He had extraordinary good looks, absolute power, spectacular palaces, and the total grandeur that only eighteenth-century France could provide. The French people adored him and called him "the beloved." During his reign, France flourished, and had it not been for his successor, the chaos of the Revolution might never have happened. History, however, has not only been unkind in its assessment of Louis XV but also mistaken, as this absorbing biography demonstrates. In it, Olivier Bernier explains the development of the negative judgment, showing how the beloved Louis became maligned after his death. The author refutes the unfavorable assessment using such credible sources as the king's state papers, which remain intact in France's national archives. Louis XV emerges in these pages as one of the best French kings, thoughtful and caring, loving and loved by his people.

    Her beloved France had been seized by Revolution, and she, with no memory left of her past, was being taken to America, captive of the ship's captain!Liselle Brognier was told she owed her life to Captain Trenton Sinclair, but his outrageous claim that she was his wife bewildered her. Her only thought was escape.Yet even before the ship arrived in South Carolina, Liselle’s anxiety over her identity had given way to dreams of Trenton Sinclair. For in the arms of her handsome, sun-bronzed captain she trembled not with fear, but with desire. And in the enchanted loveliness of his southern plantation, she abandoned herself to the fervor of his kisses, and to the exquisite fantasies that could only be answered in the timeless passion of their love.

    He points to the distribution of wealth among the lower and middle class, the growth of industry, social support offered by the poor law, and the success of self-help organizations as rays of social cohesion that counterbalanced stress with stability and fostered resistance to the winds of anarchy.