrecht allowed complete personal freedom of religion and was thus one of the first unlimited edicts of religious toleration. An additional declaration allowed provinces and cities that wished to remain Roman Catholic to join the union.

From Wikipedia: Union of Utrecht · Religious tolerance (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Honoré II, Prince of Monaco secured recognition of his independent sovereignty from Spain in 1633, and then from Louis XIII of France by the Treaty of Péronne (1641). Monaco made a special agreement with France in 1963 in which French customs laws apply in Monaco and its territorial waters. Monaco uses the euro but is not a member of the European Union. Monaco shares a 6 km (3.7 mi) border with France but also has about 2 km (1.2 mi) of coastline with the Mediterranean sea. Two important agreements that support Monaco's independence from France include the Franco-Monégasque Treaty of 1861 and the French Treaty of 1918 (see also Kingdom of Sardinia). The United States CIA Factbook records 1419 as the year of Monaco's independence.

From Wikipedia: Monaco · Government and politics: Foreign relations (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Monaco has a 20% VAT plus high social-insurance taxes, payable by both employers and employees. The employers' contributions are between 28% and 40% (averaging 35%) of gross salary, including benefits, and employees pay a further 10% to 14% (averaging 13%).

From Wikipedia: Monaco · Economy: Low taxes (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Major sports in Monaco including motor racing and football. Other sports include athletics, rugby, basketball, and professional boxing. The Stade Louis II is the only football and athletics stadium in the country. The international governing body of World Athletics (WA) is headquartered in Monaco.

From Wikipedia: Monaco · Culture: Sports (CC BY-SA 4.0)

After a series of successful actions, Pasquale Paoli drove the Genoese from the whole island except for a few coastal towns. He then set to work re-organizing the government, introducing many reforms. He founded a university at Corte and created a short-lived "Order of Saint-Devote" in 1757 in honour of the patron saint of the island, Saint Devota.

From Wikipedia: Corsican Republic · Foundation (CC BY-SA 4.0)

According to the constitution, the legislature, the Corsican Diet (or Consulta Generale), composed of over 300 members, met once a year on call of the head of state and was composed of delegates elected by acclamation from each parish for three-year terms. The Diet enacted laws, regulated taxation, and determined national policy. Executive powers were handled by the Council of State, elected by the Diet initially for life and which met twice a year, in the absence of which powers were held by the General (chair of the Council) or in their absence, by the President General or by one president from each of the three magistracies of the Council (rotated monthly), one councilor (rotated between the three magistracies every 10 days), and the secretary of state.

From Wikipedia: Corsican Republic · Government (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Under the Legislative Assembly, which was in power before the proclamation of the First Republic, France was engaged in war with Prussia and Austria. In July 1792, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, commanding general of the Austro–Prussian Army, issued his Brunswick Manifesto, threatening the destruction of Paris should any harm come to King Louis XVI and his family.

From Wikipedia: French First Republic · End of the monarchy in France (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Due to the disastrous Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the Patriot party revolted against the authoritarian regime of Stadtholder William V but were quickly struck down through the intervention of William's brother-in-law Frederick William II of Prussia in September 1787. Most Patriots went into exile in France, while the Netherlands' own "ancien régime" strengthened its grip on Dutch government chiefly through the Orangist Grand Pensionary Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel. This de facto status of Anglo-Prussian protectorate was internationally formalised in 1788 by the Act of Guarantee (for which Great Britain and Prussia acted as guarantors) and the Triple Alliance between the Dutch Republic, Prussia, and Great Britain. The Netherlands was little more than a pawn for the major powers.

From Wikipedia: Batavian Republic · Background (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The unitary state was not an end in itself, but a means to higher ends. The republic had been in dire financial straits even before the revolution of 1795. The system of public finance that had been the envy of the world in its Golden Age, enabling it to throw far beyond its weight in world politics up to the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, had become a millstone around its neck. By 1713 the public debt of the County of Holland had reached 310 million guilders; the debt of the Generality was 68 million; and the debts of the smaller provinces, and of the cities came on top of this. The debt service of Holland alone in that year required 14 million guilders, which exceeded its regular tax revenue. Most of this humongous public debt was held by Dutch private citizens, so in a sense it merely engendered an internal money circuit in the Dutch economy.

From Wikipedia: Batavian Republic · Historical stages of the Republic: Public finance reform (CC BY-SA 4.0)

This act of defiance sealed the fate of yet another of the Batavian regimes. Napoleon had long been dissatisfied with what he viewed as the foot-dragging and inefficiency of the Dutch. As a matter of fact, since the Spring of 1804 informal talks, mediated by Talleyrand, had been under way with the Batavian envoy in Paris, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, who had a good personal rapport with Napoleon (by now emperor). Schimmelpenninck was a power in the Batavian Republic by himself. He had played an important role as the leader of the federalist opposition in the "revolutionary" States-General of 1795, and the first Assembly. Though an opponent of the radicals, he had politically survived the coups of 1798, and served as ambassador to France, and as plenipotentiary to the Amiens negotiations. Now Napoleon saw him as the person to clean the Augean stables of the Dutch client state.

From Wikipedia: Batavian Republic · Historical stages of the Republic: Grand Pensionary and end of the Republic (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The period known as the Reign of Terror began as a way of harnessing revolutionary fervour, but quickly degenerated into the settlement of personal grievances. On 17 September 1793, the Law of Suspects authorised the arrest of any suspected "enemies of freedom"; on 10 October, the National Convention recognised the Committee of Public Safety under Maximilien Robespierre as the supreme authority, and suspended the Constitution until "peace was achieved".

From Wikipedia: French Directory · Background (CC BY-SA 4.0)

New elections to elect 315 members of the Councils were held between 21 March – 9 April 1799. The royalists had been discredited and were gone; the major winners were the neo-Jacobins, who wanted to continue and strengthen the Revolution. The new members of the Council included Lucien Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon, just twenty-four years old. On the strength of his name, he was elected the President of the Council of Five Hundred.

From Wikipedia: French Directory · History: New elections, new Directors and a growing political crisis (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The new Director overseeing financial affairs, La Réveillière-Lépeaux, gave a succinct description of the financial state of France when the Directory took power: "The national Treasury was completely empty; not a single sou remained. The assignats were almost worthless; the little value which remained drained away each day with accelerated speed. One could not print enough money in one night to meet the most pressing needs of the next day.... The public revenues were nonexistent; citizens had lost the habit of paying taxes. [...] All public credit was dead and all confidence lost. [...] The depreciation of the assignats, the frightening speed of the fall, reduced the salary of all public employees and functionaries to a value which was purely nominal."

From Wikipedia: French Directory · History: Finance and economy (CC BY-SA 4.0)

On 10 November 1798, the British and Austrian governments had agreed on a common goal of suppressing the five new sister republics and forcing France back into its 1789 borders. Then on 29 November 1798, on the first day of the War of the Second Coalition, King Ferdinand of Naples launched an attack on Rome, which was lightly defended by French soldiers. A British fleet landed three thousand Neapolitan soldiers in Tuscany. However, the French army of General Championnet responded quickly, defeating the Neapolitan army at the Battle of Civita Castellana at Civita Castellana on 5 December. The next day, 6 December 1798, French soldiers also forced King Charles Emmanuel IV to remove his soldiers from Piedmont and to retreat to his island of Sardinia, his last possession.

From Wikipedia: French Directory · History: Resurgence of the War in Italy and Switzerland (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The education system of France was in a chaotic state at the beginning of the Directory. The College of Sorbonne and most other colleges of the University of Paris, had been closed because of their close association with the Catholic Church, and did not reopen until 1808. The schools run by the Catholic Church had also been closed, and any kind of religious instruction forbidden. The government of Jacobins during the Convention created several new scientific institutions, but had concentrated on primary education, which it decreed should be obligatory and free for all young people, but there were few teachers available. By forbidding religious education, seizing the property of the Church and chasing out the clergy, they effectively closed the largest part of the educational system of the country.

From Wikipedia: French Directory · Education and science (CC BY-SA 4.0)