This book deals with the French military occupations of Lorraine and Savoy during the personal rule of Louis XIV (1661-1715). It casts important new light on the aims and intentions (and also the limitations) of the French state in the seventeenth century, and makes a significant contribution to understanding a crucial era in the development of civil-military relations.
Absolute monarchy on the frontiers presents the occupations of Lorraine and Savoy from a comparative perspective, and draws on the experience of several other French occupations of the period, including those of Nice and Luxembourg. It places the occupations within the context of French frontier strategy and foreign policy in the seventeenth century, with particular reference to the French monarchy's relationship to Lorraine and Savoy as frontier states. It then charts the way the French government administered occupied territories, and how this differed from the practice of 'absolutism' within the kingdom. It also gives an account of how the French occupiers went about courting the interests of local elite groups - the nobilities, the financial and judicial elites and the clergy - and how far these efforts were successful. By investigating these groups this book provides a more wide-ranging view of military occupation in the early modern era, considering social, economic and religious questions, than has so far been available.
This book will appeal to upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of the political, social and military history of early modern France and Europe.