Boulainvilliers and the French Monarchy : : Aristocratic Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century France / / Harold A. Ellis.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Ellis, Harold A.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1988
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)

Suspicious of the French monarchy, and scornful of the new elites that served it, Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658–1722) has been considered one of the Old Regime's paradigmatic aristocratic reactionaries, a founder of modern racist theory. Some scholars, however, have admired his "constitutionalism" and judged him a progenitor of an enlightened aristocratic liberalism now commonly held to have been a major force in shaping the ideology of the French Revolution. In a close contextual study of the writings of this enigmatic, pivotal thinker, Harold A. Ellis persuasively rethinks both images of Boulainvilliers, finding him a controversialist who interpreted French history as a self-consciously political writer seeking to address an emergent political public.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Note on Translations -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Early Works: Genealogy and the Problem of French Feudalism -- 3. Boulainvilliers and the Burgundy Circle -- 4. Boulainvilliers and the Due d'Orleans: Toward the Regency -- 5. The Affaire du Bonnet ( 1715-1 716) and Boulainvilliers' Hopes -- 6. The Affaire des Princes (1716-1717) and Boulainvilliers' Failure -- 7. Conclusion -- Bibliographical Appendix: Boulainvilliers' Works on French History -- Bibliography -- Index