French

French French leave absence from work or duty without permission, said to derive from the French custom of leaving a dinner or ball without saying goodbye to the host or hostess. The phrase was first recorded in the late 18th century; the equivalent French expression is filer à l'Anglaise, literally ‘to escape in the style of the English’.
French Republican Calendar a reformed calendar officially introduced by the French Republican government on 5 October 1793, and taken to have started on the equinox of 22 September 1792, the day of the proclamation of the Republic. It had twelve months of thirty days each (divided into three weeks of ten days), Vendemiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose, Germinal, Floréal, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor, and with five days of festivals at the year's end (six in leap years). It was abandoned under the Napoleonic regime and the Gregorian calendar was formally reinstated on 1 January 1806.
French Revolution the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy in France (1789–99). The Revolution began with the meeting of the legislative assembly (the States General) in May 1789, when the French government was already in crisis; the Bastille was stormed in July of the same year. The Revolution became steadily more radical and ruthless with power increasingly in the hands of the Jacobins and Robespierre. Louis XVI's execution in January 1793 was followed by Robespierre's Reign of Terror (September 1793–July 1794). The Directory, the last of several different forms of republican administration, was overthrown by Napoleon in 1799.
French Wars of Religion a series of religious and political conflicts in France (1562–98) involving the Protestant Huguenots on one side and Catholic groups on the other. The wars were complicated by interventions from Spain, Rome, England, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, and were not brought to an end until the defeat of the Holy League and the settlement of the Edict of Nantes.