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  • Hierarchy and privilege in France

    • July 17, 2021
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    An extract from Dave’s article ‘The Old Regime’. “First of all, the social hierarchy was divided into three broad categories, or Estates.  These Estates were extremely rigid and immobile, with the large majority of the population living and dying according to their ascribed status.  In addition, there were numerous other social divisions and economic sub-categories
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  • Censorship in eighteenth-century France

    • June 12, 2021
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    An extract from Dave’s article ‘The Old Regime’. “Censorship, of course, was the norm.  Up until 1699, it had been undertaken by several bodies: the Parlement of Paris, the Sorbonne and the Church as well as by the royal chancellor.  From 1699, however, the chancellor, Louis II Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, imposed royal authority over
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  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    • May 8, 2021
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    Here’s a link to Geri Walton’s entertaining account of the sex life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), a highly influential Genevan philosopher and writer and someone who was heavily involved in the moral and religious controversies of the day.  Rousseau is going to make a very brief appearance in part 2 of ‘Casanova in Paris: The
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