Elizabeth Tingle's book on sixteenth-century Nantes follows on in a long tradition of scholarship on this Breton city, most notably the older works of the abbé Travers and Georges Durville and, more recently, those of Marc Fardet, Alain Croix and James Collins. What she adds to this distinguished corpus of historical writing is a focus on the negotiation for power within Nantes and between the city and the crown during the wars of religion: ‘The central thesis of this study of Nantes is that the authority within urban government and society was founded on a concept of mutual obligation or contract, based in tradition and law’ (p. 19). Tingle further argues that ‘the city of Nantes was loyal to the crown and was dependent upon its authority, arbitration and patronage throughout the wars of religion’ (p. 179). Thus, she explains that the rebellion of Nantes against the crown during the period of the Catholic League and the fact that the city held out with its governor, the duc de Mercoeur, until 1598 was a necessary riposte to the king's failure to live up to their traditional mutual contract. ‘In April 1589’, she argues, ‘Nantes rebelled against Henry [iii], to force him to return to the traditional governance of shared authority based on custom and contract’ (p. 210). If this was so, then why did the city continue to hold out against Henry iv after his abjuration in 1593? Tingle suggests that the duc de Mercoeur and the Spanish were to blame, and that the municipality's real interest lay in supporting the king. When Mercoeur and the city were finally defeated in 1598, Mercoeur lost his governorship, the city had to pay all his war debts, and the king deprived the city of its right to elect its own mayor and échevins. According to Tingle, however, ‘this was less of a defeat of the city than a restitution of traditional ideologies and practices. The authority of town and city together was restored’ (p. 212). This all fits neatly with the rhetoric of the conseil de ville in Nantes, whose registers Tingle makes much use of in this study. Like most urban elites, they couched all their actions in the language of loyalty to the crown and saw all their political obstructions as justified efforts to maintain their own traditional privileges and liberties in the face of royal encroachment. But should we really take these self-interested claims at face value? There is considerable research in this book, and one wishes that the author had looked at the claims of the urban elites a bit more critically. She is right to state that Henry iv made no systematic attempt to destroy municipal privileges in League towns as punishment for their rebellion. He clearly did undertake, however, whatever measures were necessary to restore royal authority in those towns where it was needed. He rewarded those League towns who accepted his authority and forced his will on those who did not. Nantes was one of the latter.