Giant of the Grand Siècle
Subtitle: The French Army, 16101715
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: June 13, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 608
ISBN-13: 9780521572736
Subjects: European history: c 1500 to c 1750; Warfare & Defence; Technology; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; Europe - France; Armies; France - History; History: World; History - General History; History; France; Military - Other; France.--Armâee--History--17th century; History / Europe / General; 18th century; History, Military; Military - General; Military Science; 1610-1643; 17th century; Armee; Armâee; France.
First sentence: THE classical facade of Versailles faces the gardens decorated with statues and fountains, traversed by gravel paths.
Description: An "invisible giant" according to John Lynn, the seventeenth-century French army was the largest and hungriest institution of the Bourbon monarchy, then the most powerful state in Europe, yet it has received incomplete treatment and is only partly understood. Combining the social and cultural emphases of the "new" military history with the more traditional institutional and operational concerns, this book examines the army in depth.

The portrait that emerges differs from what current scholarship might have predicted. Instead of claiming that a "military revolution" transformed warfare, Lynn stresses evolutionary change. This work also offers surprising insights into absolutism and the relationship between the monarchy and aristocracy. Questioning widely held assumptions about state formation and coercion, this book argues that this standing army was primarily devoted to border defense, and only rarely to internal repression.