In the mid nineteenth century French Restaurants and banquets started experimenting with "Service à la russe" or "Russian Service" which introduced the novel idea of bringing food out in separate courses. Before that "service à la française " was the norm and that was basically everything arriving at the table all together.

The "piece de Resistance" - "the piece with staying power" - was the main, usually meat course when meals were served "à la russe".

"European Gastronomy into the 21st Century" by Cailein Gillespie and John Cousins contains a table giving the different courses and their names. In their example the "piece de Resistance" is the seventh course of thirteen!