Drawing on the work of the Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755), "Memoirs", Le Roy Ladurie offers a portrait of life under Louis XIV, focusing on the fundamental issues of hierarchy and rank in a tightly controlled setting. Using a range of tools, such as ethnography, history, literary criticism and histography, this is a historical essay about court life, a world in which man is born unequal, a world circumscribed by purity of bloodline, which nonetheless directly preceded the birth of democratic thought and political action. This book is not only about Saint-Simon's place in the court at Versailles but also about the court itself and how it forces us to re-evaluate political life in France during the Old Regime.
- ISBN10 0226473201
- ISBN13 9780226473208
- Publish Date 1 July 2001
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 28 January 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 444
- Language English