Images of Kingship in Early Modern France

Louis XI, known as "The Spider King" because he wove many intricate plots, lives on in popular imagination primarily as a villain and a cruel, cunning, rather unscrupulous character. Absolutists fled to his banner whilst constitutionalists reviled him as a rapacious totalitarian murderer. In Images of Kingship in Early Modern France, Adrianna Bakos uses the changing nature of Louis XI's historical reputation to explore the intellectual and political climate of early modern France. Using Louis XI's historical reputation as a prism for fresh investigation, Adrianna Bakos offers new, more complex interpretations of the ideological landscape of early modern France. Images of Kingship in Early Modern France is an important contribution to European historiography and to debates on historical versus political interpretations of Kingship.

Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York.

Introduction; Part I "Le roi hors de page"; Chapter 1 The architect of tyranny; Chapter 2 A spider at Versailles; Chapter 3 Louis XI and the French nation; Part II "Le plus sage de nos roys"; Chapter 4 Unfettered king, unlimited greatness; Chapter 5 "Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare"; Part III "Le roi à cheval"; Chapter 6 The repentant ghost; Chapter 7 Louis XI and the idea of counsel; Epilogue;