For those teaching French history in the 18th and 19th centuries there are some very full websites you can explore to gather original sources for this period.
(1) The Encyclopédie, or Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, edited by Diderot and d’Alembert, is a major text capturing the period of the Enlightenment. The Encyclopaedia website, hosted by the University of Michigan Library, is a collaborative translation project which gives you fantastic insight into the ideas of the Enlightenment. Exploring this encyclopaedia – from its definition of TASTE, that ‘key eighteenth-century concept’, to its plates of ARCHITECTURAL GARDENING that remind us of the Versailles gardens – with students would be a great addition to any seminar.
(2) Napoleon is one of the greatest legends of French history. And here is a website – The Napoleon Series – which gathers thousands of sources, references and articles gathered by history enthusiasts. If at times murky, a bit of poking around in the website can allow you to access some pretty great sources, such as lists of British memoirs in the Napoleonic wars.
