Review: [untitled] Author(s): Franklin Brooks Source: The French Review, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Mar., 1985), pp.

620-621 Published by: American Association of Teachers of French Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/392874 . Accessed: 09/08/2011 09:20
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but might have been analyzed to good effect. Finally, the two annexes should have been incorporated in the first part of the text. In spite of these reservations, Chanter pour survivre is a useful book. One can only hope that Laurent Marty will publish the texts of all 400 songs and appropriate notes, for they are an invaluable source and complement the work of Eugen Weber in Peasants into Frenchmenon rural songs. Montana State University Christopher Pinet

STEVEN G., ed. The Sun King:Louis XIV and the New World.New Orleans: The Louisiana Museum Foundation, 1984. Pp. 343. On 14 April 1684, Louis XIV signed the letters patent authorizing Robert Cavelier de La Salle to colonize the Mississippi region from the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico. In this tricentenary year, the Louisiana Museum, the Reunion des Mus6es Nationaux of France, and the Association Frangaise d'Action Artistique have organized the exhibition "The Sun King: Louis XIV and the New World." Some two hundred objects, mostly from French collections, illustrate achievements in the fine arts, decorative arts, performing arts, urbanism, literature, science, and technology. The exhibition catalogue offers, in addition to descriptions and photographs of virtually all the objects, essays by American and French scholars, many of them preeminent in the field: John B. Wolf, John C. Rule, Julius R. Ruff, John T. O'Connor ("LouisXIV: The Man and the King"),Philippe Jacquin, Monique Pelletier, Carl A. Brasseaux ("Louis XIV and the Colonies"), Robert Wyman Hartle, Antoine Schnapper, Daniel Rabreau, Robert M. Isherwood, Marcel Gutwirth, and E. Stewart Saunders ("Louis XIV: Patron of the Arts and Sciences"). The king himself dominates all, accompanied by the royal family, ministers, mistresses, scientists, musicians, and artists, from infancy to the grave. His countless portraits bring Lord Montague's complaint about Versailles to mind: "[Louis]is strutting in every panel and galloping over one's head in every ceiling, and if he turns to spit he must see himself in person or his Viceregent the Sun with Sufficit orbi, or nec pluribus impar"(Rule, p. 43). Several essayists remind us, however, that the glorification of the king was essential to Louis's understanding of enlightened kingship and to his desire to dazzle the world with evidence of France's stability and prosperity, even in time of war. Policy demanded that the king commission buildings for the common good, such as the hospice of Les Invalides; that he visit the construction site; that a painting document the visit; that an engraving reproduce the painting for distribution at home and abroad; and that commemorative medals of gold and silver be struck. His principal accomplishment here is the creation of bureaucratic administrations for the nation's essential services, freed at last from the control of a feudal, self-serving nobility. No exhibition heretofore in the United States has included archival documents of such quality. The autograph of his own Maniere de montrerles jardins de Versailles is here. The money order paying Racine and Boileau for their services as historiographesdu roi bears his signature. His illuminated copy of the volume commemorating the Carrousel of 1662 has been lent by the Bibliotheque Municipale of Versailles. Precious objects from his collections include the Apotheosis of Germanicus, from the Cabinet des Antiquit6s of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and a sardonyx cup from the Metropolitan Museum. The Ministere des Relations Ext6rieures has sent the original Peace of Ryswick (1697) and Peace of Utrecht (1713). But "LouisXIV and the New World"?Few objects come from Louis's American colonies and this seems overstated. Only exploration of the Mississippi and the Gulf Coast-first La Salle's, then Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville's, beginning in 1699-are featured, not the REINHARDT,

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administration of New France. Moreover, Louis's colonial policies would seem very unheroic indeed if they were judged exclusively on his treatment of "Louisiane la de1aissee."Financing his European wars forced him to overcome his reluctance to enlarge France's holdings in America and to trust La Salle's claims to have discovered a route to new mines. But those same wars soon made it impossible to provide support of any sort to the first settlers, who became victims of malnutrition, administrative abuse, and profiteering. Tracking the Sun King's eclipse in this region is a merit of the essays of Jacquin, Pelletier, and Brasseaux. The miseries of the 1680s in France are apparent as well, in the commentaries at least. When Colbert died in 1683, Versailles was habitable but then other great projects were mismanaged (Schnapper, p. 123) and the Academy of Sciences, well along in its "revolution in the means of accurately mapping the world" (Saunders, p. 158), lost vital support. In 1683 the Holy Roman Emperor's defeat of the Turks besieging Vienna freed him at last to counter French ambitions in western Europe (O'Connor, p. 67). Finally, despite the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Louis was excommunicated in 1687, for two years (Ruff, p. 57). Small wonder, then, that the new settlements along the Gulf of Mexico, with little to offer Louis in this time of need, received so little in return. Vanderbilt University
DUCHE'NE,

Franklin Brooks

ROGER. Ninon de Lenclos:la courtisane du GrandSiecle. Paris: Fayard, 1984. Pp. 315. 85 F. Le talent de biographe de Roger Duchene est bien connu depuis la parution de sa magistrale et passionnante Madame de Sevigne ou la chance d'&tre femme, chez le meme editeur en 1982. Les memes qualites d'historien, de psychologue et d'ecrivain sont apparentes dans sa Ninon de Lenclos. On y retrouve une vaste erudition, une conscience d'historien precis et probe, une curiosite pleine de sympathie pour les mentalites d'autrefois, un don rare de recreer la vie d'une epoque, de divers milieux et d'un individu exceptionnel. L'auteur interroge les sources documentaires, rend hommage aux travaux de son predecesseur, Emile Magne, dissipe les legendes qui s'etaient accumulees autour de son sujet depuis l'epoque des lumieres : les "philosophes" avaient tente d'annexer a leur parti une femme anticonformiste, liberee des croyances traditionnelles. Ironiquement, il existe un lien entre les deux femmes qui ont retenu l'attention du biographe. On sait en effet que Ninon de Lenclos avait compte parmi ses amants Henri et plus tard Charles de Sevigne et s'etait moquee avec esprit du manque d'empressement de ce dernier, au grand amusement de sa mere! Tres differentes par la naissance, l'education, les circonstances de leur vie, les deux femmes ont occupe une place importante, chacune dans sa sphere, dans la societe du dix-septieme siecle oii elles ont su s'imposer, apres un effort soutenu de la part de la courtisane, par leur esprit, leur charme et leur sociabilite. Anne de Lenclos fut elevee dans des conditions difficiles. Son pere etait un aventurier, un 'brave" de profession, mais un joueur de luth de talent. I1 donna ia sa fille une formation musicale qui se revela utile. Sa mere, abandonnee par un mari volage, se vit forcee par la misere 'i faire metier de la beaute et des talents de sa fille. Celle-ci passa tres naturellement du libertinage de moeurs au libertinage d'idees, sans afficher toutefois son incroyance. Elle a certainement connu des libertins notoires : Vauquelin des Yveteaux, Boisrobert et Scarron parmi d'autres, et frequente des milieux oii regnait une grande liberte d'esprit (e.g., le salon de Madame de la Sabliere et la societe du Temple).