![]() He finally died in 1715, just days before his 77th birthday, well after almost everyone else he knew, including legitimate children and grandchildren, leaving the throne to his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. Louis XIV began his reign in 1643, at the age of five. Louis XIV fell in love with Versailles and Louise de La Vallière at the same time Versailles was the love of his life. This book has one of the best first sentences I know, a sentence that shows the tone, the wit, and the clear subjects of the biography: Attracted to her wit, I have been looking forward to digging into these and decided to start with the one that covers the earliest period of time, The Sun King (1966). The three prior biographies each focused on French subjects: Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Louis XIV. ![]() ![]() This spring, NYRB Classics will reissue Frederick the Great, the last of the four biographies Nancy Mitford wrote in her lifetime. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |