Grand Siècle

{{Short description|Period of French history, during the 17th century}}

{{Expand French|Grand Siècle (histoire de France)|date=April 2019}}

File:Versailles chateau.jpg was an expression and concentration of French art and culture, and for the centralization of royal power.{{cite book|last=Blanning|first=T. C. W.|author-link=T. C. W. Blanning|title=The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660–1789|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-1982-2745-8|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227458.001.0001|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i2N7DwAAQBAJ|page=33-44}}]]

Grand Siècle or Great Century refers to the period of French history during the 17th century, under the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV.{{Cite news|url=https://uk.france.fr/en/news/article/grand-siecle-age-enlightenment|title=The Grand Siecle & The Age Of Enlightenment|work=France.fr|access-date=April 26, 2019|archive-date=April 27, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190427003939/https://uk.france.fr/en/news/article/grand-siecle-age-enlightenment|url-status=dead}}

The period was notable for its development of art and literature, along with the construction of the Palace of Versailles, the effects of the French Wars of Religion, and the impacts of the Thirty Years' War.{{cite book|last=Bluche|first=François|author-link=François Bluche|title=Dictionnaire du Grand Siècle 1589-1715|year=2005|publisher=Fayard|isbn=978-2213621449|language=fr}} Significant figures during this period include gardener André Le Nôtre, architect François Mansart, painter Nicolas Poussin, painter Philippe de Champaigne, painter Charles Le Brun, playwright Molière, poet Jean de La Fontaine, playwright Jean Racine, playwright Pierre Corneille, writer Charles Perrault,{{Cite book|last=Montoya|first=Alicia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=syb6-0eW-_sC&pg=PA47|title=Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau|date=2013|publisher=DS Brewer|isbn=9781843843429}} composers Henri Dumont, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel Richard Delalande, André Campra, Henri Desmarest, Marin Marais and François Couperin, philosophers René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Antoine Arnauld and the Port-Royal, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Gassendi, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, and Pierre Bayle.