The book, with more than 1,000 pages is imposing and is intended particularly comprehensive and detailed. In a rather arduous reading, he tackles this pivotal period in the history of France in all its complexity. Reminiscences of his thesis, the author develops at great length throughout the text the question of the image of the King of France, its representations and the staging of his person and his exploits. Each entry of Francis I in a large city is the subject of a description of the festivities and springs made by the royal propaganda to strengthen the position of the successor of Louis XII.
The other strong point of the book is that of the very detailed analysis of the great diplomatic game that animates Francis I of France vis-à-vis its European neighbors, the Pope and the Ottoman Empire. The negotiations, the role of diplomats and treaty-making stages are discussed in all their subtlety. Business - and wars - Italy are central, as well as from human to human opposition characterizes relations between Charles V and Francis. Marignan, competition for the imperial crown, the meeting with Henry VIII in "Camp of the Cloth of Gold", Pavia, the captivity of Francis I, Charles V's journey through France are much culmination of an era full of changes.
Finally, and paradoxically, if the author has written a very complete and very bright chronicle of the reign of Francis I, it is almost the great forgotten the book, as readers would struggle to perceive, through the pages, personality or the mentality of the conqueror of Marignan, to the point that one might speak of a kind of "impersonal biography."
