99 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not very good at all, October 20, 2005
This review is from: La Belle France: A Short History (Hardcover)
I hate to write a bad review about a book written by someone as famous and published as Alistair Horne, but so many of the reviews written thus far have been so over-the-top with praise that I have to say something. Horne has written books on France under Napoleon, the First and Second World War, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and the Algerian War in the 20th century. However, he has not written books on the early history of France (before Napoleon) which is where I made my studies in grad school.
Whenever I read a book of history like this, I look at the sections on what I know. If the author does a good job there, then I figure the author is doing a good job elsewhere where I know less. In this case, to select one chapter, the one on Louis XIV, Horne makes too many mistakes to be taken seriously. Either his research team didn't do their job right or he did not know that he was relying on bad secondary works. Thus, he ends up repeating past mistakes.
A non-comprehensive list of errors in one chapter:
page 153 Louis XVI was Louis XIV's great-great-GREAT grandson, one more generation separated the two men.
page 165 in 1709 Louis XIV's former mistress died (Madame de Montespan) but he did not lose her, as Horne says, because when he was told about it, the king said she had been dead to him for years. She had not lived at court since 1690.
same page There is a whole paragraph on the Peace of Utrecht, Marlborough's intervention in Europe, the undoing of Colbert's achievements, and the loss in the value of the French livre between 1683 and 1713 that requires more explanation than I have space. To select one issue, the livre lost value, not because of France's defeats, but because of the policies of Colbert's successors who devalued the coinage and currency several times between 1683 and the Peace of Utrecht. That means they reduced the amount of gold and silver in the coinage.
page 166 Madame de Maintenon, or Scarron as Horne calls her, played absolutely no role in the revocation of toleration for the Huguenot. Research has proven this.
page 167 Horne has confused Frederick I of Prussia with Frederick II the Great who was not born while Louis XIV was alive.
page 168 Horne attributes a poor harvest to the suffering of the poor without saying that the harvest was caused by one of the worst winters in French history that was responsible for killing five percent of the population (one million people).
page 169 In describing the King's day, he fails to mention that, after 1690, Louis XIV put in longer days working at governing France. He stopped attending the balls, operas, and parties that went on at Versailles. Instead, he worked in the evenings with his ministers. Versailles became deadly dull.
page 170 The Dauphine, Louis's daughter-in-law, is said to have died after giving birth to Louis' first grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne. Funny, she had two more sons after she died, I guess.
same page Horne has the King say, in 1700 after his second grandson, whose mother according to Horne died before he was born, became King Philip V of Spain, that, "The Pyrenees are no more." Unfortunately, Louis XIV did not say that. The Spanish Ambassador did.
Same page Horne says the thermometer fell below -21 degrees F. What thermometer? No such instrument existed in 1709. Neither did Fahrenheit as a scale. The temperature fell below -21 degrees Fahrenheit as we measure temperature today. Perhaps this is an author's shorthand, but...
Page 171 has a paragraph on deaths in the royal family. Horne describes the eldest grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne (the one whose mother died shortly after his birth) as a hard worker with the King's affections. In reality, the grandson was a timid religiously narrow man who had lost the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708 and embarrassed the royal family doing so. Louis XIV never gave him another command. Horne is reflecting the opinion of one faction at court, not the King's opinion. In any case, Horne says he died in 1712 as the Allies were threatening Versailles. Actually, in 1712 the English deserted the Allies and France was able to turn the tide defeating them at Denain to gain some advantage at the negotiating table. I guess mentioning the English desertion of their allies in a history of France would not be right.
Enough recounting the errors in one chapter. How many errors do you have to have before they become too many? I cannot recommend this book to anyone based on this one chapter. It is not a good book. And I have to confess that I stopped reading after this chapter. I had read everything up to that chapter. Maybe it got better, but I don't have the patience to read bad books. My time is too limited.
I will say that Horne does describe the importance of the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 that forced King John of England to seek higher taxes leading to the confrontation with his barons and Magna Carta in 1215. For that alone, I gave this book two stars instead of one. Many English historians fail to consider the impact of foreign events on their country's history. The title of this book when it was published in England was "Friend or Foe: An Anglo-Saxon Looks at French History."
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A catalog of threads that doesn't do a great job of tying them together, February 19, 2006
This review is from: La Belle France: A Short History (Hardcover)
In my opinion, the role of a narrative history is to arrange the puzzle-pieces of individual facts into an interesting, entertaining story that allows the reader to better see the entire mosaic of history. Unfortunately, in my opinion "La Belle France" does not do a good job of this. Horne jumps around in both chronology and subject matter; fascinating anecdotes are abundant, but "the big picture" is largely elusive. For example, Horne gives an excellent and vivid description of life in Paris during the Huguenot siege in the 16th century. However, little attention is given to the social forces that gave rise to Protestantism in France, the type of folks who converted, etc. We're given a vivid description of the tortures Protestants endured, but without any context I was left wondering why anyone would risk the threat of such torture by becoming a Protestant. Horne seems to assume that the reader already knows the big picture.
Another reviewer did a top-rate job of chronicling the factual errors, which I won't try to duplicate. However, I did take notice of the fact that Horne references the "Droit de Seigneur" (the right of feudal lords to sleep with women on their wedding night) as settled fact. I know that there is plenty of debate about this supposed practice, and in my mind this called into question the factual accuracy of the rest of the book.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HOW IT'S DONE, October 6, 2005
This review is from: La Belle France: A Short History (Hardcover)
For anyone seeking a model of how a good historical narrative should be done, go no farther than Horne's FRANCE:this is how it's done. It is humorous, informative, maintains an agreeable pace, and does not burden the reader with a nuisance ideological overflow. The breadth of knowledge and use of quality sources is impressive (Tuchman, Schama...), but the highlight is the subtle and sometimes not so subtle one and two line zingers.
What is most impressive is Horne's marvelous command of flow and detail while still maintaining cogence in the grand sweep of French history. One of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time, the momentum is established on the first page and never falters.
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