The word monarchomach was created in 1600 by William Barclay, a Scottish Catholic who spent most of his life teaching law in France. He used it in the title of a book he wrote to refute the writings of a number of people who had attacked existing monarchies, specifically George Buchanan, a fellow Scot but Calvinist; Stephanius Junius Brutus, the pseudonym used to mask the identity of the author of the Vindiciae contra tyrannos, whom we know to have been the French Calvinist nobleman Philippe Duplessis-Mornay; and Jean Boucher, a French Catholic. Mellet focuses his attention in this book on the Vindiciae, plus two other ‘classics’ of this type of thought, the Franco-Gallia by François Hotman, and the anonymous Du Droit des magistrats we know to have been written by Theodore Beza, together with seven other briefer pieces. All the texts upon which he concentrates are by French Calvinists, but none of them explicitly defend Calvinism or limits itself to the monarchy in France. He sets to one side the British monarchomachs like Buchanan and Knox, as distracted by the problem of whether women should be allowed to become monarchs. He also sets to one side Catholics like Boucher as extremists who were prepared to support the assassination of rulers. Mellet finds the ten texts upon which he concentrates to contain five central arguments: (1) the right to armed resistance; (2) the rejection of tyranny; (3) the creation of government by a double covenant, one between God and a king along with his people, the other between the king and his people; (4) the sovereignty of the people; (5) conditional obedience of people to a government. All of them support a constitutional monarchy as the ideal form of government. Mellet then spends most of the rest of his book comparing the ten central texts to all kinds of other political publications of the period. Some of them are savage polemics, frontally attacking villains like Catherine de' Medicis. Some are confessional, defending a particular theological point of view. Many are simply pamphlets, describing current events, like the St Bartholomew's massacres, and calling for vengeance. While the arguments of these ten key treatises apply most obviously to the situation in France, a few could also apply to the revolt of the Netherlands against the Spanish monarchy. Several of them show an awareness of the government of the Holy Roman Empire, and of other governments of the period. Surprisingly few ever mention the Swiss Confederation, in spite of the fact that most of these treatises were written and published in Swiss or similarly independent German cities. The entire argument is closely reasoned and profusely documented. It is usefully backed up by a number of tables, both in the text and in appendixes. It is also sophisticated in its use of modern theories, like those of Michel Foucault and Michel de Certeau. Sometimes such use of theory seems a bit forced to me, but that may be partly a matter of taste. In any event this massive work of synthesis makes an important and useful contribution to our knowledge of early modern political thought.