Unit Y313: The Ascendancy of France 1610-1715



Unit Y313: The Ascendancy of France 1610-1715

The development of absolute monarchy and the role of ministers

▪ Louis XIV was born at the royal chateau of St. Germain on 5th September 1638. He was the first child of King Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, the daughter of King PhilipIII of Spain.

▪ He succeeded to the French throne at the age of 5 in 1643. He reigned until 1715, dying 4 days before his 77th birthday.

▪ His reign was very long (72 years) and there were many changes in policy and approach over the years. From 1661, until his death, Louis took personal control of government and proved a masterful ruler.

▪ Was Louis one of the earliest enlightened despots? OR Was he a tyrant more concerned with attempts to repress individual rights, religious freedom and freedom of thought?

▪ In foreign policy, was he guilty of naked aggression and tyranny or did he pursue sensible, limited aims?

Louis XIII and Richelieu

▪ In 1589, the Valois dynasty expired with the assassination of Henry III. Henry of Navarre was best placed to succeed him and became Henry 1V founding the tradition of strong monarchical government.

▪ Louis XIII was born in 1601 and died in 1643, the eldest son of Henry 1V and Marie de Medici. He was king from 1610 following the assassination of his father; his reign was dominated by the Duke de Luynes and Cardinal Richelieu. The assassination highlighted the fragility of the Crown.

▪ The reign saw an expansion of absolute monarchical power begun by Louis X1 and advanced by Francis I and Henry II. Louis XIII wanted to build on the steps towards absolute monarchy introduced by Henry IV after The Wars of Religion.

▪ Louis XIII became king at the age of 9. France was governed by a regent, his mother Marie de Medici who allowed her favourites, Galigai and Concini, to rule.

▪ In November 1615, at the age of 14, Louis married Anne of Austria, the Spanish infanta. As part of her policy of allying France with Spain, Marie de Medici arranged the marriage.

▪ Neither Louis nor Anne was particularly happy and they spent much time apart which made the conception and birth of Louis XIV in 1638 as something of a shock and surprise.

▪ From 1614, Louis became increasingly influenced by Charles, Duke de Luynes who favoured more royal absolutism.

Richelieu’s rise to power

▪ Richelieu first became prominent as an aide to Concini, the favourite of Marie de Medici.,

▪ In 1616, Richelieu was made Secretary of State, and was given responsibility for foreign affairs. He became one of the closest advisors of Louis XIII's mother.

▪ The Queen had become Regent of France when the nine-year-old Louis ascended the throne; although her son reached the legal age of majority in 1614, she remained the effective ruler of the realm.

▪ Her policies, and those of Concini, proved unpopular with many in France. As a result, both Marie and Concini became the targets of intrigues at court; their most powerful enemy was Charles de Luynes. 

▪ In April 1617, in a plot arranged by Luynes, King Louis XIII ordered that Concini be arrested, and killed should he resist; Concini was assassinated, and Marie de Medici arrested and imprisoned at Blois

▪ Richelieu was dismissed as Secretary of State, and was removed from the court. In 1618, the King banished him to Avignon.

▪ In 1619, Marie de Medici escaped and became the titular leader of an aristocratic rebellion.

▪ The King and the duc de Luynes recalled Richelieu, believing that he would be able to reason with the Queen.

▪ Although her principal adviser, Richelieu (not yet a cardinal), reconciled her to Louis in August 1620, the relationship between the king and his mother remained strained.

▪ At the time of the death of Luynes in December 1621, Louis was faced with a Huguenot rebellion in southern France.

▪ He led the army in spring 1622 and captured several Huguenot strongholds before making a truce in October. In September, Richelieu became a cardinal.

▪ Despite mistrust of Richelieu stemming from his past association with Marie de Medici, Louis made him his principal minister in 1624.

▪ Mental instability and chronic ill health undermined the capacity of Louis for sustained concentration on state affairs and Richelieu became the dominant influence in government.

▪ Richelieu came from a noble household and was therefore in a stronger position to communicate with the aristocracy in contrast with some of his predecessors.

▪ He was also French, an advantage given the hatred directed to his Italian predecessor, Concini.

▪ At an early stage, he changed his career from the army to the Church, which would provide him with the channel by which he would rise to prominence.

▪ From being a bishop to a spokesman for the clergy in dealing with the Estates, he was soon appointed Secretary of State for War.

▪ Two years after becoming a cardinal in 1622, he was admitted to the Council of State and as a cardinal, sat nearest to the King.

▪ These powerful ecclesiastical and political offices enabled him to establish a very powerful network of patronage, including a provincial power base in North Western France.

▪ He also received a considerable salary and collected a number of governorships and as Grand Maitre et Surintendant General du Commerce he took the share of proceeds from all the shipwrecks and from the confiscation of ships and merchandise at sea.

▪ In short, Richelieu quickly learnt the political benefits of amassing a considerable personal fortune.

▪ Despite his clerical background, Richelieu was determined to use all possible methods to raise the status of France and of the monarch, including the use of military force.

▪ He became the principal advocate in favour of French intervention in the Thirty Years War.

▪ He sought to consolidate royal authority in France and break the power of the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs.

▪ After the capture of the Huguenot rebel stronghold of La Rochelle in October 1628, Richelieu convinced the king to lead an army into Italy in 1629.

▪ BUT his campaign increased tensions between France and the Hapsburgs who were fighting Protestant powers in the Thirty Years War.

Marie de Medici

▪ The pro-Spanish Catholic zealots led by Marie de Medici began appealing to Louis to reject Richelieu’s policy of supporting the Protestant states.

▪ During the dramatic episode known as the Day of the Dupes (November 10th-12th 1630), the queen mother demanded that Louis dismiss Richelieu.

▪ The king decided to stand by his minister and Marie de Medici and Gaston, Duc d’Orleans, the rebellious brother of Louis, withdrew into exile.

Michel de Marillac

▪ Michel de Marillac was Minister of Justice in 1626. He advocated conservative policies abroad and limited involvement in northern Italy.

▪ He gained increasing influence with Marie de Medici and after the Day of Dupes, November 1630, Richelieu had Marillac tried by a court of hand-picked judges; he died in captivity in 1632.

▪ Louis now began to adopt the merciless methods used by the Cardinal in dealing with dissident nobles.

▪ In May 1635, France declared war on Spain; by August 1636, Spanish forces were advancing on Paris.

▪ Louis overruled the recommendation of Richelieu to evacuate the city. He rallied his troops and drove back the invaders.

▪ Late in 1638, he suffered a crisis of conscience over his alliances with Protestant powers but Richelieu managed to overcome his doubts.

▪ In 1642, Louis’ young favourite, the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, instigated the last major conspiracy of the reign by plotting with the Spanish court to overthrow Richelieu. The revelation of this plot made Louis more dependent on the cardinal.

▪ By the time Richelieu died on 4 December 1642, major victories had been won against the Spanish. He left France a greater country than he found her.

▪ At home, the authority of the King was widely obeyed whilst abroad, her armies were about to enter a new phase of victory.

▪ ‘France he subdued, Italy he terrified, Germany he shook, Spain he afflicted’ – an English pamphleteer.

▪ Whenever there was crisis in Europe, Richelieu was held responsible. During his dominance, Europe was in the later stages of The Thirty Years War.

▪ A third of the German population perished, England was soon to endure a civil war and Holland was battered after 60 years of war. BUT the war only afflicted limited areas of eastern France.

The Regency

▪ Louis XIV was the product of an unhappy marriage between the moody, introverted and insecure Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, his Spanish Hapsburg physically attractive queen.

▪ The conception and birth of Louis XIV was therefore seen as a miracle – ‘le dieu-donne’ – ‘the gift of God’.

▪ Louis XIII died when his heir was five and Louis was brought up by his mother, the regent Anne of Austria.

▪ Anne of Austria took up with Cardinal Jules Mazarin, a clever and unscrupulous Italian careerist. Anne and Mazarin may indeed have secretly married; this is not impossible because he was only in the orders of a deacon and therefore not forbidden to marry.

▪ They were certainly fond of each other, perhaps drawn together by their common experience of French xenophobia.

▪ Mazarin was placed in official charge of the education of the young king – he actually became Louis’ godfather. He took his responsibilities to include developing Louis’ political awareness

Mazarin’s role in government

▪ There was considerable continuity between Richelieu and Mazarin. Before his death in 1642, Richelieu had recommended Mazarin.

▪ Louis XIII invited him to help out because of his experiences in European diplomacy, not to mention his close relationship with Anne of Austria.

▪ With the death of Louis XIII in 1643 came the regency of his mother who included Mazarin as a political adviser.

▪ At the beginning of her Regency, Anne of Austria’s powers were limited and the administration of the government depended on the Council which included Anne herself, the Duke of Orleans as Lieutenant-Governor, the Prince de Conde and Mazarin.

▪ They were assisted, in turn, by officials, Sequier the Chancellor, Bouthillier the surintendant and Chauvigny the Secretary of State.

▪ Yet soon afterwards, Mazarin combined forces with Anne in order to undermine the Council – they convinced Conde and Orleans to ask the Paris Parlement to grant her full Regency.

▪ This would take place ultimately at their expense, with the additional result that Anne immediately appointed Mazarin as First Minister. Mazarin had special claims on the interests of the queen.

▪ He had been designated by Richelieu to carry on the government and he alone could take up all the threads of war and diplomacy without break or delay.

▪ Anne of Austria was not particularly close to Richelieu. Mazarin and Anne were more than ordinarily fond of each other and acted as partners at all times. Their political liaison was both fortunate for France and catastrophic.

▪ The nobility would never forgive Mazarin for the nature of his accession to power and much was made of his Italian background.

▪ It is thus hardly surprising that the key to Mazarin’s political survival was the support of Anne of Austria – with full Regency powers during a royal minority, the Queen Mother had the authority to make decisions on her own.

▪ Mazarin introduced the king to the practical matters of statecraft, how council meetings should be managed and how ambassadors should be instructed and their dispatches interpreted.

▪ By the age of sixteen, Louis was spending at least two hours each day with the Cardinal learning how to take political decisions.

▪ His mother, Queen Anne, instilled in Louis the virtues of hard work. He therefore grew up with the idea that kingship was much more than a matter of dynastic inheritance – it demanded expertise and commitment.

▪ When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis took over the government himself. He never used the services of a Chief Minister or leading churchman.

▪ During the later years of his life, his second wife, Madame de Maintenon exerted considerable influence over Louis and the policies he pursued.

▪ By the time he had married her in the 1680s, Louis had been in absolute command of policy for a considerable time.

Louis XIV: Education and upbringing

▪ Louis acquired his education in the school of life. He was deeply influenced by the experience of the Frondes and never abandoned his belief in ordered authority as the antidote to chaos.

▪ During his troubled boyhood, Louis travelled around Europe getting to know his realm and its people. Mazarin coached him in the craft of kingship.

▪ He learned from the Cardinal to believe that monarchy was ordained by God, to identify himself with France and to work hard and take his job seriously.

▪ His formal education was not neglected although it was narrow as were most aristocratic upbringings.

▪ He was taught some ancient but little modern history, a smattering of geography and mathematics and a basic grounding in Spanish and Italian. Louis was a poor Latinist but learnt to speak and write excellent French.

▪ He was taught to ride, shoot and dance, all of which he did by instinct. He had no grasp of theological issues but he inherited a Catholic piety from his mother and her hatred of heresy.

▪ The death of Mazarin in 1661 marked the beginning of Louis’ personal rule – by nature and upbringing he was an impressive young man. He was only 5 foot 4inches tall, a height which was enhanced by high heels and luxuriant wigs.

▪ He displayed great charm and affability. He was intelligent, quick on the uptake with a good memory for faces and a lively sense of humour.

▪ He showed remarkable self-control and it was beneath his dignity to rage or exult although he did sometimes lose his composure.

▪ He was mortified when his bastard son displayed cowardice in battle and vented his rage on a harmless servant.

▪ Louis XIV was a byword for courtesy; he raised his hat to all women but his various infidelities embarrassed his queen.

▪ Madame De Montespan was acknowledged publicly as his royal mistress for 12 years.

▪ His reputation with the French public and the Church was damaged whilst maintaining various households proved expensive. In his later years, Madame De Maintenon proved very influential.

▪ Louis was obliged to marry a wife who did not appeal to him, Maria Theresa, the daughter of Philip 1V of Spain who he married in 1660 by the terms of The Treaty of the Pyrenees - she was stupid, plain and gauche.

▪ Louis had already experienced real love. He had fallen for the niece of Mazarin, Marie Mancini who was pretty, vivacious and clever. His affection was reciprocated BUT the relationship was ordered to be terminated.

▪ Louis was oversexed and enjoyed numerous mistresses, fathering several bastards. His chief mistresses were good-natured if empty-headed – Louise de la Valliere, Madame De Montespan and Madame De Maintenon. Under the somewhat dour influence of De Maintenon after 1683, there were no more mistresses.

▪ Louis was given the title of ‘Most Christian King’. On his accession, he was anointed with holy oil.

▪ This symbolised his status as the leading layman of France and its leading religious figure. For Louis, this status was an important part of his absolutism.

▪ Because of this status, Louis was entitled to preside over the council of the French Church and to introduce laws governing its relations with the state and with the Pope.

▪ Many French people actually believed that Louis had miraculous healing powers, e.g. touching subjects afflicted with the ‘the King’s evil’ or scrofula, a distressing skin complaint.

The theory of absolutism

▪ Of fundamental importance to the status which Louis enjoyed both as a religious and political figure was the doctrine of The Divine Right of Kings – that Louis was God’s representative on earth. He had been placed on the French throne by God – his anointing symbolised this.

▪ As a result, most French people formed the view that the monarchy was inseparable from the divinity – to challenge or to criticise the King was to affront God. The theory of Divine Right therefore underpinned Louis’ absolutism.

▪ Civil wars and the assassinations of Henry III and Henry IV bolstered the idea of strong kingship. In the interests of peace and stability, subjects preferred to believe that the monarchy was inseparable from the divinity.

▪ Jacques - Benigne Bossuet (1627 – 1704) was Bishop of Meaux. He reinforced the medieval notion of kingship in his theory of The Divine Right of Kings and gave the theory theological backing.

▪ According to Bossuet, certain Kings were chosen by God to rule and were accountable to no person except God.

▪ The King should be obeyed in all things and no groups, nobles or Parlements, should question his rule. To do so was to rebel against the purpose of God.

▪ It was Bossuet who stated ‘being equal in valour to the most famous ancients surpasses them in piety, wisdom and justice’. For Louis, the proof of this piety was his eradication of heresy.

▪ Bossuet demanded the suppression of Jansenist and Quietist writings. Under the censorship of the Jesuits, Louis banned the works of Descartes.

▪ BUT he could not suppress the writings of Protestants. There were frequent satirical attacks on the King and De Maintenon and the Duc de Saint-Simon was a critic of Louis.

▪ However, Divine Right theory also meant that the King had an obligation to rule France in a responsible and just way.

▪ Louis had no deep spiritual convictions; he accepted his religious obligations and attended mass each day. He also recognised his responsibilities as French king and that he would be accountable to God for his actions.

▪ Thus, whilst it was accepted that Louis should take a mistress, he decided not to take communion at Easter in 1664 during his affair with Louise de la Valliere.

▪ He also separated from the Marquise de Montespan in 1675 following pressure from his Jesuit confessor.

The influence of family

▪ Dynastic considerations were very important to Louis. In most areas of policy, the interests of the Bourbon family were the same as the interests of France.

▪ Maintaining and if necessary, extending the boundaries of France was an important priority for Louis.

▪ He wished to hand on to his successors a state at least as strong as the one he inherited – hence the importance of la gloire. To achieve this, it was essential for Louis to maintain and extend his absolutism.

How was the absolutism of Louis XIV organised?

▪ In pursuit of absolutism, Louis was very industrious and a master of detail. He was a great egotist and believed himself to be the embodiment of the French state – ‘L’etat, c’est moi’.

▪ He believed himself to be the representative of God on earth and loved flattery: the Sun King.

Administration and the development of centralisation

▪ Under Louis XIV, France was governed by the conciliar system – a system of councils. In reality, there was only one council – the King’s Council.

▪ It met under a series of different kinds of business. Although the personnel changed, they were all royal councillors.

▪ During the reign of Louis there were four councils with continuous existence: The High Council, The Council for the Interior or Dispatches, The Royal Council of Finance and The Privy Council.

▪ The King always chaired the first three but did not attend The Privy Council. However, there was always a chair left empty to symbolise his authority.

▪ The High Council was the chief committee of the King. It dealt with all matters of state but tended to concentrate on foreign policy.

▪ Membership was small – usually a maximum of five councillors. They were ministers of state whose membership depended entirely on the King. Louis listened to their advice and opinions and made his own decisions.

▪ The members of the High Council were NOT members of the royal family or the leading nobility.

▪ They tended to be people with expertise in key policy areas, e.g. The Controller-General of Finance or those with expert knowledge of military and naval matters.

▪ They may be broadly described as ‘middle class’ but some were drawn from the lower nobility. Those who served the King and the state well could rise through the nobility but this depended entirely on Louis.

▪ In his long reign, Louis appointed only 17 ministers. They came largely from three families – Colbert, le Tellier and the Phelypeaux. Louis could rely on their expertise and a long tradition of loyalty and service to him personally.

▪ Following the death of Mazarin in 1661, Louis became his own First Minister.

▪ The Council for the Interior or the Dispatches received reports from the agents of the King in the provinces and sent out instructions in return. Its membership was larger than the High Council and included, besides the King, the Chancellor, the secretaries of state and the controller-general of finance.

▪ The Royal Council of Finance oversaw broad economic and social policy as well as concerning itself with the detail of accounting and book-keeping systems.

▪ With the King absent from its meetings, The Privy Council was chaired by his chief legal officer, the Chancellor.

▪ The Council was made up of several dozen lawyers whose judicial function was to decide cases taken from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts.

▪ This may appear to have given these lawyers considerable powers but Louis retained the right to dispense personal justice through the Privy Council.

▪ Thus, in conjunction with his councils, Louis ran the central government of France. He retained his absolute powers and was personally involved in the daily administration of the government.

▪ BUT the government of France was changing. It was becoming more bureaucratic with the increased professionalism of ministers and councillors.

▪ Over the reign the office of Chancellor lost much authority whilst that of the Controller-General of Finance increased. A new administrative system was evolving alongside the conciliar system.

Provincial administration

▪ During the reign of Louis XIV, the most effective government official in the provinces was the intendant – largely because his powers were so wide ranging.

▪ He was symbolised by his full title – l’intendant de police, justice and finances’. He was a member of the noblesse de robe.

▪ The intendant was a royal commissioner in the provinces. He could not purchase his office and was entirely dependent upon the continued support of the King – the commission of an intendant could be revoked at any time.

▪ The main duty of the intendant was to represent the King in the provinces and to ensure that the laws of the land were followed.

▪ These included the organisation of new taxes such as The Capitation of 1695 and the implementation of The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes following the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 which led to the persecution of French Protestants.

▪ The increased use of intendants helped to extend royal authority in the provinces. They were the ‘eyes and ears’ of the court and supervised tax collection, a difficult task with many different taxes.

▪ Other duties of an intendant included weights and measures, monitoring the price of food and military recruitment and supply. They were also empowered to impose the death penalty in cases brought before them.

▪ Educated in the law and drawn mainly from senior magistrates, the intendants gradually developed into a new type of noble class. They wielded considerable power and were a key instrument in the provinces of the absolutism of the monarch.

▪ Areas that were remote from Paris had developed a culture of governing themselves and paying only lip service to royal authority.

▪ The intendants went to these remote areas and stamped royal authority on them, a difficult task. Successful intendants were rewarded with promotion.

▪ Provincial governors had mainly military powers which extended to finance and justice. They were drawn from the old aristocracy and their power was derived from the lesser nobility relying on them for their own power and privilege.

▪ In 1614, there were 16 provincial governors, including Conde in Berry, Vendome in Brittany and Guise in Provence. At the death of Louis, there were only 4 with their power reduced by bringing them to court.

▪ As the power of the intendants increased, the provincial governor became a nonentity. He was appointed for 3 years but kept at Versailles. The provincial governors enjoyed high social status but negligible political power.

▪ Even before the reign of Louis XIV, revolts in the provinces were common. In 1630, for example, there was a revolt in Burgundy involving 6 pays d’etat – Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy, Provence, Normandy and Dauphine.

▪ In 1636, there were widespread risings in the Limousin and Poitou with bands of several thousand roaming the countryside, killing tax-collectors. The revolt spread to Gascony and Perigord with government seemingly helpless to act.

▪ In 1637, the Duc de la Valette, governor of Guienne, put the rebels down with over 1,000 killed. In 1639, a rising in Normandy, caused by the excessive rates of the taille and gabelle, led to street fighting in Rouen.

▪ The majority of peasants lived close to subsistence level. Taxes were a crippling burden and tax failures brought starvation closer.

▪ In 1662, the introduction of new taxes in the Bourbonnais led to an armed revolt with nearly 300 rebels killed. In 1664, there was a revolt against the gabelle in Gascony and Bearn which lasted for several years.

▪ In 1670, a large military force was required to defeat a revolt in Vivarais. In 1675, brutal repression brought risings to a halt in Bordeaux and Brittany.

▪ Around the same time, Colbert sent a message to the intendant in Limoges:

‘You can give publicity to the fact that the King keeps ready, twenty leagues from Paris, an army of 20,000 men ready to march into any province where there is a suspicion of a rising, in order to inflict exemplary punishment and to show the whole people the obedience they owe to His Majesty’.

▪ Few members of the nobility would be aware of these revolts and the issues which caused them. There were no revolts on a national scale and no reporting of executions. The movement of troops in response to revolts was often kept secret.

▪ In 1679, Colbert suggested the use of troops to enforce the taille at Tours with 50 tax collectors languishing in prison for failing to collect the correct amounts.

▪ Some of the military interventions in the provinces were in support of action against the Huguenots and to force them into conversions. In 1675, Brittany was successfully tamed by troops who regarded it as a foreign country.

▪ In 1681, Marillac, intendant of Poitou, showed what could be done by the use of troops for non-military purposes.

▪ In March, he was authorised by Louvois to use a regiment of dragoons against the Huguenots which resulted in 38,000 conversions within the year.

▪ The strong use of military force by Marillac reached the level of cruelty and caused anguish to other Protestant countries and he was dismissed.

▪ In the summer months of 1685, there was considerable military activity in Bearn, Montauban and Poitou. By September, there were 60,000 converts in Bordeaux.

▪ In December 1685, Louis ordered the destruction of all emigrant houses in La Rochelle with 60,000 conversions in 3 days.

In 1661, what were the limits to the authority of Louis XIV?

▪ Louis did have a limited army when he took personal control in 1661. Suppressing revolts and imposing his will could prove difficult.

▪ He also inherited debts of over 400 million livres and faced financial problems resulting from an inequitable tax system and widespread corruption.

▪ It was difficult to impose royal authority on the provinces where there were poor communications and infrastructure together with widespread tax evasion.

▪ The over-reliance of the monarch on the nobility to fulfil roles in government made it difficult for the crown to control them.

▪ The protection of the Huguenots under the Edict of Nantes increased religious tensions and offered a potential challenge to royal authority.

Versailles as a symbol of absolutism

▪ In 1661, aged 23, Louis decided to transform the small royal hunting lodge at Versailles outside Paris into a magnificent palace with large elaborate gardens and fountains.

▪ Le Vau was the architect, Le Notre and Le Bouteaux laid out the gardens: the interior decoration was entrusted to Le Brun.

▪ The palace was built as an allegory. It represented the year with its four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Presiding over the palace was the sun-god, Louis XIV himself.

The image of the monarch

▪ Louis was given the nickname of ‘Sun King’ after he played the part of the sun in a dramatic production at Versailles in May 1664.

▪ Louis chose the sun as his emblem. It was associated with Apollo, god of peace and the arts. It was also a heavenly body giving life to all things, regulating everything as it rose and set.

▪ Like Apollo, the warrior-king Louis XIV brought peace, was a patron of the arts and dispensed his bounty.

▪ The regularity of his work habits and the daily ritual of his rising and retiring were another point of solar comparison. Louis also appears as Jupiter and Neptune, the god of the sea.

▪ Throughout Versailles, the decoration combined the images and attributes of Apollo he never visited. All portraits show Louis in the prime of life, beautifully dressed and self-confident.

▪ The Apollo Salon is the main room of the Grand Apartment because it was originally Louis’ state chamber. The path of the sun is also traced in the layout of the gardens.

▪ Louis regarded Versailles as his achievement. He personally conducted distinguished visitors around the palace and helped to write the guidebooks. He supervised many of the developments at Versailles himself.

▪ The Versailles project was undertaken to demonstrate the glory of his reign to the whole of Europe. It became a heavy tax burden on French taxpayers but this did not prevent Louis from adding further rooms, e.g. The Hall of Mirrors completed in 1684.

▪ Although unfinished, it became the official residence of the King in 1682 and the centre of the government and the Court.

▪ Louis practised the art of government by spectacle through conciliar government. Versailles came to embody a form of government and court widely copied in Europe.

▪ Versailles was open to the public on several days during the year. Entry was free and thousands of French people wandered the grounds and the palace admiring the treasures on view.

▪ Versailles became an essential part of the system of monarchy. A nobleman who did not attend the Court there had no hope of any royal favour.

▪ Louis spent part of each in council with ministers, except Friday. The lesser nobility who did not attend Versailles sank into provincial insignificance.

▪ The greater nobility were at the disposal of the King. Their life at court was costly to maintain but court appointments, commands in the army and church offices were all gifts of the King.

▪ The whole court regularly assembled for music and dancing and for entertainment of various kinds and for refreshments.

▪ Hospitality was lavish and sumptuous. The court became used to being entertained by operas and by poems and plays by such writers as Moliere (1622-73).

▪ Racine, a writer of tragedy, accompanied Louis on his military campaigns as official historian.

▪ Versailles became a venue for the development of French music. Jean-Baptiste Lully was a versatile composer, a director and colleague of Moliere in the production of court ballets and masques in which Louis himself took part. He excluded all his rivals.

▪ Louis XIV was a great admirer of Lully. The King himself played the lute and guitar and sang enthusiastically. After Lully’s death, he interviewed the candidates for the role of his successor.

Why was Versailles important?

▪ The scale and size of the building at Versailles symbolised the power of the monarchy. Versailles was the centre of the French government after 1682.

▪ It was here that the nobility would attend upon the King and the business of the court conducted, thus helping to break down noble power in the provinces.

▪ The art and sculpture of Versailles emphasised the importance of order, hierarchy and the power of Louis, the ‘Sun King’.

▪ Louis was often depicted as, or compared to, mythical gods such as Apollo or Mars. Operas, plays and ballets performed at the palace underlined this. Was this helping to create a myth – ‘the pretentious veneer of make-believe’?

▪ Many nobles competed to attend upon the King and to gain royal patronage attendance at Versailles was imperative. Versailles also became a venue for the display and use of the products of French industry.

▪ BUT Versailles could only house around 3,000 of the nobility and their retinues – the overwhelming majority remained in the provinces.

▪ As the King aged he tended to reside away from Versailles and Paris became important again.

▪ As the reign progressed, the splendour and wealth of Versailles became increasingly criticised. To some, it seemed irrelevant to the needs of France and isolated the King and his ministers from the people.

▪ Did the nobility and clergy encourage the less privileged members of society to accept the gross inequalities which Versailles represented?

▪ The face of Versailles did change significantly over the reign. In 1682, the construction of a magnificent bathroom for Madame De Montespan was an attractive feature. Under the influence of De Maintenon, the building became more plain and sober.

▪ BUT Versailles was built to last – a symbol of a conservative Catholic society dominated by an absolute monarchy. Its architectural style was copied throughout Europe in Vienna, St. Petersburg and Madrid.

The legal position of the king

▪ As King of France, Louis was the country’s first judge. His primary obligation was to dispense justice to his subjects – either in person or through the law. Through the lit de justice, he could overturn decisions of the judges.

▪ Although Louis had a responsibility to honour the law of the country, he remained its absolute ruler – no individual person or institution could challenge his power.

▪ His absolute power in the Law grew out of the legitimacy of his own succession to the throne – he was the eldest male heir in the direct legitimate line. As such, there were few limits to his power over the Law.

▪ In July 1714, not long before his death, Louis declared his two illegitimate sons by Madame de Montespan to be the Duke of Maine and Count of Toulouse respectively. This gave them a claim to the French throne which was formerly illegal in French law.

▪ However, historians agree that Louis was generally restrained in his absolute use of the Law. For example, he made only limited use of lettres de cachet which allowed him to imprison any of his subjects without references to the courts.

▪ When the introduction of new taxes was being considered, Louis often sought the opinion of Sorbonne lawyers.

▪ The Civil Code (1667) and the Commercial Code (1673) added to his absolutism, the laws contained in them are regarded as symbolic of a new humanitarian spirit.

▪ However, in 1673, he forbade the Parlement of Paris from opposing any proposed legislation until after it had become law.

The role of individual ministers

▪ Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) was born at Rheims, the son of a draper. The extent of his humble origins has been exaggerated. His uncle had been a senior official in the War Office, the brother-in-law of Le Tellier.

▪ Colbert served the monarchy first under Le Tellier and then, after 1651, under Cardinal Mazarin. He was a discreet, loyal and effective servant and Mazarin recommended him to Louis.

▪ On the day before Mazarin died, Colbert was named intendant des finances, an influential position but he remained subordinate to the surintendant, Nicholas Fouquet.

▪ Fouquet represented a block on his progress and Colbert needed to remove him from office.

▪ Colbert was well placed to bring Fouquet down. He knew that Mazarin had amassed a personal fortune of around 35 million livres, at the expense of the state and that Fouquet was responsible for managing it.

▪ He also knew that Fouquet had enriched himself at the same time – mainly by the sale of state offices.

▪ He had profited from the widespread corruption at court. Whilst he was not alone in profiting from corruption, Louis and Colbert were keen to set a high profile example.

▪ In addition, Fouquet wanted to follow Mazarin as 1st minister rather than Louis himself. He was a clear threat to Colbert.

▪ In August 1661, Fouquet entertained the court at his new, splendid house, Vaux – Le – Vaux. A few days later, he was arrested.

▪ His trial was managed by Colbert and the accusation was that he had fortified Belle-Isle to defy the King – an absurd charge.

▪ BUT Fouquet implicated Colbert and Mazarin in charges against him. Although found guilty, it was agreed that the death penalty would be unjust.

▪ A sentence of banishment was agreed but Colbert had it commuted to solitary life imprisonment in the fortress of Pinerolo where Fouquet died in 1680.

▪ Fouquet was the victim of Colbert and his driving ambition. His almost vindictive prosecution of Fouquet was in part motivated by a desire to replace him.

▪ BUT Colbert was not only motivated by ambition and malice. The issue was also one of Crown indebtedness – sharp financiers lending money to the Crown and abusing their positions.

▪ After the trial and guilty verdict, the debts of the Crown to Fouquet were cancelled and Louis immediately acquired a small fortune.

▪ After the fall of Fouquet, Colbert joined Le Tellier and Lionne on the inner council and in 1664, he was appointed Superintendant of the King’s buildings.

▪ He became Controller – General of Finance in 1665, a post he dominated for almost twenty years.

▪ In the same year, he also became Minister of Commerce and in 1669, he was also appointed Secretary of State for the Marine (Navy).

▪ By 1669, he had authority over Finance, Trade, the Sea, Colonies, Royal Buildings and the Economy.

▪ Colbert was the best known of all the advisers to Louis XIV. He epitomised a new type of official evolving at this time – he was faithful and hard-working with painstaking attention to detail.

▪ He thrived under the patronage of Louis. When Colbert was arranging the marriage of his daughters to dukes, Louis contributed to their dowries.

▪ He dealt with almost every aspect of government except the army and foreign affairs. He was the perfect civil servant – cold and remote but devoted and efficient. He always realised that his aim was to glorify the monarchy – Louis was France.

▪ Colbert had little time for sentiment and relaxation. He worked for 15 hours each day and was nicknamed ‘the north wind’ because of the icy blasts he delivered towards his subordinates.

▪ He believed in the power of reason to shape and control the human condition. He was one of the first government officials to use statistical information, e.g. from the intendants, to inform policy decisions.

▪ Colbert created a family dynasty of servants to the French state. His younger brother became Secretary of Foreign Affairs. His son, Seignelay, succeeded him as Navy Secretary.

How successful was Colbert in reforming the French taxation system?

▪ When Colbert came to power in 1661, the anticipated receipts from French taxation were 80 million livres but only 31 million livres actually reached the Treasury. Expenditure was 54 millions – the annual deficit was 23 million livres.

▪ Six years later, receipts had increased to 61 million livres. Expenditure had been reduced to 32 million livres and there was a surplus of over 29 millions. This was largely achieved through the efforts of Colbert.

▪ He managed to reduce the annual cost of tax collection from 52 million livres to 24 millions. In 1680, he had 400 tax collectors in prison for corruption in Tours alone.

▪ The Chambre de Justice was set up in 1661 and sat until 1669. It found 4,000 financiers guilty of peculation (embezzlement) and recovered 100 million livres for the Crown.

▪ Colbert also introduced closer investigations of those claiming tax exemptions.

▪ Colbert reduced the rates of interest on government loans much to the anger of Paris financiers. He obtained better terms from the tax farmers, improved the book-keeping system and kept a close check on the whole tax administration.

▪ BUT there was no fundamental reform of the taxation system – an important limitation on the achievements of Colbert.

▪ Internal customs duties remained – all Colbert could do was to limit the number of illegal customs houses which landowners had erected.

▪ A similar approach applied to the system of direct taxation. Colbert tended to tinker with the existing taxes but never attempted to replace them.

▪ The taille remained the chief direct tax with the nobility and clergy exempt.

▪ Colbert attempted to move away from the taille and rely more on indirect taxes from which there was no exemption.

▪ The yield from the taille was actually reduced from 42 million livres a year to 35 millions, implying less of a burden on the peasants.

▪ The gabelle (salt tax) pressed heavily on the peasants whilst the aides (customs on every article of consumption) hampered trade by raising prices.

▪ The annual yield from the gabelle increased by 4 million livres as collection improved. In 1672, the yield from indirect taxation increased by 36 million livres to 62 millions.

▪ In 1674, Colbert introduced a government monopoly on tobacco. This helped to finance the Dutch War whilst a similar monopoly on the postal service yielded 1 million livres a year.

▪ He used The Chambre de Justice to reclaim acres of royal domain which had been lost or sold off by his predecessors – by 1682, they were yielding 5½ million livres each year.

▪ Colbert wished to reduce the custom of selling offices and eventually abolish it but never succeeded.

How did Colbert stimulate the internal economy of France?

▪ Colbert regarded internal customs barriers as the greatest obstacle to the growth of French trade. Customs stations slowed down journeys and raised the price of goods. He was determined to eliminate illegal barriers but largely failed.

▪ He would have liked to abolish customs duties levied by the Crown but they were too important as a source of royal revenue for Colbert ever to attempt abolition.

▪ In 1682, to encourage the building of roads, all landowners were granted the right to tax vehicles passing along roads through their estates. This slowed down journeys even more.

▪ Most of France north of Poitou, Bourdonnais and Burgundy was known as ‘les cinq grosse fermes’ where customs duties were organised into five tax farms.

▪ In 1664, Colbert established a unified and single customs system to govern relations between ‘les cinq grosse fermes’ and the rest of France – some may view this as a reform, others as perpetuating the existing system.

▪ A postal system with 800 post offices was created.

▪ A programme of road-building was begun by Colbert which became the wonder of Europe. The intendants were made responsible for the main roads with the expenses borne by the King. 600,000 livres were spent on road improvement.

▪ Of greater importance were the attempts by Colbert to build new waterways and his efforts to improve the navigability of rivers. In 1679, the Loire and the Seine were connected by the Orleans Canal.

▪ The Languedoc Canal was also built connecting The Atlantic with the Mediterranean. It was constructed under the direction of Pierre-Paul Riquet.

▪ Work began in 1666 and was completed in 1681. It was 175 miles long, containing 65 locks and cost 17 million livres. It was an important engineering feat but high tolls were an obstacle to its wider use.

▪ The French taxpayer contributed 7,500,000 livres to the Canal des Deux Mars which linked Bordeaux with the Mediterranean.

▪ There was, at this time, in France, a unified system of coinage but there was considerable confusion over weights and measures.

▪ In Paris, the measure for liquids was the muid, in Orleans it was the queue and in Burgundy it was the feuillette.

▪ Colbert issued thousands of regulations governing the size and quality of manufactures but did not attempt a single system of weights and measures.

▪ 100 livres on Parisian scales equalled 123.5 in Marseille and 120.5 in Avignon, Toulouse and Montpelier. However, state action to reform these differences infuriated merchants and was withdrawn.

Customs Reform

▪ In 1664, Colbert aimed at the standardisation and administrative efficiency of customs duties with 580 articles covering specific single duties.

▪ His customs reforms of 1667 were clearly protectionist. He raised the import duty on 57 articles and export duty on four.

▪ Colbert was driven by economic nationalism and realised that these new tariffs would increase the possibility of war with the Dutch.

Encouraging French industry

▪ As early as 1661, Colbert calculated that whereas France annually imported some 25 million livres worth of manufactures, she exported only half its value.

▪ Colbert saw it as the responsibility of the state to rectify this unfavourable balance of trade by increasing centralisation of the economy.

▪ The Gobelin tapestry and the Savonnerie carpet businesses were bribed to settle in France.

▪ Gilds (Jurandes) had grown rapidly in the seventeenth century. Poitiers had 15 gilds in 1400 but this had grown to 35 in 1708.

▪ Colbert was NOT opposed to gilds but wanted to extend them over countless small producers and impose uniformity on them in every detail of organisation and production.

▪ He saw them as a means of control – hence his appointment in 1699 of an Inspector of Manufactures. In 1673, there were 60 gilds in Paris; in 1683, there were 129.

▪ Colbert issued a large number of reglements to control and unify industry, especially in textiles. Looms were to be a certain size, wool of a certain weight and cloth a certain width.

▪ In 1669, Colbert decreed that only masters of gilds could produce cloth thus compelling producers to be members of gilds.

▪ Reglements continued after the death of Colbert. Those for 1660 – 1730 were contained in 7 quarto volumes. The regulations relating to the dyeing of cloth ran into 317 volumes.

▪ Contravention of regulations could incur a fine of 100 livres. It was the responsibility of the gilds to inspect every manufacturing operation and affix a mark accordingly. Fine cloth carried a disc with the arms of the King.

▪ In reality, reglements were often disregarded – without penalty. Sometimes, the gilds and the reglements were a barrier to economic expansion.

▪ This was particularly true of the gilds where the sale of offices and limits on the employment of apprentices restricted economic progress.

▪ Colbert succeeded in powerfully stimulating large-scale industry particularly textiles. In 1661, France was importing about 5 million livres of woollen fabrics.

▪ Colbert set out to achieve economic self-sufficiency. He introduced tariffs on imports and bounties on exports.

▪ Periods of tax exemption were offered to new industries. There were special privileges and free loans for skilled foreigners who came into France to establish new industries.

▪ In 1665, Colbert persuaded the Dutchman, Van Robais to come to France with 50 Dutch workers. He received letters patent from the King and was given a monopoly.

▪ He set up his works at Abbeville where, by 1680, he had 80 looms and 1690 workers producing fine cloth. Van Robais and his works survived The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

▪ Colbert helped the textile merchants of Languedoc to oust English and Dutch merchants from the Levant. By 1700, they were employing 2,000 workers.

▪ Two other Dutch workers, Massieu and Jemblin, settled at Caen and produced fine cloth.

▪ Colbert also gave great encouragement to the development of luxury industries such as silk, hosiery, lace and tapestry. He encouraged the growth of the silk industry away from Lyon at Nimes, Tours and Toulouse.

▪ With his encouragement, the stocking industry expanded at Paris, Lyon and Nimes and the linen industry at Auxerre, Toulouse and Poitou.

▪ In 1665, he established a monopoly company for the manufacture of lace at Arras, Rheims and Alencon. Colbert subsidised lace-making at Auxerre in Burgundy.

▪ There was also a rapid growth of sugar-refining, soap, paper, glass and porcelain industries at this time.

▪ Perhaps the most spectacular of Colbert’s efforts lay in the Gobelin works. The painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, cabinet and tapestry makers assembled by this company, with the direct encouragement of Colbert, became the envy of Europe.

▪ They produced much of the decor for Versailles and many other European courts. Colbert invested millions of livres in supporting their work.

▪ Some historians regard the creation of these luxury industries as possibly Colbert’s greatest achievement – ‘the most powerful, most typical and most purposeful achievement of mercantilism’. (Heckscher)

Mercantilism: the economic policy of Colbert

▪ Mercantilism was a policy pursued by most European governments between 1660 and 1789. Its main concern was economic development - it opposed feudal, municipal and guild independence.

▪ Mercantilism was based on the belief that there was a fixed amount of wealth in the world. The power of states depended on their ability to hold part of that wealth.

▪ Mercantilism generally opposed foreign imports and protected home industries.

▪ The export of raw materials was generally prohibited but bounties were often paid on the export of finished goods. Fishing was encouraged.

▪ Colonies were strongly encouraged. They were a source of raw materials for the mother country which also gained the benefit of colonial trade.

▪ Colbert believed strongly in mercantilism. He saw it as the key to the wealth and power of the French state. His aim was to increase French economic self-sufficiency by increasing exports and reducing imports.

▪ The state should amass gold by boosting exports, limiting imports and prohibiting the movement of gold out of the country.

▪ He also realised that if there was a fixed amount of world trade then one country could only expand at the expense of the other.

▪ This was particularly true of European trade which could be viewed like a cake. The Dutch possessed ¾ of the cake which made them the principal enemies of France.

▪ To Colbert, all commercial relations between states were a form of warfare. He therefore welcomed war with the Dutch in 1672.

How did Colbert help the commercial expansion of France?

▪ Under Colbert, French commercial expansion was different to that in other countries – the initiative was taken by the state not by individuals. He believed that a state should be strengthened by trade and should intervene to encourage it.

▪ In 1664, the Council of Commerce was set up to direct commercial activity – it was presided over by the King. It established a new code of commercial law and business practice.

▪ It fixed interest rates, encouraged the formation of companies and increased freedom in internal trade.

▪ After 1669, it declined in importance when Colbert preferred to work more through the Council of Finance. It disappeared in 1676 but a new council emerged in 1700.

▪ Colbert strongly encouraged the formation of trading companies to promote commerce with various parts of the world. These companies were state enterprises with the King often investing in them.

▪ The number of individual merchants trading overseas rose sharply from 329 in 1664 to 648 in 1704.

▪ In 1664, the French East India Company (at L’Orient) and the West India Company (at Le Havre) were formed.

▪ The Albouzeme Company for trade with Algiers and Morocco was formed in 1665 and The Company of the North for Baltic trade came into being in 1669.

▪ The Levant Company to trade with the East from Marseilles and Toulon was established in 1670.

▪ The directors of these trading companies were more like civil servants than businessmen. The companies they ran had limited success.

▪ Attempts to secure public investment largely failed and perhaps there was too much state control.

▪ The West India Company went bankrupt in 1674, by which time, 100 French ships were sailing each year to the West Indies.

▪ The French East India Company enjoyed mixed fortunes. Between 1675 and 1684, receipts of nearly 4½ million livres did not cover expenditure although in the eighteenth century, the company did make substantial profits.

▪ However, by 1683, France had possession of two states in India at Surat and Pondicherry under company control.

▪ This leads to the view that the trading companies laid the basis for future successful commercial growth and development in the eighteenth century.

▪ BUT the French East India Company never competed effectively with its firmly established Dutch and English rivals.

How did Colbert help the growth of the French navy?

▪ Many historians regard Colbert as the creator of the French navy. He viewed the navy not just as an instrument of war but as a means of protecting commerce and defending colonies and trading stations throughout the world. He saw it as essential in the event of tariff wars with the other countries.

▪ In 1661, the French navy had only 18 vessels, most of which were not seaworthy. Louis had little interest in it. It had been badly neglected with an annual expenditure of 300,000 livres each year.

▪ For the next twenty years, the emphasis which Colbert placed on maritime matters stimulated the domestic economy. He spent, on average, 10 million livres a year on the fleet.

▪ As a result of his development of the navy, shipbuilding was subsidised, forests were planted and foreign sailors were encouraged to settle in France.

▪ Dockyards and naval arsenals were built at Toulon, Brest, Rochefort and Dunkirk which became thriving ports. A naval supplies industry was established.

▪ The demand from the navy for guns and iron fittings to reinforce the hulls of ships stimulated the metallurgical industries in Limousin and Dauphine.

Assessing the achievements of Colbert – how successful was he?

▪ By the time Colbert died in 1683, it was clear that his achievements were limited. The French economy was still backward and the Crown was still facing bankruptcy.

▪ The source of many of his greatest problems was the Dutch and in key areas, the French seemed unable to compete. Wherever French industrialists and merchants turned, there were the Dutch.

▪ When Colbert protected French producers, the Dutch retaliated – tariff wars harmed the French most.

▪ In the race for colonies, the Dutch were ahead. French traders were undercut by Dutch rivals who were ready to sell at a loss.

▪ So, perhaps the only answer was to declare war on the Dutch – invade Holland and destroy Dutch industry and commerce or take it over.

▪ How responsible was Colbert for the Dutch War of 1672? Louis did not need any encouragement but Colbert showed no support for Lionne who opposed the war.

▪ The Dutch War destroyed everything that Colbert stood for. The conflict dragged on until the unsatisfactory Peace of Nijmegen in 1679.

▪ The French economy fell deeper into trouble. Balanced budgets and annual surpluses belonged to the past and crown debts were increasing.

▪ To meet the costs of war, money had to be borrowed from Italian bankers at interest rates of 10%.

▪ The crippling costs of war damaged France in other ways. The Manufacture Royale de Beauvais received financial support of 175,000 livres between 1665 and 1673 but nothing between 1674 and 1678.

▪ The project to colonise Canada received financial support for 10 years but nothing from 1673 onwards. Some of the trading companies found themselves in financial trouble – the last ship of the Company of the North sailed in 1684.

▪ The ever growing armies of the King wrecked the prosperity of the provinces where they were billeted. As war continued, Colbert lost ground to Louvois. The Dutch War interrupted foreign trade.

▪ How successful was Colbert in imposing central directions on the economy? Ideas of central control, national prosperity and the French national interest were not widely accepted. Local interest was much more of a driving force.

▪ In Marseilles, for example, merchants preferred to use their silver and gold to buy imports from the Levant rather than investing in the export of French goods.

▪ In Beauvais, regulations introduced by Colbert for the production of tapestries and fine linen were ignored. Local tariffs remained a barrier.

▪ The only indication that there had once been a minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who had tried to rationalise and expand the economy of the kingdom, was to be found in the wariness shown by those local elites towards every government pronouncement on economic matters’ (Roger Mettam)

▪ In reality, most French industry remained outside state control yet still flourished – this was particularly true of the iron industry.

▪ The type of state control which Colbert advocated had a negative effect on some industries with ruinous tax demands. There was an over-concentration on industries producing luxury goods.

▪ Long standing problems in the French economy, e.g. internal customs barriers, tax farming and the sale of offices were not tackled.

▪ Wars damaged the French economy yet Colbert appeared to promote them by his protectionist policies.

▪ Class prejudices often proved a barrier to economic progress. The nobility had no interest in commerce and it took Colbert 19 years to persuade Louis XIV to visit a naval arsenal.

▪ More generally, Colbert failed to appreciate the importance of agriculture which needed much more investment. His policy of laying waste to forests harmed the peasants.

▪ By 1683, France had become a leading economic power in the world. Her wealth and volume of trade continued to be among the greatest in the world until well into the eighteenth century – much of this was due to the work of Colbert.

▪ He created luxury industries and activity by the state which stimulated economic growth throughout France. However, most of the French population could not afford to buy the luxury goods produced.

▪ He created the navy and mercantile marine laying the basis for future colonial expansion.

▪ Colbert imposed orderly governments on French colonies in the West Indies and Canada, where there were 15,000 settlers by 1713; to this day, much of the Quebec province of Canada is French speaking.

▪ Colbert encouraged exploration for trading purposes, both to develop the Canadian fur trade and to open up the Mississippi further south. Frenchmen were encouraged to think globally as a maritime tradition was established.

▪ French merchant ships sailed in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the Far East and there was a maritime presence along the Mississippi and the Ganges.

▪ Although his powers were limited, the reforms of Colbert may be seen to represent significant attempt to reform the French state before the Revolution.

Finance and the economy: problems after Colbert; the costs of war

▪ When Colbert died in 1683, Louis’ personal rule still had another 32 years to run – between 1683 and 1715, although without Colbert, the French economy did not stand still.

▪ Those who succeeded him adopted a lower profile. They were generally less ambitious and domineering and not the great economic all-rounders which Colbert had been.

▪ Chamillart was a poor Controller-General (1699-1708) but he was an exception. Most of those who followed Colbert were competent – some were better. BUT France was facing serious economic problems.

Louvois

▪ Colbert was immediately succeeded by Louvois who followed similar policies. These included the same attempts to direct the national economy from the centre, the same incentives offered in the form of privileges and monopolies and the same frustrations at the dragging of provincial feet.

▪ Examples of this continuity included the general instructions for dyers which Colbert issued in 1671 with 371 clauses.

▪ They were reissued in 1688 with 416 clauses. Louvois also imposed regulations for the sowing of woad with snoopers to check that regulations were being enforced.

▪ The one major departure from the principles of Colbert was the persecution of the Huguenots. Louvois accepted the idea more readily than Colbert who was more interested in financial and economic matters.

▪ Colbert had argued for more tolerant treatment of these ‘useful people’. Louvois was more interested in persecution regardless of economic consequences.

What were the economic consequences of this policy of persecution?

▪ Protestant propagandists have emphasised the damage to the French economy resulting from mindless persecution BUT did it actually make that much difference?

▪ The economic malaise may be seen as part of a wider problem. It is not easy to prove that Huguenot persecution was a major factor causing a fall in the size of the French population of between 1 and 3 millions which occurred in the 17th century or of the recession in industry or of the decline in agricultural production.

▪ BUT at the time contemporaries believed that the persecution disrupted trade, damaged the property market and impeded naval recruitment.

▪ Such industries as Lyon silk had been declining and the emigration of 200,000 talented and industrious Protestants cannot have helped such industries as textiles and glass blowing although they were replaced by Catholic refugees from Ireland and Scotland.

▪ In the area of state finance, the conservatism of Colbert was jettisoned by his successors. In 1694, Vauban, prompted by an acute financial crisis resulting from war taxation and harvest failure, advocated an income tax of 7% without exceptions.

▪ Pontchartrain, who was Controller-General between 1689 and 1699, could not go as far but after a difficult winter (1693/4) imposed a capitation or poll tax in 1695. The population was divided into 22 classes according to their ability to pay.

The poll tax

▪ The richest paid 2,000 livres per head, the poorest 1 livre. The tax caused great anger, mainly because too many privileged people managed to evade it whilst the intendants despaired of collecting it. The yield of 22 million livres in the first year was disappointing.

▪ The tax was lifted when peace was made in 1697 but revived in 1702 when war broke out again. Pontchartrain had shown himself to be more far-sighted than Colbert.

▪ He had also proved his orthodox ability by lowering the taille during the period between the wars (1697-1702) and reducing payment on the rentes from 8.5% to 5%.

▪ Demartes (1708-1715) was similarly resourceful during the crisis of 1710 caused by famine and enemy invasions.

▪ With the sale of offices not yielding enough revenue, he introduced the dixieme. It was the first example of an income tax in European history and was deducted at source.

▪ BUT there was mass evasion, whereby, men bought themselves out of payment by one usually inadequate payment whilst rebellions against the tax collectors reduced their efficiency. Nevertheless, capitation and the dixieme doubled the yield of direct taxation.

Costs of war and debts

▪ Between 1688 and 1713, the costs of war were increasing alarmingly with no apparent solution. Louis continued to spend 600,000 livres annually on the court of St. Germain and the last years of his reign became a financial nightmare.

▪ Devaluation, the creation of paper money, frenetic borrowing and the sale of offices could only postpone total bankruptcy.

▪ In 1715, crown debts stood at 2,300 million livres and a serious financial situation faced Louis.

▪ During the severe winter of 1708-9, the Dauphin was mobbed by starving townsfolk in Versailles.

▪ Madame de Maintenon did not dare leave her room. Louis had to melt down gold and silver treasures in some of his rooms to pay his bills.

▪ BUT the privileged classes were still cushioned against hardship. Financiers such as the ex-Huguenot Samuel Bernard made large fortunes out of the crisis.

▪ There was never any shortage of rentiers to purchase yet more offices. ‘Every time Your Majesty creates an office, God creates a fool to buy it’. (Pontchartain)

▪ The buying of offices was intended to secure a government pension plus the social responsibility of being an office holder - this was seen as a good return for the investment. The person might achieve noble status and total exemption from regular taxation.

▪ The financial burden always fell on the unprivileged poor – despite famine, destitution and death. In the forests of Versailles, children resorted to cannibalism whilst peasants dined off the congealed blood of starving animals.

▪ In 1694, in a letter to Louis, Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, wrote of the bad economic condition of France with high levels of taxation necessitated by war offered as the main reason.

▪ The reality is that the economic policies and achievements of Louis XIV and his ministers made little difference with little impact on such a large country with many problems to overcome.

▪ Most merchants and businessmen were determined not to be regimented and there was opposition to too much bureaucracy. Social and economic anomalies were inbuilt.

▪ Often, economic achievements occurred by chance rather than deliberate policy and an unjust system of taxation continued to favour the rich.

Regional problems

▪ French agriculture remained backward and starved of investment whilst trade was impeded by tolls and regulations. The Crown remained saddled with vast debts which were not addressed.

▪ The various regions of the country were separated by large distances, often with internal tolls and customs duties. The concept of a national economy and a national economic policy did not apply.

▪ Each province had its own inherited relationship with central government. Provinces like Burgundy and Brittany retained their own provincial assemblies – pays d’etat.

▪ They operated a different tax system from the pays d’elections. The nobility and clergy were exempt from sole direct tax. Members of the high nobility with their huge estates and clients among the lesser nobility still exercised much authority.

▪ There were great variations in the status of peasants from province to province. These different classes of peasants included the fermier who owned or rented enough land to live comfortably, the metayer who was a share-cropper whilst the journalier was a landless labourer.

▪ The general outcome was more landless labourers, more beggars and destitute drifting through the nations’ inadequate and overcrowded poorhouses.

▪ At the beginning of the reign, there was widespread hunger and a general influx of the poor into the towns.

▪ The burden on the poor was increased by taxation with demands coming from landlords, the priest and government tax collectors. The gabelle (salt tax) is an example of the tax burden on the peasants.

The personal monarchy: the strength and weaknesses of royal government; the influence of Madame de Maintenon

▪ What were the strengths and weaknesses about Louis XIV’s kingship? Louis was devoted to his job and identified himself with France.

▪ He saw himself as the embodiment of the state but also its servant. On occasion, he confused the welfare of the French people with his own prestige or with the interests of the Bourbon dynasty.

▪ Louis possessed strong professionalism, devotion to duty and sheer determination – ‘We are not private persons, we owe ourselves to the public’.

▪ Louis reigned for 54 years and felt personal responsibility for government. He was tough physically and had a real taste for administration.

▪ He believed that God had chosen him to rule and that he should use all his qualities to justify that choice.

▪ He displayed an impressive level of professionalism. He was well informed about a range of issues and held personal interviews with specialists to update his knowledge.

▪ He followed a methodical daily pattern of business and his ministers always knew where he was and what he was doing.

▪ Louis never allowed his personal pleasures – certainly not his sexual appetite – to interfere with business. He displayed strong contempt for drunkenness.

▪ Louis did not take decisions on his own – he was influenced by those who fed him the key information, e.g. Louvois, Colbert and Madame De Maintenon.

▪ He took advice from them but he made his own decisions with determination to fulfil his role. There were occasions when he was surrounded by 2nd class advisers.

▪ In old age, Louis became difficult and crotchety. He would accept advice but also reject it. A united front of ministers could exert pressure on the King but trust between King and ministers broke down under war.

▪ Towards the end of the reign, there was less discussion between the King and his ministers and he took decisions more on his own – in the early days, there was more discussion.

▪ Once decisions had been made, Louis was not prepared to be questioned. He could be brutal but also warm, e.g. in his relations with Colbert.

▪ After the death of Louvois in 1691, Louis took more control – ‘I am upset to see my army where it is’. His treatment of his generals could be mild and modest, e.g. Marshal Luxembourg.

▪ By the use of his own personality and the distribution of favours, Louis was particularly skilled at dominating the nobility.

▪ He could be sociable, charming and good-humoured and independent of faction. He possessed a great appetite for life and a capacity to enjoy himself.

▪ In handling the aristocracy, Louis showed a good grasp of reality. He was prepared to involve the nobility in running France. Bringing them to Versailles helped to control them.

▪ His less attractive qualities included playing off factions against each other, his curiosity over the private lives of people and his retention of personal information about them.

▪ He was a crafty plotter behind the scenes and believed that people were influenced by ambition and greed.

▪ What was the nature of Louis’ limited monarchy? His inclination was to compromise and not to be heavy handed and provoke confrontation. His attitude towards government was to be cautious and conservative.

▪ Louis bribed the nobles with the prospect of privileges and financial profit. He played them off against each other.

▪ He invited the nobles to co-operate with him in successful areas, e.g. the army, the Church, diplomacy and local government.

▪ Intendants were instructed to avoid rather than provoke trouble. The secret of his success was his co-operation with the parlements. ‘Louis XIV, supposedly the personification of absolutism, generally ruled by consent’. (Wilkinson)

▪ The French army was disciplined and paid and fed as efficiently as possible. Paris was closely policed to avert disorder. However, the issue of finance and the payment for wars aroused considerable controversy.

▪ Financial policies were enacted at the expense of the poor and it was the governing classes who benefited most – financiers, office-holders, tax farmers and richer peasants made huge profits under a policy labelled as ‘fiscal terrorism’. The non-paying exploited the helplessness and vulnerability of the underprivileged.

▪ Despite these issues, there were very few armed revolts and organised rebellions. Was this because an absolute king was able to deter potential rebels? Louis was always ready to use force against his own subjects.

▪ Troops were used against revolts around Boulogne in 1662, in Brittany in 1675 and against the Camisards of the Cevennes between 1702 and 1705.

▪ In 1675, the Bretons were dealt with mercifully and only 24 leaders were executed. Following the Camisard revolt, the rebel demand to practice the Protestant religion was conceded after negotiation.

Just how absolute was Louis XIV?

▪ Perhaps not as much as once thought – even by the end of the reign, not even one law applied through the whole of France, e.g. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes did not affect Alsace.

▪ Louis and his ministers had to make concessions, e.g. Colbert and his attempt to abolish the paulette in 1665.

▪ If defied, Louis could be cruel and arbitrary, e.g. the devastation of the Palatinate, the victimisation of Fouquet.

▪ Louis significantly increased the power of the Crown and achieved an ordered, disciplined and obedient people.

▪ He recruited into the armed forces, the Church, the law and the media in his attempts to establish royal authority and to eradicate dissidents – hence the persecution of Protestants and Jansenists.

▪ In many ways, his absolutism was brittle and depended on his own exceptional skills. These included his streetwise realism, his hard-nosed awareness of patronage and his control of the nobility.

▪ He managed a successful public relations campaign and the myth of absolutism was created.

▪ During the last 35 years of his reign, his court became a more discreet and sober place with a growing air of gloom.

▪ Under the influence of his second wife, Madame De Maintenon, the King completed his permanent move to Versailles and in 1682, all departments accompanied him.

▪ Disasters in The War of the Spanish Succession made his gloom worse as did the loss of 3 heirs within 12 months in the years 1711-12. The loss of his much loved granddaughter - in-law, Marie Adelaide, increased his sadness.

▪ A royal edict of July 1714 declared that ‘M. the duc du Maine and M. the Comte de Toulouse and their male descendants, there being no princes of the royal blood’ may succeed to the throne.

▪ This edict represented a defiance of the law because if the duc d’Anjou were to die the legitimate heir was the nephew of the King, the duc d’Orleans. Louis and De Maintenon hated and despised Orleans and believed him to be a disaster.

▪ The Parlement of Paris registered the edict of July 1714 and formally received Maine and Toulouse as princes of the blood.

▪ The King re-iterated his decision by making a will denying Orleans his right to be regent in favour of a council, including Maine and Toulouse - he deposited this will with the parlement. In the event, the will was simply ignored after Louis’ death when Orleans became sole regent.

The influence of Madame de Maintenon

▪ Francoise d’Aubigne, later Madame de Maintenon, the last great female figure in the reign of Louis XIV, was born in 1635 in Niort prison where her parents were being held on suspicion of working with the English.

▪ She was baptised on 28th November 1635. Orphaned in 1647, she first married the writer Paul Scarron, celebrated for his comedies. When he died after a few years, he left her only debts and the name ‘Scarron’s widow’.

▪ On the advice of the Marquise de Montespan, the official mistress of Louis XIV, she became the governess of their children in 1669 – an opportunity to meet the King in person.

▪ In 1675, on the advice of the Marquise de Montespan, Louis granted her the title ‘Marquise de Maintenon’.

▪ In 1682, she was given the title of ‘dame d’atour’ (lady-in-waiting’) of the Dauphine. She later took advantage of the disgrace of the Marquise and the death of Queen Maria Theresa of Austria to marry the King secretly in 1683.

▪ Madame de Maintenon had great influence over Louis XIV who visited her every day in a new apartment overlooking the royal courtyard of the Chateau.

▪ Here he worked, received his ministers and enjoyed chatting with his wife. She often attended council meetings and her favourites were often promoted in church and state.

▪ Did she exert any influence over the political decisions made by Louis? Was she involved in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685?

▪ In this area, her influence was slight but she was able to convince the King that his sexual promiscuity had been unpleasing to God and that converting heretics was the way to put things right. She became ruthless in the pursuit of conversions.

▪ A few days before the death of Louis XIV in 1715, she retired to Saint-Cyr, a house of education for girls and the site of the future school where she was buried after her death on 15th April 1719.

Key Topic 2: Religious developments

The Most Christian King

▪ Louis was a devout Catholic in the tradition of the Counter-Reformation. He attended Mass daily, used Jesuit confessors and listened carefully to the preachers of the Court. BUT he was not a theologian and was impatient with doctrine.

▪ Louis was influenced by the Jesuits – ‘the shock-troops of the Counter-Reformation’. He was a willing pupil and tried to ‘further the interests of heaven’.

▪ Louis was concerned with his own soul and those of his subjects – the spiritual welfare of the 18½ million souls entrusted to his care.

▪ French kings, like Louis, inherited their thrones by Divine Right – they were chosen by God and anointed with holy oil. Louis also possessed the King’s touch – he laid his hands on those suffering from scrofula and believed that they could be cured by his touch.

▪ Louis also believed that the theory of Divine Right carried certain obligations and that he would be answerable to God for his actions. He was also called the ‘Eldest Son of the Church’ and ‘the Most Christian King’.

▪ Louis was ‘the gift of God’ – he was born to seemingly incompatible parents. He was a miracle child, sent to save France from spiritual disunity. He believed in order and authority and intervened personally and decisively in religious affairs.

Richelieu and religion

▪ Being a cardinal, Richelieu had an intimate knowledge of how the Church operated.

▪ He pursued a cautiously neutral line between Gallicanism (French strand of Catholicism) and Ultramontanism (more conservative, reactionary form of Catholicism), integral to which was an unswerving loyalty to the Pope.

▪ Although heavily outnumbered, the Huguenots remained a significant minority – around 6% of the population in 1600. Indeed, some towns like Montauban, La Rochelle and Castres were completely Protestant.

▪ The threat posed by the Huguenots was further reinforced by the fact that they were supported by over 1,600 nobles, some of whom were representatives of the higher nobility, such as Bouillon, Rohan, Chatillon and La Force.

▪ For that reason, Richelieu was hardly in a position to change the status quo in a radical fashion – he therefore sought to undermine Huguenot power very gradually.

▪ He sought to enforce the provision in the Edict of Nantes that all Protestant political assemblies, national and provincial, should be banned. He also agreed that the Edict of Nantes was never intended to be permanent.

▪ He was a staunch critic of the possession of ecclesiastical property in heretical hands which the Edict of Nantes had attempted to address.

▪ His compromising approach to the difficult problem of religion led him to follow the official policy of Henry 1V as prescribed in the Edict of Nantes of 1598 and reconfirmed in the Peace of Alais of 1629.

▪ In the peace of Montpellier of October 1622, the Edict of Nantes was confirmed with the exception that all Huguenot fortifications were destroyed, apart from La Rochelle and Montauban.

▪ The Huguenots were seriously weakened by 1622. They had lost control of Lower Languedoc with the exception of the Cevennes and five towns.

▪ Following the successful siege of La Rochelle, Richelieu drew up the Edict of Alais in June 1629 – this reconfirmed the Edict of Nantes but only in respect of the basic text.

▪ All additional clauses guaranteeing Huguenot political and military rights were now cancelled and all fortresses and fortifications were demolished. The terms of the Edict were implemented with relative effectiveness.

▪ Shortly afterwards, it can be stated that the Huguenots were no longer a political force although they were a significant religious minority.

▪ Although their right of worship was recognised in theory by the state, Huguenots nonetheless suffered a considerable degree of intolerance in the period 1629-1685 culminating in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

▪ Richelieu detested heresy and was firmly committed to the Catholic faith.

▪ As a bishop, he was committed to the conversion of heretics. To that effect, he wrote the work ‘Principal points concerning the faith of the Catholic Church’, with the intention curing not harming the Huguenots.

▪ However, he did not share the immediate concern of Marillac for removing the Huguenots from France for political reasons.

▪ Knecht – ‘Richelieu drew a clear distinction between religious conformity and political sedition. He did not believe that the Huguenots should be forced to become Catholics, yet he was equally sure that theu should not be allowed to disobey the Crown’.

▪ To that effect, the religious policy of Richelieu was very pragmatic – he was keenly aware of the considerable problems that could arise from religious disunity.

▪ His priority was to weaken the political status of the Huguenots – his ultimate goal was to unify the French nation under the banner of Catholicism, yet this could not be realistically enforced until the time was right.

Relations with the Papacy

▪ The French Crown and the Papacy needed a cordial relationship to support each other against divisive elements in the Church BUT most of the reign was spent in conflict.

▪ The struggle for control of the French Church had always been a three way affair between the Papacy, the Crown and the nobles.

▪ Since the 14th century, the movement known as Gallicanism had campaigned for freedom of the French church from papal influence in spiritual and temporal affairs.

▪ It was originally driven by the nobility who were anxious to dominate the Church and state.

▪ Gallicanism was a potential threat to the Crown as well as to the Papacy – hence the alliance between Rome and the predecessors of Louis XIV. Gallicanism could be an ally of the King against Rome.

▪ In 1661, Louis was very confident and had no interest in compromise with the Pope.

▪ In 1662, following a fracas in Rome between the Corsican guards of the Pope and the guards of the French ambassador, the King demanded and received a full apology.

▪ The Pope even consented to the construction of a monument recording his humiliation.

▪ In April 1664, the Pope obligingly issued a bull condemning the Jansenists against whom Louis was waging a vendetta. In 1669, Louis was glad to accept the lead of the Pope in patching up a compromise with the Jansenists.

▪ In 1673, a royal declaration stated that the King was entitled to a regale in all parts of the realm – an ancient custom by which the King appropriated the revenues of vacant bishoprics – it had formerly operated in northern France only.

▪ Two bishops in the Midi appealed against their king to Rome. Pope Innocent X1 supported the bishops by threatening to censure ‘the Eldest Son of the Church’.

▪ Louis unleashed Gallicanism against him. In March 1682, the French bishops, meeting in Paris by royal command, issued the Gallican Articles.

▪ They were anti-papal declaring that ‘kings and princes were not subordinate to Rome in non-spiritual matters’, that ‘in spiritual matters popes were inferior to general councils’ and that ‘the pope’s decisions could be altered if they did not have the approval of the whole church’. These sentiments were offensive to Rome.

The persecution of the Jansenists

▪ In 1640, Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, published a book ‘Augustinus’ which laid down what became regarded as the main Jansenist ideas.

▪ His thinking was greatly influenced by the ideas of St. Augustine and St. Paul that man was unable to achieve salvation except through divine grace – he was hopelessly sinful and could only be saved by the grace of God.

▪ This Jansenist view appeared to conflict with the Jesuit emphasis on individual freedom of choice and the value in the sight of God of good deeds. The Jansenists repeatedly criticised the Jesuits.

▪ The Jansenists became a closely-knit group within the French Church. Louis was unsure about their beliefs but saw them as a threat to conformity, e.g. Jansenist involvement in the Frondes.

▪ They were seen by Louis as a disruptive influence and a threat to the stability of the Church, e.g. the Duchesse of Longueville who was both a Jansenist and a political opponent.

▪ Louis distrusted the democratic spirit of the Jansenists and disliked the involvement of ordinary priests in the government of the Church and of laymen in the conduct of church services.

▪ Clergy and laity thinking about issues for themselves upset Louis. There was significant support for the Jansenists in the Paris Parlement.

▪ Louis distrusted Jansenist disapproval of worldly luxury and display and their criticism of all that Versailles represented, e.g. Tartuffe and his attacks on worldly wealth.

▪ Louis distrusted the fact that the Jansenists possessed their own headquarters at the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs, just south of Versailles.

▪ It became a centre for disseminating information on the doctrine of individual worth and a focus for a number of writers such as Pascal and Racine.

▪ Both Jansenists and Jesuits protested loyalty to the Catholic Church. The Jansenists led blameless lives – ‘they were simply good Catholics who were disapproved of by the Jesuits’.

▪ This disapproval did the Jansenists no harm in France – the Jesuits were disliked for their subservience to Rome and their apparent willingness to justify anything if it suited them.

▪ The attraction of the Jansenists lay in their intellectual honesty and the high moral standards of the monastery at Port-Royal-des-Champs. Their unofficial headquarters outside Paris compared favourably with the laxity of the French Church.

▪ Louis responded to the potential Jansenist threat by reforming the Church himself. In 1661, he imposed Jesuit doctrines on Port-Royal and chased out male Jansenist leaders.

▪ In 1664, nuns were expelled from Port-Royal by the Archbishop of Paris who had been Louis’ tutor.

▪ The incident illustrated deep-lying chauvinism towards Jansenism as illustrated by the verbal abuse of the Archbishop towards the abbess.

▪ Despite continuing persecution by Louis, Jansenism remained a force. Louis needed the co-operation of the Pope for only he could condemn Jansenism and counter the respect shown to Jansenism among thoughtful and educated Frenchmen.

▪ In February 1665, an anti-Jansenist bull was issued by Pope Alexander VII. BUT several French bishops disagreed with the Pope and the King in their condemnation of Jansenist doctrine.

▪ The Jesuits argued that ‘Paul begat Augustine, Augustine begat Calvin, Calvin begat Jansen’.

▪ BUT this was too much for most intelligent, unprejudiced Catholics – French Catholics could be influenced by Gallican resentment against papal interference.

▪ Between 1668 and 1679, the anti-Jansenist campaign was temporarily replaced by the Peace of the Church, a period of compromise inspired by a more tolerant pope.

▪ In 1679, Louis reverted to the persecution of the Jansenists. The death of the Duchesse de Longueville removed an important protector of the Jansenists.

▪ At the same time, in the 1680s, a more aggressive policy was adopted towards the Huguenots and it made sense to repress the Jansenists as well.

▪ Louis now publicly quarrelled with Rome and was anxious to demonstrate his orthodoxy despite disagreements with the Pope.

▪ The worsening of relations between the French monarchy and the Papacy stemmed from a disagreement over the regale, in which, the French opponents of Louis were supported by the Pope, Innocent X1. Louis could only blame himself for this alliance between some of his own clergy and Rome.

The regale

▪ The regale, the right to appoint to posts within the Church, had been claimed by French Kings since the Middle Ages.

▪ In 1608, it was declared that the King had the right to appoint to all dioceses in France.

▪ On 10 February 1673, Louis XIV issued a declaration, extending the regale over all France and most bishops yielded without serious protest. Only the Bishops of Alet and Pamiers were opposed.

▪ They appealed, in 1677, to Pope innocent XI. The pope urged the king not to extend the right to dioceses that had previously been exempt.

▪ The General assembly of the French Clergy sided with the king, and, despite the protests of Innocent XI,  the right was maintained until the French Revolution.

How did Louis XIV treat the Huguenots?

▪ In 1589, the French Bourbon prince Henry of Navarre inherited the throne as Henry 1V. To win the support of the majority of Frenchmen, Henry became Catholic but also made peace with the Huguenots after 40 years of war.

▪ The Edict of Nantes of 1598 granted to Huguenots freedom of worship.

▪ It also granted them full civil rights including the right to hold public office, royal subsidies for Protestant schools and control of some 200 cities, including the stronghold of La Rochelle.

▪ Many feared that the Huguenots would become a state within a state.

▪ To reduce this possibility, following the fall of La Rochelle to Richelieu’s army in 1628, the Huguenots were deprived of their fortifications.

▪ The Peace of Alais in 1629 marked the end of Huguenot political privileges. They were no longer a danger to the state.

▪ As time passed, they lost their militancy. They became mostly, middle-class merchants, industrialists and officials, with unquestioning loyalty to the King, e.g. civil servants Turenne and Ruvigny. There were no signs of any disloyalty in the Frondes 1648-53.

▪ BUT, as a minority, the Huguenots were very unpopular. Many saw them as an insult to royal authority and a challenge to the national unity of France.

▪ They sought to convince Louis that a policy of steady pressure would extinguish the Huguenots altogether.

▪ Although the Huguenots did not present a problem for Louis XIV, he did not like Protestants. He was brought up to detest heresy and promised at his coronation to destroy it.

▪ The Huguenots represented a challenge to the idea of Louis as ‘Most Christian King’. In 1659, a delegation of Huguenots visiting Louis from Toulouse received a very frosty reception.

▪ Initially, Louis decided to respect The Edict of Nantes but after 1665, he was persuaded by his Catholic advisers to increase the pressure on the Huguenots.

▪ He began a policy of ‘interpreting narrowly’ the Edict. Whilst the Huguenots were not physically persecuted, they were made to feel uncomfortable.

▪ Certain professions, e.g. midwifery, were closed to Huguenots and it became increasingly difficult for them to secure justice in the courts.

▪ The policy took various forms. For example, the Edict made no reference to churches built after 1598.

▪ It was decreed in 1669 that all such churches should be demolished – in the hope that the Huguenots would accept conversion. Restrictions were imposed on marriages and funerals.

▪ Huguenots were bribed to abandon their faith and the revenue from vacant bishoprics was devoted to this objective.

▪ A special government department, the casse des conversions, handled this business. Paul Pellisson claimed to have converted 50,000 Huguenots at the rate of 10 livres per head.

▪ In 1668, Turenne, the leading Huguenot general, was converted to Catholicism. Between 1661 and 1679, the number of Huguenots may have fallen from 2 to 1¼ millions.

▪ After the Peace of Nijmegen in 1679, Louis was free to concentrate much more on domestic affairs and the pace of repression increased. Louis realised that the Huguenots were a threat to national unity and to a unified Church and State.

▪ The King was also under pressure from the ‘devot’ party to save his own soul and the souls of his heretical subjects. He was also influenced by Madame De Maintenon who urged Huguenot conversions to save Louis’ soul.

▪ Chambres de L’Edit (courts to protect Huguenot rights) were abolished. In 1680, all conversions to Protestantism were forbidden. Churches were demolished.

▪ Huguenots were banned from public office, the medical, legal and publishing professions.

▪ Children of Huguenot families were taken away at 7 years to be brought up as Catholics. Converts were awarded tax exemptions.

▪ Anyone who denounced a Huguenot was awarded half his property. Huguenots were forbidden to preach and write, employ Catholic servants, emigrate or make mixed marriages.

▪ In 1681, The Intendant of Poitou began a policy of dragonnades – the billeting or quartering of dragoons on Huguenot houses. Huguenot emigration, which had begun as early as 1666, now speeded up.

▪ Under the dragonnades, misbehaviour was encouraged. Men were beaten up, women raped, children terrorised and property ruined.

▪ Attacks on the civilian population increased. Louis did not like these attacks but could do little to prevent them, not least because the number of conversions increased.

▪ Against this background, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes might seem the official seal of approval – the ‘so-called’ reformed religion had ceased to exist.

▪ Abuses in the Catholic Church had been corrected. Louis was determined to strike a blow against heresy at home.

▪ The revocation came in the form of the Edict of Fontainbleau registered by the Paris parlement on 22nd October 1685.

▪ The argument was that so many Huguenots had converted to Catholicism that the Edict of Nantes seemed pointless – therefore, revoke it.

▪ There then followed clauses totally banning public Protestant worship, banishing ministers who refused to conform, insisting that children of Protestants should be baptised and educated in the Catholic religion.

▪ French Protestants were not allowed to leave the country and those who tried to emigrate were condemned to the galleys.

Gallicanism

▪ In response to the Gallican Articles, Innocent X1 refused to consecrate any more French bishops and 35 dioceses were unfilled.

▪ In January 1687, he cancelled the immunity of the French embassy in Rome from inspection by officials pursuing criminals.

▪ When Louis told his ambassador to defy the papal authorities, the pope excommunicated the ambassador and was preparing to excommunicate Louis XIV as well.

▪ The defiance shown by Louis to the Pope was a threat to his foreign policy. The seizure by Louis of the papal state of Avignon angered and embarrassed many French Catholics and put Louis in the wrong.

▪ The death of Innocent X1 in 1689 led to Louis withdrawing the Gallican Articles in 1693 and a compromise was achieved over the regale. Louis realised that he needed Papal support in his battle with the Jansenists.

▪ The Gallican Articles led to the collapse of French foreign policy. In 1688, Innocent X1 decreed the appointment of the anti-French candidate to the vital archbishopric of Cologne.

▪ Colbert de Croissy, Louis’ foreign affairs secretary, suggested that the Pope must be a Jansenist.

Jansenism

▪ In the last years of his reign, Louis realised that to destroy Jansenism he had to mend his fences with Rome. Therefore, in 1693, he disowned the Gallican Articles.

▪ French pressure in Rome led to the Bull ‘Vineam Domini’ which no longer permitted Jansenists the ‘respectful silence’ with which, since 1668, they had been able to avoid sensitive theological issues.

▪ With papal support, Louis sent soldiers to expel the remaining nuns from Port-Royal. In 1710, he ordered their buildings to be destroyed and the bones of dead Jansenists to be reburied in a common grave.

▪ In September 1713, the Papal bull Unigenitus condemned 101 heretical propositions in Jansenist literature. Was Jansenism now dead?

▪ To be effective, the bull was very authoritarian – e.g. anyone who was not a priest could not consult the Bible.

▪ The bull resulted in sympathy for the Jansenists. The Paris parlement only registered the bull under protest and refused to prosecute the 15 bishops who refused to observe it. When instructed to discipline the Bishop of Metz, Pontchartrain, the Chancellor, resigned.

▪ Some provincial parlements dared to oppose the bill.

▪ To restore discipline and ensure unanimous acceptance of the bull, Louis proposed to summon a council of the French Church at which he would preside. However, he died first, so Jansenism survived.

▪ In the years 1685 – 1762, 46 Huguenot ministers were executed and 16 who had fled France were hanged in effigy.

▪ Corpses of heretics were dragged naked through the streets, left to be devoured by rats and arranged in obscene positions to the horror of their bereaved relatives.

▪ In the longer term, the campaign against the Huguenots failed. In remote areas, such as the Midi, Huguenot congregations continued to worship and there were revolts in the Cevannes in 1689 and 1692.

▪ In July 1702, the murder of a prominent persecutor of Huguenots, the abbe du Chayla, led to the Camisards War.

▪ At a time of war, Louis had to dispatch troops, dismiss a general and permit Villars, a Marshal of France, to concede toleration to the Camisard rebels. Protestant worship continued into the 18th century.

▪ Was Louis’ treatment of the Huguenots ineffective and pointless? Certainly, the methods used damaged his reputation.

▪ The idea of Revocation may be considered a blunder and the emigration of so many merchants, bankers and craftsmen was a great loss to France.

▪ Huguenots taught the rivals of France how to produce high-quality goods such as gloves, headwear, silk and glass.

▪ In terms of international relations, Louis may have hoped that persecuting Huguenots would make him leader of Catholic Europe but this was not the case.

▪ Catholics continued to follow an anti-French Pope and a conquering Emperor. The main beneficiary was William of Orange, soon to become William III of England.

▪ William managed to persuade the English and the Dutch to follow him in 2 costly wars in an alliance to be joined by Emperor Leopold.

▪ He was able to depict Louis as a persecutor of European Protestantism because of his attack on the Huguenots.

▪ BUT Louis’ persecution of the Huguenots was popular with the French. The clergy were very enthusiastic - ‘compel them to come in’.

▪ Immediately after the revocation, Louis was warmly received in Paris – ‘Never had such adulation been manifested. The acclamations were never ending. A hundred thousand voices cried out ‘long live the King’.

▪ The Huguenots were unpopular and many envied their wealth. Louis was supported by public opinion and the toleration of heretics would have undermined his authority. The Huguenots were different and a threat to the idea of unity and order.

▪ Without Revocation, would Louis have been able to achieve the accession of his grandson Philip to the throne of Spain in 1701?

▪ Quietism emphasised the ability of the soul to communicate directly with God – the individual can shortcut the more usual forms of worship and sacraments and sermons are rendered unnecessary. These ideas were regarded with suspicion by church authorities.

▪ Madame Guyon entered the French religious scene in June 1687. She was a rich and intense widow and a prolific author.

▪ In her book A Short and Very Easy Way of Praying from the Heart she wrote of the idea of surrendering ourselves into the hands of God – the loss of self-will in the will of God, willing only what God has willed.

▪ The daughters of Colbert introduced Madame Guyon to Madame De Maintenon. De Maintenon was impressed and saw Guyon as the person to raise the spiritual tone of Saint – Cyr, a school which she had founded for poor noblemen.

▪ She recognised the need to introduce more meditation. Teachers and pupils were soon meditating by lying on the chapel floor in an ecstatic relationship with the divine.

▪ The Bishop of Chartres, the confessor of De Maintenon, believed Madame Guyon to be an imposter and demanded her dismissal. She was thrown into prison.

▪ Francois De Salignac De La Mothe – Fenelon was one of the most charismatic figures of the reign. He was a protégé of De Maintenon who had made him tutor to the Kings grandson, the duc de Burgundy. He was also Archbishop of Cambrai.

▪ Fenelon was strongly attracted to Madame Guyon but he was gullible and attracted to mysticism – their sensitive natures merged. Even after her dismissal, Fenelon continued to defend her books.

▪ His campaign brought him into conflict with Jacques – Benigne Bossuet, defender of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

▪ The court witnessed a contest between Bossuet and Fenelon which Bossuet won after De Maintenon withdrew her support from Fenelon.

▪ Bossuet – ‘We have on our side God, the truth, a worthy motive, the king and Madame De Maintenon’. Fenelon was banished to Cambrai.

▪ Louis XIV was not impressed by Quietism and had no sympathy for anything unorthodox. He was furious with De Maintenon and banished her to her room. They were later reconciled after calls for mercy from the Bishop of Chartres.

▪ BUT there was no mercy for Fenelon. He was forced to condemn his own books but became a stern and eloquent critic of Louis XIV.

▪ Louis was angered by the behaviour of his wife and the church had been made to look foolish. Louis was really only interested in the single issue of Catholic orthodoxy.

▪ In summary, Louis failed to eradicate Huguenot heresy and was unable to suppress the Jansenists and Quietists. He was not altogether convincing in his title as ‘Most Christian King’ BUT France did remain a Catholic nation.

Key Topic 3: Social developments and opposition

The condition of France at the accession of Louis XIV in 1661: politics, economy and society

▪ On the accession of Louis XIV, France was a huge sprawling land devoted primarily to primitive, inefficient agriculture.

▪ The various regions of the country were separated by large distances. There were internal tolls and customs duties. The concept of a national economy or national economic policy did not apply. Raising money from taxation was the main priority of Louis XIV.

Background

▪ The seventeenth century was a time of economic decay for the whole of Europe. Prices and wages fell, there was a shortage of gold and silver coins and banknotes were not yet in wide use. Throughout Europe, there was a lack of economic investment.

▪ The population of France was greater in 1600 than 1700. During the century, the GNP fell by 5%.

▪ France had a problem of feeding herself despite the climate being benign and the soil good. The population was around 18/19 millions BUT there was no food in reserve.

▪ Compared to England and Holland, French agriculture was backward. Each province was self supporting – there could be famine in 1 province but abundance in another.

▪ The farming was wholly inefficient with poor crops and soil. There was an excessive concentration on arable farming resulting in a shortage of animals, a lack of manure, shallow ploughing, inadequate fertilisers and soil exhaustion.

▪ Starvation, disease and malnutrition were common and vagrants in bands wandered and often terrorised the countryside.

▪ Debt was common. Wealthy peasants and middle class investors were ready to make loans to peasants, which, if not repaid, could result in them losing their land. Land was acquired for social status rather than profit or development.

▪ There were great variations in the status of peasants from province to province. There were different classes of peasants.

▪ The fermier owned or rented enough land to live comfortably, the metayer was a share-cropper whilst the journalier was a landless labourer.

▪ The general outcome was more landless debtors, more beggars and destitute drifting through the nations’ inadequate and overcrowded poorhouses.

▪ At the beginning of the reign, there was widespread hunger and a general influx of the poor into the towns.

▪ The burden on the poor was increased by taxation with demands coming from landlords, the priest and government tax collectors. The gabelle (salt tax) is an example of the tax burden on the peasants.

Towns and cities

▪ Most towns and cities were merely provincial capitals, the seats of bishops and dominated by local nobility. Paris (400,000) and Lyon (100,000) were the 2 main cities. Marseilles, Bordeaux and St. Malo were major seaports.

▪ France was NOT a trading or manufacturing nation. There was prejudice against participating in trade – an important negative factor.

▪ Only 10% of the population were not employed on the land and most of these produced cheap clothing and equipment for peasants. Merchants often used any money acquired to buy land.

▪ The nobility did not participate in trade – they regarded it as demeaning. Their main involvement was in the country, the church and the army. As recognition of their state service, the nobility were exempt from the taille.

▪ The main economic problems facing France were a national deficit, moribund trade and an inability to feed the population.

▪ The main sources of revenue were taxes raised on the peasants. Other sources of revenue were the sale of offices – 45,000 offices were created to be sold. The Crown borrowed at high interest rates and built up large debts.

The Estates

▪ France was a society divided along class lines with everyone having a God-ordained place – Louis was obsessed with order and rank. The ‘Estates’ were ordained by God and therefore permanent.

▪ The 3 ‘Estates’ were the clergy who prayed and preached, the nobility who defended the realm on the battlefield and the 3rd estate which included everyone else – lawyers, traders, farmers, peasants.

1st Estate: the Clergy

▪ There was a universal belief in God and the devil – fear and persecution of witches was common. The clergy were conformist and socially conservative, often with aristocratic leadership, e.g. Bishop Bossuet.

▪ The 1st Estate buttressed the status quo and relieved the state of its obligation to look after the poor which was undertaken, however imperfectly, by church charity.

▪ The clergy were exempt from tax but the Church made the Don Gratuit, a payment to the King after tough negotiations. Church teaching was repressive but there was some criticism of the King, e.g. over the wealth of Versailles.

▪ The clergy did enjoy jurisdiction over their own affairs. They were mainly bourgeoisie but Church leadership was aristocratic.

The 2nd Estate: the Nobility

▪ At the beginning of the seventeenth century, most of the nobility stayed away from Court.

▪ They were most powerful in the provinces where they retained many of their medieval rights – these included power in feudal courts and hunting rights over peasant land.

▪ The Nobles of the Sword (noblesse d’epee) were the old aristocracy – the backbone of Europe. They were the Princes of the Blood, the descendants of French Kings.

▪ The Nobles of the Robe (noblesse de robe) were the new aristocracy whose titles had been acquired by office or purchase. These two noble groups numbered 100,000.

▪ The nobility also enjoyed the right of peage – tolls on goods passing through their estates and the corvee entitling them to claim the labour of peasants on their domain for a few days each year.

▪ BUT as the century advanced, the state encroached more and more on the powers of the nobility. As their powers were reduced, their financial distress increased.

▪ Louis deliberately encouraged the nobility to come to Court but only a minority were more than occasional visitors. Life at Court was very costly with opulent clothes, expensive lodgings, spectacular entertainment and costly gambling.

▪ The paradox was that as their poverty increased, they needed to attend Court hoping to be given a royal appointment or to make a marriage to ease their financial problems.

▪ The nobility came to Court because they needed favours from the King.

▪ An impoverished nobility, which was dependent on the patronage of the King, was precisely what Louis wanted.

▪ Did Louis emasculate the nobility using Versailles? He certainly appointed middle class ministers and brought the nobility to Versailles.

▪ Versailles was completed in 1682 BUT only 4,000 members of the nobility out of 100,000 could be accommodated there.

▪ Louis was surrounded by the nobility at Versailles. They discharged important functions around the court but also other roles.

▪ They were provincial governors, led armies into battle and served as ambassadors to foreign countries.

▪ Louis wanted to maintain his relationship with the nobility and his status. His attitude towards the nobility of the robe was based on the view that he needed their service and their money.

▪ In return, because they were not members of established families, they relied heavily on him.

▪ Generally, the nobility dominated the social scene but the nobility of the sword monopolised the best jobs in the Church.

The 3rd Estate

▪ Versailles, the ‘city of the rich’ was built by the poor. Even after the court arrived there in 1682, 22,000 workmen were employed there.

▪ The 3rd estate paid for Versailles – not the clergy and the nobles. Between 1661 and 1751, Versailles cost around 68 million livres.

▪ Rich bourgeois fortunes were made in industry and commerce, e.g. the great trading centres of Marseilles and Lyon.

▪ The bourgeoisie grew steadily in the seventeenth century becoming more prosperous and demanding more influence.

▪ Between 1600 and 1650, 50,000 new offices were created for the bourgeoisie – the sale of new offices increased government income.

▪ The bourgeoisie were particularly strong in towns and cities where to enjoy the rights of citizens there was a qualifying period of residence of at least five years. They were exempt from the taille.

▪ In seventeenth century France, the town was an organised, hierarchical and status – conscious community. It had high officers of justice and administration, financiers and members of the parlement.

▪ It had a middle class of merchants and shopkeepers divided into trade corps. In Paris, there were six corps – drapers, grocers, haberdashers, furriers, hosiers and goldsmiths.

▪ The bulk of any town population were artisans, including cobblers, masons, smiths, innkeepers and millers.

▪ The Corps de Ville presided over the affairs of the town – there was always a mayor, aldermen and councillors.

▪ For the poor, town life was hard as pay was low and rules relating to employment and housing were strictly enforced.

Louis XIV and the patronage of art, culture and science: the Academie Francaise; the Academy of Sciences; the role of Colbert.

▪ Under Louis and his ministers, there was the deliberate execution of a cultural campaign centred on Versailles which became the showpiece of French artistic and cultural talent.

▪ Artists, architects, musicians and writers were recruited to glorify France and Louis XIV. This is the message which Versailles conveys – the link between Louis XIV, French politics and the arts.

▪ ‘I confide to you what is the most precious thing in the world which is my glory’ (Louis XIV).

▪ Colbert became effectively The Minister of Fine Arts and drove The French Academy into producing a French dictionary.

▪ As Superintendant of Buildings, he intervened directly with regard to the Arts. The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles was an advertisement for French glass whilst the tapestries were made at the Royal Gobbelin works and subsidised by the government.

▪ Colbert regimented French artists, sculptors and architects by requiring them all to join the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (1663) with Le Brun as director.

▪ Colbert was advised by an inner cabinet of aesthetes and intellectuals such as Charles Perrault, the author of Little Red Riding Hood who became Patronage Secretary and Charles Le Brun who became artistic director at Versailles.

▪ For Colbert, Paris was the ideal location for magnifying the King’s glory. He directed the rebuilding of the Louvre, the royal palace in the centre of Paris, for which he recruited the Italian architect, Bernini.

▪ BUT Louis not only vetoed Bernini’s plans but also the proposals of Colbert for further expenditure on the Louvre.

▪ Bernini left a magnificent bust of Louis as the only memento of his visit to Paris. Louis had a personal dislike of Paris dating from his experiences of the Frondes.

▪ BUT beginning of 1662, there was a coherent plan for urban renewal with projects to lift Paris out of its medieval past.

▪ Louis remained ‘a sincere Parisian’ at least until 1680 when he made Versailles his headquarters. Major Parisian projects were completed including Place Louis-le-Grand and les Invalides.

▪ The death of Colbert in 1683 marked a watershed in the campaign to ‘market’ or ‘fabricate’ Louis’ image.

▪ He was succeeded by Louvois who adopted a more aggressive style, e.g. 20 enormous equestrian statues were erected in major cities on the instructions of Louvois, including one in Paris, ‘To the Immortal Man’.

▪ Collections of commemorative medals were mass-produced and circulated. Louvois supervised the never ending building of Versailles – the centre of the cult of the ‘Sun King’.

The Academie Francaise

▪ The Academie Francaise was established by Richelieu in 1635. It was a council of 40 writers and artists entrusted to protect the French language from ‘Anglo-Saxon’ attacks.

▪ Its role was to ‘fix’ the French language, giving it rules and rendering it pure and comprehensible to all.

▪ Membership is for life and new members are only elected on the death of an ‘immortal’. Famous ‘immortals’ or ‘luminaries’ have included Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president.

The French Academy of Sciences

▪ The French Academy of Sciences was established in 1666 under the patronage of Louis XIV to advise the French government on scientific matters.

▪ It was set up by Colbert to formalise earlier private meetings on scientific topics. Under royal patronage, it met in the Royal Library and included foreign members.

▪ The Dutchman, Huygens, who developed the telescope and pendulum clock, was recruited to membership by Colbert and received a large pension.

▪ The final constitution of 1669 identified 6 areas of scientific interest – Mathematics, Mechanics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Botany and Anatomy.

▪ A hierarchy of membership was established with senior members known as pensioners. The Academy established a system of prizes in 1721 and organised an expedition of discovery to Lapland in 1736.

The Chalais conspiracy, duelling, Day of Dupes, Bourbon and Cinq Mars plots, Fronde; peasant rebellions, e.g. the Va-Nu-Pieds (1639), Croquants (1643), peasant hardships and tax revolts in the 1690s.

▪ The Chalais conspiracy of 1626 can be traced to 2 immediate causes – the edict from the Cardinal destroying private fortresses and the projected marriage of Gaston d’ Orleans and Marie de Montpensier.

▪ Gaston d’ Orleans was the younger brother of the King and his marriage to Marie de Bourbon, Duchesse De Montpensier was planned for him. He did not want this marriage and had other candidates in mind.

▪ The Marquis De Chalais joined the conspiracy and revealed a plot to kill Richelieu. Chalais was executed, Vendome was sent to the Bastille and Madame De Chevreuse was exiled for her part in the conspiracy.

Edict banning duelling

▪ Louis XIII issued an edict banning duelling in 1614 on achieving his majority. 7-8,000 people had been killed during the reign of Henry IV. The ban was largely ineffective until Richelieu took advantage of it in 1627.

▪ Montmorency-Bouteville fought a duel with the Marquise de Beuvron in May 1627 and was arrested fleeing the country. Louis ordered him to the Bastille to stand trial. He was executed on Richelieu’s orders.

▪ The execution was evidence of Richelieu’s determination to use whatever means were necessary to extend the power of the monarchy.

The Day of Dupes

▪ The first real plot against Richelieu was arguably the most important: the Day of Dupes in 1630.

▪ From 1624 to 1630, France was ruled by a triumvirate made up of the King, his mother Marie de Medici and Cardinal Richelieu.

▪ By the late 1620s, opinion over the relative merits of embarking upon a war was so divided that the King was forced to intervene.

▪ Marie de Medici, Marillac and Cardinal Berulle felt that Richelieu’s policy was wrong and that the French government should concentrate more on internal affairs rather than on an expensive military campaign.

▪ On 11 November 1630, Marie de Médicis and the King's brother, Gasto, duc d’Orleans, secured the King's agreement for the dismissal.

▪ Richelieu, however, was aware of the plan, and quickly convinced the King to repent. Louis exiledhis mother, although she was eventually allowed to return to court. Richelieu had prevailed.

▪ All remaining plots were largely provoked by the nobility. It is not surprising that noble opposition was directed towards Richelieu, given that he had promised Louis XIII in his ‘Testament Politique’ that he would employ all the industry and authority which the King gave him ‘to abase the pride of the nobles’.

▪ Although he believed that the nobility had an important contribution to make in the development of the French nation, he clearly asserted that they should abstain from all political intrigues and be loyal to the Crown.

Bourbon

▪ A major plot against Richelieu came from Gaston d’Orleans and Henri, Duc de Montmorency, a governor of Languedoc, a Prince of the Blood and brother-in-law to the Prince of Conde.

▪ Montmorency was provoked into opposing Richelieu when the latter tried to introduce elus (elected representatives of the Crown) into the province of Languedoc.

▪ He was persuaded by Gaston to challenge Richelieu and consequently arrested the King’s commissioners in the province – effectively an act of civil war.

▪ This dissent was met by royal troops which destroyed the force raised by Montmorency and Gaston – the plot was easily dealt with.

▪ Despite many intercessions on his behalf, Montmorency was executed in 1632. Gaston was eventually reconciled, thereby illustrating the mixture of severity and clemency that characterised Richelieu’s treatment of the nobility.

▪ The Cinq-Mars plot provided the next major threat. Cinq-Mars had political ambitions which came to the fore after the King had become infatuated with him and appointed him Grand Ecuyer de France.

▪ Cinq-Mars plotted against Richelieu by playing on the King’s disenchantment with the consequences of French involvement in the Thirty Years War.

▪ It was widely believed that Richelieu would never make peace since war made him indispensable to the King.

▪ Yet the plotters not only sent an emissary to Spain with a draft treaty but also offered to assist a Spanish invasion of France in return for military and financial help. The plot was soon uncovered and Cinq-Mars was tried and eventually beheaded.

▪ The Cinq-Mars incident (1641) was indicative of how powerful Richelieu had become, especially regarding the trust with which he was held by the King.

The Frondes

▪ Between 1648 and 1653, France was torn apart by a series of revolts known as the Frondes (from the French word for sling – the catapult wielded by Parisian archers).

▪ These two civil wars had a profound effect on the political thinking of Louis XIV. In 1651, a mob actually invaded his bedroom and on another occasion, he had to flee his own capital.

▪ At the heart of the Frondes was the issue of whether the central government in the form of Mazarin, had the right to introduce laws without any reference to the great noble families of France or to the Parlement of Paris, the chief law-court of the land.

▪ After the Paris Parlement defied the unpopular chief minister Mazarin, the nobles joined in. They were led by members of the royal family including Gaston, the king’s uncle, the personification of selfish irresponsibility.

▪ Mazarin fled the country, the queen desperately manoeuvred between warring factions and Louis was moved from one refuge to another – on one occasion when he pretended to be asleep.

▪ Eventually, the Frondes collapsed as the leaders demonstrated their own inability to cooperate with each other. Mazarin returned from exile and royal authority was restored.

▪ They made Louis realise the importance of increasing his own absolutism by attempting to increase the centralisation of his government.

▪ The Frondes also increased the mistrust which Louis felt towards the nobility. Their ability to take up arms against the monarch was a serious threat which Louis determined to counter by building up his own powerful army.

▪ They also made Louis determined never to trust the judges of the supreme court of the Parlement. He wanted religious and political conformity and social order in every aspect of French life.

Peasant Rebellions

▪ During the course of Richelieu’s ministry, there were a number of peasant rebellions, three of which were major uprisings: Quercy in 1626, the Croquants in 1636-1637 (south-west) and the Nu-Pieds rebellion in 1639 (Normandy).

▪ Although not primarily motivated by the intention of deposing Richelieu, these rebellions nonetheless represented direct challenges to his financial policies.

▪ The Croquants were primarily directed against tax officials and were organised into a well-disciplined army by a nobleman, La Mothe La Foret – their manifesto called for the abolition of new taxes, the removal of tax officials and the restoration of the provincial Estates.

▪ The Nu-Pieds rebellion was caused by similar grievances, principally due to the fact that Normandy was the most heavily taxed province in France.

▪ The historian Berce has argued that the decisive factor explaining the outbreak of rebellions in the south-west was the sudden centralisation of the royal fiscal system that bypassed local institutions and privileges.

▪ All these uprisings, such as the Croquants in Perigord and the Nu-Pieds in Normandy were put down with great severity as Richelieu promised in his Testament Politique.

▪ It illustrated that any revolt against state authority, however justified, would be ruthlessly suppressed.

Key Topic 4: France as an international power

France as an international power

▪ Louis XIII at first pursued a moderate foreign policy in Europe; his main concern was with expansion overseas.

▪ An expedition was sent to Morocco and French territories in North America were expanded.

▪ Policy changed under Richlieu; he was prepared to fight for French interests by whatever measures were needed.

▪ Richelieu wanted France to be the dominant power in Europe and give Louis the status Richelieu felt he deserved.

▪ Richelieu took little notice of religious considerations; he was prepared to ally with Protestant Sweden and act as a bulwark against Catholic Spain. He opposed Habsburg encirclement.

▪ In the war against Spain and Austria, he allied Catholic France with Protestant Holland in 1624.

▪ For him, politics were a separate entity from religion. What Richelieu wanted for France, he got regardless of such issues as religion.

▪ Richelieu’s plans for European domination were dependant on one thing – peace and stability at home.

▪ Once the Peace of Alais ended the Huguenot issue, Richelieu could concentrate on northern Italy. In 1629, France had conquered Savoy and one year later, France captured Pinerolo in Piedmont.

▪ Richelieu committed France to a long term campaign as the Spanish would not tolerate a French presence in northern Italy for long and the area had to be patrolled by French soldiers. Richelieu’s anti-Spanish policy led to his final clash with Marie de Medici.

▪ The campaign in north Italy shows how Richelieu’s realpolitik. The man who led the French to victory in 1635 was Rohan: the Huguenot leader who had led the rebellion against the government at La Rochelle.

▪ Richelieu’s preoccupation with northern Italy meant that any French involvement in Germany was kept to a diplomatic and financial level up to 1635.

▪ Richelieu must have also known that most armies fighting in central Europe were of a much higher quality than the Spanish armies in northern Italy.

▪ Richelieu knew that the French army was not yet ready for a campaign in central Europe.

▪ Most of the armies fighting in the Thirty Years War had had a number of years experience in modern fighting techniques. France did not.

▪ France also played a central part in the formulation of a coalition that included Denmark, Holland, England and Frederick of the Palatinate who allied against the Holy Roman Emperor. All were Protestant states.

▪ As the war progressed, Richelieu built up a large network of allies that was to include the Electors of Bavaria, Trier and Cologne, Murad IV (Sultan of Turkey), and on occasions Pope Urban VIII.

▪ The alliance was extremely hard for Richelieu to manage it. Simple distance and communication problems made his task all but impossible.

Louis XIV and foreign policy

▪ Louis was convinced that he was well qualified to conduct French foreign policy in person.

▪ Foreign policy was his preserve and he believed that God had equipped him with the qualities to succeed – innate common sense and self-control.

▪ Louis was also extremely hard working and well-informed and was supported by a worldwide diplomatic service and experienced advisers at home.

▪ What were his priorities? Louis is often credited with more wisdom and consistency than he possessed and with ambitions he never held.

▪ Was he really a far-sighted statesman aiming at the pacification of Europe in the general interest OR was he more selfish?

▪ French national security remained a priority. Louis’ policy was dictated by the diplomatic events of 1648. The Treaty of Munster, which concluded The Thirty Years War, had been the masterpiece of Mazarin.

▪ France had received the best concessions that could be wrung from the Hapsburgs (HRE and the King of Spain) who had been temporarily frustrated in their attempt to dominate Europe and humiliate France. BUT a number of issues had been left unresolved.

Borders

▪ The fate of Alsace had been left unclear. The Emperor had ceded the province to the King of France but clause 89 had excluded Strasbourg the capital.

▪ Similarly, French ownership of Metz, Toul and Verdun had been reluctantly conceded by the Hapsburgs but the fate of Lorraine was left undecided.

▪ A strong North-east frontier remained important since a weak frontier invited the enemies of the nation to invade. For this reason, Munster remained incomplete.

▪ In 1636, a Spanish army had invaded from the Low Countries and had only been stopped at Corbie on the outskirts of Paris.

▪ During the Fronde revolts, France had been invaded from the same direction by traitors with Spanish assistance.

▪ The frontier between France and the Spanish Netherlands bequeathed to Louis was unsatisfactory; it was untidy, illogical and hard to defend.

▪ In the distance was the Rhine but it was improbable that a king of France would be allowed to push his frontier so far to the North.

▪ There were no natural boundaries such as mountains or sizeable rivers and the existing frontier was not militarily viable.

▪ The idea of ‘la gloire’ included the maintenance of national security. If necessary, blood must be shed and treasure expended for this goal.

The Treaty of Westphalia

▪ The Thirty Years War was ended by the Peace of Westphalia referred to by contemporaries as the ‘Peace of Exhaustion’.

▪ The Peace of Westphalia was not one specific treaty but a collection of treaties linked by the fact that they brought the war to an end.

▪ France and Sweden had already agreed at the Treaty of Hamburg that there should be a European return to the position of 1618.

▪ The Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand, wanted 1627 to be the baseline on territorial negotiation. The German Electors favoured 1618.

▪ In September 1640, at Regensburg, the Electors rejected Prague as a basis for any settlement. In July 1641, Brandenburg and Sweden signed a truce.

▪ Many German princes used the Brandenburg example to show their displeasure with Ferdinand BUT he had already started negotiations with the French and Dutch at Munster and with the Swedes at Osnabruck.

▪ Peace negotiations continued at the same time as military campaigns. In 1642, a Swedish army defeated an Imperial army at Breitenfeld when Swedish and Imperial diplomats were considering peace terms.

▪ In 1645, the Imperial army was defeated at Nordlngen by the French and at Jankau by the Swedes. The Holy Roman Empire was in no position to continue.

▪ In 1645, Sweden and Saxony signed a peace agreement. In 1646, Ferdinand could no longer expect support from Saxony, Brandenburg or Spain.

▪ In 1647, Maximilian of Bavaria was forced by the Swedes and French to withdraw his support to Ferdinand.

▪ In 1648, Swedish and French forces devastated Bavaria leaving Maximilian to sign a truce with Sweden and France.

▪ The French persuaded Ferdinand to exclude Spain from the peace negotiations but the United Provinces and Spain did sign a peace settlement at Munster in 1648 thus bringing to an end to the Revolt of the Netherlands.

The terms

▪ France gained the bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun; Breisach and Phillipsburg; Alsace and part of Strasbourg.

▪ Sweden gained West Pomerania, Wismar, Stettin, Mecklenburg; the bishoprics of Verden and Bremen which gave her control over the Elbe and Weser estuaries.

▪ Brandenburg gained East Pomerania; the archbishopric of Magdeburg and Halberstadt. Bavaria kept the Upper Palatinate and the Electoral title that went with it.

▪ The Lower Palatinate was restored to Charles Louis, the son of Frederick and an 8th Elector’s title was made for him. Saxony kept Lusatia.

The Treaty of the Pyrenees

▪ The Peace of the Pyrenees, also called the Treaty of the Pyrenees, was signed on 7th November 1659.

▪ It was a treaty between Louis XIV of France and Philip 1V of Spain and ended the Franco-Spanish War (1648-1659). It marks the rise of French power in Europe.

▪ In the eleven years between and 1648 and 1659, Spain and France were in continuous warfare. The war was a major conflict between the Hapsburg powers of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire on one hand and Bourbon France and her allies on the other.

▪ Spain was also involved in hostilities with England. The Spanish Empire was going into decline and there was little help from the Holy Roman Emperor. The League of German Princes formed alliances against him with the support of France.

▪ With the formation of a 2nd League (Rheinbund), all hope of support for Spain from the Emperor disappeared. The Spanish defeat at the Battle of the Dunes in June 1658 accelerated the process of a settlement between France and Spain.

▪ The war brought devastation and misery to millions. Germany had been systematically ruined. France was physically untouched by the fighting but seriously weakened by the expense of war.

▪ At the beginning of Louis’ personal rule there was a power vacuum in much of Europe leading to impoverishment and weakness.

The terms of the Treaty

▪ Roussillon and Artois with a line of stronghold forts were ceded to France. The French acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine was fully ratified. All French conquests in Catalonia were restored to Spain.

▪ A marriage compact between Louis XIV and the Spanish Infanta, Maria Theresa of Austria was agreed.

▪ The marriage took place the following year but the dowry was never paid. It was followed by the Infanta renouncing all her rights to the Spanish crown and possessions – a renunciation which was completely ignored in 1667. Louis XIV was now firmly established on the French throne.

The aims of French foreign policy

▪ In many ways, the whole reign of Louis XIV was foreign policy led. Although assisted by distinguished secretaries of state such as Lionne, Arnauld de Pomponne and Colbert de Croissy, Louis regarded diplomacy and war as his specialism.

▪ Attitudes to foreign policy changed over such a long reign, BUT Louis remained convinced throughout that he was fully qualified to conduct foreign policy in person.

▪ He regarded it as an essentially royal preserve for which God had equipped him with the essential qualities for success.

▪ He boasted of his own innate common sense and self-control. In truth, he was hard-working and extremely well informed.

▪ He was supported by a world-wide diplomatic service and experienced advisers at home. He therefore felt justified in dominating French foreign policy.

▪ Many of his problems were caused by war. The year 1684 represented a watershed in foreign policy matters – what happened afterwards was much influenced by what came before 1684.

What were his aims?

▪ Did he have unlimited ambitions, including universal domination? Was he too willing to risk war or was he a far-sighted statesman aiming at the pacification of Europe?

▪ Was he indifferent to human suffering? Did his foreign policy reflect the best interests of France?

▪ The idea that he wished to establish a universal Catholic religion is widely considered a piece of Protestant propaganda. However, he could act selfishly in pursuit of his role as ‘Most Christian King’.

The pursuit of La Gloire

▪ The idea that as ‘Sun King’ he was excessively concerned with la gloire. He was certainly obsessed by the military powers of his father and grandfather and the victories they achieved.

▪ Sometimes, his ambition to make his mark on European politics and maintain family tradition degenerated into a wish to show off cheap triumphs – this was certainly true in the earlier part of his reign.

▪ BUT la Gloire meant more than the acquisition of a military reputation. It also meant professional integrity and loyalty to principles.

▪ The assassination of an opponent would never be used against his enemies because it would be against la gloire. La gloire was not just about Louis’ reputation but his ‘raison d’etre’ as King.

▪ The Spanish Succession was a good example of the pursuit of la gloire. Louis had married Maria Theresa the daughter of Philip 1V of Spain in June 1660.

▪ Charles II who succeeded him and was not expected to live long, survived until November 1700.

▪ The issue of the Spanish Succession thus persisted much longer than expected when Louis invaded the Spanish Netherlands in 1667.

▪ For Louis, dynastic factors and family concerns were very important and he wished to hand on to his successor a secure French state.

▪ He saw his own family and dynastic interests as being synonymous with those of France and family concerns were often built into treaties.

▪ BUT Europe was changing and the demands and interests of the French state were not always the same as those of the Bourbon dynasty.

National Security issues

▪ In 1648, The Treaty of Munster concluded The Thirty Years War but the fate of Alsace was left unresolved, not least that of Strasbourg.

▪ Although French ownership of Metz, Toul and Verdun was conceded to the Hapsburgs, many issues were left undecided e.g. the protection of the NE border.

▪ The weakness and vulnerability of the NE border was illustrated as early as 1638. The Spanish army invaded from the Low Countries but was only stopped at Corbie in the suburbs of Paris.

▪ During the Fronde revolts, traitors had invaded from the Low Countries with Spanish assistance. The frontier between France and the Spanish Netherlands was hard to defend.

▪ The priority was to defend the NE border but defending as far north as the Rhine was not possible.

The context of Louis’ foreign policy

▪ Europe in 1661 was unstable and exhausted. The Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) between France and Spain brought to an end almost half a century of dynastic warfare in which most European countries were involved.

▪ Frequent wars between the Hapsburg powers Spain and the Holy Roman Empire against Bourbon France and her allies brought devastation to Europe.

▪ The breakup of imperial Germany meant that France was now bordered by small states incapable of defending themselves against French power. At the same time, Spain was in decline. France was untouched by the fighting but weakened by the expense of war.

▪ Throughout Europe, the seventeenth century was a period of economic recession with falling prices and declining population made worse by war.

▪ In 1661, there was a power vacuum in Europe which France was better placed than other countries to fill.

▪ Louis XIV was young, clever and dynamic. The diplomacy of Richelieu and Mazarin had won for France a position of great strength. Louis felt confident that he could build on this and take on the rest of Europe.

▪ In 1661, he humiliated Spain by forcing her to give precedence to the French ambassador. Having purchased Dunkirk from England in 1662, he proceeded to make her a client state. He bought off various German princes and supported Portugal in her war with Spain.

The extent of French military resources

▪ As the reign began, the Army was being re-organised and re-equipped. The Navy had virtually disintegrated and the Diplomatic Corps was demoralised by the death of Mazarin. The Treasury was in serious debt.

▪ Colbert transformed the royal finances. Le Tellier and his son Louvois reformed the army.

▪ A War Department, responsible to the Secretary of State, supervised military regulations, salaries and pensions, intelligence, troop movements and reinforcements.

▪ An important innovation was the food supply centre for troop concentrations which eliminated the unpopular billeting of troops on civilians.

▪ The purchase of commissions was diminished in favour of selection by merit - one of Louis’ greatest soldiers, Vauban, was able to become Marshal of France without once being promoted.

▪ Martinet, the Inspector General of Infantry, introduced strong discipline including marching in step.

▪ The wearing of uniforms on the battlefield encouraged ‘esprit de corps’ among the soldiers as did the appearance of specialised engineers and separate artillery.

▪ Vauban displayed his mastery of the science of fortification and invented the modern bayonet – a soldier could fire his musket and stab his opponent simultaneously.

▪ Colbert established arsenals for the manufacture of cannon. In December 1665, Louis created 37 new cavalry regiments and took great personal interest in the army. He took command in the field and was supported by a group of able officers.

The Navy

▪ In 1662, Louis purchased Dunkirk from the English king for 5 million francs. In 1665, he made Colbert responsible for navy affairs.

▪ Under his stewardship, the navy grew from 9 ships of the line in 1660 to 112 by 1683. When vessels of all types are included, the total by that date was 220, 45 more than the Royal Navy.

▪ Naval arsenals were developed at Brest, Toulon and Rochefort giving the French a formidable presence in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

▪ French technicians developed a bomb-ketch, a sophisticated shell more advanced than any comparable projectile. French ships gave a good account of themselves against both the English and Dutch navies.

Diplomacy

▪ Louis himself took a firm hold on French diplomacy with a combination of threats and bribery. German princes, Kings of England, Hungary, Poland and Swedish noblemen were on the payroll.

▪ As a result, The Royal Navy had to salute the French flag and the Spanish ambassador had to give way to his French colleague in London.

▪ Even the Pope had to apologise after a fracas between his Corsican guards and those of the French ambassador.

▪ Working with Hugh de Lionne, his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Louis achieved some solid diplomatic successes. These included a commercial and defensive treaty with the United Provinces in 1662.

▪ In the same year, Charles 11 of England was persuaded to marry a Portuguese princess – Portugal was an ally of France. In 1664, French troops helped to save Vienna from the Turks.

Louvois

▪ Michel le Tellier the elder was born in Paris in 1603 into a family of lawyers and officers.

▪ Whilst serving for three years as intendant with the army in Piedmont, he witnessed the problem of indiscipline which crippled French war efforts. He served as Secretary of State for the Army between 1643 and 1677.

▪ His son Michel, later ennobled as Marquis de Louvois, was carefully trained to inherit his position, his first office being purchased at the age of 14 in 1665.

▪ Louvois was the aide and confidant of his father, so that from the outbreak of the War of Devolution, Louis had two war ministers.

▪ In 1672, his son was admitted to the conseil d’etat. In 1677, he became Secretary of State for War, an office he retained until his death in 1691.

▪ Building on the foundations laid by his father, he created the largest and best organised army in Europe.

▪ He was personally very ambitious, determined to direct policy and control the movements of armies.

▪ He fought and defeated Colbert and his son Seignelay in a quarrel which split the Council. He was part of a long running conflict with the great general, Turenne.

▪ Louvois may be seen as a great general but much less effective as a counsellor.

▪ In 1661, when the Colonel – General of the Infantry, the duc d’Eperon died, Louis himself assumed the post.

▪ All infantry officers held their commissions direct from the King with a document countersigned by the Secretary of War.

▪ In 1684, when the King created 27 new infantry regiments, not one of the new colonels had been a major or lieutenant-colonel – a record number of ‘rankers’ were promoted.

▪ The example set by the King made War and Service the fashion. Some soldiers were enthusiastic to fight further afield, e.g. in 1685 in Poland against the Turks.

▪ Reckless courage in battle became admired and war became the ‘raison d’etre’ of the aristocracy – a justification of their privilege.

▪ BUT the approach remained amateurish. Louvois persuaded some incompetents to sell their commissions and on a suggestion from the King, he created a reserve of officers.

▪ To make the army more respectable, soldiers were expected to sign on for 4 years, to be unmarried and physically fit. In return, they were regularly paid and fed.

▪ However, problems of recruitment increased throughout the reign and standards became difficult to maintain.

▪ Of the 7,000 soldiers under the command of Marshal Vivonne in 1677, 4,000 deserted. In 10 days in the following year, the crack Regiment de Champagne lost 65 men.

▪ In 1689, at the outset of 20 years of war, Vauban urged a defensive campaign on the grounds that the infantry was deteriorating in quality.

▪ In 1703, Louis was reduced to offering 5 years total tax exemption to any man willing to enlist for 3 years. Nevertheless, at this time, he had 200,000 men under arms.

▪ Louvois encouraged the inclusion of foreign troops in the French army. In the Dutch War (1672-79), the French forces included 20,000 Swiss and 10,000 Piedmontese, Genoese and Germans. At other times, there were Irish, Swedes and Hungarians.

▪ In 1688, he started a local militia. It was drawn by lots from every village, armed, equipped and drilled by each parish.

▪ By 1708, the parishes were allowed to send 100 livres in place of a man. Generally, the local militia made a positive contribution and they made heroic efforts at the battles of Malplaquet and Denain.

▪ Under the stewardship of Louvois, the army achieved a special status in the community.

▪ In the years after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he negotiated special payments for the troops – at the bottom of the scale a private received twice as much as a peasant.

▪ Surprisingly, he did not encourage the use of uniforms. Regular scales of payment attracted foreign recruits. After 1670, the accounts were audited by civil officials, the army intendants.

▪ There were no military decorations but rewards came in the form of tax exemptions. The King took a direct interest – there were allowances for those in billets and extra pay for those stationed in plague areas.

▪ In 1674, the foundation of the Hotel des Invalides for ex-soldiers was the first establishment of its sort. It created a certain ‘esprit de corps’ among the military community.

Tactics and Warfare

▪ Louvois was shocked to hear that many of the trained soldiers in the Huguenot expeditionary force of 1664 could not fire a musket.

▪ Infantry training had been neglected in favour of an emphasis on the cavalry. This was altered by an increase in the size of the army, better infantry weapons and a prevalence of siege warfare.

▪ In 1691, there were 98 infantry regiments of which 72 had regular names – the proportion of infantry to cavalry was 5:1.

▪ BUT the cavalry remained the smarter arm – it was more carefully trained and armed. Swords were replaced by sabres, carabineers were attached to squadrons and annual training camps were held.

▪ Cavalry tactics altered with the development of a lighter, swifter breed of horse which enabled a new charge momentum with heavy sabre thrusts.

▪ Most of the great battles were won by the fire power of the infantry fighting in line with musket, fusil, pike and latterly the bayonet.

▪ BUT in other ways Louvois was very traditional. The French army was still being re-armed with a musket after the introduction of the more serviceable fusil with its flint-lock mechanism.

▪ It had to be loaded with ball and powder, raised to the shoulder, aligned upon a wooden fork stuck into the ground and fired by a fuse which was itself lit by striking tinder.

▪ Until the end of the century, ⅓rd of each company was still armed with a pike to form a hedgehog of defence – a clumsy weapon but rendered obsolete by the baionnette a l’aiguille, needle shaped with no cutting edge which could be fitted to a musket by a socket without interrupting fire.

▪ In the early years, Artillery and Engineers hardly belonged to the army at all. Until the siege operations of the Dutch War, the artillery was a civilian affair provided by contractors paid for every gun they brought into battle.

▪ Louvois brought guns and gunners under straight royal control. Beginning with two companies of bombardiers, he rapidly increased their number until, by 1689, there were 24 companies in the now – royal corps.

▪ The growth of military engineering is inseparably linked with the name of Sebastian Vauban. He displayed great practical ability, starting at Dunkirk where he fortified the harbour.

▪ He was also prominent in the sieges of Maastricht (1673) and Philippsburg (1689). The art of fortification was added to the curriculum at Leyden University.

▪ However, his most important work was on the NE frontier. He was responsible for unbroken defensive lines from Lille to Briancon, from Mont-Louis to Bayonne and from Antibes to Dunkirk.

▪ He received great encouragement from Louvois, particularly in the defence of Strasbourg, the key to Germany.

▪ Louvois was a great victualler of armies – both supplies and transport. Exact ration scales were laid down for the armies and varied to meet operational needs.

▪ He recognised the need to keep armies properly supplied during campaigns – when Boufflers surrendered Lille in 1708 he was forced to do so by lack of food.

▪ Under Louvois, the introduction of the magazine led to well maintained clumps of forage and ammunition which enabled French armies to fight long campaigns far from base. It also meant that they could fight through the winter.

▪ Louvois planned to use the intendants to oversee the army in their role of representing the King in each province.

▪ Tensions grew between the army and the intendants which were added to by the King and Louvois attempting to interfere in actual military tactics.

▪ After the Dutch War, they both tended to stay at home. Colbert, an opponent of Louvois, opposed the cost of war but his death in 1683 left Louvois the dominant figure.

▪ The particular achievement of Louvois was the increased central direction of the army – his gradual insistence that the generals should accept more and more central direction from the King.

▪ When Louvois died in 1691, Louis effectively became his own War Minister.

War with Spain

▪ Behind many of the foreign policy initiatives launched by Louis XIV was the problem of the Spanish Succession.

▪ Spain had been in decline throughout the seventeenth century but possessed extensive lands in Europe, including Milan, Naples and Sicily as well as Franche-Comte and the Spanish Netherlands on France’s eastern and north-eastern frontiers.

The War of Devolution

▪ In 1665, following the death of Philip 1V of Spain, Charles II succeeded as King of Spain and heir to the Spanish Empire in Europe and overseas.

▪ The Hapsburgs in Spain were allies of the German branch of the family headed by the Emperor.

▪ Louis felt that France was surrounded by Spanish/Hapsburg lands. Since the boy-king Charles 11 was not likely to live long and unlikely to produce an heir, Louis began to focus on the issue of the Spanish inheritance.

▪ Louis saw an opportunity to strengthen the NE border by extracting concessions from Madrid.

▪ Following the accession of Charles II, Louis decided to invade the Spanish Netherlands. His justification for doing so was dynastic.

▪ According to the Law of Succession in Brabant (part of the Spanish Netherlands), the daughter of a first marriage retained her rights even when a son was born to her father by a second marriage.

▪ Louis then applied this to the case of his wife, Maria Theresa who was the eldest half sister of the new Spanish King, the child of Philip 1V’s 1st wife.

▪ BUT the Law of Devolution only applied to private property and the Spanish Queen Regent rejected his claim.

▪ In 1667, with the Dutch occupied with war against England, Louis XIV invaded the Netherlands without declaring war.

▪ He simply announced that he was taking possession of his wife’s inheritance. He justified the invasion on the grounds that he was preventing injustice and preserving the patrimony of his son.

▪ He was also using the invasion as an opportunity to demonstrate the excellence of his developing army which was already evident following military parades in 1666 and a review at Amiens in 1667.

▪ Turenne marched into The Spanish Netherlands with 50,000 men. Vauban conducted the sieges.

▪ The Spanish Governor, with only 20,000 men, offered little resistance. Charleroi, Tournai, Douai, Courtrai and Oudenarde were quickly occupied – only Lille resisted.

▪ The Dutch were so concerned by this invasion that, in 1668, they negotiated The Anglo-Dutch Treaty which Sweden later joined to make The Triple Alliance.

▪ In the winter of 1667-8, the French under Conde invaded the Spanish province of Franche Comte and occupied it within a fortnight – by mid-February.

▪ Under The Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle (May 1688), Louis surrendered Franche Comte to Spain but retained his conquests in the Netherlands, Lille, Charleroi, Douai, Oudenarde, Armentieres and Courtrai.

▪ Vauban was already employed on their fortification and France now had a defensible frontier – the French were now able to protect Paris.

▪ Whilst the war brought inevitable suffering to those involved, it cost relatively few lives. It was a classic example of the techniques of lightning warfare being developed by the French army.

▪ Assisted by Lionne, Louis succeeded in persuading the Emperor to agree to the partition of the Spanish Empire if Charles II was to die without heirs. The Emperor therefore appeared to accept that the Bourbons had a justifiable claim to the Spanish throne.

France and the United Provinces

▪ Louis had a natural hatred of the Dutch. He disliked their republicanism, their Calvinism and their trading ethos, all of which contrasted with his own belief in Divine Right monarchy.

▪ He was also jealous of Dutch commercial expansion. Supported by Colbert, Louis placed a heavy tariff on Dutch trade. He wanted to extinguish the Dutch republic and take over its wealth.

▪ Louis also felt considerable personal anger towards the Dutch. Oblivious of French support in the past, the Dutch signed a treaty with England in 1688 which Sweden later joined to make the Triple Alliance.

▪ French efforts to strengthen the NE frontier were likely to provoke a strong reaction from the Dutch who were fearful of the French dominating the Spanish Netherlands.

Relations between Louis XIV and Charles II of England

▪ Lionne bribed the Swedes to leave the Triple Alliance. In May 1670, under the secret Treaty of Dover and in return for French cash, Charles II promised to declare himself a Catholic and help France against the Dutch.

▪ An annual subsidy ensured Swedish neutrality. By 1671, the neutrality of the Emperor had been obtained and only Brandenburg remained a Dutch ally.

▪ The Dutch were now very vulnerable to attack and a commercial war instigated by Colbert had already begun.

The Franco – Dutch War

▪ On entering the Dutch War on 6th April 1672, France was in a very strong position.

▪ The army under Louvois and Turenne was very strong and her infantry the best in Europe. Turenne and Conde were excellent commanders and Vauban displayed great expertise in siege warfare.

▪ The navy also acquitted itself creditably, despite a defeat in 1672 at the battle of Sole Bay when a joint Anglo-French fleet was heavily defeated by the Dutch under De Ruyter.

▪ They achieved revenge four years later when they defeated the Dutch at Agosta in the Mediterranean; De Ruyter died of his wounds.

▪ In May 1672, the French army of 100,000 advanced against the Dutch Republic defended by an army of 30,000.

▪ The French marched down the Meuse and Rhine and occupied Nijmegen. By mid-June, Louis’ soldiers had captured 40 Dutch towns and the Dutch abandoned their barrier fortresses.

▪ On 22 June, 1672, the Dutch leader De Witt sent envoys to discuss surrender terms. The Dutch offered to pay an indemnity to France and to concede all Dutch territory south of the River Maas.

▪ Acting on advice from Louvois, Louis spent time trying to destroy the Yssel forts. This gave the Dutch time to open the dykes and save Amsterdam. By the late summer of 1672, the French opportunity to crush the Dutch had passed.

▪ In the years 1673-74, The Holy Roman Empire and Spain entered the war in alliance with the Dutch.

▪ Although Vauban besieged and took Maastricht, the French were increasingly on the defensive. In 1674, England made peace with the Dutch and became potential allies against France.

▪ The brothers De Witt were lynched by an Amsterdam mob and replaced by William of Orange. The flooding of the dykes saved the Dutch from invasion.

▪ The Emperor built a coalition against France consisting of The Palatinate, Saxony, Brunswick and Brandenburg.

▪ The only remaining French ally was Sweden whose army was defeated at The Battle of Fehrbellin in June 1675.

▪ In 1674, Turenne marched to Belfort to repel the Allied army threatening to invade France. Unfortunately for Louis, Turenne died in 1675 and the health of Conde had broken down but military gains continued.

▪ In 1677, Vauban besieged and took Cambrai and Louis’ brother, The Duke of Orleans defeated William of Orange at the Battle of Cassel. In 1678, the French took Ghent and Ypres.

▪ At The Peace of Nijmegen (a series of treaties in the years 1678-79), France gained Franche Comte, Cambrai, Bouchain, Valenciennes, Aire, St. Omer, Ypres, Cassel, Charlemont and Dinan but lost Courtrai, Oudenarde, Charleroi, Ghent and Limburg. The acquisition of Freiburg strengthened the eastern border.

▪ The French had achieved a strong line of defence from Dunkirk to the River Meuse BUT Louis’ aim of destroying the Dutch had not been achieved.

▪ The Dutch survived and insisted that hostile tariffs introduced by Colbert in 1664 and 1667 should be suspended.

▪ In February 1679, two further treaties were signed at Nijmegen – between the emperor and Sweden and between the emperor and France.

▪ Despite his failure to destroy the Dutch, Louis was at the height of his power in the years 1678-79.

▪ His army was at the peak of its strength, the European alliance against him quickly dissolved and Spanish power was defunct. Paris bestowed on Louis the title ‘The Great’.

▪ ‘The advantages that my armies had just gained over the United Provinces having surpassed everyone’s expectations had at the same time excited the hatred and jealousy of my neighbours’. (Louis XIV)

France and the policy of Reunions: the drive to annex ‘lost’ territories to France such as Luxembourg, Casale and Strasbourg; the Treaty of Ratisbon

▪ After The Peace of Nijmegen, there was a power vacuum which Louis was anxious to exploit. Whilst his enemies were disbanding their armies, Louis maintained his at 140,000 men.

▪ In November 1679, Louis dismissed Pomponne, his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He was replaced by Colbert de Croissy, an experienced jurist, who knew the Treaty of Munster thoroughly.

▪ He also knew the French NE frontier very well, having been an intendant in Alsace and president of the parlement of Metz. He had also been ambassador to the Nymegen Peace Conference.

▪ In 1680, on the advice of Louvois, Louis put into operation a plan to extend his dominions known as The Reunions.

▪ Judicial Courts of Reunion were set up at 4 centres in eastern France, Tournai (Flanders), Besancon(Franche-Comte), Metz for the bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun and Breisach (Alsace-Lorraine).

▪ The rights of France and the Empire were not clearly defined. The purpose of the courts was to investigate French claims to the ownership of territory which in the Middle Ages had been ‘dependent’ on towns now occupied by France.

▪ Colbert de Croissy discovered various such ‘dependencies’ which were now submitted to the Chambres de Reunions.

▪ These courts invariably found for the King of France with judgements often supported by artillery. The bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun were declared entirely within French jurisdiction.

▪ The policy of ‘Reunions’ was doubly significant. The territory acquired was considerable. It included Montbeliard, the county of Chiny and towns in the Saar and in Lower Alsace.

▪ The identity of the powers who suffered from the Reunions marked a new departure. NOW Louis was taking land from the German princes not just the Hapsburgs and the Dutch. These powers had always looked to Louis and Sweden for protection.

▪ Protestations against the Reunions went unheeded. Louis was unimpressed when Charles X1 of Sweden broke off diplomatic relations.

▪ When the Duke of Wurtemburg and the Elector of Trier appealed against Louis’ reunions, the French ambassador explained that his master was only enforcing the Treaties of Munster and Nymegen.

▪ Louis’ purposes were purely defensive. Vauban arrived to construct defensive fortifications.

▪ After Saarbruck was taken from the Elector of Mainz and declared French, Vauban proceeded to build the fortress at Saarlouis to defend it.

▪ Wildentz was taken from the Elector Palatine and Deux-Ports from the King of Sweden.

▪ Vauban aimed to establish the pre carre as the French north-eastern border came to be known – ‘square meadow’ or buffer zone. Louis XIV and Louvois were perpetually on the move, inspecting Vaubans’ fortifications.

▪ The ultimate objective of Louis’ foreign policy was Strasbourg. In 1679, the Emperor withdrew his troops from the city at Louis’ insistence.

▪ In 1680, French sovereignty was declared through Alsace with the exception of Strasbourg and Muhlhausen.

▪ In September 1681, Louis XIV and 30,000 troops seized Strasbourg. This was a free city of the Empire to which France had no claim whatsoever.

▪ Louis gratified Catholic opinion by insisting that Protestant worship in the cathedral should cease. A magnificent Te Deum greeted Louis’ triumphant entry into the city in a golden coach pulled by eight horses.

▪ At the same time, French forces occupied the vital fortress of Casale in northern Italy with more defensive work from Vauban. Luxembourg refused to surrender.

▪ French aggression continued at the expense of the Hapsburgs. The King’s tribunal at Metz had put forward claims which the King of Spain had refused to recognise.

▪ The governor of the Spanish Netherlands was therefore informed that a French army would be billeted in his provinces.

▪ Louvois supervised this operation, including the demand for a ransom of 3 million livres. Spain’s ally, Genoa was bombarded by a French fleet and burned to the ground.

▪ In October 1683, Carlos 11 declared war but there was little he could do to frustrate plans.

The Truce of Ratisbon – August 1684

▪ In 1683-84, there was uncertainty whether the Emperor would accept the Reunions. In 1684, the Dutch proposed a general truce of powers for 20 years – hence The Truce of Ratisbon.

▪ The Reunions were accepted as permanent while France was to retain Strasbourg and Luxembourg for twenty years.

▪ The construction of a magnificent fortress at Strasbourg encouraged the view that Louis expected to retain control for longer than twenty years.

The challenges of William of Orange: the Dutch-English alliance after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688

▪ By the time of the Truce of Ratisbon in August 1684, Louis XIV was at the peak of his power. Colbert and Turenne were dead; Conde had retired from his command in 1675.

▪ French military and naval power was the envy of Europe and Louis himself was admired both by his subjects and in many European countries.

▪ BUT many questions remained unanswered. The suppression of the Huguenots in 1685 increased the hostility of Protestant Europe towards France.

▪ What would happen when Truce of Ratisbon expired after twenty years? What would happen to the Spanish Empire on the death of Charles II – the Sufferer?

▪ William of Orange saw Louis as a clear threat but realised that any alliance would be weak to act against him if the Emperor was at the war with the Turks.

▪ He realised that such an alliance needed a stronger focal point. He saw himself as that focal point but realised that he needed to be stronger – hence his interest in the crown of England.

▪ In the summer of 1688, Louis deployed his army at Nymegen to keep the French guessing. Was he going to interfere with French plans on the Rhine or was he going to move against Louis’ ally, the king of England?

▪ On 8th October, the States General supported his invasion plans. On 11th November, he set sail. By the end of the year, he had landed and neutralised the English armed forces.

▪ He had run his father-in-law out of the country and arranged for himself and his wife to be crowned joint monarchs of England – the balance of power had been transformed.

▪ The marriage of William III to Mary not only united the 2 monarchies but created a Dutch-English alliance against France.

▪ Louis may be criticised for allowing William to invade and for the ‘Glorious Revolution’ which followed.

▪ Louis should have maintained his threats against the United Provinces to deter William from invading, particularly as James II proved incapable of defending himself.

▪ BUT criticism of Louis is unwarranted. His decision to mount a German offensive and leave William of Orange unoccupied is realistic for the odds were very much against William succeeding.

▪ William managed to evade the English army and shepherded his navy through the November storm. He landed in enemy-occupied territory.

▪ Louis was surprised when JamesII ran away - he had doubted that William would have invaded at all.

The ‘Grand Alliance’: the League of Augsburg and the anti-French alliance between Protestant states; the Empire and Spain

The formation of the League of Augsburg, 1686

▪ In the uncertainty of 1684, an anti-French alliance was born – The League of Augsburg. It was formed in 1686 as a secret League between the Emperor, the Dutch, Spain, Sweden, the Palatinate, Saxony, Bavaria and Savoy with the Pope, Innocent X1 giving his support.

▪ ‘The Germans must from now on be considered our real enemies’ (Louvois to Vauban). Louvois was proved right when, the emperor and several German princes combined with Sweden and Spain to form the League of Augsburg.

▪ The focal point of The League could be the Dutch and in particular, William of Orange, Stadholder of Holland and from 1688, William III of England. So far, Louis had failed to stop him.

▪ The ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688 damaged Louis’ position in Europe. He had failed to smash the League of Augsburg in 1686 and failed to prevent William of Orange from reaching England in 1688 – he had clearly under-estimated and misjudged him.

▪ Faced with the League of Augsburg, Louis could attack in one or two directions – either against the Emperor on the Rhine or against the Dutch in the Netherlands.

▪ Louis chose the first option. This was a mistake for attacking the Dutch might have prevented William from leaving for England.

The Nine Years War: outbreak, course and outcome; the war in Europe; the war in North America, the Caribbean and Asia; the Peace of Ryswick 1697.

Why did the Nine Years War begin in 1688?

▪ The enemies of France in Europe, notably the Holy Roman Empire, were in a much stronger position by 1688 than they had been earlier in Louis’ reign.

▪ The Hapsburg victory over the Turks at Mohacs in August 1687 meant that Emperor Leopold was more likely to deal with any perceived aggression from Louis.

▪ Louis had created a number of enemies in Europe with his foreign policy, especially his actions during the Reunions, such as the taking of Strasbourg.

▪ Louis’ persecution of the Huguenots had helped to swell the armies of his enemies and provided important technological information such as the bomb-ketch. This might have meant that his rivals felt more confident in opposing him.

▪ Louis acted provocatively in the immediate run-up to the outbreak of war in 1688. He attempted to force his German neighbours into making the Truce of Ratisbon permanent by issuing an ultimatum. This helped to bring his enemies closer together.

▪ Other provocations by Louis included his demands over the Archbishopric of Cologne and his quarrel with the Papacy.

▪ On the death of the Archbishopric of Cologne, Louis nominated his own ‘puppet’ as his successor, William of Furstenberg.

▪ The Emperor refused to accept the nomination so French troops occupied Cologne and the Palatinate, a member of the League.

▪ Louis intended this show of force to overawe the Emperor and force him to a speedy settlement but on the day that Louis’ troops occupied Philippsburg, the gateway to Germany, William of Orange set sail for England.

▪ Philippsburg threatened Lower Alsace, especially Strasbourg. It was taken on 29th October 1689 followed by Mannheim, Heidelberg and the Archbishopric of Trier.

▪ Louis’ move had failed and in 1689, he ordered the withdrawal from the Palatinate but not before the countryside had been ravaged – e.g. the city of Heidelberg was left in ruins.

▪ This policy of destruction was seriously mistaken. The image of Louis as the most civilised European figure became badly tarnished. His moral claim to be Holy Roman Emperor was destroyed and he aroused great hatred in Germany.

▪ The War of the League of Augsburg (The Nine Years War) opened a long period of Anglo-French rivalry and resulted in widespread death and destruction.

▪ France was involved in a maritime war against the Dutch and the English. Colbert had created French naval power. His work was continued by his son Seignelay as Minister of Marine but he died in 1690.

▪ Louvois died in 1691 and was succeeded by his incompetent son, Barbezieux. France’s most brilliant general, Luxemberg, died in 1695. Vendome (1654-1712) and Boufflers (1644-1711) were able generals but some like Villeroi (1641-1730) were not competent. None achieved the brilliance of Turenne.

▪ As part of their place in the 1st Grand Alliance, the Dutch declared war in November 1688 to be joined by Brandenburg, Spain, England and Bavaria. Savoy became a member of the alliance in June 1690.

▪ Against England, Louis was preoccupied with saving the situation for James 11 in Ireland after having given him a place to live in France.

▪ In 1690, 6,000 men under Count Lauzen were sent to Ireland and achieved a successful outcome at Bantry Bay.

▪ This was followed by the French admiral Tourville defeating the English admiral Torrington off Beachy Head in July 1690.

▪ BUT in the same month, James was defeated at The Battle of the Boyne and fled to France. The French defeat in May 1692 at The Battle of La Hogue destroyed hopes of achieving French naval supremacy.

▪ The idea of a French invasion of England was again mentioned in 1696 but the English Jacobites failed to rise. Attempted Jacobite risings in Scotland and Ireland were thwarted in their early stages.

▪ On the Rhine, the French campaigns were poorly directed, indecisive and of little importance.

▪ In the Netherlands, the war took the form of a series of sieges. Vauban had constructed for France a strong defensive frontier and beyond that the French advanced against the great fortresses defended by the Allies thus avoiding pitched battles.

▪ The French took Mons in 1690 and Namur in 1692. William led a dogged resistance against them. He prevented Louis from taking Liege but was defeated at Neerwinden. In 1695, he recaptured Namur.

▪ BUT in reality, following severe winters in 1693 and 1694, France lacked wheat. The peasants were ruined by taxation and Louis was struggling to finance further campaigns.

▪ In Italy, by 1692-93, the French had overrun most of Piedmont. In 1696, Louis split his enemies by making peace with Savoy.

▪ Victor Amadeus of Savoy deserted the allies and made an alliance with France thus releasing 30,000 French soldiers to fight in the Netherlands.

▪ Casale and Pinerolo were surrendered and the grandson of Louis, the duc de Burgundy, married a Savoyard princess.

▪ This coup shook the coalition whose members were as exhausted as France. A peace conference opened at Ryswick in May 1697.

▪ The North American theatre of The Nine Years War was named King William’s War. It was the first of 6 colonial wars fought between New France and New England before France ceded its remaining territories in North America east of the Mississippi in 1763.

▪ It was also known as The Second Indian War, Father Baudoins’ War, Castins’ War or the 1st Intercontinental War.

▪ Neither France nor England thought of weakening their position in Europe to support the war effort in North America.

▪ New France and the Wabanaki Confederacy were able to thwart New England expansion into Arcadia whose border was the Kennebec River in southern Maine.

▪ At Ryswick, the boundaries and outposts of New France, New England and New York remained mainly unchanged.

▪ In West Africa, Tourville won the Battle of Lagos in 1675 when 75 Dutch ships were destroyed. In 1694, Jean Bart drove off a stronger Dutch escorting force and captured 30 grain ships, the first of 2 naval victories at Texel.

▪ By the end of the war, France boasted 137 ships of the line. During the course of the war, the French claimed to have captured or destroyed 5,000 English and Dutch merchant ships.

The Treaty of Ryswick – September 1697

▪ Louis retained French Hainault but surrendered his other gains in Flanders acquired since 1678. He gave up Luxemburg, Cologne, the Palatinate and Lorraine.

▪ He was allowed to retain Landau and Lower Alsace, including Strasbourg. He returned Lorraine to its duke and Avignon to the Pope. He had to admit his failure to control Cologne.

▪ With the exception of Strasbourg, Louis lost all his acquisitions since the Peace of Nymegen as a result of the Reunions and other offensives.

▪ France also returned Barcelona to Spain and her Canadian conquests to England. Louis had to recognise William of Orange as ‘His Majesty William III, King of Great Britain’ and agreed to the Dutch fortifying the barrier fortresses of Ypres and Namur.

▪ The readiness of Louis to accept peace terms was due to his realisation that he could not achieve a decisive victory.

▪ He had also found out that the health of Charles 11 of Spain was precarious – he did not want hostile alliances against him on the issue of the Spanish Succession.

▪ The English and the Dutch were both weary of war and the Emperor was still at war with the Turks.

▪ Following the Treaty of Ryswick, the League of Augsburg fell to pieces. Most important of all, Louis was now free to concentrate on the issues surrounding the Spanish Succession.

▪ BUT William III had presided over the rise to power of Britain. Both the English and the Dutch realised the necessity of resisting France in the future.

The new balance of power: the position of France in relation to the European powers by 1697; the impact of years of war on France’s economic and military resources; the prospect of future wars

▪ In England, William III was very aware of the dangers of the Spanish question and the possible threat of the Spanish Succession to the European balance of power.

▪ As Stadholder of Holland, he wished to prevent the Spanish Netherlands from falling into French hands.

▪ As King of England, he wished to protect the Atlantic and Mediterranean trade routes and to prevent the union of French and Spanish naval power. He also wanted to prevent a general European war – both England and the Dutch were weary of fighting.

▪ In 1698, he sent The Earl of Portland to open negotiations with Louis who later sent Tallard to continue talks in London. The result was The First Partition Treaty of October 1698.

▪ Under this treaty, Joseph Ferdinand, the Electoral Prince of Bavaria was to inherit Spain, Sardinia, the Netherlands and the Indies.

▪ The French claim was to be satisfied by the Duke of Anjou receiving the Two Sicilies and the Tuscan ports. Hapsburg claims would be met by Archduke Charles receiving Milan.

▪ The treaty appeared to maintain the balance of power in Europe. It apparently safeguarded the interests of William but French power in the 2 Sicilies would give France control of the Mediterranean threatening British trade with the Levant.

▪ BUT William was too weak to take any action – the English army had been cut to 7,000 in 1698. The terms of the treaty were extremely unpopular in Spain.

▪ After the Peace of Karlowitz with the Turks (26th January 1699), Emperor Leopold was free to concentrate on Western Europe but was opposed to the idea of splitting the Spanish Empire.

▪ However, in 1699, the Electoral Prince died of smallpox and negotiations began again. They took 15 months and led to The Second Partition Treaty of May 1700.

▪ Under this treaty, it was agreed that Archduke Charles should inherit Spain, the Netherlands and the Indies. The Duke of Anjou would be compensated by receiving the 2 Sicilies, the Tuscan ports and the Milanese.

▪ The treaty represented an increase in French power. The Emperor refused to accept it and many in Spain were incensed by it.

▪ In October 1700, the dying Charles II was persuaded to make a final will leaving the whole inheritance to the French candidate, the Duke of Anjou, in the belief that only France would be strong enough to prevent the partition of the Spanish Empire. The thrones of France and Spain would never to be united.

▪ On 10th November 1700, a famous meeting of the Conseil d’en haut took place at Versailles – its purpose was to consider whether the King should uphold the Second Partition Treaty or accept the will of Charles 11.

▪ Around the time of the beginning of the Nine Years War, France was hit by a trade recession. Le Peletier demanded cuts in government expenditure.

▪ The result was that Louis had less money to spend on the army and fortifications. In the years 1680-84, he had 70 million livres to spend but between 1685-7, he could only afford less than 50 million livres.

▪ The morale of the troops was undermined by using them to build palaces whilst the French army could not be equipped with the flintlock musket and socket. New ships could not be afforded for the navy.

The issue of the Spanish Succession: the aims and policies of France; the international response to French claims; the outbreak of war

▪ By 1698, it was possible to identify 3 possible claimants to the Spanish throne on the death of Charles 11.

▪ Louis XIV claimed the throne for the Dauphin of France. He was the son of Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip 1V of Spain.

▪ She had renounced her claims on marriage on payment of her dowry but as her dowry had never been paid, Louis regarded the renunciation as invalid.

▪ The Emperor Leopold claimed the inheritance for his son the Archduke Charles, first through his mother, the sister of Philip 1V and also through his first wife, the younger daughter of Philip 1V.

▪ Neither of these ladies had ever renounced their claims. Spanish public opinion preferred the Hapsburg claim – it represented a return to the glorious days of Charles V.

▪ The third candidate was the son of the Elector of Bavaria. He was the great-grandson of Philip 1V of Spain, through his mother, the daughter of the Emperor Leopold I.

▪ Since his candidature did not affect the balance of power in Europe, there was much to favour in his claim.

▪ Within the Council, opinion was sharply divided. Pontchartrain, the Controller-General, expressed no opinion. Beauvilliers, the President, favoured the Partition Treaty.

▪ The Foreign Minister, Torcy, favoured the will. Under the influence of Torcy, Louis acted with great caution. BUT the death of Carlos was imminent and there was no heir.

▪ On 16th November, Louis introduced Philip of Anjou to the Court – ‘Gentlemen, here is the King of Spain’.

▪ In a letter to William, Louis promised that the thrones of France and Spain would never be united. He also suggested that by accepting the will rather than the treaty, France had become weaker but that he felt obliged to respect the last will of Charles 11.

▪ However, it is difficult to see how a French takeover of Spain could have been avoided if Philip of Anjou became King. The whole strategy was seen by many countries as an attempt by Louis to dominate Europe.

The War of the Spanish Succession

▪ The acceptance of the will did not make war inevitable. Many in England and among the Dutch disliked the Second Partition Treaty – some in both countries preferred the will.

▪ The Emperor was hostile but could do little without English and Dutch support. The responsibility for war rests with Louis himself – in the next few months, he acted in a foolish and aggressive manner.

▪ In December 1700, he publicly reserved the rights of Philip V of Spain to the French throne – in contradiction of the promise made in his letter to William.

▪ In 1701, he seized the Dutch Barrier Fortresses of Namur, Mons, Luxemburg and the others – in the name of his grandson.

▪ He justified these seizures by arguing that it was no longer necessary to protect the Spanish dominions against French attack. Louis was clearly convinced that war was inevitable.

The Grand Alliance

▪ In September 1701, William III and Marlborough concluded a Grand Alliance against Louis consisting of England, the Dutch and the Emperor.

▪ At this point, following the death of James 11 of England in exile, Louis recognised the Old Pretender as James III of England. English opinion was thus united against the French King.

▪ BUT the Allies were not united in their war aims. The Emperor wanted the whole Spanish inheritance for Charles of Hapsburg.

▪ The Dutch were only interested in France not having the Netherlands. The English were mainly interested in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic trade routes, the Indies and the removal of the French from the Barrier Fortresses.

▪ BUT it was agreed that Philip of Anjou should have Spain and the Indies. It was also accepted that the Emperor was to have Milan, Naples, Sicily, the Spanish Mediterranean islands, the Low Countries and Luxemburg. In this way, the various interests of the Allies were safeguarded.

▪ Following the recognition of Elector Frederick as King, Prussia joined the alliance. Charles X11 of Sweden promised neutrality and Denmark agreed to supply troops in return for subsidies.

▪ In February 1702, William III fell from his horse and died a fortnight later. The responsibility for conducting the war fell on Marlborough, the Commander-in-Chief. On 15th May 1702, The Grand Alliance declared war on France.

What were the strengths of each side?

▪ In 1701, the French were stronger than ever. Spain was now an ally and the Barrier Fortresses were in French hands. Portugal, Savoy, Cologne and Bavaria were French allies.

▪ By occupying Cologne, Louis could control the Rhine and his alliance with Bavaria was a great threat to the Emperor. Throughout the war, France largely controlled Spain.

▪ BUT the Dutch and the English controlled the sea. England had 200 ships and the Dutch agreed to provide 3 ships for every 5 which the English provided.

▪ The French fleet was half the strength of the Anglo-Dutch and was more of a threat in the Mediterranean than the Channel.

▪ The strategy adopted by Marlborough was to command the Mediterranean and Atlantic sea routes with the main military effort being in the Netherlands.

▪ Relations with the Dutch did become strained but they did manage to put 120,000 men into battle and maintain a first class fleet at sea. The effort put into the war by England was greater than ever before.

The War of the Spanish Succession: the war in Europe; the war in North America, the Caribbean and Asia

▪ The war began in Italy in 1701. At the height of the war, the French army numbered 400,000 men whilst the Allies could raise 250,000 men. The French army was equipped with the socket bayonet and the flintlock musket. It also had a unified command.

▪ The French alliance with Savoy gave them easy access to Milan which was quickly occupied. BUT brilliant work by the Austrian general, Prince Eugene of Savoy, kept the French on the defensive.

▪ In 1702, Prince Eugene succeeded in surprising the incompetent French general Villeroi at Cremona – he captured him and his entire staff. Following this victory, Victor Amadeus of Savoy deserted the French in 1703 and joined the Allies, as did Portugal.

▪ North of the Alps, there were two theatres of war. In the Netherlands, Marlborough was in command whilst on the Rhine, the Margrave of Baden, the leading general of the Empire, had built the strong defensive lines of Stollhofen between Fort Louis and the Black Forest.

▪ The French began the war in control of the Meuse, the Scheldt and much of the Rhine between Antwerp and Namur, Vauban had constructed the ‘Lines of Brabant’.

▪ Marlborough had to confine himself to manoeuvring the French out of their positions without fighting a pitched battle. In 1702, he dragged them out of the line of the Meuse and in October captured the great fortress of Liege.

▪ He was thus able to occupy the Archbishopric of Cologne and the Bishopric of Liege and control the navigation of the Rhine and the Meuse – essential in transporting armies and supplying their needs. Early in 1703, he extended his control as far as Bonn.

▪ In 1703, the French strategy was to hold Marlborough in the Netherlands with the main drive being against the Emperor.

▪ Tallard was to hold the Margrave of Baden behind his lines whilst Villars would push into Germany from Alsace to join up with the Elector of Bavaria. Vendome was to attack Austria through the Tyrol from Italy.

▪ During 1703, this strategy was largely achieved. The Emperor was occupied by a rising in Hungary and Marlborough was tied down in the North.

▪ With the Emperor likely to be overwhelmed by Franco-Bavarian power, 1704 became a decisive year. In May, the French joined up with the Bavarians.

▪ Vendome was instructed to launch an offensive in Italy with Villeroi remaining on the defensive in the North.

▪ Marlborough had to act. In May, he moved his army down the Rhine. In June at Philippsburg, he met up with Prince Eugene for the first time.

▪ In July, he seized Donauworth thus securing a bridgehead over the Rhine – for the next month his troops devastated Bavaria.

▪ The French general Tallard rushed to join up with The Elector of Bavaria making a combined army of about 60,000 men. Marlborough and Prince Eugene had about 56,000.

▪ The armies met at Blenheim on 13 August 1704. The brilliant attacks directed by Marlborough routed the enemy who fled and were relentlessly pursued by the Allied cavalry.

▪ Tallard was captured together with 11,000 French prisoners and as many casualties. The Allies suffered similar losses.

▪ Around 16,000 French soldiers struggled back into France – all that remained of three great armies. Marlborough had joined the ranks of leading generals.

▪ In The War of the Spanish Succession, Blenheim was a decisive turning point. If the battle had been lost, Louis XIV would have dominated Europe.

▪ The Elector of Bavaria would have supplanted the House of Hapsburg in the Imperial Crown with Munich as the capital instead of Vienna.

▪ It was difficult for Louis to accept the defeat of his army at Blenheim and the news that its commander had been taken prisoner. It was left to Madame de Maintenon to break the news – ‘ he was no longer invincible’ (Saint-Simon)

▪ Bavaria was overrun and devastated by the Allies. At the same time, Gibraltar was captured by the British. In the next few months, Archduke Charles invaded Catalonia and Valencia.

▪ In the winter of 1705-6, Louis XIV put out peace feelers – Spain for the Archduke and part of the Spanish Netherlands for France. His offer was rejected.

▪ His plan for 1705 was a combined attack down the Moselle to Metz as a first step on the road to Paris. Due to lack of Allied co-operation and shortage of manpower, the plan failed and Marlborough returned to the Netherlands.

▪ 1706 saw his most brilliant campaign. Louis XIV put 40,000 men under Villars to hold The Margrave of Baden on the Upper Rhine and 60,000 men under Villeroi to attack Marlborough in Brabant with 25,000 men in reserve.

▪ The Allies had to fight The Battle of Ramillies. Within four hours, the French army had been defeated and their baggage and artillery captured. The victory gave Marlborough the Netherlands - only 15,000 French soldiers remained.

▪ Villeroi had to abandon the whole of The Spanish Netherlands and fall back to Courtrai. Antwerp surrendered without a shot.

▪ In Italy, Vendome, on the brink of final victory, was called away to the northern command. Prince Eugene seized the opportunity to attack Vendome’s successor Marsin and forced him to raise the siege of Turin.

▪ The French eventually fell back towards France. Marsin was killed and Italy was abandoned to Prince Eugene.

The War in Spain

▪ Since the Allies had agreed that Philip of Anjou should have the Spanish throne, there seemed no reason for a Spanish campaign.

▪ However, English politicians were concerned for the safety of the Atlantic and Mediterranean trade routes and were becoming increasingly hostile to the idea of a French prince on the Spanish throne.

▪ They also realised that the loyalty of the King of Portugal to the Allies (1703) was on condition that the Archduke Charles should fight in Spain and that no peace should be made until Philip V surrendered Spain.

▪ Such considerations represented a serious enlargement of Allied war aims and committed them to war in Spain.

▪ Although the safety of the Mediterranean trade was of great importance, the real issue was whether the alliance with Portugal was worth military involvement.

▪ In 1704, Admiral Rooke seized Gibraltar. Louis ordered its recapture and a naval battle off Malaga ensued in August 1704. England retained Gibraltar.

▪ There was an allied army in Portugal under The Earl of Galway – a fine general. A second army joined him under The Earl of Peterborough.

▪ They decided to launch an attack on Barcelona in favour of Charles of Hapsburg. The city was captured and Charles (Charles III) became master of eastern Spain.

▪ In 1706, they decided on a 3 pronged attack on Madrid – Charles III from Barcelona, Galway from Portugal and Peterborough from Valencia.

▪ The French under Marshal Berwick fell back from the city and Charles was proclaimed King.

▪ BUT the Allies were heavily outnumbered and their supply lines stretched. By August, they were in retreat to the coast and Berwick had re-occupied Madrid.

▪ In 1707, Galway was heavily defeated by Berwick at the Battle of Almanza. The Spanish campaign quickly petered out but Charles III retained Barcelona.

▪ In August 1708, the British occupied Sardinia and General Stanhope seized Minorca. Britain gained a 1st class naval base at Port Mahon capable of covering both Barcelona and Toulon.

▪ Gibraltar and Minorca were the two Allied gains in this theatre of war – could they have been achieved without an expensive land operation?

▪ In 1708, the war became concentrated again in the Netherlands. The French captured Ghent and Bruges but were completely defeated at The Battle of Oudenarde on 11th July. Marlborough went on to capture Lille and invade France. French resources were strained to the limit.

▪ The winter of 1708-9 was one of the hardest on record. In Paris, 24,000 people died of cold. Alternating frosts and thaws destroyed crops and the resulting famine threatened public order.

▪ Louis sent his Foreign Minister Torcy to seek peace with the Dutch and the prospects for general European peace looked promising.

▪ He was instructed to agree to the withdrawal of Philip V from the Spanish throne and the surrender of Strasbourg and territory in Flanders.

▪ Queen Anne was to be recognised as the Protestant successor of William III and James III and his followers were to be expelled from France.

▪ BUT for the Whigs in England, there could be no peace as long as Philip V continued to be King of Spain – ‘no peace without Spain’.

▪ The Emperor was also mistaken in his view that Louis was completely defeated and that the Hapsburgs were about to obtain the whole inheritance.

▪ In 1709, the Conseil d’en haut met at Versailles to consider the Allied peace terms. Louis was prepared to accept them all except Article 37 which demanded that Philip V should be deposed – if necessary, with French help.

▪ The war had begun to prevent the French domination of Europe – it was now a war about the Allied domination of France and Spain.

▪ In a last desperate attempt to avoid defeat, Louis appealed to the patriotic instincts of the French people for a last stand. It took place in September 1709 at The Battle of Malplaquet.

▪ There was terrible slaughter – the Allies lost 24,000 men and the French about half that number. Marlborough took Mons.

▪ The winter of 1709-10 was difficult but in 1710, the Tories returned to power in England determined to make peace.

▪ In 1711, the Emperor Joseph died of smallpox. Charles III of Spain became Emperor Charles V1 but wanted to be King of Spain as well.

▪ In 1711, Marlborough smashed through the final lines of French defence but was dismissed from office in December of the same year.

▪ Secret peace negotiations had already begun between St. John and Louis XIV without reference to the Allies.

▪ The Emperor refused to accept the peace terms when he eventually received them and decided to fight on suffering heavy defeat in Alsace.

▪ The peace terms were finally worked out at a Congress in Utrecht and signed in 1713.

▪ The Emperor delayed the making of peace until 1714 when he accepted terms agreed to at Rastadt and Baden. In all, eleven separate treaties were signed.

North America

▪ Queen Anne’s War (1702-13) was the second of the French and Indian Wars and began on the 4th May, 1702. In Europe it was known as the War of the Spanish Succession.

▪ In North America, British and French colonial forces, with their Indian allies, raided and attempted to capture a number of border settlements.

▪ British military aid to the colonists was devoted to the defence of the area around Charleston and the exposed New York-New England frontier with Canada.

▪ New England colonists successfully attacked the French settlements of Minas and Beaubassin in Nova Scotia in July 1704, while the French destroyed Deerfield, Massachusetts, in February and took the English colony of Bonavista on Newfoundland in August.

▪ The most notable colonial success was the British capture of Port Royal, Nova Scotia, on 16th October 1710, following unsuccessful assaults in 1704 and 1707.

▪ French lands called Acadia became the British province of Nova Scotia. However, a British naval attack on Quebec in 1711 failed.

▪ In the South, Carolina forces captured the town of St. Augustine, Florida in September 1702. Another force wiped out all but one of the fourteen missions in north western Florida in 1704.

▪ Deerfield in western Massachusetts was attacked by a force of French and Indians, who massacred 50 men, women and children and carried off over 100 more after burning the town to the ground. Haverhill, also in Massachusetts, was attacked and razed by the French and Indians.

▪ The war was ended by the Treaty of Utrecht, which brought the War of Spanish Succession to a close in Europe.

▪ By the treaty, France ceded the Hudson Bay territory, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Great Britain. France also agreed to a British protectorate over the Iroquois Indians.

▪ France kept Cape Breton Island and the islands of the St. Lawrence.

The Treaty of Utrecht and its impact on the balance of power in Europe

▪ The main terms of the Treaty of Utrecht: The Spanish Empire was partitioned. Philip V retained Spain and the Indies – on condition that he gave up his claims to the French throne. The threat of a Franco – Spanish Empire under a single ruler was removed.

▪ Louis abandoned claims to Luxemburg, Philippsburg, Breisach, Freiburg and Kehl on the eastern frontier.

▪ The Emperor received the Netherlands, Milan, Naples, Mantua and Sardinia but the Dutch received the right to garrison the Barrier Fortresses against France – Ypres, Ghent, Tournai, Mons, Charleroi, Namur, Furnes and Menin.

▪ The River Scheldt was to remain closed to shipping so that Amsterdam would not be challenged by Antwerp.

▪ The Elector of Brandenburg was recognised as King of Prussia and received Spanish Gelderland.

▪ Savoy was strengthened by the clarification of her frontiers and by the acquisition of Sicily

▪ England received Gibraltar and Minorca and the colonial possessions of Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, Nova Scotia and St. Kitts and Spain granted the right of Asiento in her American Empire – Britain could supply 4.800 negro slaves each year.

▪ France retained Alsace, including Strasbourg and agreed to demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk. France also accepted the removal of James 11 and the rights of the Hanoverian Succession in England.

▪ How successful was the Treaty? In many ways, the Treaty may be regarded as very successful. It did not humiliate France.

▪ The French candidate retained the Spanish throne and France suffered no loss of territory. The Spanish Empire was broken up. It was extremely large for one country to govern – dividing it added to European stability.

▪ There were great territorial gains for the Hapsburgs. They were no longer a threat to the Dutch and the English but now provided a counter-balance to France in Western Europe.

▪ The Dutch secured their frontier but Holland was less of a great power. Brandenburg – Prussia became the rising power of Europe.

▪ Great Britain gained colonial and maritime benefits and the recognition of the Hanoverian Succession.

▪ The war made great demands on the financial and administrative system of France and left her with vast debts. The NE border still remained uncertain but France retained the nucleus of an overseas empire.

The legacy of Louis XIV by 1715: the last years of the reign; the problem of the succession; the annulment of the King’s will and the formation of the regency of Orleans

▪ In one respect, Louis’ last months were serene and happy. He had shown great endurance in his reign and was cheered by the wife he loved and the Church he had supported.

▪ BUT his last days could also be seen as sad and trying, an old age plagued by illness and suffering – rheumatism, indigestion and gout.

▪ A key element in the suffering was the dominance of his doctor, Guy-Crescent Fagon who had been imposed on him by Madame De Maintenon. Fagon proved to be an incompetent charlatan who subjected Louis to endless purgings and bleedings.

▪ In his final years, Louis suffered more than his share of personal and family tragedies. In February 1711, The Duke of Burgundy, eldest son of the Dauphin died – a few weeks after his wife, Mary Adelaide of Savoy and a few days before his own infant son. In April 1711, Louis’ son the Dauphin, died.

▪ The death of 3 Dauphins in the short period of 11 months could be attributed to Fagon who deflected the blame onto Orleans.

▪ The death of the wife of his grandson, the Duchesse of Burgundy, was a personal tragedy for Louis. She was a victim of a combination of measles and the cures of Fagon.

▪ Marie-Adelaide was a favourite of the King and his ageing wife. She was affectionate, vivacious and a little cheeky who brought brightness and laughter to the court.

▪ The bereavements of the young left Louis heartbroken. In May 1714, The Duke of Berri, youngest son of the Dauphin, died after a hunting accident.

▪ The state of the nation also gave cause for concern despite his isolation at Versailles. Vast debts of 2,000 million livres resulted from the war.

▪ Taxation remained high, agriculture and trade were in the doldrums and thousands were bereaved during the wars.

▪ Some of the blame for this was placed on Louis and he became the subject of satirical attacks from abroad together with widespread criticism.

▪ BUT despite the bankruptcy of the royal treasury, Versailles was still maintained in splendour and foreign embassies were received with no expense spared.

▪ Music and drama were still presented but the sparkle and vitality of former years had gone. With everyone expecting that Louis would soon leave the stage, life at court became increasingly gloomy and sombre.

▪ During the summer of 1715, it became increasingly clear that Louis was far from well. He suffered loss of appetite, found it difficult to sleep and his legs began to hurt. He began to suffer from gangrene and amputation was recommended.

▪ His death was gruesome and prolonged. It occurred in public with considerable suffering but Louis displayed courage and dignity. He was badgered throughout by De Maintenon to put the duc de Maine in charge of the education of Louis XV.

▪ On 1September 1715, Louis asked his courtiers to forgive him, blessed the boy who was to succeed him and slipped quietly away. There was great praise for Louis across France but within hours, Versailles was empty.

▪ What were the characteristics of Louis’ kingship? Louis was a king devoted to duty displaying self-control, courage and dignity BUT was he liked?

▪ He could be arrogant and insensitive but also thoughtful and kind, e.g. towards James 11 in exile. He was a generous and considerate employer who was not naturally vindictive or cruel.

▪ Louis was a civilised man – he defended Moliere and had nice manners. He displayed a basic tolerance and genuine good humour in his private relationships.

▪ He could be ruthless and arrogant with considerable religious bigotry but was not barbaric to heretics.

▪ In his old age, he did display the corrupting influence of power, success and adulation but also courage and serenity.

The record of Louis XIV as French King – some issues

▪ Of great significance is the manner in which domestic policy was dominated by foreign policy throughout the reign.

▪ The importance of Louis defending his reputation on the battlefield left domestic policy subordinated to this goal. Was it worth all the money spent?

▪ The territorial objectives of Louis’ foreign policy were not unreasonable and the height of his success occurred in the late 1680s. Louis was not an irresponsible warmonger and his objectives were often imposed on him by France’s enemies.

▪ BUT he caused the Dutch War for frivolous reasons. Was his foreign policy after the 1680s driven by ambition or as part of a long tradition of nationalism?

▪ After the publication of Carlos’ will in 1700, Louis displayed a poor tactical sense. He may generally be regarded as strategically and tactically 2nd rate, e.g. the alienation of the Papacy at the time of the election in the Archbishopric of Cologne.

▪ He was also driven by very strongly anti-Protestant feelings, e.g. support of the Old Pretender when James 11 died in 1701.

▪ Was he too pre-occupied with foreign policy at the expense of domestic reform? The military defeats at the end of his reign were a great personal blow.

▪ Louis enjoyed the trappings of monarchy and living the expensive and luxurious lifestyle which he shared with his family.

▪ On the positive side, there were no significant armed rebellions against him. He achieved intellectual and religious conformity although he failed to suppress the Huguenots.

▪ What was the situation on his death in 1715? The government was bankrupt and the national economy ravaged by war and high taxation.

▪ There was no attempt to emulate the Dutch and British in low-interest rates and long-term borrowing. French agriculture remained primitive and inefficient. There were still too many tolls, tariffs and dues.

▪ Very little administrative reform was achieved. Church courts, seigneurial courts, royal courts together with town and village courts remained.

▪ Taxation remained unjust, corrupt and wasteful. The rich were exempt from the capitation and the dixieme with heavy taxes levied on his subjects.

The Regency

▪ Louis XV was born at Versailles on 15th February 1710 during the reign of his great-grandfather, Louis XIV and was given the courtesy title, Duke of Anjou.

▪ A smallpox epidemic removed most of his immediate family, including his brother, the Dauphin who died on 8th March 1712.

▪ The Duke of Anjou survived and became first in the line of succession to Louis XIV.

▪ In August 1714, Louis had made a will stipulating that the nation was to be governed by a Regency Council made up of 14 members until the new King reached the age of majority.

▪ Philippe, Duke of Orleans and nephew of Louis XIV, was named as President of the Council but all decisions were to be made by a majority vote.

▪ The composition of the Council, which included Louis’ legitimised sons the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse and various members of Louis XIV’s administration meant that Orleans would often be outvoted.

▪ As regent, Orleans conducted affairs of state from his Palais Royal. The young Louis XIV was moved to the modern lodgings attached to the medieval fortress of Vincennes, 7 kilometres east of Paris. The air was deemed more wholesome than Paris. He later moved back to Paris, to the Tuileries.

Depth Studies

Richelieu’s relations with the French court and nobility

▪ The ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin have long been viewed as laying the foundations of royal absolutism in France.

▪ They both put an end to the destructive wars that had devastated France in the preceding century.

▪ In particular, they ended religious tensions by undermining the political and military power of the Huguenots though simultaneously allowing them freedom of worship.

▪ This formative period also saw the decline in the influence of the nobility which became a direct target of both ministries.

▪ By pursuing military campaigns abroad during the Thirty Years’ War, both ministers were able to unite the nobility in fighting for a ‘national’ cause.

▪ The pursuit of an active and aggressive foreign policy also culminated in a greater centralisation of royal authority, largely the indirect result of raising finances in the provinces – note the rising importance of the intendants.

▪ Despite the increasing centralisation of royal authority, this was nonetheless a period in which the growth of monarchical power continued to be resisted.

▪ Although a religious settlement was eventually agreed upon, civil wars were fought over the question of religion in the 1620s.

▪ The pursuit of an active foreign policy was not widely welcomed, especially by those who resented the French alliance with the Swedish Protestants.

▪ Furthermore, it is hardly surprising that the nobility resented royal interference with their status, especially in the provinces. This was a view shared by municipal authorities which were deeply committed to retaining their local privileges.

▪ This matter would pose a considerable threat to the authority of Mazarin with the Fronde in 1648 – the most significant example of social and political instability during this period.

▪ Despite this, royal authority remained unquestioned and any resistance in the period 1621-1661 never challenged the legitimacy of the Crown.

Richelieu – personal qualities

▪ Richelieu came from a noble household and therefore was in a stronger position to communicate and negotiate with the aristocracy, unlike some of his predecessors in the 1610s.

▪ Moreover, he was French which provided a certain advantage, given the hatred that had been vented towards his Italian predecessor, Concini.

▪ At an early stage, he changed his career from the army to the Church which would provide him with a route along which he would rise to political prominence.

▪ From being a bishop to a spokesman for the clergy in dealing with the Estates, he was soon afterwards appointed Secretary of State for War.

▪ From being appointed a Cardinal in 1622, two years later he was admitted to the Council of State – as a Cardinal, he sat closest to the King.

▪ These powerful ecclesiastical and political offices enabled him to establish a very powerful network of patronage, including a provincial power base in North Western France.

▪ He also received a considerable salary and managed to collect a number of governorships. As Grand Maitre et Surintendant General du Commerce he took a share of the proceeds from all shipwrecks and from the confiscation of ships and merchandise at sea.

▪ In short, Richelieu quickly learnt the political benefits of amassing a considerable personal fortune.

▪ Despite his clerical background, Richelieu was determined to use all possible methods to raise the status of France and of the monarch, including the use of military force – he became the principal advocate in favour of French intervention in the Thirty Years War.

Richelieu – views on government

▪ Richelieu was motivated by the dual and interconnected concerns of increasing both stability within France and monarchical power.

▪ His approach to how France should be governed rested on the premise that the King should have absolute power to which all political machinations should be directed.

▪ To that effect, he developed a notion and eventually the practice of ‘Ministerial Absolutism’, by which, a First Minister would be empowered to work in the interests of centralising and strengthening royal authority.

▪ Richelieu saw himself as an instrument for systemising the royal bureaucracy with the intention of decreasing the size of decision-making bodies and reducing the number of ministers.

▪ The transformation of France into a royal absolutist state would have to take place at the expense of all political and judicial institutions.

▪ As the chief law court in France and therefore a potential threat to the royal will, the power of the Paris Parlement was an important target of Richelieu’s government reforms.

▪ In the provinces, royal authority could only increase if all governors were loyal to the monarch and the centralising tendencies of Richelieu.

▪ This necessitated an increase in the presence and importance of royal officials in the provinces, as seen by the intendants.

▪ The nobility should be allowed to retain their privileged social position, even at court, although Richelieu aimed to isolate them increasingly from the King’s Council and the government.

▪ He aimed to raise the King’s reputation on a European scale – the monarchy worthy of a great nation had to intervene in European affairs for the sake of prestige.

▪ Continuous diplomatic activity, open or covert, and war, if necessary, was to play a central role in Richelieu’s views on government.

Richelieu’s aims in religion

▪ Being a Cardinal, Richelieu had an intimate knowledge of how the Church operated.

▪ He pursued a cautiously neutral line between Gallicanism (French strand of Catholicism) and Ultramontanism (more conservative, reactionary form of Catholicism), integral to which was an unswerving loyalty to the Pope.

▪ The compromising approach of Richelieu to the difficult problem of religion led him to follow the official policy of Henry IV, as prescribed in the Edict of Nantes of 1598 and reconfirmed some of its liberties in the Peace of Alais, following the final war of religion in 1629.

▪ This approach should not be seen as support for toleration. Richelieu detested heresy and was firmly committed to the Catholic faith.

▪ As a bishop, he was committed to the conversion of heretics. To this end, he wrote the work entitled ‘Principal points concerning the faith of the Catholic Church’, with the intention of curing not harming the Huguenots.

▪ However, he did not share the concerns of Marillac for removing the Huguenots from France for political reasons.

▪ As Knecht has pointed out, Richelieu drew ‘a clear distinction between religious non conformity and political sedition. He did not believe that the Huguenots should be forced to become Catholics, yet he was equally sure that they should not be allowed to disobey the Crown’.

▪ To that effect, the religious policy of Richelieu was very pragmatic – he was keenly aware of the considerable problems that could arise from religious disunity.

▪ His priority was to weaken the political status of the Huguenots – his ultimate goal was to unify the French nation under the banner of Catholicism but this could not be enforced until the time was right.

How far did Richelieu achieve his aims? The significance of plots against Richelieu; the Day of Dupes.

▪ The first plot against Richelieu was arguably the most important, namely the Day of Dupes in 1630.

▪ From 1624 to 1630, France was ruled by a triumvirate made up of the King, his mother Marie de Medici and Cardinal Richelieu.

▪ By the late 1620s, the divided opinion over the relative merits of embarking upon a war on the Italian peninsula was such that the King was forced to intervene.

▪ Marie de Medici, Marillac and Cardinal Berulle felt that Richelieu’s policy was wrong and that the French government should concentrate more on internal affairs, especially suppressing the Huguenots, rather than wage an expensive military campaign.

▪ Louis sided with Richelieu and went as far as banishing the Queen Mother although she was eventually allowed to return to court. Richelieu prevailed although Marie and her friends had anticipated victory.

Noble Threats

▪ All remaining plots were largely provoked by the nobility.

▪ It is not surprising that noble opposition was directed towards Richelieu, given that he had promised Louis XIII in his ‘Testament Politique’ that he would employ all the industry and authority which the King cared to give him ‘to abase the pride of the nobles’.

▪ Although he believed that the nobility had an important contribution to make in the development of the French nation, he clearly asserted that they should abstain from all political intrigues and be loyal to the Crown.

Gaston d’ Orleans & Henri, Duc de Montmorency

▪ The first major plot against Richelieu came from Gaston d’Orleans and Henri Duc de Montmorency, a governor of Languedoc, Prince of the blood and brother-in-law to the Prince of Conde.

▪ Montmorency was provoked into opposing Richelieu when the latter tried to introduce elus (elected representatives of the Crown) into the province of Languedoc.

▪ He was persuaded by Gaston to challenge Richelieu and consequently arrested the King’s commissioners in the province – effectively an act of civil war.

▪ This dissent was met by royal troops which destroyed the force raised by Montmorency and Gaston.

▪ The significance of this can be characterised by the ease with which this plot was defeated.

▪ Moreover, Montmorency was subsequently executed in 1632, despite many appeals on his behalf and Gaston was eventually reconciled. This illustrates the mixture of severity and clemency which characterised Richelieu’s treatment of the nobility.

▪ The Cinq-Mars Plot was the next major threat. Cinq-Mars had political ambitions which came to the fore after the King had become infatuated with him and appointed him Grand Ecuyer de France.

▪ Cinq-Mars plotted against Richelieu by playing on the King’s disenchantment with the consequences of French involvement in the 30 Years War.

▪ It was widely believed that Richelieu would never make peace since war made him indispensable to the King. Louis XIII gave steady support to Richelieu but did not abdicate his own responsibilities.

▪ The plotters not only sent an emissary to Spain with a draft treaty but also offered to assist a Spanish invasion of France in return for military and financial help.

▪ The plot was soon uncovered and Cinq-Mars was tried and eventually beheaded. The Cinq-Mars incident was indicative of how powerful Richelieu had become, especially the trust with which he was held by the King.

Peasant Rebellions

▪ In the course of Richelieu’s ministry, there were a number of peasant rebellions, three of which were major uprisings: Quercy in 1626; the Croquants in 1636-1637 (south-west); the Nu-Pieds rebellion in 1639 (Normandy).

▪ Although not motivated primarily by the intention of deposing Richelieu, these rebellions represented direct challenges to his financial policies.

▪ The Croquants were primarily directed against tax officials and were organised into a well-disciplined army by a nobleman, La Mothe La Foret – their manifesto called for the abolition of new taxes, the removal of tax officials and the restoration of the provincial estates.

▪ The Nu-Pieds rebellion was caused by similar grievances which were principally due to the fact that Normandy was the most heavily taxed province in France.

▪ The historian Berce has argued that the decisive factor explaining the outbreak of rebellions in the south-west was the sudden centralisation of the royal fiscal system that bypassed local institutions and privileges.

▪ All these uprisings, such as the Croquants in Perigord and the Nu-Pieds in Normandy, were put down with exemplary severity, as promised in Richelieu’s ‘Testament Politique’.

▪ It illustrated that any revolt against the authority of the state, however justified, had to be ruthlessly suppressed.

The success of Richelieu in extending royal absolutism

▪ Richelieu enjoyed considerable success in laying the foundations of royal absolutism.

▪ His greatest contribution lay in the strengthening of royal authority throughout the provinces, especially via the intendants.

▪ He was also relatively successful in undermining the respective powers of the nobility and of the Parlements.

▪ In the provinces, he successfully increased royal authority by dismissing any provincial governors who were opposed to his policies. In fact, by 1643, 12 out of 16 governors had been replaced.

▪ He also increased the importance and responsibility of the intendants – royal officials working in the provinces. They contributed a considerable amount to the enforcement of royal edicts in the provinces.

▪ Although they were not permanent appointments, their role was enhanced as they became responsible for the raising of troops, the administration of justice and the implementation of decrees.

▪ Richard Bonney has rightly observed that the fiscal demands of war were to prove the decisive factor in the establishment of the intendants.

▪ The increased use of intendants inevitably had an impact upon provincial governors who had previously been all-powerful in local affairs and were subject only to the competing influence of local parlements.

▪ In the longer term, intendants helped to make the monarchy far stronger than it had been earlier on.

▪ The powers of the intendants could be modified according to circumstances and could also be revoked if they failed in their duties – unlike provincial governors, sovereign courts and estates, intendants crucially could not become an alternative source of power to the crown.

▪ Another consequence of this growth in absolutism was that the majority of the Third Estate was totally exploited – taxation levels had nothing to do with degrees of wealth and the peasantry were thus totally manipulated. Uprisings were ruthlessly crushed.

▪ However, although it was the intention that no popular representation should play a role in the French political process, representative estates (pays d’etat) survived in several provinces – Dauphine, Burgundy, Languedoc, Provence and Brittany.

▪ These pays d’etats were allowed to vote upon, assess and collect taxes themselves, unlike the other provinces (pays d’ elections) where taxes were imposed by the King’s council and levied by royal officials.

▪ Furthermore, royal authority was also strengthened by Richelieu’s attack on the powers of the Parlement.

▪ In 1631, he created the Chambre d’Arsenal which was granted judicial power to conduct trials of political offenders, previously the reserve of the Parlements.

▪ In this way, by establishing a rival institution, the intention was not to replace the Parlements but to weaken them by reducing the range of their jurisdiction and control.

▪ In 1635, Richelieu sought to weaken the Parlement further by putting up a number of major political offices for sale – 24 new conseilleurs de Parlement were created, a measure which was repeated in 1637 and served to raise funds for the war effort.

Nobility

▪ The power of the nobility was gradually eroded by Richelieu, ensuring that the Crown was in control of its aristocracy – this was partly due to his success in weakening their political status.

▪ Furthermore, Richelieu managed to lay the foundations for absolutism by successfully suppressing all noble uprisings that challenged the new status quo.

▪ The older aristocracy was further weakened by the growth of the noblesse de robe which also increased royal revenues.

Patronage

▪ Richelieu was a famous patron of the arts. He was the author of various religious and political works (most notably his Political Testament); he sent his agents abroad in search of books and manuscripts for his library.

▪ He funded the literary careers of many writers. He was a lover of the theatre; a private theatre was a feature of the Palais-Cardinal. Among the individuals he patronized was the playwright Corneille.

▪ Richelieu was also the founder and patron of the Academie Francaise. The institution had previously been in informal existence; in 1635, however, Cardinal Richelieu obtained letters patent for the body. 

Clientage

▪ Richelieu used authoritarian measures to maintain power. He censored the press and established a large network of internal spies.

▪ He used the vast amount of offices at his disposal to appoint loyal supporters to posts all over France.

▪ He forbade the discussion of political matters in public assemblies such as the Parlement of Paris. 

The Fronde 1648-1653

▪ The Frondes were a series of revolts which tore France apart between 1648 and 1653 (Fronde – a sling or catapult carried by a Paris urchin, with which, they liked to pelt the carriages of the rich.)

▪ The Fronde was a series of civil wars in France from 1648 to 1653. The Fronde was divided into two: the Fronde of the Parlements and the Fronde of the Princes.

Reasons for the Fronde of the Parlements

▪ The financial demands of the government to finance the Thirty Years War.

▪ Increased use of the lit de justice to raise cash

▪ Opposition to the policies of Mazarin, especially attempts to attack the privileges of the Paris Parlement.

▪ Attempts by Mazarin to limit the expansion of the city of Paris

Reasons for the Fronde of the Princes

▪ The Fronde of the Princes was an attempt to reverse the trend of centralised royal authority, which had developed under Mazarin.

▪ The regency of Anne of Austria, which allowed Mazarin to increase his influence.

▪ End of the Thirty Years War, which allowed bands of unemployed soldiers to wander around France looking for work,

▪ The ambitions of nobles, especially Condé, who wanted to destroy Mazarin. Condé changed sides to further his ambition.

▪ The war with Spain, which resulted in incursions by Spanish troops in support of the Frondeurs.

▪ The long-term result was to strengthen Royal authority, but to weaken the economy. The Fronde led to the emergence of absolute monarchy under Louis XIV.

▪ The Frondes convinced Louis XIV that he had to centralise the government and control the nobility.

▪ Louis also became very suspicious of the people of Paris, who had forced him to flee several times. He decided to build his new palace out of their reach.

▪ The word fronde means sling, which Parisian crowds used to smash the windows of supporters of Mazarin.

Background

▪ Henry IV (1589 – 1610) – France had been undermined by 30 years of royal minorities and weak Kings, overmighty nobles, foreign invasion and religious strife.

▪ Henry IV initiated a recovery of royal authority but was assassinated before establishing a personal settlement.

▪ Louis XIII (1610-43) eventually established his authority aided by Richelieu. But Louis’ death ushered in another ministry, the unpopular Cardinal Jules Mazarin. His attempts to maintain the authority of the crown and caused the Frondes 1649-53.

▪ The roots of the Fronde revolt can be found in the emerging opposition to the Crown’s new fiscal measures, which were not only excessive but also the aggressive way in which they were forced through was deeply resented.

▪ It led to the gathering of numerous magistrates of the various sovereign courts (including the Cour des aides, Chambre des comptes and the Grand Conseil) in the Chambre Saint-Louis, part of the Palais Justice, in order to decry the Council’s recent measures.

▪ They particularly highlighted the fact that the 1645 and 1648 lit-de-justices were abuses, given that they had been held during a royal minority.

▪ As Berce has noted, ‘a regent had the duty to maintain the powers of the monarchy buy not the right to modify them’.

▪ The roots of the Fronde can be found in the emerging opposition to the Crown’s new fiscal measures, which were not only excessive but also the aggressive way in which they were forced through was deeply resented.

▪ The Fronde of the Parlements aimed to protect ancient liberties from royal encroachments and to defend the established rights of the Parlements.

▪ The Parlement of Paris had the right to limit the king’s power by refusing to register decrees that ran against custom.

▪ The liberties under attack were feudal; part of a legal patchwork of local interests and provincial identities in France. 

▪ The Parlements complained that the 1645 and 1648 lits-de-justice were abuses, given that they had been held during a royal minority.

▪ As Bercé has noted, ‘a regent had the duty to maintain the powers of the monarchy, but not the right to modify them’.

▪ Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis XIV, was regent, and was supported by Cardinal Mazain as chief minister.

▪ Mazarin was unpopular in Paris because he had raised taxes and had also tried to prevent the expansion of the city; fines were levied on anyone who built a house outside the city walls.

The Fronde of the Parlement

Financial affairs

▪ In the interim, in order to maintain the war effort, the government focused on raising funds.

▪ Mazarin’s financial intendant, Michel Particelli, tried to enforce the Edict of Toise of March 1644 which imposed heavy taxes on lands in the suburbs of Paris, in order to reduce the burden of taxation on the peasantry.

▪ This was not registered by the Paris Parlement which was further incensed by the introduction of the taxe d’aises in August 1644.

▪ With the failure of these measures, the Council was forced to resort again to the taille – in a short space of time, the government successfully alienated the majority of the population.

▪ In the spring of 1645, the Paris Parlement attempted to sway the court into taking anti - fiscal measures – Mazarin’s response was quick and resolute.

▪ Councillor Barillon was exiled to the provinces and a lit-de-justice forced the parlement to register a number of disputed measures.

▪ Several years later, a second lit-de-justice was held in January 1648 in order to force through a new succession of anti-fiscal measures. Did the crown have the right to impose its will upon Parlement by a lit de justice?

▪ In January 1648, Omer Talon, the Avocat General described the state of France: ‘For ten years, the country has been ruined, the peasants reduced to sleeping on straw, their furniture sold to pay taxes, so that to maintain luxury in Paris, millions of innocent persons are forced to live on bread made of bran and oats’.

▪ The years 1648 - 1651 were peak famine years with the depopulation of villages and low tax revenues. There was opposition to new taxes, particularly those imposed by Surintendant Particelli D’Emeri.

▪ The Fronde of the Parlement was a revolt of the privileged on behalf of the privileged. The toise, a tax imposed on dwelling-houses, provoked ill-feeling towards Mazarin.

▪ On 13th May, 1648, after the Parlement drew up a plan for reform, Mazarin promptly withdrew their rights from the paulette to which the Parlement demanded many reforms. But the Parlements represented their own class.

▪ Mazarin and Anne yielded to Parlement on almost every issue. When he heard of Conde’s victory at Lens on 20th August, Mazarin saw it as a chance to remove the opposition. Prominent leaders of Parlement were arrested. On 26th August, barricades were constructed in Paris.

▪ Following the Declaration of St. Germain on 22nd October, prisoners were released and the court left Paris. On 5th January, Anne left Paris for St. Germain.

▪ The Peace of Rueil was signed on 1st April 1649.Concessions already granted were confirmed by Mazarin and registered by Parlement.

▪ So ended the Fronde parlementaire. Militarily, there were two small battles in which Conti and Beaufort were defeated at Longjumeau and Charenton.

The Fronde of the Princes

▪ The Fronde of the nobility was brought the result of rivalry between nobles and hatred of the rule of Mazarin

▪ After his success in the Thirty Years War and the relief of Paris, Condé claimed pre-eminence in the King’s council.

▪ As early as the summer of 1643, the Duke of Vendome, the illegitimate son of Henry 1V and his son the Duke of Beaufort led a faction opposed to Mazarin.

▪ Within a couple of months, both were arrested along with their followers and Beaufort was committed to the Bastille.

▪ This incident, known as the ‘Cabale des Importants’, is indicative of the determination of Mazarin to quell opposition, as well as illustrating the support he derived from the Queen Mother.

Cabale des Importants

▪ They were called ‘importants’ because of the self-important and mysterious way in which they conducted their squalid intrigue.

▪ They included 2 bitter enemies of Richelieu – the ducs de Mercouer and de Vendome, Mme de Chevreuse, now an assiduous agent of Spain and Beaufort who wanted to be a governor of Brittany.

▪ Their political aim was the reversal of French foreign policy, something which they could reasonably hope for from the Spanish queen-regent and support from Charles I against his enemies – the English Parliament.

Condé

▪ He was the premier Prince of the Blood and was addressed by everyone, from the king down, simply as Monsieur le Prince.

▪ Condé's birth and military success placed him at the head of the French nobility. He was enormously rich and controlled a large part of France.

▪ Condé himself held Burgundy, Berry and Lorraine, as well as other less important territory.

▪ His brother, the Prince de Conti held Champagne, and his brother-in-law, Longueville controlled Normandy.

▪ Condé became increasingly unpopular as a result of pride and ambition and made no secret of his hatred of Mazarin and dislike of Anne of Austria.

▪ On 26 August 1648, Conde returned to Paris with his troops, having defeated the Spanish at Lens. By the end of the day, barricades were erected in the streets of Paris in protest against the leaders of Parlement.

▪ In January 1649, the nobles pledged support to Parlement. The Duc de Beaufort wanted the governorship of Brittany and the Duc de Bouillon wanted Sedan or its equivalent in money. The Marquis de Vitry wanted to be a duke.

▪ The nobility were united in their hatred of Mazarin who stood between them and their pensions and privileges.

▪ The Mazarinades were songs and pamphlets aimed at the denigration of Mazarin BUT for any revolt to be succeed, there must be a strong alliance between aristocracy and Parlement.

▪ Paul De Gondi, the Archbishop of Paris, was strongly anti-Mazarin. He was the author of a possible rebellion against Mazarin if he could unite aristocracy and parlement.

▪ Conde, Conti (his brother) and Longueville (his brother-in-law) demanded that Mazarin be replaced by the Comte De Jarze.

▪ De Jarze demanded that Longueville be given the governorship of Pont De L’Arche to add to the governorship of Normandy. The rival house of Vendome pushed the ambitions of Mme De Chevreuse and Paul De Gondi.

▪ On 11th December 1649, Conde was shot at in the streets of Paris after a fake assassination attempt upon Guy Joly, a supporter of Gondi.

▪ In January 1650, Cardinal suddenly arrested Condé, Conti, and Longueville. This led to a civil war.

▪ Marshal Turenne led a rebellion to try to release Condé, with the assistance of a Spanish army.

▪ The attack was defeated by a royal army under Choiseul and peasants risings.

▪ The Spanish forces were withdrawn and Turenne was left with an army Frondeurs and Lorrainers.

▪ There several inconclusive battles, until in December 1650, Turenne surrendered and risings elsewhere were crushed.

▪ Mazarin was mocked in political circles throughout France yet he continued to retain his position due to the support of the Queen Mother.

▪ In 1651, there arose an increasing number of noble gatherings in Paris, which were even viewed with some suspicion by the parlement, especially when the Duke of Orleans was persuaded to act as their spokesman.

▪ The demand grew for the release of the princes and the expulsion of Mazarin. Mazarin retreated to Breuil in the Archbishopric of Cologne.

▪ On 11 February 1651, the princes were released and entered France in triumph. By April 1651 the rebellion had collapsed.

▪ This did not bring to an end the grievances of the nobility. There was an increasing number of noble gatherings in Paris.

▪ These were viewed with some suspicion by the Parlement, especially when the Duke of Orléans was persuaded to act as their spokesman.

▪ Their grievances were similar to that of the parlements and included: the abolition of intendants; no taxation without consent; a call for greater rigour in the administration of royal justice; and a reduction of the taille to levels prevalent in the reign of Henry IV.

▪ Although the noble assembly secured a promise that Estates General would be convened, it was postponed (and never held!) once Louis XIV attained his majority on September 8 1661.

▪ Mazarin had gone into exile in February 1651, but returned to France in December 1651. Warfare began again and Turenne and Condé faced each other for a second time.

▪ This time, Turenne defended the government and Condé led the Frondeurs with the support of the Spanish.

▪ The armies met at Bleneau in April 1652 in an indecisive battle. Subsequently both forces marched on Paris and began negotiations.

▪ The Frondeurs were hemmed in the Faubourg St Antoine and defeated. The Parisians allowed the king to enter the city in October 1652 and Mazarin returned in February 1653.

▪ The Council increased the power of royal officials in the provinces, as well as reducing civic privileges. All local financial officers were to be closely monitored by royal intendants.

▪ Between 1648 and 1650, Mazarin made three attempts to halt the Fronde although his lack of success illustrates the fragile political context in which he was operating.

▪ Eventually, when peace returned in 1653, the Council increased the power of royal officials in the provinces as well as reducing civic privileges. All local financial officers were to be closely monitored by royal intendants.

▪ Their grievances were similar to those of the Fronde and included the following: the abolition of intendants; no taxation without consent; a call for greater rigour in the administration of royal justice and a reduction of the taille to levels prevalent in the reign of Henry 1V.

▪ Discussions began about establishing a council of 20 representing The Three Estates, the summons of the States – General and the deprivation of Anne of Austria.

▪ Although the noble assembly secured a promise that the Estates General would be convened on 8th September, it was postponed – and never held- once Louis XIV attained his majority on 8th September 1651.

▪ More worryingly, in the early 1650s, the court was subjected to a military confrontation with Conde’s faction. Anne of Austria and her son, Louis, found themselves in a dangerous position, e.g. a crowd of Parisians forced their way into the Palais Royal to see the young king.

▪ In October 1651, the Parlement declared Conde guilty of treason. By the end of the year, the Fronde had been narrowed down to Conde and his adherence to the nobility. In January 1652, Mazarin returned.

▪ On 8th April, Conde defeated the royalist troops at Bleneau but made the mistake of carrying on to Paris. Turenne was able to recover and defeated the rebels at Etamps on 4th May.

▪ Totally dedicated to the creation of an absolute monarchy, Conde was driven by his hatred of Mazarin – yet once his troops attacked a meeting of Parisian citizens, his fate was sealed.

▪ In October, Conde left Paris for Spain. The Queen and Louis XIV re-entered Paris amid great rejoicing.

Louis XIV and The Frondes

▪ The Frondes had a great impact on Louis XIV. He never forgot being hustled out of palaces in the middle of the night to avoid being kidnapped.

▪ He saw his mother humiliated by ambitious nobles and Mazarin chased out of the country. The events of the Frondes marred his childhood.

▪ He was aware that members of the Royal family were lampooned in scurrilous cartoons and that Royal power was questioned in the Paris Parlement.

▪ With the private armies of the nobility in league with the Spanish, France was reduced to the edge of civil war.

▪ The main issue of the Frondes was whether central government, in the form of the Queen and the Cardinal, had the right to make legislative decisions without regard to the great princes of the blood who were the King’s natural advisers or to the chief law-court in the land, the Parlement of Paris.

▪ The long-standing claim of the latter to play a constitutional role in approving or rejecting royal enactments was boosted during the 1640s by events in England.

▪ Basic arguments about the nature of French government had been in progress for many generations.

▪ They burst into life at the beginning of Louis’ reign, partly because minorities were always periods of royal weakness and partly because, as a foreigner, Mazarin was a convenient scapegoat who could be attacked with impunity.

▪ Louis reacted by tightening up those policies of central government organisation and control which he believed were the best means of thwarting rebellion.

▪ This policy was at the expense of customary local rights and liberties; as already seen, there were other strong pressures on Louis which militated against the arbitrary imposition.

▪ Following his mistrust of the great nobles, Louis was determined to build a powerful royal army, strong enough to prevent the crown from being further humiliated by its overmighty subjects.

▪ He never trusted the judges of his supreme court of Parlement nor any group capable of dividing the kingdom.

▪ He wanted conformity, religious and political. He wanted order – order in the social hierarchy and order in the use of a highly trained, bureaucratically organised, royal army.

Versailles and image-making

▪ In 1661, aged 23, Louis decided to transform the small royal hunting lodge at Versailles outside Paris into a magnificent palace with large elaborate gardens and fountains.

▪ Le Vau was the architect, Le Notre and Le Bouteaux laid out the gardens: the interior decoration was entrusted to Le Brun.

▪ The palace was built as an allegory. It represented the year with its four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Presiding over the palace was the sun-god, Louis XIV himself.

▪ Louis regarded Versailles as his achievement. He personally conducted distinguished visitors around the palace and helped to write the guide-books. He supervised many of the developments at Versailles himself.

▪ The Versailles project was undertaken to demonstrate the glory of his reign to the whole of Europe.

▪ Colbert decided that all of the materials used to build the palace should be made in France.

▪ It became a heavy tax burden on French taxpayers but this did not prevent Louis from adding further rooms, e.g. The Hall of Mirrors completed in 1684.

▪ Although unfinished, it became the official residence of the King in 1682. It became the centre of the government and the Court.

▪ Versailles, the ‘city of the rich’ was built by the poor. Even after the court arrived there in 1682, 22,000 workmen were employed there.

▪ The 3rd estate paid for Versailles – not the clergy and the nobles. Between 1661 and 1751, Versailles cost around 68 million livres.

▪ The palace was built as an allegory. It represented the year with its four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Presiding over the palace was the sun-god, Louis XIV himself.

▪ Louis was given the nickname of ‘Sun King’ after he played the part of the sun in a dramatic production at Versailles in May 1664.

▪ Louis chose the sun as its emblem. It was associated with Apollo, god of peace and the arts. It was also a heavenly body giving life to all things, regulating everything as it rose and set.

▪ Like Apollo, the warrior-king Louis XIV brought peace, was a patron of the arts and dispensed his bounty.

▪ The regularity of his work habits and the daily ritual of his rising and retiring were another point of solar comparison. Louis also appears as Jupiter and Neptune, the god of the sea.

▪ Throughout Versailles, the decoration combined the images and attributes of Apollo. All portraits show Louis in the prime of life, beautifully dressed and self-confident.

▪ The Apollo Salon is the main room of the Grand Apartment because it was originally Louis’ state chamber. The path of the sun is also traced in the layout of the gardens.

▪ Louis regarded Versailles as his achievement. He personally conducted distinguished visitors around the palace and helped to write the guidebooks. He supervised many of the developments at Versailles himself.

▪ The Versailles project was undertaken to demonstrate the glory of his reign to the whole of Europe. It became a heavy tax burden on French taxpayers but this did not prevent Louis from adding further rooms, e.g. The Hall of Mirrors completed in 1684.

▪ Although unfinished, it became the official residence of the King in 1682 and the centre of the government and the court.

▪ Louis practised the art of government by spectacle through conciliar government. Versailles came to embody a form of government and court widely copied in Europe.

▪ Versailles was open to the public on several days during the year. Entry was free and thousands of French people wandered the grounds and the palace admiring the treasures on view.

▪ Versailles became an essential part of the system of monarchy. A nobleman who did not attend the Court there had no hope of any royal favour.

▪ Louis spent part of each day in council with ministers, except Friday. The lesser nobility who did not attend Versailles sank into provincial insignificance.

▪ Louis deliberately encouraged the nobility to come to Court but only a minority were more than occasional visitors.

▪ Versailles became an essential part of the system of monarchy. A nobleman who did not attend the Court there had no hope of any royal favour. The lesser nobility who did not attend Versailles sank into provincial insignificance.

▪ The greater nobility were at the disposal of the King. Their life at court was costly to maintain but court appointments, commands in the army and church offices were all gifts of the King.

▪ The whole court regularly assembled for music and dancing, for entertainment of various kinds and for refreshment. Hospitality was lavish and sumptuous.

▪ The court became used to being entertained by operas and by poems and plays by such writers as Moliere (1622-73).

▪ Life at Court was very costly with opulent clothes, expensive lodgings, spectacular entertainment and costly gambling. BUT court appointments, commands in the army and church offices were all gifts of the King.

▪ Did Louis emasculate the nobility using Versailles? He certainly appointed middle class ministers and brought the nobility to Versailles.

▪ Versailles was completed in 1682, but only 4,000 members of the nobility out of 100,000 could be accommodated there.

▪ Louis was surrounded by the nobility at Versailles. They discharged important functions around the court but also other roles.

▪ They were provincial governors, led armies into battle and served as ambassadors to foreign countries.

▪ The whole court regularly assembled for music and dancing and for entertainment of various kinds and for refreshments.

▪ Hospitality was lavish and sumptuous. The court became used to being entertained by operas and by poems and plays by such writers as Moliere (1622-73).

▪ Racine, a writer of tragedy, accompanied Louis on his military campaigns as official historian.

▪ Versailles became a venue for the development of French music. Jean-Baptiste Lully was a versatile composer, a director and colleague of Moliere in the production of court ballets and masques in which Louis himself took part. He excluded all his rivals.

▪ Louis was a great admirer of Lully. The King himself played the lute and guitar and sang enthusiastically. After the death of Lully, he interviewed the candidates for the role of his successor.

Why was Versailles important?

▪ The scale and size of the building at Versailles symbolised the power of the monarchy. Versailles was the centre of the French government after 1682.

▪ It was here that the nobility would attend upon the King and the business of the court conducted, thus helping to break down noble power in the provinces.

▪ The art and sculpture of Versailles emphasised the importance of order, hierarchy and the power of Louis, the ‘Sun King’.

▪ Louis was often depicted as, or compared to, mythical gods such as Apollo or Mars. Operas, plays and ballets performed at the palace underlined this. Was this helping to create a myth – ‘the pretentious veneer of make-believe’?

▪ Many nobles competed to attend upon the King and to gain royal patronage, attendance at Versailles was imperative.

▪ Versailles also became a venue for the display and use of the products of French industry.

▪ BUT Versailles could only house around 3,000 of the nobility and their retinues – the overwhelming majority remained in the provinces.

▪ As the King aged, he tended to reside away from Versailles and Paris became important again.

▪ As the reign progressed, the splendour and wealth of Versailles became increasingly criticised.

▪ To some, it seemed irrelevant to the needs of France and isolated the King and his ministers from the people.

▪ Did the nobility and the clergy encourage the less privileged members of society to accept the gross inequalities which Versailles represented?

▪ The face of Versailles did change significantly over the reign. In 1682, the construction of a magnificent bathroom for Madame De Montespan was an attractive feature. Under the influence of De Maintenon, the building became plain and sober.

▪ BUT Versailles was built to last – a symbol of a conservative Catholic society dominated by an absolute monarchy. Its architectural style was copied throughout Europe in Vienna, St. Petersburg and Madrid.

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