Condé in Context: Ideological Change in Seventeenth-century France

Mark Bannister

European Humanities Research Centre, 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 240 pages

Louis II de Bourbon (1621-86), known as Le Grand Conde, stood alongside Richelieu and Mazarin as one of the key figures who shaped the reign of Louis XIV. In response to profound upheavals in their world, his contemporaries looked to him to satisfy their need for a hero. Originally the warrior-hero par excellence, Conde was redefined by successive generations as the ideal subject of the absolutist state, as the epitome of civilized behaviour and, finally, as the exemplar of the triumph of faith over reason. In this first detailed study in English of Le Grand Conde's significance for his contemporaries, Mark Bannister reveals the complexity of the ideological patterns forming and reforming in seventeenth-century France, and the perennial need to believe in the existence of an iconic figure, incarnating new values as they emerge.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• The Old Order: 7
• The Natural Order of the State: 37

About the author

Mark Bannister is Professor of French at Oxford Brookes University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Condé in Context: Ideological Change in Seventeenth-century France; Legenda Main Series; Legenda Series; Legenda: European Humanities Research Centre
• Author: Mark Bannister
• Contributor: University of Oxford. European Humanities Research Centre
• Publisher: European Humanities Research Centre, 2000
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jun 18, 2008
• ISBN: 1900755424, 9781900755429
• Length: 240 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Historical; History / Europe / France