This is the first scholarly study of the political and economic relationship between Louis XIV and the parlements of France, the Parlement of Paris and all the provincial tribunals. The author explains how the king managed to impose strict political discipline for which this reign, and only this reign, is known. Hurt shows that the king built upon that discipline to extract large sums of money from the judges in the parlements, thus damaging their economic interests. When the king died in 1715, the regent, Philippe d'Orleans, after a brief attempt to befriend the parlements through...

Odyssey of a Bombardier is the illustrated Prisoner of War log that depicts the experiences of bombardier Richard M. Mason in German prison camps after his B-17 Flying Fortress was shot down by the Germans in France in 1944, the final year of World War II. The log follows Mason from the day his plane crashed until his liberation in April, 1945, and his return home to the United States. Included are such topics as medical treatment and rehabilitation for wounded prisoners of the Germans, life in Stalag Luft III, a difficult long march in an arctic winter to another camp, the travails of...