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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Much ado about nothing? The intendant, the gentilshommes and the investigations into nobility in Burgundy (1664-1670)

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In 1664 Louis XIV did not spare the Burgundian nobles where furnishing proof of their entitlement to nobility was concerned. His quest for usurpers, which occurred throughout the French kingdom, generated severe misgivings among the gentilshommes, those nobles who had the right to sit in the provincial estates and feared that members of their Chambre would suffer pointless harassment. However, the process was conducted in an unexpectedly lenient manner, demonstrating that royal authority—through its local representative, the intendant Claude Bouchu—could be employed in a conciliatory fashion. The monarchical system, negotiated as much as imposed, should be understood within the framework of a political culture where transcendent value was attached to personal merit. Thus, the letter of the law could be overridden and nobility verified without causing undue offence in the more dubious cases. The exception, in politics as in French grammar, was lodged at the heart of the rule.