Charlotte de La Trémoïlle, the Notorious Countess of Derby

Charlotte de La Trémoïlle, the Notorious Countess of Derby

Author: Sandy Riley

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2018-01-23

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1527507017

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A Parliamentarian described his feelings towards Charlotte de La Trémoïlle when he wrote in the journal the Parliamentary Scout “three women ruined the Kingdom Eve, The Queen and the Countess of Derby”. This historical biography uses the letters found in the Chateau at Thouars and preserved in the French National Archive in Paris to piece together an account of her ideas and actions. Eyewitness writings are used to describe her activities during the siege by Parliamentary forces of the Royalist Lathom House. Following the end of the siege, she was exiled to the Isle of Man. A Huguenot, Charlotte lived at a time of religious and political upheaval in both France and England. She was related by birth and marriage to European royalty and aristocracy. She was the only woman sequestered by the Parliament of Oliver Cromwell and King Charles II promised her the position of Governess to his children.


Becoming a French Aristocrat

Becoming a French Aristocrat

Author: Mark Motley

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1400861225

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Focusing on the highest-ranking segment of the nobility, Mark Motley examines why a social group whose very essence was based on hereditary status would need or seek instruction and training for its young. As the "warrior nobility" adopted the courtly life epitomized by Versailles--with its code of etiquette and sensitivity to language and demeanor--education became more than a vehicle for professional training. Education, Motley argues, played both the conservative role of promoting assertions of "natural" superiority appropriate to a hereditary aristocracy, and the more dynamic role of fostering cultural changes that helped it maintain its power in a changing world. Based on such sources as family papers and correspondence, memoirs, and pedagogical treatises, this book explores education as it took place in the household, in secondary schools and riding academies, and at court and in the army. It shows how such education combined deference and solidarity, language and knowledge, and ceremonial behavior and festive disorder. In so doing, this work contends that education was an integral part of the aristocracy's response to absolutism in the French monarchy. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Classes, Estates and Order in Early-Modern Brittany

Classes, Estates and Order in Early-Modern Brittany

Author: James B. Collins

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9780521533140

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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.


George Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy

George Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy

Author: Graeme Small

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780861932375

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Few texts offer as many insights into the history of Valois Burgundy as the work of George Chastelain (c.1414-1475), official chronicler to the dukes Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. Chastelain, a trusted courtier, closely observed his masters' authority in the many dominions they ruled in the Low Countries and France, and the role they played in the political life of neighbouring kingdoms and principalities and in Christendom as a whole. This is the first historical study of Chastelain in over half a century. An account of his life and career is followed by a study of the chronicle, Chastelain's interpretation within it of ducal actions and aspirations, and the role it played in the historical culture of the governing classes in the Netherlands after the death of the last duke in 1477. Overall, Dr Small offers a complete reappraisal of the political ambitions of the ducal elite, particularly with regard to the supposed evolution of the ducal dominions into a `Burgundian state' quite distinct from the Kingdom of France. Dr GRAEME SMALL is lecturer in medieval history, University of Glasgow.


The House in the Rue Saint-Fiacre

The House in the Rue Saint-Fiacre

Author: H. B. Callaway

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2023-05-09

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0674279344

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Officially, revolutionary France granted all citizens a right to property. In practice, however, there was significant continuity with the Old Regime. H. B. Callaway argues that the state’s fraught attempts to confiscate property from Parisian émigrés reveal contradictions in ideas of ownership considered foundational to modern property rights.


Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance

Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance

Author: Anne R. Larsen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2007-03-01

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1851097775

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This work is a revealing combination of biographies and topical essays that describe the outstanding and often-overlooked contributions of women to the science, politics, and culture of the Renaissance. Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England is the first first comprehensive reference devoted exclusively to the contributions of women to European culture in the period between 1350 and 1700. Focusing principally on early modern women in England, France, and Italy, it offers over 135 biographies of the extraordinary women of those times. Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance provides vivid portraits of well known women such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Mary Queen of Scots, and Christine de Pizan. Also included are less familiar but equally important women like Elena Lucrezia Cornaro, the first woman in Europe to earn a doctorate; the renowned Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi; and the acclaimed author of medical textbooks and midwife to a French queen, Louise Boursier. Based on the latest research and enhanced with thematic essays, this groundbreaking work casts our understanding of women's lives and roles in Renaissance history and culture in a provocative new light.


Philippe de Commynes

Philippe de Commynes

Author: Irit Ruth Kleiman

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1442645628

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Philippe de Commynes, a diplomat who specialized in clandestine operations, served King Louis XI during his campaign to undermine aristocratic resistance and consolidate the sovereignty of the French throne. He is credited with inventing the political memoir, but his reminiscence has also been described as 'the confessions of a traitor': Commynes had abandoned Louis' rival, the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold, before joining forces with the king. This study provides a literary re-evaluation of Commynes' text – a perennial subject of scandal and fascination – while questioning what the terms 'traitor' or 'betrayed' meant in the context of fifteenth-century France. Drawing on diplomatic letters and court transcripts, Irit Kleiman examines the mutual connections between writing and betrayal in Commynes' representation of Louis' reign, the relationship between the author and the king, and the emergence of the memoir as an autobiographical genre. This study significantly deepens our understanding of how historical narrative and diplomatic activities are intertwined in the work of this iconic, iconoclastic figure.