The Duke of Saint-Simon (1675—1755) was by all accounts, including his own, a sensitive, self-obsessed, ill-tempered man. A courtier and phenomenal chronicler of court life under Louis XIV, he produced the monumental work Memoirs, running to thousands of pages, in which the intrigues, personalities, activities, and gossip of life at Versailles are recorded in acerbic detail. Drawing heavily on these Memoirs, renowned historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie offers a wonderful portrait of life under Louis XIV, focusing on the fundamental issues of hierarchy and rank in this tightly controlled universe. Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV, expertly translated by Arthur Goldhammer, is a historical essay about court life, built with the wide range of tools Ladurie so expertly employs: ethnography, history, literary criticism, and historiography. Ladurie recreates a world in which man is most definitely born unequal, a world circumscribed entirely by purity of bloodline, which nonetheless directly preceded the birth of democratic thought and political action. Locked into a virtual caste system, courtiers formed within their ranks cabals, factions, and groups bonded by common ideological principles in order to survive the political order of the court. Thus Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV is not only about Saint-Simon's place in this constellation but also the constellation itself and how understanding it forces us to a reevaluation of political life in France during the Old Regime. Including a biographical sketch of Saint-Simon and more than 30 illustrations of court life and its members, Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV will delight those interested in French history as well as instruct those interested in political history.

Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV

History

LE ROY LADURIE, EMMANUEL

Europe

University of Chicago Press

From a wealth of vivid autobiographical writings, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie reconstructs the extraordinary life of Thomas Platter and the lives of his sons. With masterful erudition, Le Roy Ladurie deepens and expands the historical contexts of these accounts and, in the process, brings to life the customs, perceptions, and character of an age poised at the threshold of modernity. "Le Roy Ladurie paints a remarkably contemporary picture of life in the sixteenth century. . . . It's a good story, told with a deft narrative touch."—Michael S. Kimmel, The Nation "Le Roy Ladurie is a master of the representative detail and uses the Platters' lives as a means to see a whole century 'through a glass, darkly'."—The Independent "Le Roy Ladurie has not only thoroughly sketched out the Platters' particular brand of gusto, he has also made it seem a defining characteristic of the sixteenth century."—The New Republic "All [of] the drama and pathos of a Disney film."—Emily Eakin, Lingua Franca

The Beggar and the Professor: A Sixteenth-Century Family Saga

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

A distinguished historian discusses historiography and various topics in French history, such as the court of Louis XIV and sixteenth-century peasants

The Mind and Method of the Historian

Univ of Chicago Pr

From inside dust cover flap: Focusing on life in rural societies of France during the modern period (from the end of the Middle Ages to the early 19th century) Le Roy Ladurie uses new sources and ingenious ways. He surveys the wide range of provinces open to quantitative historical investigation by analyzing such diverse historical elements as demography, public health and literacy, climate, and folklore and myth through a variety of engrossing case studies.

The Territory of the Historian

Text: English, French (translation)

The Peasants of Languedoc

Politics & Social Sciences

Ladurie, Emmanuel L.

Sociology

University of Illinois Press

In this second volume of the History of France series, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie provides a masterful account of the early modern period combining a compelling narrative with broad analysis of events and wider comparisons with European history.

The Royal French State, 1460 - 1610 (History of France)

Wiley/Blackwell

This is a story of brilliance, order and sophistication, of supreme confidence and great achievement - that begins in uncertainty and ends in iconoclasm.

The Ancient Regime: A History of France 1610-1774

The Ancien Regime: A History of France, 1610 - 1774

The detailed register kept by Jacques Fournier, the bishop of Pamiers and future pope and inquisitor, provides the basis for a study of the history of and daily life in a fourteenth-century village in southern France

Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (English and French Edition)

George Braziller

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by LE ROY LADURIE, EMMANUEL. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by LE ROY LADURIE, EMMANUEL

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by LE ROY LADURIE, EMMANUEL. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV

The Beggar and the Professor: A Sixteenth-Century Family Saga

The Beggar and the Professor: A Sixteenth-Century Family Saga

The Mind and Method of the Historian

The Territory of the Historian

The Peasants of Languedoc

The Royal French State, 1460 - 1610 (History of France)

The Ancient Regime: A History of France 1610-1774

The Ancien Regime: A History of France, 1610 - 1774

Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (English and French Edition)