Gabriel Guéret’s La Carte de la Cour (1663) combines the traits of normative literature (such as treatises on courtly manners) with the structure of roman à clé as it presents the authentic historical personnae. This double affiliation makes it a good example of how the author’s general ideas about the court correlated with his actual knowledge of the court society. That knowledge was not so much personal as it was collective: Guéret’s information depended on his social standing (he belonged to the Parliamentary circles), while many of his opinions were defined by his position in the Republic of Letters.