Boulainvilliers sought a relationship of force both historically real and ethically right

Evidence

Boulainvilliers was concerned with the true relationship of force—in the sense that he had to rediscover a relationship of force that was not ideal but real, and that had, in this case, been recorded and inscribed by history in the course of a decisive ordeal by strength: the Frankish invasion of Gaul. A relationship of force, then, that was historically true and historically real and which was, secondly, a good relationship of force because it could be extricated from all the distortions to which betrayals and various displacements had subjected it. The theme of his search for historical intelligibility was this: to rediscover a state of affairs that was a state of force in its primal rightness. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 5605