Political Women, Vol. 2

Before women were supposed to exist in politics, these French aristocrats held Louis XIV's future in their hands. This volume chronicles the remarkable women who orchestrated civil war, brokered peace, and manipulated the levers of power during the Fronde, that explosive decade when France itself seemed to fracture. Madame de Longueville turned a provincial dispute into a national crisis. Madame de Chevreuse spun webs of intrigue from the Louvre to the Spanish Netherlands. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the wealthiest heiress in Europe, literally raised an army and charged into battle alongside princes. Sutherland, writing in the late Victorian era with access to correspondence and court records now lost to history, reconstructs the intricate personal alliances, betrayals, and passionate loyalties that drove these women to risk everything. The Fronde wasn't just a political crisis; it was a crucible that revealed how much influence women could wield when they chose to abandon the decorative roles society had assigned them. For readers fascinated by the hidden machinery of power, by the question of how political authority actually operates, this remains a vital and surprisingly modern account of women who understood that政务 was never exclusively a man's game.