Urban protest in seventeenth-century France : the culture of retribution

Locates protest in the context of patterns of everyday resistance in monarchical absolutist France, relating the failure of repression to issues in local power structures and showing how popular movements rejected external and local power-holders. Covers events in fifteen cities including the Ormee movement in Bordeaux. This lucid and wide-ranging survey is the first comparative study in English to explore popular uprisings in the cities of seventeenth-century France. Through close analysis of eyewitness narratives from protesters and authorities in more than fifteen cities, William Beik examines the complex social interaction between angry crowds and hard-pressed authorities. He adds a completely new chapter to the history of the crowd and traces the difficult and fragile connections between elite and popular culture in early modern France. This lucid and wide-ranging survey is the first comparative study of the interaction between crowds and public authorities in the early modern period. Through comparative analysis of eyewitness narratives from more than fifteen seventeenth-century cities, William Beik explores the full spectrum of urban French unrest.