![]() ![]() Her book is not a from-the-cradleto-the-grave biography, since it really begins with the King, in his early twenties, assuming absolute power at Mazarin’s death nor does it open a very wide window on history, since it deals hardly at all with Louis’s place in the Europe of his time, and very little more with his actual governing of France. No other king, again, has had three ladies around the house who to this day are household names nor presided over so many splendid establishments, from the Louvre, which he avoided, to the Versailles which he adored and none either, that I know of, had so many famous writersand artists-in-residence, whether as composers or historiographers or dramatists or diarists or chaplains or gardeners or tutors.Īnd now Nancy Mitford, whose writing has nicely mingled real French people - Voltaire, Madame de Pompadour-with fictional English ones, has paused to celebrate Louis, and turned back to his fabulous and rather monstrous world in The Sun King. This is not hard to account for: in addition to being the lengthiest of reigns, Louis’s was the most resplendent was the most scandalous as well as ceremonious of courts and Louis himself was the grandest mannered as well as the most terrifying of monarchs. ![]() ![]() THE reign, the court life, the personal and inviolable majesty of Louis XIV have attracted biographers in every age, and been steadily in demand among readers. ![]()
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