Richelieu's Desmarets and the Century of Louis XIV

Jean Desmarets (1600?-1676) was a late Renaissance "universal man": first Chancellor and founder-member of the Academie-francaise, last jester of the French royal court, star performer in ballets, novelist, playwright, poet, architect, inventor, and mystic. He was also the first man to publicize the notion of "a century of Louis XIV." Hall examines that notion by looking afresh at Desmarets' vigorous career and relating the "century of Louis XIV" to its origins in the reign of Louis XIII.