J.H.M. Salmon

For thirty years Queen Mother of France, Catherine dei Medici tried to pursue a middle way through the political and religious problems of the age.

Henri of Navarre is one of the most complex and fascinating personalities among the ruler of France.

Before his reconciliation with Richelieu in 1631, writes J.H.M. Salmon, the Huguenot Rohan was one of the more turbulent and skilful magnates of France.

Hotman and Bodin were among those who laid down new lines of political thought in Europe, writes J.H.M. Salmon.

J.H.M. Salmon describes how the Philosophes of the French eighteenth century had an unshakeable belief in their own achievement and the progress of mankind.

J.H.M. Salmon profiles an important - but largely forgotten - historian of the ancien régime, whose main theme was expansion in Asia and in the New World.

Once the Romantic Movement had reached France, writes J.H.M. Salmon, many writers, inspired by the Waverley novels, began to look for exciting subjects in the scenes of French history.

J.H.M. Salmon describes how Voltaire was haunted by the massacre of Huguenots in August 1572, and used his version of the complicated event in his lifelong campaign against prejudice and superstition.

J.H.M. Salmon asserts that René Descartes and Blaise Pascal stand out from other men of letters of their era due to the enduring relevance of their lives and works.

J.H.M. Salmon portrays two men of letters - François de La Rochefoucauld and Jean François Paul de Gondi - as mirrors to both each other, and to the seventeenth century French society they wrote about.