Jean Desmarets, later Sieur de Saint-Sorlin, was a late Renaissance `universal man': first Chancellor and founder-member of the Académie-française, last jester of the French royal court and 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'. Hugh Gaston Hall's book 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. It questions historical misconceptions about Cardinal...
Jean Desmarets, later Sieur de Saint-Sorlin, was a late Renaissance `universal man': first Chancellor and founder-member of the Académie-française, ...
