The Troubled Face of Biography (review)

Abstract

70 biography Vol. 12, No. 1 intelligence and bravery. His upbringing also brought secretiveness, stuttering and a lack of charm, which he did not share with his father. Henry's death in 1610 brought many pressures to bear on the nine-year-old Louis XIII. By 1616, however, he was beginning to move from the control of his mother, Marie de Médicis. The culmination came in 1617 with Louis's participation in planning the murder of the Maréchal d'Ancre, the husband of Marie's favorite. The important factor was that Ancre was "the target for desires, hatreds, and fears of his young monarch that he had taken no part in engendering but had unwittingly helped to redirect toward himself (p. 200) With the elimination of Ancre, who had been gaining more and more power in France, Louis was in a position to take a greater role in affairs of state. He banished his mother, but his upbringing led him to continue to submit to the control of favorites. The years after 1617 are given only a few pages, but the author is convinced that Louis was equally responsible with Cardinal Richelieu, his de facto chief minister from 1624 onwards, for the rigor of those years, that Louis participated in managing state affairs and diligently performed the ceremonial role of king. Nevertheless, Louis became dependent on Richelieu, especially after the death of Héroard in 1628, "for the recreations so necessary to him, for his domestic peace, and for approval and admiration " (p. 223). Richelieu died in December 1642. Louis XIII died on May 14, 1643. Marvick writes that "the immediate cause of death" was ulcerative colitis but emphasizes the role played by Richelieu's death and that Louis managed to last for a week after he had been given up for dead in order to die exactly thirty-three years after his father. All of this will be too much for some historians. Nevertheless, there are many ideas in this book about both Louis XIII and human nature that are worth serious consideration , even by those most skeptical about psycho-history. Every reader of the book will bring his or her own perspective to the book and will disagree with emphases. My problem is with the portrayal of Marie de Médicis. She is given almost no significant role and yet is allotted nothing but criticism. This book cannot stand alone. Yet, in itself and used in conjunction with the forthcoming studies of Moote and Foisil, it will be very valuable indeed. We can all gain immensely from the historical and psychological knowledge and insights presented by Elizabeth Marvick. J. Michael Hayden University of Saskatchewan Eric Homberger and John Charmley (Eds.), The Troubled Face of Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1988, 140 pp. $29.95. —With essays by Robert Blake, Malcolm Bradbury, Hugh Brogan, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victoria Glendinning, Michael Holroyd, Kenneth O. Morgan, Andrew Sinclair , Robert Skidelsky, Hilary Spurling, Ann Thwaite. I suppose it was only a matter of time until biographers themselves became of equal interest to readers as the genre itself. What is it about biography that inspires such strong sentiment of so many different kinds? What has caused the sudden spate of interest in it and why are there so many different attempts to define, explain, defend or revile it? And why do readers want to know as much about the biographer as they REVIEWS 71 do about his or her subject? Hilary Spurling (a contributor to the volume reviewed here) offers the "as neat as it is exact" epigram coined by Sheridan Morley (not a contributor ), that biography is the "Meals-on-Wheels service of the book world," and the eleven essays in this volume certainly support her contention. All the contributors are either British or else live and work in England. They and three unnamed others who did not contribute essays were invited to speak at a conference funded by the School of English and American Studies at the University of East Anglia in 1985 to reflect upon "the uncertain position which biography occupies in academic life." John Charmley and Eric Homberger, both lecturers at that university and editors of the...