I want books which describe how European aristocrats were supposed to carry out themselves in the public, their training, their conflicts with plebs and how they used to view plebs, their inner house politics. Are there any book regarding this?
>>24875548You might want to read Baldassare Castiglione's "The Book of the Courtier" and Lord Chesterfield's "Letters to His Son."
>>24875586Oh thanks. What other books do you recommend?
>>24875588Those are more or less the most revealing books I'm familiar with, but I suppose you could add the novella The Princess of Cleves by Madame de la Fayette, which confirms some of the impressions of those other books. It's very clear about courtly understatement and gossip and social maneuvering.
>>24875588>>24875599Also, to add, Churchill's Life of Marlborough, I don't know why I forgot that, especially chapter 2 of the first volume ("The Jovial Times"), which gives a great impression of the mindset of the nobles of that older era.
