Journal De Jean Héroard - Tome 2sur L'enfance Et La Jeunesse De Louis XIII (1610-1628)

Jean Héroard served as physician to three generations of French kings, but it is his daily chronicle of Louis XIII that endures as an extraordinary artifact of royal childhood. This second volume spans 1610 to 1628, tracing the young king from his father's assassination through his turbulent minority under Marie de' Medici's regency to his eventual assertion of personal rule. What makes this journal indispensable is its intimacy: Héroard recorded not merely court ceremonies and political developments, but the boy who would become Louis XIII in his smallest moments, his fears, his lessons, his relationships with tutors and servants and ministers. The result is a remarkably granular portrait of how a king was made, observed from within the royal household itself. For historians of early modern France, this document offers irreplaceable access to the quotidian realities of court life, the mechanics of royal education, and the psychological formation of one of France's most significant monarchs.