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Of the two books that I recently purchased on Louis XIII of France, this book was the easier to read. Having never studied the reign of Louis Xiii before. I needed a book that would tell me about all the events of the period without merely alluding to the nickname that has become associated with the particular event, i.e. "Day of the Dupes" and the "War of the Mother and the Son". This is the book that helped me in this regard. The book also had a reason for being written.

The author, A. Lloyd Moote, writes that his mentor in graduate school in the had told him that Louis XIII had a reputation to not come in out of the rain, but that in recent years Louis XIII had "become intelligent enough" to do that and "could be expected to become even brighter in the future." Thus, Moote forthrightly states that his goal in the book is to show how much of the decision making in his own reign was actually Louis XIII and how much was Cardinal Richelieu's influence over him. Toward this end I found the book to be quite successful in arguing that Louis XIII had many differences with Cardinal Richelieu on many issues. Significantly, Louis XIII was drastically opposed to dueling among his subjects and harshly punished those who engaged in dueling, while Richelieu tended to be more tolerant of dueling. Ironically, Louis XIII may have been more religious than the Cardinal. Louis XIII's simple approach to religion started as a child and stuck with him all his life. Thus, he was rigorous in his attempts to defeat the Huguenots "state within the state" condition in France even before 1624 when Richelieu became his chief minister.

After pointing to the differences between Richelieu and Louis XIII, Moote tries to take on a more important question of which person --Louis XIII or Richelieu--had the larger impact on changing France into a centralized state with a strong monarchy. Without engaging in the "great man" theory of history Moote says that events were inclined toward the centralization and strengthening of the government of France and both Richelieu and Louis XIII independently recognized this trend in history and contributed to it. This quite different from the "Three Musketeers view" of Louis XIII as being the puppet of the evil Machiavellian Cardinal Richelieu. Thus, I found this book a very good and important book to add to my library.

Great work. Llyod Moote certainly gives us the person behind an underestimated king.
The biography is very good, the academic ‘guesses’ are minimal and quite relevant; it is quite an enjoyable reading. I would love to have been given more opportunities to understand the greater context in which Louis XIII lived, fought and loved.

This is the best historical biography I have ever read.
That said, my one complaint is the failure to include genealogy charts for the French and Spanish royal houses. Readers need these charts.
On the other hand, there are several excellent illustrations, and the characters that they represent are so skillfully drawn in words that they assume truly human dimensions, a rarity in historical biography!
The characters in this history include the king's widowed mother (and bitter political foe); his wife Anne, childless for over twenty years before Louis XIV was born (she often befriended outrageous schemers and troublemakers); Cardinal Richelieu, Louis's brilliant partner (he attracted deadly hostility from many directions); and Gaston, Louis's brother, who threatened to overthrow the king. Louis's illegitimate half-brothers and sisters were reared at court and created problems as well.
The king's "favourites," both male and female, are a fascinating group in their own right. They could fill a book of their own. I will use the extensive bibliography to learn more about particular characters and events in the life of Louis XIII.
The main character was a king at the age of eight, following his father's assassination. Violence and insurrection threatened the king through much of his life. The story of his public triumph against political opposition, often at immense personal cost, is a gripping one. Military, political, and diplomatic events are described extremely well, while the court and its characters can almost be seen and felt. Professor Moote tells the life story of a complex and very human individual who occupied an extraordinary position. It is a moving story.
I hope that Professor Moote will write more about the history of France. Please!