How does authority become power? How does power justify itself to achieve its ends? Offering a new perspective on the nature of political society in the French monarchy across more than two centuries, this book establishes the relationship between seemingly theoretical constructs, and the reality of everyday politics.

"The centralizing monarchical discourse has long dominated our perception of the kingdom of France. Jacques Krynen, Jean Barbey, Arlette Jouanna, and many others have traced the evolution of this discourse between the 14th and 17th centuries, when, in their view, it led to a Bourbon monarchy whose relationship to the concept "absolute" differed substantially in their presentations.1 Jouanna has added important correctives to this narrative, both in her insistence on the importance of a noble ideology of resistance and in her careful presentation of "puissance absolue" as an "extraordinary weapon" [arme extraordinaire] in the sixteenth century.2 As she rightly emphasizes, "absolu(e)" took on a new meaning in the seventeenth century, and we must avoid the temptation to view early sixteenth-century developments as the germ of what happened in the middle of the seventeenth century.3"--

Aimed firmly at the student reader, this handbook offers an overview of the full range of the history of France, from the origins of the concept of post-Roman "Francia," through the emergence of a consolidated French monarchy and the development of both nation-state and global empire into the modern era, forward to the current complexities of a modern republic integrated into the European Union and struggling with the global legacies of its past. Short, incisive contributions by a wide range of expert scholars offer both a spine of chronological overviews and a diverse spectrum of up-to-date insights into areas of key interest to historians today. From the ravages of the Vikings to the role of gastronomy in the definition of French culture, from Caribbean slavery to the place of Algerians in present-day France, from the role of French queens in medieval diplomacy to the youth-culture explosion of the 1960s and the explosions of France’s nuclear weapons program, this handbook provides accessible summaries and selected further reading to explore any and all of these issues further, in the classroom and beyond.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ A History Of French Literature; Short Histories Of The Literatures Of The World Edward Dowden Heinemann, 1897 Literary Criticism; European; French; French literature; Literary Criticism / European / French

The classes and their interests are analyzed first, in an examination of the Breton economy, and then the social system and the political superstructure that preserved it. Finally, Professor Collins addresses the question of order itself. How did the elites preserve order? What order did they wish to preserve? His analysis suggests that early modern France was a much more unstable, mobile society than previously thought; that absolutism existed more in theory than in practice; and that local elites and the Crown compromised in mutually beneficial ways to maintain their combined control over society. They imposed a new order, one neither feudal nor absolutist, on a society reexamining the meaning of basic structures such as the relationship of the family and the individual, the role of women in society, and property.