This chapter examines the period from the Estates General of 1614 to the Fronde (1648–1651), especially the political discourse of the Assemblies of Notables in 1617 and 1626–1627, as well as the dozens of political pamphlets denouncing Anne of Austria, the young Louis XIVs regent, and his first minister, Jules Mazarin. These pamphlets, known as Mazarinades, use the clear vocabulary of absolutism and royal State, as the judges in the Parlement of Paris recognized the authority of the king in return for the judges elevation as first degree nobles.

This book is designed for readers interested in the rise of absolutism in seventeenth-century France, as well as those interested in language and political discourse of this period. It demonstrates how the political discourse in the late Middle Ages, based on ancient Roman ideas that government existed for the common good (le bien public, or la chose publique, a French translation of the Latin res publica), began to evolve in the 1570s. Though references to the common good continued to be used right up to the French Revolution, they began to be overtaken by the language of the State (le bien de l’État). This evolution in language existed at every social level from the peasant village up to the royal court, and they accompanied the rise of absolutism in France, as the book demonstrates by analyzing scores of local, regiona,l and national lists of grievances presented to provincial estates and the Estates-General.