A view of history that the reader should take with a pinch of salt. The idea that the Widow Scarron was 'planted' into the court of Louis XIV to reform the King and steer him away from his debauched lifestyle is far-fetched to say the least. Apart from this, the book is prissy and prudish, even allowing for the year in which it was written. There is some good history here, but one has to search to find it. All in all Francoise Chandanagore's semi-fictional book "L'Allee de Roi" published some 80 years later is probably much closer to the real life of this extraordinary woman than this religiously-overloaded work.

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