The State in Early Modern France

by James B. Collins

• ISBN13: 9780521130257
• ISBN10: 0521130255
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A new edition of James Collins's acclaimed synthesis that challenged longstanding views of the origins of modern states and absolute monarchy through an analysis of early modern Europe's most important continental state. Incorporating recent scholarship on the French state and his own research, James Collins has revised the text throughout. He examines recent debates on 'absolutism'; presents a fresh interpretation of the Fronde and of French society in the eighteenth century; includes additional material on French colonies and overseas trade; and ties recent theoretical work into a new chapter on Louis XIV. He argues that the monarchical state came into being around 1630, matured between 1690 and 1730 and, in a new final chapter, shows that the period May 1787 to June 1789 was an interregnum, with the end of the Ancien Règime coming not in 1789 but with the dissolution of the Assembly of Notables on 25 May 1787.

Author Biography

James B. Collins is Professor of History at Georgetown University. His previous publications include From Tribes to Nation: The Making of France, c. 500-1799 (2002), The Ancien Rgime and the French Revolution (2002), and Classes, Estate and Order in Early Modern Brittany (1994).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. viii
Preface to the second edition	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xxvii
Chronology of events	p. xxix
Genealogy	p. xxxv
Glossary	p. xxxvii
Historical background: the growth of the French state to 1627	p. 1
The crucible, 1620s-1630s	p. 36
The twenty years' crisis, 1635-1654	p. 71
Louis XIV: laying the foundation, 1654-1683	p. 100
The debacle	p. 152
The mature monarchical state	p. 191
Anew France takes shape	p. 239
Reform, renewal, collapse	p. 291
The interregnum, 1787-1789	p. 342
Original bibliography	p. 359
New bibliography	p. 366
Index	p. 375
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