Crown and nobility in early modern France

This text analyzes the evolving relationship between the French monarchy and the French nobility in the early modern period.

New interpretations of the absolutist state in France have challenged the orthodox vision of the interaction between the crown and elite society.

By focusing on the struggle of central government to control the periphery, Bohanan links the literature on collaboration and patronage with research on the social origins and structure of the provincial nobilities.

Three provincial examples - Provence, Dauphine and Brittany - illustrate the ways in which elites organized and mobilized by vertical ties (ties of dependency based on patronage) were co-opted or subverted by the crown.