<i>The Sun King </i>is a dazzling double portrait of Louis XIV and<br> Versailles, recreating the daily life of the King, his court,<br> and his ministers during France's golden age. Nancy Mitford<br> introduces us to the architects, artists, and gardeners tasked<br> with transforming a modest hunting lodge into the most magnificent<br> palace Europe had ever seen, delves into the complex<br> and deadly court intrigues afoot in the new capital, and<br> chronicles Louis's love affairs with a succession of mistresses<br> including the brilliant feuding marquises of Montespan and<br> Maintenon. Along the way we find Jean-Baptiste de Lully and<br> his fiddlers, floating behind the King's gondola on summer<br> nights in Versailles; Racine translating Latin aloud to his<br> insomniac monarch; the <i>Premier Médecin du Roi</i>, Guy Crescent<br> Fagon, bleeding one royal after another to death—and at the<br> center of them all the demanding, mercurial, but remarkably<br> resilient personality of France's sovereign for nearly three<br> quarters of the <i>Grand Siècle</i>.<br><br> Brimming with sumptuous detail and delicious <i>bons mots</i>, and<br> written in a witty, conversational style <i>The Sun King </i>restores a<br> distant glittering century to vibrant life.