The Man Who Outshone the Sun King

The Man Who Outshone the Sun King PDF Author: Charles Drazin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786726466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Late in 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a carriage as it left Paris, carrying his friend Nicolas Fouquet to life imprisonment in a cell next door to the Man in the Iron Mask. From a glorious zenith as Louis XIV's first minister and Cardinal Mazarin's proté and eventual protector; builder of the stunningly opulent chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte; and patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Fouquet had suffered a wretched decline. The story of the rise and fall of Nicolas Fouquet is both compelling and unforgettable. Charles Drazin's beautifully written and vivid account brings to life Fouquet's remarkable gains in fortune, influence, and power, as well as the lavish and hazardous world of the royal court in seventeenth-century France.

The Man Who Outshone the Sun King

The Man Who Outshone the Sun King PDF Author: Charles Drazin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786726466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Get Book Here

Book Description
Late in 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a carriage as it left Paris, carrying his friend Nicolas Fouquet to life imprisonment in a cell next door to the Man in the Iron Mask. From a glorious zenith as Louis XIV's first minister and Cardinal Mazarin's proté and eventual protector; builder of the stunningly opulent chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte; and patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Fouquet had suffered a wretched decline. The story of the rise and fall of Nicolas Fouquet is both compelling and unforgettable. Charles Drazin's beautifully written and vivid account brings to life Fouquet's remarkable gains in fortune, influence, and power, as well as the lavish and hazardous world of the royal court in seventeenth-century France.

King of the World

King of the World PDF Author: Philip Mansel
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669092X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 669

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Book Description
Louis XIV was a man in pursuit of glory. Not content to be the ruler of a world power, he wanted the power to rule the world. And, for a time, he came tantalizingly close. Philip Mansel’s King of the World is the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography in English of this hypnotic, flawed figure who continues to captivate our attention. This lively work takes Louis outside Versailles and shows the true extent of his global ambitions, with stops in London, Madrid, Constantinople, Bangkok, and beyond. We witness the importance of his alliance with the Spanish crown and his success in securing Spain for his descendants, his enmity with England, and his relations with the rest of Europe, as well as Asia, Africa, and the Americas. We also see the king’s effect on the two great global diasporas of Huguenots and Jacobites, and their influence on him as he failed in his brutal attempts to stop Protestants from leaving France. Along the way, we are enveloped in the splendor of Louis’s court and the fascinating cast of characters who prostrated and plotted within it. King of the World is exceptionally researched, drawing on international archives and incorporating sources who knew the king intimately, including the newly released correspondence of Louis’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon. Mansel’s narrative flair is a perfect match for this grand figure, and he brings the Sun King’s world to vivid life. This is a global biography of a global king, whose power was extensive but also limited by laws and circumstances, and whose interests and ambitions stretched far beyond his homeland. Through it all, we watch Louis XIV progressively turn from a dazzling, attractive young king to a belligerent reactionary who sets France on the path to 1789. It is a convincing and compelling portrait of a man who, three hundred years after his death, still epitomizes the idea of le grand monarque.

In Search of the Third Man

In Search of the Third Man PDF Author: Charles Drazin
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9780879102944
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
(Limelight). Half a century after its opening, The Third Man remains an unquestioned masterpiece of film artistry and, for many, the greatest British movie ever made. Whether it is Harry Lime's magical first appearance or the celebrated cuckoo clock speech or the climactic chase through the sewers beneath Vienna or the haunting theme music of Anton Karas, the film contains some of the most memorable moments in screen history. Drawing on both contemporary documents and accounts of the people involved, In Search of The Third Man explores the many myths that over the years have grown around this extraordinary film, and seeks to unravel the facts from the fiction. "...you'll want to read The Third Man...The story of the film's creation is as intriguing as the film itself" Leonard Maltin, Playboy

Louis XIV's Architect

Louis XIV's Architect PDF Author: Richard Ballard
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 139905421X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This is a study of royal absolutism in a most extreme form in modern European history, and of the nature of Louis XIV's concept of personal glory and of the embodiment of France as a new superpower. It is a study of political ideas expressed in architecture to establish Versailles as the centre of French world power and royal prestige. It is also a personal story, full of social, cultural, and economic history of the period as seen in the life and work of Louis Le Vau, from a humble family of craftsmen, who was a self-taught architect in the early history of the profession, skilled in technical craft skills and even grand design. He was a major contributor to the architectural glories of Paris including the Louvre, Vincennes, Versailles and the College of the Four Nations. And all achieved despite interference from the great magnates of the age like Mazarin and Colbert and constant mind-changing by the King who wanted every feature in the buildings to reflect his concept of personal, royal, prestige. Le Vau was Louis XIV's First Architect from 1654 until his death and disgrace in 1670. The social, cultural, economic and political backdrop is striking with court intrigue, scandal, corruption, luxury, indulgence and the rise of a rich bourgeoisie, but the main thrust of the story concerns Louis XIV and the royal personal ambition, and the work of a stone-cutter's son who became the Sun King's instrument. The study is good on the more technical features of architectural history - reminiscent of Pevsner's marvellous Buildings of England series.

Embezzlement and High Treason in Louis XIV's France

Embezzlement and High Treason in Louis XIV's France PDF Author: Vincent J. Pitts
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142141824X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Louis XIV’s vendetta against his disgraced finance minister exposed dark truths about the state's finances. From 1661 to 1664, France was mesmerized by the arrest and trial of Nicolas Fouquet, the country’s superintendent of finance. Prosecuted on trumped-up charges of embezzlement, mismanagement of funds, and high treason, Fouquet managed to exonerate himself from all of the major charges over the course of three long years, in the process embarrassing and infuriating Louis XIV. The young king overturned the court’s decision and sentenced Fouquet to lifelong imprisonment in a remote fortress in the Alps. A dramatic critique of absolute monarchy in pre-revolutionary France, Embezzlement and High Treason in Louis XIV's France tells the gripping tale of an overly ambitious man who rose rapidly in the state hierarchy—then overreached. Vincent J. Pitts uses the trial as a lens through which to explore the inner workings of the court of Louis XIV, who rightly feared that Fouquet would expose the tawdry financial dealings of the king's late mentor and prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin.

Boo Hoo

Boo Hoo PDF Author: Charles Drazin
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 144810677X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
boo hoo is a gripping, insider's account of the rise and fall of this most controversial of internet startups - a global, online retailer of sports and designer clothes.

Chopin's Funeral

Chopin's Funeral PDF Author: Benita Eisler
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307425258
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Frédéric Chopin’s reputation as one of the Great Romantics endures, but as Benita Eisler reveals in her elegant and elegiac biography, the man was more complicated than his iconic image. A classicist, conservative, and dandy who relished his conquest of Parisian society, the Polish émigré was for a while blessed with genius, acclaim, and the love of Europe’s most infamous woman writer, George Sand. But by the age of 39, the man whose brilliant compositions had thrilled audiences in the most fashionable salons lay dying of consumption, penniless and abandoned by his lover. In the fall of 1849, his lavish funeral was attended by thousands—but not by George Sand. In this intimate portrait of an embattled man, Eisler tells the story of a turbulent love affair, of pain and loss redeemed by art, and of worlds—both private and public—convulsed by momentous change.

The Man Who Outshone the Sun King

The Man Who Outshone the Sun King PDF Author: Charles Drazin
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 009946828X
Category : France
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Amidst the chaos and anarchy of civil war-wracked France, one man's spectacular rise and devastating fall was lost to history - until now.

Proof!

Proof! PDF Author: Amir Alexander
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374714126
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
A “lucid and convincingly argued” narrative of how ancient geometric principles continue to shape the contemporary world (Publishers Weekly). On a cloudy day in 1413, a balding young man stood at the entrance to the Cathedral of Florence, facing the ancient Baptistery across the piazza. As puzzled passers-by looked on, he raised a small painting to his face, then held a mirror in front of the painting. Few at the time understood what he was up to; even he barely had an inkling of what was at stake. But on that day, the master craftsman and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi would prove that the world and everything within it was governed by the ancient science of geometry. In Proof!, the award-winning historian Amir Alexander traces the path of the geometrical vision of the world as it coursed its way from the Renaissance to the present, shaping our societies, our politics, and our ideals. Geometry came to stand for a fixed and unchallengeable universal order, and kings, empire-builders, and even republican revolutionaries would rush to cast their rule as the apex of the geometrical universe. For who could doubt the right of a ruler or the legitimacy of a government that drew its power from the immutable principles of Euclidean geometry? From the elegant terraces of Versailles to the broad avenues of Washington, DC, and on to the boulevards of New Delhi and Manila, the geometrical vision was carved into the landscape of modernity. Euclid, Alexander shows, made the world as we know it possible.

Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World

Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World PDF Author: Stephen H. Whiteman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512823597
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Courts and societies across the early modern Eurasian world were fundamentally transformed by the physical, technological, and conceptual developments of their era. Evolving forms of communication, greatly expanded mobility, the spread of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of an increasingly integrated global economy all affected how states articulated and projected visions of authority into societies that, in turn, perceived and responded to these visions in often contrasting terms. Landscape both reflected and served as a vehicle for these transformations, as the relationship between the land and its imagination and consumption became a fruitful site for the negotiation of imperial identities within and beyond the precincts of the court. In Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World, contributors explore the role of landscape in the articulation and expression of imperial identity and the mediation of relationships between the court and its many audiences in the early modern world. Nine studies focused on the geographical areas of East and South Asia, the Islamic world, and Europe illuminate how early modern courts and societies shaped, and were shaped by, the landscape, including both physical sites, such as gardens, palaces, cities, and hunting parks, and conceptual ones, such as those of frontiers, idealized polities, and the cosmos. The collected essays expand the meaning and potential of landscape as a communicative medium in this period by putting an array of forms and subjects in dialogue with one another, including not only unique expressions, such as gardens, paintings, and manuscripts, but also the products of rapidly developing commercial technologies of reproduction, especially print. The volume invites a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the complexity with which early modern states constructed and deployed different modes of landscape for different audiences and environments. Contributors: Robert Batchelor, Seyed Mohammad Ali Emrani, John Finlay, Caroline Fowler, Katrina Grant, Finola O'Kane, Anton Schweizer, Larry Silver, Stephen H. Whiteman.