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This book presents a new interpretation of the development of the French army during the ''personal rule'' of Louis XIV. Based on massive archival research, it examines the army not only as a military institution but also as a political, social and economic organism. Guy Rowlands asserts that the key to the development of Louis XIV's armed forces was the king's determination to acknowledge and satisfy the military, political, social and cultural aspirations of his officers, and maintain the solid standing of the Bourbon dynasty.
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This page intentionally left blank The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV 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 seeks to explain the development of the army between the end of Cardinal Mazarin’s ministry and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession. During this period the army was reshaped, not simply through the assurance of an adequate money supply, the promulgation of reforming edicts and the imposition of tighter ministerial control. Of even greater significance was 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 those officers’ military, political, social and cultural aspirations. is Pybus Lecturer in European History, Newnham College, Cambridge. CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN HISTORY Edited by Professor Sir John Elliott, University of Oxford Professor Olwen Hufton, University of Oxford Professor H. G. Koenigsberger, University of London Professor H. M. Scott, University of St Andrews The idea of an ‘early modern’ period of European history from the fifteenth to the late eighteenth century is now widely accepted among historians. The purpose of Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History is to publish monographs and studies which illuminate the character of the period as a whole, and in particular focus attention on a dominant theme within it, the interplay of continuity and change as they are presented by the continuity of medieval ideas, political and social organisation, and by the impact of new ideas, new methods, and new demands on the traditional structure. For a list of titles published in the series, please see end of the book Engraving by Pierre Drevet, , of Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine and prince des Dombes ( – ), based on the painting by Franc¸ois de Troy. Author’s collection. Maine, the eldest surviving illegitimate son of Louis XIV and the marquise de Montespan, was the king’s favourite bastard. Louis installed him as Colonel-General of the Swiss and Grison forces in , prince des Dombes in , governor of Languedoc in , General of the Galleys ( – ), colonel of the r´egiment des Carabiniers in , and Grand Master of the Artillery in . With the exception of the Galleys, he held these titles almost without interruption until his death. The portrait sums up the way in which Maine believed the world should see him: as a soldier and as a sovereign prince of the Dombes, an enclave of disputed status situated northeast of Lyon. The closed crown and the sceptre make that explicit. The title of the engraving (Ludovicus Augustus Dei gratia Dombarum Princeps) also reinforced his claim to sovereignty. But within France there was deep reluctance to see him as anything other than a duke, in spite of the king’s steps to create a special legal position in society for Maine and his brother, the comte de Toulo