¹ The original MSS are Louis XIV, Manuscrits français 6732, 6733, 6734, 10329, 1O330, 10331, and 10332, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

A number of the popular editions of Louis' works are not worth mentioning because of their truncated and uncritical nature but several are very useful. de Gain-Montagnac, J. L. M., Mémoires de Louis XIV (2 vols., Paris, 1806)Google Scholar, is one of the best but it abbreviates some passages and omits others. Grouvelle, P. A., Œuvres de Louis XIV (6 vols., Paris, 1806)Google Scholar, is the most extensive edition, containing much that the King ever wrote, but little or no attention is given to critical problems such as alternative versions of passages. Dreyss, Charles' Mémoires de Louis XIV pour l'instruction du Dauphin (2 vols., Paris, 1860)Google Scholar, is by far the most scholarly textual study ever made of the Mémoires but it is so pedantically detailed that it is almost incomprehensible. Jean Longnon's two modern editions are the most readable and convenient presentations of the monarch's reflections but they suffer from omissions. His Mémoires pour les années 1661 et 1666 (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar contains several of Louis' shorter pieces as well as the accounts for these two years, and there is also a good introduction with helpful notes. His Mémoires de Louis XIV (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar attempts to compensate for some of the omissions of his earlier work by including the King's Mémoires for the years 1662, 1667, and 1668. The only English edition of Louis' writings appears to be A King's Lessons in Statecraft: Louis XIV: Letten to His Heirs, Introduction and notes by Jean Longnon, trans. by Herbert Wilson (London, 1924; New York, 1925), which is a verbatim translation of Longnon's 1923 edition. Gaxotte, Pierre, Lettres de Louis XIV (Paris, 1930)Google Scholar is one of the most extensive editions of Louis' letters but it contains only approximately 150 items.

² Lacour-Gayet, Georges, L'Education politique de Louis XIV (2nd ed., Paris, 1923).Google Scholar

The commentators include: Sée, H., Les Idées politiques en France au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar; Préclin, E. and Tapié, V. L., Le XVIIe Siècle, monarchies centralisées (1610–1715) (Paris, 1943)Google Scholar; Hitier, J., “La Doctrine de l'absolutisme,” Annales de l'Université de Grenoble (Paris, 1903)Google Scholar; Ogg, David, Louis XIV (3rd ed., London, 1948)Google Scholar; SirPétrie, Charles, Louis XIV (London, 1938)Google Scholar; Beloff, Max, The Age of Absolutism, 1660–1815 (London, 1954)Google Scholar; Cambridge Modem History, IV, V.

³ This paper is drawn from the writer's unpublished doctoral thesis, “The Political Theory of Louis XIV,” University of London, 1959.Google Scholar

⁴ Aristotle, , Politics (Everyman, ed., London, 1941), 125.Google Scholar McIlwain's, C. H. discussion in The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York, 1932), 364–5Google Scholar, makes the distinction between absolute and arbitrary government perfectly clear. See also the article by Lindsay, A. D., “Absolutism” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1950), I, 380–1.Google Scholar

⁵ R. W., and Carlyle, A. J., A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (6 vols., London, 1903–1936)Google Scholar, is the standard reference work for this subject. See also Kern, F., Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, trans, by Chrimes, S. B. (Oxford, 1939).Google Scholar

⁶ See Declareuil, J., Histoire générale du droit français des origines à 1789 (Paris, 1925), 427–41Google Scholar, a very useful work.

⁷ McIlwain, , Growth of Political Thought in the West, 197.Google Scholar

⁸ Figgis, J. N., Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1625 (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1923), 31, 205, n. 15.Google Scholar

⁹ Hocart, A. M., Kingship (Oxford, 1927), 7.Google Scholar

¹⁰ SirFrazer, James, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 3rd ed., Part I, The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings (London, 1911), I, chap. ii, esp. 47–8.Google Scholar

¹¹ Figgis, J. N., The Divine Right of Kings (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1922), 5.Google Scholar See also Crump, G. C. and Jacob, E. F., The Legacy of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1926), 522 Google Scholar, for almost the same words.

¹² Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (2nd ed., London, 1941), 268.Google Scholar

¹³ McIlwain, C. H., “Divine Right of Kings” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, V, 176.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Figgis, , Divine Right, 5.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Kern, , Kingship and Law, 5.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Figgis, , Divine Right, 5.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid., 6.

¹⁸ Ibid., 5.

¹⁹ Ibid., 27, and Crump and Jacob, , Legacy, 522.Google Scholar In France Philippe-Auguste (1180-1223) was the first king to feel sufficiently secure of the succession to forgo the precaution of having his son crowned during his own reign. ( Luchaire, A., Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers capétiens (987–1180) (Paris, 1891), I, 60–87.)Google Scholar A. Feret says that the French monarchy was elective under “the first two races” (the Merovingians and Carolingians) and became hereditary under “the third race” (the Capetians, whose line terminated in 1328). ( Le Pouvoir civil devant l'enseignement catholique (Paris, 1888), 184–94.Google Scholar)

²⁰ Kern, , Kingship and Law, 12.Google Scholar

²¹ Divine Right, 9.

²² A sentiment which did not die with the Middle Ages. Edward VIII's advisers were anxious to have him crowned before the question of his marriage to Mrs. Simpson became a public issue. ( Duchess of Windsor, The Heart Has Its Reasons (New York, 1956), 262.Google Scholar) Shakespeare's Richard II expressed typical royal sentiments: “Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm from an anointed king.” (Act III, scene 2.)

²³ Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, V, 176.Google Scholar His view is shared by Figgis, Kern, Carlyle, and Allen.

²⁴ History, 270.

²⁵ The incomparable secondary source for this period is Church, W. F., Constitutional Thought in Sixteenth Century France (Cambridge, Mass., 1941).Google Scholar See also Gilmore, M. P., Argument from Roman Law in Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1941)Google Scholar, and Figgis, J. N., “Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century” in Cambridge Modern History (Cambridge, 1904), III.Google Scholar

²⁶ Bodin, Jean, Six Books of the Commonwealth, abr. and trans, by Tooley, M. J. (Oxford, 1956), Book I, chap, VIII, 32.Google Scholar

²⁷ Pp. 394–422.

²⁸ Six Books, Book II, chap. II, 56–7.

²⁹ The authors' works are too numerous to cite here. Sée, Les Idées politiques, gives accounts of some of their doctrines but there is no comprehensive book on seventeenth-century French political theories. This writer's thesis, “The Political Theory of Louis XIV,” chap, iv, offers a brief and solitary analysis.

A copy of James I's Basilikon Down reached Louis XIV. Hobbes's works were quite well known and popular in France, thanks to the French Hobbists Senault, Merlat, Faure, Sorbière, and Du Verdus. Bossuet and Nicole also were influenced by him.

³⁰ La Politique tirée des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte, Book V, art. 1, prop. 1, in Œuvres de Bossuet (Paris, 1877), I, 373.Google Scholar

³¹ Lettre de 29 mai 1706, Grouvelle, VI, 188, and Mémoire remis par Louis XIV à son petit-fils, Philip V, partant pour Madrid, le 3 déc. 1700, ibid., II, 466.

³² Dreyss, I, 328, and II, 6–8.

³³ Ibid., II, 380–1, 415, 450; Longnon (1923 ed.), 107.

³⁴ Dreyss, II, 287, 285; I, 116.

³⁵ The examples are too numerous to quote, but see, for instance, ibid., II, 347, 374, and 397

³⁶ Ibid., II, 109.

³⁷ Réflexions sur le métier de roi, Longnon (1923 ed.), 226.

³⁸ Dreyss, II, 442, 16–7.

³⁹ Quoted in Gaxotte, 373.

⁴⁰ Dreyss, I, 250; II, 531.

⁴¹ See, e.g. the long passages in Longnon (1923 ed.), 110–13, and Dreyss, II, 431–2.

⁴² Dreyss, II, 429–30.

⁴³ Ibid., II, 385. He gave the same advice to his grandson, Philip V, in Mémoire remis, Grouvelle, II, 466.

⁴⁴ Dreyss, II, 385–6, 268.

⁴⁵ Ibid., II, 435–6, 240.

⁴⁶ Mémoire remis, Grouvelle, II, 466.

⁴⁷ Dreyss, II, 403–4.

⁴⁸ See also ibid., II, 417.

⁴⁹ Ibid., II, 439.

⁵⁰ Ibid., I, 195; II, 230; II, 288.

⁵¹ Ibid., I, 209. See also Grouvelle, II, 196 and 426.

⁵² Fox, , “The Political Theory of Louis XIV,” 256–62.Google Scholar

⁵³ Dreyss, II, 341 and 9.

⁵⁴ Conversation de Louis XIV, Grouvelle, II, 422.

⁵⁵ Dreyss, I, 137; II, 62.

⁵⁶ Quoted in de la Barre Duparcq, E., Réflexions sur les talents militaires de Louis XIV (Paris, 1867), 39.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Dreyss, I, 137.

⁵⁸ Ibid., II, 444.

⁵⁹ Ibid., II, 444.

⁶⁰ Ibid., II, 449–50.

⁶¹ Ibid., II, 285–6.

⁶² Dernières Paroles de Louis XIV à Louis XV, Grouvelle, II, 492.