Henri IV

This new biography of the most popular of kings of France, which takes advantage of the most recent advances in research, is largely a part of the march to power (a good thirty years ...) and seeks to know the a man with weaknesses (women, games, etc.) but also, and above all, with brilliant gifts and assets (personal charisma, humanist culture, skill and even political trickery). The successes of his reign are all the result of those incredible daring moves that were made in two months, in 1598, the culmination of twenty years of effort, the Edict of Nantes and the peace of arms over- in and out. Henry IV, born in 1553, was still a child when the first Protestants were murdered and it was in the prime of life, forty years later, that he was about to restore concord, to allow the kingdom to revive. His whole life will have been dedicated to unraveling the skein of politico-religious hatred, a destiny of which he will be the actor and the martyr in 1610. "Alone of our monarchs whose people have kept the memory" (Michelet), warrior intrepid, endowed with a rare political sense, an exceptional orator, as at home in the hut of a woodcutter as in the presence of a stormy assembly, he is what we would nowadays call an "ace in communication". It is these aptitudes that will enable him, after the pacification, to commit the monarchy to absolutism, in other words to the all-powerful royal power and suddenly to the French influence on Europe. The key to the providential success of Henry IV lies at last in his propensity, very rare in his time, to mercy and the refusal of revenge. He is the forgiving man.--Fnac.