Library of Congress Subject Headings are quite useful for discovering primary sources. The following subheadings usually are added to indicate that the material is a primary source: sources, personal narratives, correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, "early works to 1800" or notebooks. Once you've discovered the subject heading for secondary sources, try adding one of the primary source subheadings to see what you find.
Secondary source subject heading: France -- History -- 17th century
Primary source subject heading: France -- History -- 17th century -- Sources
Anthologies of primary sources, typically edited and annotated by scholars, offer a useful avenue for perusing primary source materials. Here are a few selections, available for check out at Collins Library.
Louis XIV and Absolutism: a brief study with documents by 
The French Revolution: a history in Documents by 
French Revolution and Human Rights by 
The Revolutionary Atlantic: Republican visions, 1760-1830: a documentary history by 
From Enlightenment to Romanticism: anthology by 
In addition to finding images through library resources like ARTstor, many digital images of art objects and artifacts are available for study or educational purposes in museum and other digital collections online. Always read and comply with the use restrictions for specific image sources. Images should be cited in all cases, even if the image is very small, or in the public domain.
