In 1619, Marie de Medicis sought to regain her seat on the royal council by leading an armed revolt against her son King Louis XIII of France. She sought noble support through a pamphlet campaign attacking the king's advisers, and the king responded with his own series of pamphlets. The king's pamphlets were more widely read and more influential than his mother's because they responded directly to the problem of resolving the crisis. He portrayed himself as a young warrior king acting decisively as head of state, and his mother as a weak, confused woman who had abandoned her natural role as a mother and was being manipulated by selfish, quarreling great nobles. She did not counter with a convincing explanation of what she was trying to accomplish, and her supporters began to switch sides in large numbers during the autumn of 1620, thus resolving the crisis.

Journal Article Paul Sonnino. Mazarin's Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2008. Pp. 307. $49.95 Get access Paul Sonnino. Mazarin's Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde.Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2008. Pp. 307. $49.95. Sharon Kettering Sharon Kettering Emerita Montgomery College in Maryland Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 114, Issue 5, December 2009, Pages 1540–1541, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.114.5.1540 Published: 01 December 2009

Yvan Loskoutoff has written a study of the iconography in the extensive propaganda glorifying Cardinal Mazarin during his lifetime. Loskoutoff is not interested in the mazarinades, polemical pamphlets about the cardinal usually emphasized in such discussions, but instead concentrates on the nature of the literary symbols and motifs used as propaganda and their reproduction in the decorative arts. He challenges the judgment of René Pintard, Orest Ranum, Marc Soriano, and Wolfgang Leiner that Mazarin's propaganda was overdone, heavy-handed, and vulgar (the standard interpretation before 1970) and argues instead for its originality, vitality, and contemporary appeal, an increasingly prevalent viewpoint characterizing the work of Jacques Truchet, Françoise Bardon, and Frances Yates among others. Loskoutoff's book is structured in three sections of three chapters each. The first section discusses the portrayal of the cardinal's virtues, in particular prudence and justice. Prudence was emphasized in the propaganda on Mazarin before the civil war of the Fronde (1648–1653) in literary works by Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Gabriel Naudé, and others, and was favored by the Thomists, Jesuits, and Machiavellians. Mazarin's love of justice was emphasized after the Fronde in texts by Jean de Silhon and Filippo Maria Bonini. The Cardinal's triumph over the Frondeurs was attributed both to his prudence and love of justice, and representations of his virtues appeared in paintings, frescos, and wall decorations as well as in literary texts and engravings.

Royal courts have been described as a marketplace because a major reason for their existence was the distribution of patronage. As a meeting place for nobles, royal courts were vast stages where everyone in search of patronage was on display. Dancing in ballets became popular because it was a rare opportunity to be seen by the whole court in a glamorous setting, allowing dancers to secure favour and patronage. Ballets are a neglected source of information on courts, and knowing how their dancers were chosen offers a glimpse of how the patronage system worked and how courts functioned.

The title of this book comes from a mazarinade published in Paris in 1652. There were 5,500 such pamphlets published during the civil war of the Fronde (1648–1653), 2,000 in the year 1649 alone. Hubert Carrier has devoted his career to their study and has already published three books on them. In this one, he investigates the wide range of concepts and theories discussed in these pamphlets, asserting that they provide a window into the general political thought of the time. The title indicates the complexity and diversity of these ideas, and the intricate maze of conflicting currents of thought expressed in the pamphlets. Carrier agrees with Héln`e Duccini (Faire voir, faire croire: L'Opinion publique sous Louis XIII [2003]) that there was genuine public opinion and political debate during the mid‐seventeenth century expressed in these mazarinades. He disagrees with Christian Jouhaud, who does not regard the pamphlets as a spontaneous expression of contemporary political thought but rather as a carefully engineered propaganda tool meant to manipulate public opinion and provoke political action (Mazarinades: La fronde des Mots [1985]). Carrier considers Jouhaud's approach more valid for the second phase of the Fronde, the revolt of the princes from 1650 to 1653, than for the first phase from 1648 to 1649, which he considers to have been a genuinely popular explosion of political ideas and debate.

January 01 2004 The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661–1701 The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661–1701. By GuyRowlands (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2002) 404 pp. $70.00 Sharon Kettering Sharon Kettering Montgomery College Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sharon Kettering Montgomery College Online Issn: 1530-9169 Print Issn: 0022-1953 © 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.2003 The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2004) 34 (3): 459–461. https://doi.org/10.1162/002219504771998042 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Sharon Kettering; The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661–1701. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2004; 34 (3): 459–461. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/002219504771998042 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Journal of Interdisciplinary History Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.2003 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

April 01 2001 A Taste for Comfort and Status: A Bourgeois Family in Eighteenth-Century France A Taste for Comfort and Status: A Bourgeois Family in Eighteenth-Century France. By ChristineAdams (University Park, Penn State University Press, 2000) 292 pp. $65.00 cloth $19.95 paper Sharon Kettering Sharon Kettering Montgomery College in Maryland Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sharon Kettering Montgomery College in Maryland Online ISSN: 1530-9169 Print ISSN: 0022-1953 © 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History2001 The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2001) 31 (4): 632–634. https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2001.31.4.632 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Sharon Kettering; A Taste for Comfort and Status: A Bourgeois Family in Eighteenth-Century France. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2001; 31 (4): 632–634. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2001.31.4.632 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Journal of Interdisciplinary History Search Advanced Search © 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History2001 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Sharon Kettering replies Sharon Kettering Sharon Kettering Montgomery College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 103, Issue 3, June 1998, Page 1045, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/103.3.1045 Published: 01 June 1998

eighteenth century's critique of privilege and its commitment to the idea of advancement by are widely regarded as sources of modernity. But if meritocratic values were indeed the product of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, how do we explain earlier attention to merit--especially the nobility whose values the Revolution rejected? The Culture of Merit probes this paradox by analyzing changing perceptions of among the old nobility from the age of Louis XIII to the eve of the French Revolution.Jay M. Smith argues that the early modern nobility instinctively drew a correlation between the meaning of and an image of the gaze. In the early seventeenth century, meant the qualities traditionally associated with aristocratic values: generosity, fidelity, and honor. Nobles sought to display those qualities before the appreciative gaze of the king himself. But the expansion of the monarchy forced the routinization of the sovereign's gaze, and Louis XIV began to affirm and reward new qualities--talent and application--besides those thought innately noble.The contradictions implicit within the absolute monarchy's culture of are demonstrated by the eighteenth-century French army, which was dominated by the nobility, but also committed to efficiency and expertise. Smith shows that the army's continuous efforts to encourage and reward merit led to a clash of principles. ever-growing emphasis on talent and discipline led reformers--the great majority of them noble--to attack the most egregious examples of privilege and favoritism in the army. Smith's analysis of the long-term evolution in conceptions of royal service suggests a new explanation for the shift in values signified by the French Revolution. transition away from the personal gaze of the king toward the public gaze of the monarchy and nation foretold the triumph of a new culture of in which noble birth would have no meaning.The Culture of Merit will interest historians and other social scientists concerned with issues of aristocratic identity, state formation, professionalization, and the changing political culture of pre-Revolutionary France.Jay M. Smith is Assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsLaw and Citizenship in Early Modern France. Charlotte C. Wells.Sharon KetteringSharon Kettering Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 27, Number 3Autumn 1996 The journal of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2544064 Copyright © 1996 by The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

"An Economy of Violence in Early Modern France: Crime and Justice in the Haute-Auvergne, 1587-1664, by Malcolm Greenshields." Canadian Journal of History, 30(2), pp. 335–336

with the withering of ideological distance between the major parties of Right and Left, and the hegemony of a particular economic discourse, ideology and collective memory have lost their power. Just as Philippe Sdguin has used his 1990 biography of Louis-Napoleon to challenge Jacques Chirac’s claim to the Gaullist mantle, so Chirac’s former minister of culture, Philippe de Villiers, is currently competing for Le Pen’s constituency by consistently linking the Terror of 1793-4 with ’the Nazi hell, the Gulag, the Khmers Rouges, Mao’s Cultural Revolution and Mengistu’s state famines’ (17). Gildea’s book is a major contribution to the burgeoning interest in the history and construction of memory. Based on an unusually rich documentation, it will be a starting point for future research. A few misspellings aside, it is also meticulously produced. This is a bold and intriguing book which, like all outstanding works of historical reflection, has the merit of provoking further questions. For example, in an age when television has replaced the schoolroom as the primary agency for teaching history, Gildea’s demonstration of the power of written and painted images of the past prompts us to ponder what the electronic media are now teaching children about who they are.

"The Land and the Loom: Peasants and Profit in Northern France, 1680-1800, by Liana Vardi." Canadian Journal of History, 29(1), pp. 200–201