"Я двор зову страной…": родословная одной метафоры

French works of the second half of 17th - early 18th called the royal court a "country" or "land". This monograph studies the linguistic, literary and cultural aspects of this and other metaphors, the rhetorical skills of the educated class of this period and their habit of using "ready sayings and formulas'. This esthetics of common phrases, according to the author, presents a specific type of social ability, and ultimately a model political of resistance to "the century of Louis XIV".