This book explores the processes of state-building and the nature of political power in France during the reign of Louis XIV (1642-1715) through a study of a prominent ministerial family, the Phelypeaux de Pontchartrain. During the initial development of French governmental institutions in early modern France, patron-client ties provided networks for the transmission of political power that often paralleled or underpinned formal state institutions. In the absence of an efficient state bureaucracy, these informal patron-client ties tended to be grounded in personal connections between patrons...