A history of French bread from the first Neolithic breads up to the baguette and beyond, tracing the influence of Roman bread, the decline under the Franks, the appearance of the bread trades in the late Middle Ages, the first documentation, the rise of "pains de fantaisie" and then long loaves, the ever-expanding variety in the nineteenth century, and the first mentions of the baguette, ending with an overview of French bread until the present century.