France in the Seventeenth Century : 1610-1715

This book covers seventeenth-century France from the reigns of Louis XIII (1610-43) and the immense reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715).

This was the era of the Sun King, when - politically, culturally, economically - France was unchallenged as the dominant European power of the ancien regime, and where, indeed, the very model of the ancien-regime state was brought to its fullest expression.

However, things were already going wrong by the death of Louis XIV (financial crises, too many wars, religious persecution, and the pernicious effects of the isolation of the French aristocracy), so if this was the apogee of French absolutist splendour it was also the seedbed of the French Revolution.