The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest 1661-1701

Description

The 'personal rule' of Louis XIV witnessed a massive increase in the size of the French army and an apparent improvement in the quality of its officers, its men and the War Ministry. However, this is the first book to treat the French army under Louis XIV as a living political, social and economic organism, an institution which reflected the dynastic interests and personal concerns of the king and his privileged subjects. The book explains the development of the army between the end of Cardinal Mazarin's ministry and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, emphasising the awareness of Louis XIV and his ministers of the need to pay careful attention to the condition of the king's officers, and to take account of their military, political, social, and cultural aspirations.

Guy Rowlands was lecturer in early modern history at Exeter College, Oxford, 1995-98, and is now Pybus lecturer in European history at Newnham College, Cambridge. This is his first book.

'This is an extraordinarily well-researched and important book which does much more than improve our understanding of the administration of the army under Louis XIV; it forces us to reconsider the very nature of the late seventeenth-century state.' The English Historical Review 'This is an impressive study, founded on extensive research in the French army archives, one which throws important light on Louis XIV, his military and his nobility ... Guy Rowlands has made an important contribution to the history of the armed forces of the Sun King, one with important implications for our understanding of army, government and society - and their interaction - elsewhere in ancien regime Europe.' Christopher Storrs, University of Dundee, Journal of Continuity and Change