This is the first study to recognize the wider picture of opera within early-modern French culture. Downing Thomas considers the place of music within a cultural environment—the employment of music by Louis XIV as a symbol of absolutism; the use of music as a statement against the monarchy; and the long-term development of opera as a reflection of humanism. Thomas examines key works by Lully, Rameau, and Charpentier, among others, and extends his reach from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth.