Louis XIV
Resuming chronologically from the subject of his previous biography (Cardinal Richelieu and the Making of France, 2000), Levi probes the Sun King's psychology--though fear not, he is no speculative psychobiographer. Deeply steeped in the world of seventeenth-century France, the author adheres to sources, always alluding to their partiality or incompleteness, and brings forth Louis XIV's personality. Levi sees him as a man of inner conflict, torn between normal insecurities and an externalized and prodigal pursuit of grandeur. For starters, his father was probably not, Levi argues, Louis XIII, but rather Cardinal Mazarin, the real power during Louis' minority. A habit of dissembling arose from that secret, while Louis' absolutist propensities might have been encouraged by the disorders of the Fronde, the civil war that broke out when he was 10. Also judging Louis to be cruel and brutal (referencing much detail about the Versailles court to make that case), Levi's portrait is critical but incisive, one that readers drawn to French history will not want to miss.Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved