L'argent du roi: les finances sous François Ier.
By Philippe Hamon. Paris: Comité pour
l'histoire économique et financière, Ministère de
l'Economie, 1994. Pp. xliii+609.
ISBN 2-11-087648-4. 249F.The king's army: warfare, soldiers, and society during
the wars of religion in France, 1562–1576.
By James B. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvi+349.
ISBN 0-521-55003-3. £45.00.One king, one faith: the parlement of Paris and the
religious reformations of the sixteenth century.
By Nancy Lyman Roelker. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California
Press, 1996. Pp. xiii+543. ISBN 0-520-08626-0. £50.00.A city in conflict: Troyes during the French wars of religion.
By Penny Roberts. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1996. Pp. xi+228. ISBN 0-7190-4694-7. £40.00.The birth of absolutism: a history of France, 1598–1661.
By Yves-Marie Bercé, translated by
Richard Rex. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press, 1996. Pp. viii+262. ISBN
0-333-62757-1. £15.50.The French sixteenth century has always posed serious difficulties for historians. It was
a time of rapid change and, in its later decades, of massive disorder, so that there are
many large and complex issues to unravel. The need for close analysis as an antidote to
over-hasty generalizations is obvious, yet on many issues the archives are frustratingly
scanty or even non-existent. A group of recent books tackles these problems with
considerable ingenuity and a fair degree of success, even if some of the gaps in the
evidence inevitably defy the authors' best efforts.