A Royally Abusive Upbringing

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I've become a regular reader of Weave a Garland, Jackie Hodson's wonderful blog on 17th century history.

Today's post is a moving portrait of the care of Sun King's father, Louis XIII, by his doctor, Héroard.

I was pained to read, for example:

"When just two days old, the dauphin Louis had trouble suckling so Héroard brought in a surgeon who cut the membranes beneath the infant’s tongue in three places – a common enough practice but Louis – for the rest of his life – was afflicted by a stutter and he often had to poke his tongue out of his mouth and hold it between his lips."

No wonder Louis XIII was shy and withdrawn!

Book 1000 and Google Books unite: a fantastic research tool

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When I don't have the emotional strength to take on the Next Scene, I catalogue my new books. Basically this mean logging the title, author etc. onto a list and assigning it a reference number. I just hit the number 1000 with:

Riley, Philip F. A Lust for Virtue; Louis XIV's Attack on Sin in Seventeenth-Century France. Greenwood Press; Westport, Connecticut; 2001.

One thousand! Which means, in essence, that there are around one thousand books in my offices and spilling over into the basement.

In fact, I use many, many more titles because the books I tuck into "My Library" on Google Books I merely (and a bit lazily) reference only with a link to the Net.

But speaking of Google Books, I've found it useful when searching for something, to check the title on Google Book, see what page it's on, then go to my shelves for the book and read the account. In other words: I use Google Book as a giant index.

I'm researching Madame Voisin, for example, and the index in A Lust for Virtue does not mention her at all.* However, checking A Lust for Virtue on Google Books, I'm able to see that Voisin is mentioned five times in the book. Since I've got the book in hand, I simply turn to these pages.

This, then, is a great research tool.

One problem is that in snippet view — grrrr, snippet view! — Google Books often only shows three references. Yet rarely does a day go by when I'm not astonished at what's now available on-line. Researchers, rejoice!

* Afternote: I should have checked "La Voisin."



*****
Author of the Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun
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An historian's treasure-box

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There are times when the most extraordinary things fall right onto my lap. I've been struggling to find a decent map of 17th century Paris -- a detailed map that shows the names of the street.

I recently purchased an e-book collection (Paris: An Electronic Tour of the Old City by Robert W. Berger) that promised to have maps. Although the collection is fantastic, with visuals of Paris I'm thrilled to have in hand as well as a number of other documents, the maps were too general for my use, and I couldn't zoom in on them.

Today, historian Holly Tucker sent me this link to a page put together by the Kyoto University Library: click here.


Mon Dieu! For here was the map I'd been searching for. It was made in 1739, but that's close enough. I can zoom in to my heart's content, and the streets are all labeled.

Another document in the collection provides a map of 1684. It's more general, but it helps give some idea of the changes.

One of the documents -- one of several on this site -- is a digital copy of a book describing Paris in 1684. I can turn the pages, enlarge the type.

I'm overwhelmed!