• Annales School
• Cardinal Richelieu (chief minister 1624-42)
• Cardinal Mazarin (chief minister 1643-61)
• Royal Absolutism
• The Fronde
• gabelle – taille
• Intendants
• seigneur – noblesse d’epee – noblesse de robe
• Rene Descartes – ‘Discourse on Method’ – analytic geometry
• Le Tellier
• Louvois
• Vauban
• Jean-Baptist Colbert (minister 1665-83)
• mercantilism
• Gobelins Works
• Five Great Farms
• Versailles
• Les Invalides
• Academy of Music, Academy of Science, Academe Francaise
• Moliere – ‘Le Misanthrope’ and ‘Tartuffe’
• Racine – ‘Phedre’
• War of Devolution 1667-68
• Dutch War 1672-78
• War of the League of Augsburg 1688-97
• War of Spanish Succession 1702-13 – Treaty of Utrecht (1713)
• Edict of Fontainebleau (1685)
• dragonnades
• Emperor Leopold I (r.1658-1705)
• Battle of Kahlenburg (1683)
• Prinz Eugen von Savoy
• Battle of Zenta (1697) – Treaty of Karlowitz (1699)
• Duke of Marlborough
• Battle of Blenheim (1704)
• Battle of Malplaquet (1709)

• Charles XII of Sweden (r.1697-1718)
• Golden Age of the Dutch Republic
• Antoine van Leeuwenhoek – microbiology
• Frederick Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, the Great Elector (r.1640-88)
• Generalkriegskommissariat
• Junkers
• Edict of Toleration (1671) – Frederick Wilhelm Canal
• Gottfried Leibnitz – infinitesimal calculus; binary system – optimism
• King Frederick I of Prussia (r.1688-1713)

“If he was not the greatest king, he was the best actor of majesty, at least, that ever filled the throne.” Viscount Bolingbroke

“Had it not been for Blenheim, all Europe might at this day [1840s] suffer under the effect of French conquests resembling those of Alexander in extent and those of the Romans in durability.” Sir Edward Creasy

“L’etat? L’etat, c’est moi.”  Louis XIV