Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Berrow Foundation for their generous support. I am especially grateful to the Marquise de Amodio for her generosity and kindness in difficult times. I also wish to thank Lincoln College and the North American Graduate Alumni Fund for their help. Without their support, my studies at Oxford University, which resulted in this monograph, would have remained a dream.
I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Richard Cooper, for taking me in as a student, and allowing me to write my thesis under his guidance. From him, I received clarity and encouragement in times of confusion, and enough ideas and feedback to write ten times this book. I am also grateful to my examiners, Professor Neil Kenny and Professor Malcolm Quainton, for their careful reading and constructive comments.
Credits should be given to Oxford faculty members and fellow students who commented on my work at the French Graduate Seminar, the Lincoln Middle Common Room Academic Talks, the Early Modern Research Seminar, and throughout my studies. I would also like to thank Brill’s editorial team, especially Christa Stevens, for their continuing support and guidance through this long process. For her invaluable help through trying times, her numerous encouragements, and her conscientious proof-reading, I am very grateful to Dr Louise Esher. For his support, his precious advice and proof-reading, for the time spent sharing coffee and erudite conversation, and for the countless images of cooking pots, I am deeply indebted to Xavier Bach.
For reading the whole manuscript twice, for her unwavering support, and for having turned my world upside down, I am forever grateful to Nathalie Raunet. Without her, this project would not be what it is today, and neither would I. I am also deeply grateful to my family for their unconditional love, their wisdom and their enthusiastic support. You have been, and will remain, my True North. I dedicate this book to my father. What you told me as a little boy still guides my step: Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, – quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.