Abstract: By reading the three-volume 'History of Body' and referring to other historical literature, the development process of French sports in eighteen and nineteenth centuries is restored which is a transition from "violent sports to civilized sports", from "traditional rural sports to modern scientific sports ", and a period of "adhering to the tradition and learning from referencing foreign advantages". In this process, gymnastics played an influential and important role, the reason of which is that the failure in the war led the government and the nation to adopt the "half-military, half-educational" measure of "sports renaissance" so as to restore the national dignity. By the late nineteenth Century, it gradually developed into modern sports due to the influence of British sports.

Key words: 18th and 19th centuries, France, sports, development process, history of body