Lords of France: Roads to the Enlightenment

So sorry that I haven't posted an update in a while, it's midterm season and I took one of the most stressful vacations in my life (wherein I was obligated to meet every family member in the New York region) while writing 2/3rds of my group project (ah the wonders of being the only 2nd year-er)

Also I've gotten really addicted to the cheap 8bit games that steam's had on sale.

But the next entry, The War of French Succession, will be up soon, I promise!

In leiu of that, I'm going to post a running bibliography of all the books I've read or am reading on the subject of Ancien Regime and Revolutionary France over the last 2 years. I figured I'd do that at the end, but hey, that's a long way off.

Theoretical works

Society Theory and the French Revolution: Really theory'y, but if you can get past that then this is one of the most singular works on the subject of Revolutionary political theory. It also strikes home just how disparate the factions were and how impossible the Terror was (in that it was impossible to complete, because the Jacobin ideal of peuple sans partes denied that factions could ever exist, hence any ideological dispute had the potentiality of turning into a purge).

The Idea of History: A general theoretical text on histiography, I haven't found a better expression of historical thought since I read this before going into grad school.

The Origins of Political Order: A great work for people getting interested in historical development, Fukuyama makes a lot of mistakes (some just being related to general issues rather than stuff that would intersect this work, I'm very tired of development texts which use Europe as a baseline because Europe's development isn't something particularly replicable--it's not like we can kill each other into innovation and development anymore given how destructive wars are).

General Topics

The Ancien Regime: This is one of the only general histories I got on the whole period which is neither overly romantic or written with the Revolution specifically in mind. A pretty good textbook!

Specific Topics

Paris in the Age of Absolutism: A great read, he goes through the architectural, political, and cultural changes that happened over the 17th century, dealing especially with the lead up to the Fronde. I got a lot of my ideas for the Fronde (as well as Henri II) from here.

Arisans of Glory: Another Orest Ranum book, this deals with the way that French histiography changed over the course of the Ancien Regime, and the creation of the idea of 'public history', that is a history which was not the history of this or that family but the history of a whole country. He also deals with the practical problem of the effect of patronage on history as an art form. Haven't gotten all the way through it.

When the World Spoke French: While useful this book was a bit too romantic for my tastes. A series of biographies of non-French francophones in the 18th century, the book deals with a lot of great figures that are hard to find specific books for (Eugene of Savoy, Maurice de Saxe, Comte de Caylus, Anthony Hamilton, Bolingbroke, and Lord Chesterfeild just being a couple of examples). But as I say, he romanticizes the figures and the period to a pretty disgusting degree.

:The Canadian Frontier: A general history of New France which I leaf over whenever I'm writing about Quebec. The ideas presented in the book (mainly how trade, religion, and military might intersected in the Frontier) will likely also come up in other sections where I'm dealing with French colonization, especially in Ceylon and India.

Confusions of Pleasure: A history of commerce and culture in Ming China which argues that while the Ming Dynasty did all it could to enforce its utopian regime, the Ming years still featured a massive growth in financialization and commercialization, especially in the area around the Great Canal. I used this book when I wrote a Critical History of Management, where I argued that before the French Revolutions attitudes towards power at the micro level were relatively similar, leading to similar anxieties (about miscegenation [poor people knocking up rich people]) and similar hierarchies. Also interesting in tandem with Paris in the Age of Absolutism because there are very interesting parallels between Ancien Regime France and Ming China, especially the rise of high culture and fashion as a means of differentiating between new and old money).

The Crisis of the European Mind: Apparently the best intellectual history on the early Enlightenment, I just got started with it.

Military Books

War in European History: Howard's little book is absolutely great, he deals with the intersection between culture, economics, and warfare.

Decoding Clausewitz: More a theoretical work on military stuff than anything else, it's still a great work and helped point me in the direction of Collingwood (author of the Idea of History).

Books that will come up later

The French Revolution And the People: Kinda eh with regards to his treatment of the Sans Coulottes as an actual opposition to the Jacobins (they were, at most, milquetoast about the direction the Terror), but it has great stuff on village democracy which will come up later.

The Essays of Montaigne: Montaigne is an interesting figure who contributed to one of the major intellectual divergences of the game so far, and I give him a lot of importance mostly because he's such an interesting writer.

Machiavelli's the Discourses on Livy: Machiavelli gets a short shrift, but in this world he ended up leading a rather major republic. Hence while his ideas were transformed, the basic concepts of Machiavelli's thought (as presented in the Discourses; I personally take after Gramsci in thinking that the Prince is an indictment on Italian politics rather than a set of guidelines), and thus this book will also come up later

The power France possesses has always attracted envy. Her economy, prodigious and industrious, is the desire of the world. Her language is spoken from Detroit to the Orient. Her armies strike fear into the princes of Europe. But France’s power is a fragile one, and any crack has always invited the interventions of others. The Fronde is the greatest example of this, but we can see foreign manipulations in our time as well. It is these same foreigners who wish to control France for themselves who make the possibility of a Republic of France impossible.


But unlike our times, the Frondeurs revolted in the hope of creating a stronger France, which gave a possibility for political closure rather than the constant infighting we see now. We can most clearly see this at the Battle of Dijon, which ended the short reign of Jean II.




After his defeat at Lyon, Jean made haste to combine his forces with the armies of his generals at Dijon.


While his generals Du Berry and De Roissins had been much weakened by fighting partisans and Louis’ skirmishers, they still comprised a force of 40,000 men, as well as the majority of Jean’s cavalry after the Battle of Charbonniers Le Bains. Though his men were weakened by their loss at Lyon and the hard march back, Jean thought that he would be able to use his new advantage in numbers to repulse Louis and then wait out the winter in Dijon, by which point he would be supported by his new Habsburg allies. In fact he started receiving massive war subsidies the moment he reached Dijon, as down payments for his part of the alliance: the selling of France Comte, Elsass, and South-Western France to the Habsburg powers.


Jean’s two subordinates had not been informed of this decision, a fact Louis knew because he had been intercepting their messages. Having gone to the Academy with them, Louis knew that at least du Berry, who was a French chauvinist through and through, would not accept such a betrayal. Thus Louis started a midnight meeting with Du Berry, informing him of de Bourgogne’s betrayal and telling him that he would have a powerful place in the newly invigorated French army when the war was over. Du Berry accepted, and moved to intercept de Roissins north of Dijon. Of further importance, du Berry sent along a promising young siege officer who had served (with lack of results due to du Berry’s lack of artillery) in the Siege of Paris. Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban accompanied Louis’s carriage back to the southern force, all the while discussing potential points for an assault. Having served as a Frondeur due to the lack of opportunities in Henri’s army, Vauban had begun to doubt his convictions upon meeting the ‘impassioned, bloodhungry, foolish men I had called my peers’. After they decided on a plan of attack, Vauban excitedly moved on to what he called ‘the chief problem of this new Kingdom: investing the borders of the Elsass against both a Huguenot and Hapsburg attack.




The sun rose on a thin layer of snow on the 16th of November, 1655. Given that the next several weeks would just bring more snow, Louis knew that he had to finish this here and now. The Battle of Dijon must end the Fronde.


As light flooded across the city, Jean looked from over the parapet of Dijon’s city walls to his Northern Armies. But he found something very strange. Rather than the Blue flag of the Frondeurs, du Berry’s army was flying the white and yellow of Louis de Bourbon! Soon after a message came to him from de Roissins; Berry had defected! Just as he heard this, a volley of cannon shots hit the southern walls. Jean ordered that de Roissins move south to link up with him, but de Roissins was forced to fight with du Berry’s men. As battle raged north of Dijon, Louis’ men held back just south of it. Louis, anxious with the knowledge that snow would likely come with sundown, maintained a close watch on Vauban’s battery for the green flag indicating a breach while keeping his men out of the range of Dijon’s cannon.


Four hours passed with Louis tensely riding his horse up and down the line, speaking with his officers and discussing who would be charging the breach. It eventually fell to the Third Bordeaux Infantry(the first regiment which defected to the Bourbon side), the Fifth Breton Light Infantry (led by de Gurvand himself), and the Gascon Pikes (the only regiment of close combat fighters Louis possessed, who had distinguished themselves in the Battle of Charbonniers les Bans) to take the first breach. At noon, Louis received two fantastic messages: Vauban reported two breaches in Dijon’s old-style walls, and a messenger from the north reported that de Roissins had surrendered his forces despite reinforcements from Jean’s troops. Louis rode at the front of his men and gave a curt speech.




With that, Louis rode at the front of a massive charge towards Dijon. The majority of Jean’s artillery had been either destroyed or had had its ammunition depleted in attempts at a counter battery against Vauban or against du Berry’s men, and thus only a weakened salvo struck the Armee Royale. It is reported by Jean’s men that before the Bourbonist army hit the breaches, he left, saying that he must defend his city. But he was not seen in the street. The taking of the southern wall of Dijon was hard and brutal fighting, with two thousand men dying in a single hour. But after the hour was over, Louis stood on the walls of Dijon and planted the white-and-yellow fleur de lys himself. Soon later he discovered that Jean had withdrawn from the city and was escaping to the Habsburg city of Freiburg. With his foe retreating, Louis knew that he was finally the true king of France.

Jape said:

Always love a bibliography. Excited to see what the Hapsburgs bring to the table and if they'll turn the tide... with their table. I love mixing metaphors too!

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Those are called malaphors and I love them.

You can take another man's trash but you can't make it drink.

volksmarschall said:

Well, I'm just dropping by to say that I'm now almost fully caught up!

And I must say, that is an impressive list of historiographical and history works you've highlighted. Although you seem to have a high liking for Collingwood, whom I find rather dry and dull at times and personally don't have him on an equivalent pedestal. On that note, have you read Edward Carr's "What is History?" or Marc Bloch's The Historian's Craft? I have found these works to be very informative as well and are also excellent expositions of historiography.

Of course, I am working on a historiographical paper and presentation myself on the "Byzantine Empire" in which I will submit and have the presentation in May. Oh the lowly pain of being only a researcher with a B.A. in history...

On the note toward your AAR, even though I think I mentioned this to you on my AAR, a most excellent AAR! And I can't wait to be fully caught up!

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That's interesting that you found Collingwood too dry, I found him to be really refreshing opposed to the other philosophers of history I've read. And while I read "What is history" in an otherwise totally useless histiography class, I haven't read Bloch, so I'll check that out. Thank you for the compliment and if you can send that paper over I'd really like to read it!

blsteen said:

Bibliography's are good but
French soldiers dying...better:ninja:
The Fronde's....the best!

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I'm not sure if I'd say 'best' but those are all definitely things

Ripheus said:

Cool list of recommendations, most of those books sound really interesting. Of those authors I've only read Collingwood, and then only as a philosopher. He had a few intriguing ideas, but unfortunately was a peripheral figure to the fairly massive transformation British philosophy went through during his lifetime. Plus, the areas of contemporary Analytic philosophy he contributed to (aesthetics and philosophy of history) aren't very close to the heart of the tradition. And even as an outsider he's overshadowed by people like Bradley, who was both more relevant and a much better systematic thinker. So he's mostly read by specialists today. Still, he's probably worth reading as a historian too.

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Mmm I get you, I should probably read some more modern histiography though it seems to mostly be the area of specialists who write about specific areas of history (for instance Skinner writes some great work but generally only about specific topics like Hobbes)

Jape said:

Just like to let you know I'm looking to get hold of confusion of pleasure. It looks fascinating though I'll have to order it from America.

Also, update sir!

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Done and done, and yes Confusion of Pleasure is a great book that attacks a lot of the preconceptions we have about Ming China (and imperial China in general), and has interesting things to say in general if you look at it as a discussion of a specific point in history that occurs all over the world (the response of old money to new money, and the ways that new money tries to integrate itself into existing power structures).

General_Hoth said:

For your bibliography on New France, I might add this masterpiece of Guy Frégault
http://books.google.ca/books/about/Canada.html?id=3yEJAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y

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Done sir!

DensleyBlair said:

All hail, indeed! A fine end to the Fronde arc. I'm looking forward to seeing how our new king consolidates his position.

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As we will see, there's more pressing things to do before consolidation happens (like beat on the Hapsburgs), but it'll be an interesting consolidation all the same!

Sorry, there was a typo in the last entry, Louis' name should be Louis de Bourbon-Orlando Theme Park

He's from disneyland, you see

I'm so sorry that I haven't put anything up! I had to cram for a final presentation and I've had a whole ton of personal issues tossed at me at once (and beyond that I've been drawn in by a bunch of steam sales for random games which has taken me away from late-Renaissance France). The next entry, called The War of French Succession: The Spanish Front, will be up tomorrow or the next day

With the Crusaders defeated and Jean II expelled from France, the war for the French crown adopted a far more typical nature. That is, it had the attributes of a normal war fought on the field, rather than a civil war fought in the hearts of men. Over the winter of 1655, Louis raised another 30,000 men from southern France, and split his army of 90,000 men into three groups, under the control of himself, du Berry, and de Gurvand. As spring broke, Louis and du Berry moved to the Pyrenees mountains in preparation for a campaign into Aragon & Navarra.




While Louis wanted to move against the Austrians and the Flemish as quickly as possible in order to prevent the Emperor from restaking his claim to the Lowlands, his English allies had other plans. The Republic of England wanted Louis to turn his attention south, to the Spanish, in order to distract them while the English ran operations in Spanish India. They also wanted Louis to fight Spain so that England’s ally, Portugal, could retake the provinces wrested from it in the early 16th century, namely Braganca and Porto.




The Kingdom of Portugual had been in decline ever since her colonies had been taken from her during the Forty Years War. And when the last of her colonies were annexed by the Dutch, the Spanish took the opportunity to take the vital northern provinces which were so close to the key port of Coruna. With France at war with Spain, Alfonzo IV King of Portugal saw the opportunity to finally retake her land, and in exchange for that, she offered England her last two colonies--the Indian city of Goa and the island of Maderia. Once ownership of these colonies was given to England, Cromwell personally met Louis and convinced him to commit to a year-long operation in eastern Spain, and when Louis agreed Cromwell sent lord Fairfax to Coruna to support the Portuguese and French armies.


There was no question that the French army, even unreformed as it was at this point, was superior in nearly every way to the Spanish force against it. Having had little to no real experience against an equal foe since the Conquest of the Incan Empire a century before, the Spanish Army had mostly been used to fight off the occasional English invasion and had only had offensive army experience during the Catholic Reconquest of Italy. The army’s officer class had been recruited from all over the Hapsburg Empire, with von Bournonville being an Alsatian and de Garro being a French Frondeur. The only general in the Spanish army with a large amount of combat experience was di Canossa, a Piedmontese Ultra-Catholic who had joined the Spanish army in the 1630s and led the Spaniards against the Protestant northern Italian states. Canossa’s plan for the defense of Aragon & Navarra was simple: provide garrison forces for the key fortresses of Pamplona and Girona while defeating the English and Portuguese to the West. This plan was forgone by the King, who believed that France’s two fronts would force her into a conservative strategy, and thus instead of focusing the Spanish army in one group, it was split in three to defend Madrid and the two sides of the Pyrenees.


The battle of Figueres, against von Bournonville and Louis Bourbon, was generally unremarkable. Louis used his advantage in musket troops and cavalry to great advantage, and after two hours of combat von Bournonville’s centre had fallen apart and he elected to retreat to the fortress of Girona. The battle of Biscay was just as anti-climactic, though de Garro managed to engage du Berry in a battle of attrition, and force du Berry to lose 6,000 men in the mountains of Navarra.


These two battles meant that neither Louis’ nor du Berry’s armies were large enough to commit an assault on the fortresses in their way. Without Vauban (who had been assigned to de Gurvand’s army), Louis knew that he wouldn’t be able to take Girona without massive losses. And thus the strategy thought up by di Canossa was implemented, not purposefully but by accident. The first few months of the Spanish campaign only brought the coalition a gain in Coruna, when Fairfax took the city in March.




On the Spanish side, despite her defeats, she was in a fantastic position. The retreat of de Garro and von Bournonville gave di Canossa a massive gain in troops, and further recruitments around Madrid had given him an army worthy of offensive actions. With this in mind, Canossa pressed his advantage and charged towards the Portuguese frontier.


Portugal was perhaps one of the least defended countries in Europe by the 17th century. Her losses had coincided with a revolution in military thinking and had left her with the funds for only two star fortresses, one in Porto and the other in Lisboa. The loss of the northern provinces hurt her even more, and even her small border fortresses were under-maintained. Canossa tore through the Portuguese frontier like a knife through butter, and though Fairfax made haste, he was unable to connect with de Vilhena’s army in time, and elected instead to use Louis XII de Bourbon’s tried and true method of striking from two separate points at the same time. But Canossa, a veteran of the Italian wars, had seen this maneuver before. Without his reconnaissance facilities impaired (a key aspect of Louisan strategy), he was able to defeat first de Vilhena’s and then Fairfax’s armies in a pair of brutal battles which signalled the beginning of the end of Portugal as an independent entity. With Fairfax and Vilhena defeated, Canossa was able to march on Lisboa and take it for the Spanish crown. With nothing left to gain, Louis and Cromwell made a separate peace with the Spaniards, acknowledging the annexation of the Kingdom of Portugal in exchange for Spain’s Indian colonies (with England gaining lands to the north-west and France gaining Spain’s colonies at the southern tip). Although this was just a nominal exchange because by this point the French and English navies had already seized these colonies, it still softened the blow of a major defeat to both the French and English armies.