Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France [Hardcover]

A bold new study of politics and power in 17th-century France, this book argues that the French Crown centralized its power nationally by changing the way it delegated its royal patronage in the provinces. During this period, the royal government of Paris gradually extended its sphere of control by taking power away from the powerful and potentially disloyal provincial governors and nobility and instead putting it in the hands of provincial power brokers--regional notables who cooperated with the Paris ministers in exchange for their patronage. The new alliances between the Crown's ministers and loyal provincial elites functioned as political machines on behalf of the Crown, leading to smoother regional-national cooperation and foreshadowing the bureaucratic state that was to follow.

No study of Old Regime patronage has dealt with a comparable collection of materials, and none has looked with such care at the complex emotions and interests that made up the patronage bond....The most complete and most insightful reconstitution that we have had of how patronage worked in early modern France. --Journal of Modern History

Makes a signal contribution to our understanding of that important period....Especially impressive is her success in portraying both useful and corrupting aspects of the patron-broker-client relationship. --American Historical Review

Kettering's book provides the first thorough examination of clientelism in France and develops a thesis that will force historians to reexamine certain long-held assumptions about the development of absolutism. --History

Both a comprehensive view of the political uses of patronage in seventeenth-century France and a significant interpretation of their role in the process of expanding state power in that era....[A] fine book. --The Historian

A significant contribution to our understanding of the construction of the early modern centralizl#4