5/24/2023 0 Comments Before Versailles by Karleen KoenKoen treats their love story with respect and warns it will not last, but Louise remains at Louis’ side long enough to make her fascinating. Louise de la Vallière is, by court standards, beautiful and innocent when she becomes the king’s mistress. Then the most desirable (married) man in Europe falls in love with a 16-year-old girl. So also, his attractiveness to women, including his brother’s wife. As the king’s reach and power grow, so does his self-confidence. When he makes plans to deprive certain overambitious subjects of the means to undermine him, he consults his advisor, Colbert, but the king is making his own decisions now. The king, now 22, resides at Fontainebleau, a royal chalet surrounded by forest and, given modes of travel, remote from Paris. He inherits a government master-planned by powerful men (Richelieu, Mazarin), seemingly content to be a rubber stamp – until Mazarin dies in 1661. He grows up during the Fronde, a series of violent uprisings. In Koen’s fourth fine novel (after Dark Angels, 2009), Louis XIV’s reign as French monarch is unique in unpredictable ways.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |