Driving tours in France often include visits to the country’s periphery, the seacoast, the Alps, the Pyrenees. This long circular drive I did in the summer of 2000, to allow me to dig in to some regional archives for my dissertation about the Lorraine-Guise family, instead took me deep into France’s interior. Aside from exploringContinue reading “Dukes and Abbeys in the Midi: A Circular Drive around the Centre of France”
Category Archives: France
Dukes of Saint-Simon
The Duke of Saint-Simon is one of the most famous memoirists of all time, and the most meticulous and detailed account available to us for the court of Louis XIV of France. He’s not always the most reliable source, as he particularly enjoys boasting, about his powerful friends, about his own intellect, and so on.Continue reading “Dukes of Saint-Simon”
Dukes of Villeroy
The family history of the dukes of Villeroy is one of the best examples of a the successful rise of a non-noble family into the very highest ranks of the French aristocracy, even to the point of being considered members of the intimate royal circle at Versailles. Indeed, one of these, the 2nd Duke, mightContinue reading “Dukes of Villeroy”
The Dukes of Guise
The dukes of Guise are famous primarily as leaders of the ultra-Catholic side in the French Wars of Religion of the late 16th century. One of the most famous political assassinations in European history is undoubtedly the double murder of the third duke of Guise—with the dramatic nickname ‘scarface’ (‘le Balafré’)—and his brother the CardinalContinue reading “The Dukes of Guise”
Dukes and Princes 