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Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France

Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France McClure, Ellen M., Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France (Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), xi + 317 pp., £32.00, ISBN 0 252 03056 7. Professor McClure’s prime purpose is to examine, and where possible resolve, the numerous tensions which complicated the debates on the nature of seventeenth-century French monarchy. There was a king who was both divine and human, and whose role was governed by the con fl icting demands of the deity, of rationalism and of the legal require- ments imposed by tradition on hereditary monarchs. This quest leads her to discuss the notion of representation. The king is God’s repre- sentative, but he should also represent the collective interests of his subjects. The argument is then extended further into a lengthy discus- sion of the dual role played by the ambassador, who is a representa- tive, even a embodiment, of princely sovereignty and yet, at the same time, is an individual who has his own reputation to establish and must have considerable freedom to negotiate. A fi nal section examines the same problem by using an analogy, that of the relationship between author and actor. Within this overall schema, there http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Early Modern History Brill

Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France

Mettam, Roger
Journal of Early Modern History , Volume 11 (3): 243 – Jan 1, 2007
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2007 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1385-3783
eISSN
1570-0658
DOI
10.1163/157006507781147515
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

McClure, Ellen M., Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France (Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), xi + 317 pp., £32.00, ISBN 0 252 03056 7. Professor McClure’s prime purpose is to examine, and where possible resolve, the numerous tensions which complicated the debates on the nature of seventeenth-century French monarchy. There was a king who was both divine and human, and whose role was governed by the con fl icting demands of the deity, of rationalism and of the legal require- ments imposed by tradition on hereditary monarchs. This quest leads her to discuss the notion of representation. The king is God’s repre- sentative, but he should also represent the collective interests of his subjects. The argument is then extended further into a lengthy discus- sion of the dual role played by the ambassador, who is a representa- tive, even a embodiment, of princely sovereignty and yet, at the same time, is an individual who has his own reputation to establish and must have considerable freedom to negotiate. A fi nal section examines the same problem by using an analogy, that of the relationship between author and actor. Within this overall schema, there

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Journal of Early Modern History – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2007

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