Download or read book The Life of Louis XVI written by John Hardman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking, authoritative biography of one of history's most maligned rulers Louis XVI of France, who was guillotined in 1793 during the Revolution and Reign of Terror, is commonly portrayed in fiction and film either as a weak and stupid despot in thrall to his beautiful, shallow wife, Marie Antoinette, or as a cruel and treasonous tyrant. Historian John Hardman disputes both these versions in a fascinating new biography of the ill-fated monarch. Based in part on new scholarship that has emerged over the past two decades, Hardman's illuminating study describes a highly educated ruler who, though indecisive, possessed sharp political insight and a talent for foreign policy; who often saw the dangers ahead but could not or would not prevent them; and whose great misfortune was to be caught in the violent center of a major turning point in history. Hardman's dramatic reassessment of the reign of Louis XVI sheds a bold new light on the man, his actions, his world, and his policies, including the king's support for America's War of Independence, the intricate workings of his court, the disastrous Diamond Necklace Affair, and Louis's famous dash to Varennes.
Download or read book King of the World written by Philip Mansel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Louis XIV was a man in pursuit of glory. Not content to be the ruler of a world power, he wanted the power to rule the world. And, for a time, he came tantalizingly close. Philip Mansel’s King of the World is the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography in English of this hypnotic, flawed figure who continues to captivate our attention. This lively work takes Louis outside Versailles and shows the true extent of his global ambitions, with stops in London, Madrid, Constantinople, Bangkok, and beyond. We witness the importance of his alliance with the Spanish crown and his success in securing Spain for his descendants, his enmity with England, and his relations with the rest of Europe, as well as Asia, Africa, and the Americas. We also see the king’s effect on the two great global diasporas of Huguenots and Jacobites, and their influence on him as he failed in his brutal attempts to stop Protestants from leaving France. Along the way, we are enveloped in the splendor of Louis’s court and the fascinating cast of characters who prostrated and plotted within it. King of the World is exceptionally researched, drawing on international archives and incorporating sources who knew the king intimately, including the newly released correspondence of Louis’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon. Mansel’s narrative flair is a perfect match for this grand figure, and he brings the Sun King’s world to vivid life. This is a global biography of a global king, whose power was extensive but also limited by laws and circumstances, and whose interests and ambitions stretched far beyond his homeland. Through it all, we watch Louis XIV progressively turn from a dazzling, attractive young king to a belligerent reactionary who sets France on the path to 1789. It is a convincing and compelling portrait of a man who, three hundred years after his death, still epitomizes the idea of le grand monarque.
Download or read book Louis XVI The Silent King and the Estates written by John Hardman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Study of the reign of Louis XVI
Download or read book The Reign of Louis XIV written by Paul Sonnino and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book When the King Took Flight written by Timothy Tackett and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-18 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a June night in 1791, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette fled Paris in disguise, hoping to escape the mounting turmoil of the French Revolution. They were arrested by a small group of citizens a few miles from the Belgian border and forced to return to Paris. Two years later they would both die at the guillotine. It is this extraordinary story, and the events leading up to and away from it, that Tackett recounts in gripping novelistic style. The king's flight opens a window to the whole of French society during the Revolution. Each dramatic chapter spotlights a different segment of the population, from the king and queen as they plotted and executed their flight, to the people of Varennes who apprehended the royal family, to the radicals of Paris who urged an end to monarchy, to the leaders of the National Assembly struggling to control a spiraling crisis, to the ordinary citizens stunned by their king's desertion. Tackett shows how Louis's flight reshaped popular attitudes toward kingship, intensified fears of invasion and conspiracy, and helped pave the way for the Reign of Terror. Tackett brings to life an array of unique characters as they struggle to confront the monumental transformations set in motion in 1789. In so doing, he offers an important new interpretation of the Revolution. By emphasizing the unpredictable and contingent character of this story, he underscores the power of a single event to change irrevocably the course of the French Revolution, and consequently the history of the world.
Download or read book The Story of Modern France written by Hélène Adeline Guerber and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Last Years of the Reign and Life of Louis XVI written by François Hue and published by . This book was released on 1806 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Splendid Century written by W. H. Lewis and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Splendid Century,” penned by the brother of famous author C. S. Lewis (“Alice in Wonderland”), is a depiction of various aspects of life in France during the reign of Louis XIV, gleaned through the author’s thorough research of records, correspondence, and journals of the time. Using anecdotal evidence, the book probes in detail various facets of life in France during this time, including the lives of nobles (particularly those at court) as well as commoners, religious institutions and conflicts, the organization of the French army and its restructuring, rural life and city life, what life was like on galley ships and passenger sailing ships, how doctors were trained, and the state of women’s education. The author also discusses the background behind Louis XIV’s policies, illustrating their impact on French civilization, both during this time and for generations to come. A must-read for anyone interested in French history.
Download or read book The Life and Death of Louis XVI written by Saul Kussiel Padover and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book French Legends written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes famous art depicting Louis XIV and important people, places, and events in his life. *Includes pictures of the Palace of Versailles. *Discusses the reign and legacy of Europe's longest reigning king. "Every time I create an appointment, I create a hundred malcontents and one ingrate." - Louis XIV A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' French series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of France's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. France's most famous King, and Europe's longest serving, Louis XIV (1638-1715) is often viewed today as a symbol of royal extravagance and splendor. Reigning for over 72 years, the legacy of the "Sun King" is remembered for the magnificent Palace of Versailles, the patronizing of arts and theater, and the apocryphal quote "L'Etat c'est moi" (I am the State). Although it is more than fair to associate the Sun King with vanity and unfathomable spending on luxury, the laser sharp focus on the superficial aspects of the man and his reign have come to overshadow just how effective he was as a ruler. Becoming King as a child and assuming actual power in his early 20s, Louis spent nearly 55 years centralizing and consolidating power in his monarchy by bringing the aristocracy to heel and keeping religious divisions from devolving into violence, thereby passing off to his successor an absolute monarchy with a very solid foundation. At the same time, his foreign policies, though often criticized as quests for glory, helped establish France as the dominant power on the European continent and firmly in control of an overseas colonial empire that stretched both east and west. And of course, while his spending and extravagance are viewed critically today, his construction of the Europe's most famous palace and his patronizing of the arts established the kind of culture and society that France is still famous for across the world today. French Legends: The Life and Legacy of King Louis XIV looks at the life and reign of one of history's most famous Kings, explaining his influence in a historical light and analyzing the monumental legacy he left behind. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Sun King like you never have before, in no time at all.
Download or read book The Last Years of the Reign and Life of Louis XVI written by François Hüe and published by . This book was released on 1806 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ruin of a Princess written by Marie-Thérèse Charlotte Angoulême (duchesse d') and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Louis XIV written by Aurora von Goeth and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-06-30 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise, straightforward biography of the seventeenth-century French monarch and his seventy-two-year reign. Innovator. Tyrant. Consummate showman. Passionate lover of women. After the death of King Louis XIII in 1643, the French crown went to his first-born son and heir, four-year old Louis XIV. In the extraordinary seventy-two years that followed, Louis le Grand—France’s self-styled “Sun King”—ruled France and its people, leaving his unique and permanent mark on history and shaping fashion, art, culture and architecture like none other before. This frank and concise book gives the reader a personal glimpse into the Sun King’s life and times as we follow his rise in power and influence: from a miraculous royal birth no one ever expected to the rise of king as absolute monarch, through the evolution of the glittering Château de Versailles, scandals and poison, four wars and many more mistresses . . . right up to his final days. Absolute monarch. Appointed by God. This is Louis XIV, the man. We will uncover his glorious and not-so-glorious obsessions. His debilitating health issues. His drive and passions. And we will dispel some myths, plus reveal the people in his intimate circle working behind the scenes on the Louis propaganda machine to ensure his legacy stayed in the history books forever. This easy-to-read narrative is accompanied by a plethora of little-known artworks, so if you’re a Louis XIV fan or student, or just eager to know more about France’s most famous king, we invite you to delve into court life of seventeenth-century French aristocracy, the period known as Le Grand Siècle—“The Grand Century.”
Download or read book A History of French Louisiana written by Marcel Giraud and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1974-04 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marcel Giraud has long been acknowledged as the leading European scholar in the filed of the history and development of colonial French Louisiana. Now the long-awaited English translation of Volume One of his Histoire de la Louisiana Française makes the results of his meticulous research readily available. Professor Giraud explores all phases of the beginnings of colonization in the vast Louisiana territory from the first voyage of d'Iberville to the end of the reign of Louis XIV. He examines the attitude of he French regency, the interest of the Church, and the effects of wars and private monopoly on the struggling settlements along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and on the Mississippi. The almost unbelievable poverty with which the emigrants contended, brought on the their lack of agricultural knowledge and by France's niggardly financial support, is portrayed vividly. Professor Giraud has assembled an immense store of information bolstered by documentation from all available sources. The book includes an excellent bibliography and a list of archival resources.
Download or read book The Sun King at Sea written by Meredith Martin and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated volume, the first devoted to maritime art and galley slavery in early modern France, shows how royal propagandists used the image and labor of enslaved Muslims to glorify Louis XIV. Mediterranean maritime art and the forced labor on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France’s King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715). Yet most studies of French art in this period focus on Paris and Versailles, overlooking the presence or portrayal of galley slaves on the kingdom’s coasts. By examining a wide range of artistic productions—ship design, artillery sculpture, medals, paintings, and prints—Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss uncover a vital aspect of royal representation and unsettle a standard picture of art and power in early modern France. With an abundant selection of startling images, many never before published, The Sun King at Sea emphasizes the role of esclaves turcs (enslaved Turks)—rowers who were captured or purchased from Islamic lands—in building and decorating ships and other art objects that circulated on land and by sea to glorify the Crown. Challenging the notion that human bondage vanished from continental France, this cross-disciplinary volume invites a reassessment of servitude as a visible condition, mode of representation, and symbol of sovereignty during Louis XIV’s reign.
Download or read book The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen 1789 and 1793 written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Louis XIV France and Europe 1661 1715 written by Richard Wilkinson and published by Hodder Education. This book was released on 1993 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While synthesizing and passing on to students the results of recent research, this book also emphasizes the fascination and controversy of Louis XIV's reign and its effect on his European neighbours. The issues influencing Louis's absolute rule and the extent to which he had real options are examined.