Writing About The Memories of the Duc de Saint-Simon

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Papers to include the answers to the following questions ：
1. How reliable do you think Saint-Simon is as an historical source? What sources of information did he have? Do you think he distorts his information? What conclusions, if any, would such distortions affect?
2. What was an absolute monarchy? What, in theory, were its implications for the society of orders?
3. Did the ritual and etiquette of Louis XIV’s court, as described by Saint-Simon, foster absolutism? If you consider ritual and etiquette as propaganda, what messages were being sent at Louis’s court? Were they effective? Did Louis always seem to be aware of their political implications? If not, how can you explain this? Are historians mistaken in talking about “absolutism”?
4. Modern theorists often divide life into private and public spheres: private life is domestic, public life is political. Does this division seem to exist in Saint-Simon’s discussion? Can the nature of absolute monarchy help explain your answer?
5. To judge from this source, could women be politically important under an absolute monarchy? If so, what conditions helped make that possible? Can your answers to the previous set of questions help you answer this one?
6. Were “absolute monarchs” in fact absolute? Could Louis act without constraint? How can your answer help you understand absolute monarchy?