Based on your reading from Worlds Together Worlds Apart, the Instructor’s Commentary, and the Content Guide, discuss the following: How would you define absolutism? How was absolutism viewed by the political theorists of the 17th and 18th centuries? Why did Louis XIV build his palace complex at Versailles? What was life like at Versailles for the French nobility? What type of an effect did absolutism have on the lower class? What limitations, if any, did absolutism pose within France? Did France’s absolute monarchy influence other European dynasts? And finally, how does the film Vatel fit within a discussion on absolutism? Feel free to include other outsides sources to support your thoughts, providing links to same via the use of citations.

Here are websites to enhance your knowledge of the reign of Louis XIV via the thoughts/writings of two men, Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, and Francois Marie Arouet (a/k/a Voltaire). You will need to explore and read the content of these sites in order to participate fully within the M2 Discussion “The Age of Absolutism.”
1.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13376b.htm
2.http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/17stsimon.asp