France and Germany were not referred to as such before the French Revolution; they were referred to by the names of royal families and kingdoms. Dynastic rivalries played out between the house of France (the Valois and Bourbon branches) and the Habsburgs...

From the 16th century to the French Revolution, France already had a partially centralized seat of power and presented an undeniable attraction to the German princes.
The strategic play of these royal dynasties shaped the landscape over the centuries. The domains of the aristocracy were a statement of their power; their chateaux and landscaped gardens were designed along the same model: Versailles.
The migratory flow of populations, especially the flight of the Huguenots from 1685 onwards, resulted in a new flow of information. The ideas of the Enlightenment spread as European philosophers and intellectuals began to travel and write letters, thus creating a common cultural ground uniting the two territories and their populations.
AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING: French version only.