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An intro to France during the reign of Louis XIV.  

The focus this episode is the peasantry and the nobility of the sword.  For the peasants, life may not be Mordor, but it is far harder and more exploited than we might assume.  The effort here is to shake the mindset of France as an idyllic setting for the 75% who are peasants.  Materially, life is not greatly improved for the peasants since Roman times.

The nobility is immune from most taxes and the worst depredations of the tax farmers.  

During his lifetime, his long, long lifetime Louis XIV kept the nobles in check, but he did not destroy the formal institutional basis of noble power as had been done in England.  This is the key development of this time period, I assert.

We begin looking at a few aspects of Louis' government, much more to come.