Overview

A bold new study of politics and power in 17th-century France, this book argues that the French Crown centralized its power nationally by changing the way it delegated its royal patronage in the provinces. During this period, the royal government of Paris gradually extended its sphere of control by taking power away from the powerful and potentially disloyal provincial governors and nobility and instead putting it in the hands of provincial power brokers--regional notables who cooperated with the Paris ministers in exchange for their patronage. The new alliances between the Crown's ministers and loyal provincial elites functioned as political machines on behalf of the Crown, leading to smoother regional-national cooperation and foreshadowing the bureaucratic state that was to follow.

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9780195036732

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No study of Old Regime patronage has dealt with a comparable collection of materials, and none has looked with such care at the complex emotions and interests that made up the patronage bond....The most complete and most insightful reconstitution that we have had of how patronage worked in early modern France. * Journal of Modern History *

No study of Old Regime patronage has dealt with a comparable collection of materials, and none has looked with such care at the complex emotions and interests that made up the patronage bond....The most complete and most insightful reconstitution that we have had of how patronage worked in early modern France. --Journal of Modern History Makes a signal contribution to our understanding of that important period....Especially impressive is her success in portraying both useful and corrupting aspects of the patron-broker-client relationship. --American Historical Review Kettering's book provides the first thorough examination of clientelism in France and develops a thesis that will force historians to reexamine certain long-held assumptions about the development of absolutism. --History Both a comprehensive view of the political uses of patronage in seventeenth-century France and a significant interpretation of their role in the process of expanding state power in that era....[A] fine book. --The Historian A significant contribution to our understanding of the construction of the early modern centralized state. --Journal of Interdisciplinary History This powerful and rich study certainly raises issues of the broadest significance in the most stimulating way; historians of all persuasions have much to learn from it. --French History Kettering's study is of fundamental importance for any study of Early Modern France. --Sarah Hanley, University of Iowa An excellent piece of work....Kettering provides the most detailed description we have of how the patron-client system worked. --Russell Major, Emory University Kettering's research has been very deep and thorough, and it has been shaped by a powerful analytic and political mind. Her study is superb. --Orest Ranum, The Johns Hopkins University Provides the best preparatory analysis yet available for reinterpreting the greatest moment of tension in the French seventeenth century. --English Historical Review An extremely useful text for sociologists interested in problems of patron-client relations and in problems of personal relations and social structure generally. Its integration of the personal level and the level of institutional analysis is exemplary. --Contemporary Sociology

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