On 16 November 1671, Liselotte von der Pfalz, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the Elector of Palatine, was married to Philippe d'Orleans, "Monsieur, " the onl

The superb historian and biographer Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette, casts new light on the splendor and the scandals of the reign of Louis XIV in th

Foreword by Günter Grass This anthology gives a sense of the broad range of prose writing, the many interests of the seventeenth century intellectual, a rich d

The alignment of the stars at Marie Mancini's birth warned that although she would be gifted at divination, she was destined to disgrace her family. Nonetheless

Abused by her brutal husband, lovely Athenais de Montespan yearned for the love of the one man in all France who seemed completely beyond her reach--handsome, s