Exile, Imprisonment, or Death

In 1617, Louis XIII was forced to resort to assassination to rid himself of an over-mighty subject. A century later, Louis XIV had no need of such violent methods and, at his command, the most powerful men and women in the kingdom were prepared to submit to imprisonment or internal exile without a trial or an opportunity to justify their conduct, abandoning their normal lives, leaving families, careers, offices, and possessions behind in obedience to their sovereign. This volume examines that transformation through a study of the 'politics of disgrace', why it emerged, how it was conceptualised, the conventions that governed its use, and reactions to it, not only from the perspective of the monarch and his noble subjects, but also the great corporations of the realm and the wider public. Although that new model of disgrace proved remarkably successful, it was nevertheless contested, and the critique of disgrace connects to the second aim of this work, which is to use shifting...