In this episode, host Victoria Barlow interviews Lionel Arsac about the recent exhibition at the Palace of Versailles: The Grand Dauphin (1661-1711). Son of a king, father of a king and never king. This exhibition shines a light on the relatively unknown life and career of Louis of France (son and heir of the famous Louis XIV). Their discussion outlines the importance of remembering this interesting figure and explores the organisation of such an extraordinary exhibition.

Guest Bio:

Lionel Arsac has been curator of sculptures at the Palace of Versailles since 2017 and, since 2019, head of preventive conservation of the collections. In addition to numerous articles on the sculptures of Versailles, Lionel has taken an interest in subjects as diverse as the uses of oriental carpets at Court, Proust and Versailles, and, more recently, the sculpture collections of Ange Laurent La Live de Jully. Lionel has curated several exhibitions at the Palace of Versailles: Rediscovered Masterpieces. Zephyr and Flora and Abundance (2022), Louis XIV by Bernini, Genius and Majesty (2025) and, recently, The Grand Dauphin. Son of a king, father of a king and never king.

Follow Lionel on Instagram: @lionelarsac

The mini series within the Royal Studies Podcast on Monarchy & Money is hosted by Charlotte Backerra from the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, and Cathleen Sarti from the University of Oxford in the UK. In these Monarchy & Money episodes, they are talking with scholars on why economic questions are important to understand monarchical rule, and how royals are interacting with the economies of their kingdoms and beyond their territories. They are also always happy to hear about research into economic, financial, and business activities of monarchies and dynastic rulers of all kind.

Guest Bio:

After completing his doctoral thesis Servants of Fortune in Lund, Fabian Persson is now Professor in History at Linnaeus University in Sweden. His main expertise lies in the history of the early modern Swedish court but he has also written on patronage, corruption, dynasty, royal bodies alive as well as dead and court mourning. He is currently finishing monographs on hunting at court, space at court, and “Modernizing Monarchy”. He is also editing an anthology on court ordinances and another on female succession.

His publications in English include Survival and Revival. Sweden's Court and Monarchy, 1718 to 1930 (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), Women at the Early Modern Swedish Court: Power, Risk, and Opportunity (Amsterdam University Press 2021), and Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840 (edited volume together with Cinzia Recca and Munro Price, Palgrave Macmillan 2023).

The mini series within the Royal Studies Podcast on Monarchy & Money is hosted by Charlotte Backerra from the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, and Cathleen Sarti from the University of Oxford in the UK. In these Monarchy & Money episodes, they are talking with scholars on why economic questions are important to understand monarchical rule, and how royals are interacting with the economies of their kingdoms and beyond their territories. They are also always happy to hear about research into economic, financial, and business activities of monarchies and dynastic rulers of all kind.

Guest Bio:

Veronika Hyden-Hanscho holds the prestigious Elise-Richter Fellowship awarded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The topic of her current project is “Income, Management and Economic Thinking. Noble Entrepreneurship in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy” and focuses on the Habsburg aristocracy as a driving force for economic development. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Klagenfurt. In 2011, she earned a PhD at the University of Graz (Austria). She was Lecturer for Austrian Studies at the University of Wrocław (Poland) and Research Associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna from 2013 to 2023 as well as visiting scholar at the University of Ghent (Belgium). She is the author of ‘Reisende, Migranten, Kulturmanager. Mittlerpersönlichkeiten zwischen Frankreich und dem Wiener Hof (1630–1730)’ (Stuttgart, 2013) and co-editor of ‘Formative Modernities in the Early Modern Atlantic and Beyond. Identities, Polities and Glocal Economies’ (Singapore 2023).