Note 105 — Chapter XVIII · THE SUPREMACY OF MAZARIN

[“Joan of Arc made France a nation against the English; Louis XIV made France a state against all Europe. The Fronde had none of these creative ideas—whence its incertitude and its weakness. Louis XIV had the idea of state—whence his firmness, his decision, and that famous phrase, ‘L’État, c’est moi,’ which has been taken for an expression of pride but was an expression of policy.”—Saint-Marc Girardin.]