Absolutism - France

Absolutism in France

• 17th and 18th century model absolutist state
• Religious wars - violence particularly strong - middle of 16th century large community of French Calvinists called Huguenots - persecuted - resisted strongly
• 1562 - war between Catholics and Huguenots - lasted 10 years - attempted peace by marrying king's sister to the Huguenot leader
• King's mother (Catherine de'Medici) felt Huguenots too strong - persuaded Charles IX to massacre them (didn't want to) - on St Bartholomew's Day - August 24, 1572 - thousands slaughtered - Huguenots kept fighting for 20 years after

Early Bourbon Dynasty

Henry III (1574 - 1589)

• Loved clothes
• Slept in a mask and gloves to protect his complexion
• Painted his face
• Wore a rosary with beads carved like skulls
• With his friends (all fops) would go in sack cloth and barefooted to churches in Paris with whips and flog one another in penitence
• Yet was horrible cruel and thought nothing of murder
• Died stabbed by a monk (Clement) who was instantly slain by the king's guards

Henry IV (ruled 1589 - 1610)

• Ambitious, courageous, intelligent and well-liked
• So poor he had to wear robes left by his brother-in-law (Henry III)
• Was Protestant and had to change to Catholicism for the throne - said, "Paris is worth a mass."
• Had a hard job after 30 years of civil war
• To keep peace - outlawed firearms
• Encouraged agriculture and manufacturing
• Established fair methods of tax collection
• Kept country out of foreign wars
• Tried for religious toleration - Edict of Nantes (NANTS) - 1598 - gave years of peace - guaranteed religious freedom and political equality for the Huguenots - remarkably fair document
• Henry paid with his life - assassinated (stabbed in his carriage) - May 14, 1610

Louis XIII  (ruled 1610 - 1643)

• *** The name Louis means: "famous warrior."
• 9 years old when his father killed
• First years his mother ruled with the help of the nobles - weak, foolish woman
• Nobles gained back much power during this time
• As an adult he was slow, dull, cold hearted, and had bad health
• Weak king
• *** He started wearing wigs to cover his receding hairline.  Everybody copied.  Thus wearing a wig carried aristocratic prestige.
• 1617 sent his mother and her friends into exile to England - she died in extreme poverty
• Powerful nobles harder to handle
• His power remained unsteady - he hated problems of state

1624 - Chose Cardinal Richelieu (1585 - 1642) as first minister

• He ran the country for 18 years
• One of France's ablest statesmen
• Had anyone killed who tried to influence the king
• The king did nothing to save his friends
• Brilliant
• Ruthless
• Single-minded
• Goal to make the king supreme and France the strongest country in Europe
• First major obstacles the nobles and Huguenots
• Nobles - destroyed their castles and private armies
• Against the Edict of Nantes - allowed Huguenots a state within a state - started a war to destroy their power - let them keep religious and civil liberties
• When he died (December 4, 1642) - 58 years old - left the king practically absolute and the most powerful ruler in Europe
• Power of nobility fading
• Power of Huguenots destroyed
• *** Cardinal Richelieu decreed that the blades of all dinner knives have round ends.  What bothered him he said, were guest at his table who picked their teeth with the old pointy ones.
• *** Richelieu did his daily workout by jumping over furniture.

Jules Marazin   (1602 - 1661) - Italian priest

• Foreigner of low birth
• Succeeded Richelieu - trained by him - carried out his policies
• Clever and cunning
• Taught Louis XIV statecraft - kept him poor
• Embittered nobility - 2 rebellions broke out - last efforts to destroy royal absolutism - unsuccessful
• At his death Louis XIV became the most absolute ruler in Europe

Louis XIII died 5 months after Richelieu - May 14, 1643 - 42 years old

Louis XIV   (ruled 1643 - 1715)

• Parents hated each other - they had been married 23 years - his birth hailed as a miracle
• 5 years old when his father died - his mother Anne regent with Marazin

• Following the French triumph in the Thirty Years War (1648) France was the unquestioned dominant power on the continent

• *** "Taps" dates back to the Thirty Years War, 1615 - 1643.  The name "Taps" meant the military day's end signal.  At bedtime, the provost visited each military unit to tap the bung into every keg and mark it with chalk.  The chalked markings were checked to next day to make sure the keg hadn't been reopened after "taps."

• Both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were in sharp decline

• The War of the Fronde (1651) in the early years of his reign left a permanent mark on the king's life - he was blockaded in the Louvre by citizen guards - thought he escaped they broke in and demanded to see him - he was furious - because of this incident he despised Paris

• Ruled 72 years
• Trained to be king - poor education
• Not brilliant or a deep thinker - distaste for books
• Had an excellent memory, persistence and common sense
• Governed many hours a day - reading reports - presiding over meetings - issuing orders
• Determined there would be no challenge to his power
• Grew up thinking the nation was made for his glory
• He became the symbol of the absolute monarch
• He was the creation of the vision of Cardinal Richelieu - the "Sun King" - "L' etat c'est moi" (I am the state) - also known as the "the Grand Monarch" and "Louis the Great"
• *** It's a matter of historical record that he owned 413 beds
• *** Balding he elected to wear a powdered wig.  So his courtiers did likewise.  Englanders took up the French fashion.  Also did notables in the colonies.  Ranking men of the whole Western world wore wigs.
• Chose ministers and administrators from the middle class so they would be loyal only to him
• Wanted efficient men he could control
• Didn't trust nobles - place them on display at Versailles
• He oversaw the construction of his fabulous palace at Versailles - it took nearly 36,000 workers 47 years to complete - cost about $100,000,000 to build - 6 out of 10 francs from taxes spent on it
• It began as a simple hunting lodge and became the grandest royal residence in all of Europe - 1/2 mile long - every other royal residence will be measured against it
• Staff of 15,000 guards and servants were required or the 10,000 inhabitants
• The new Baroque artistic movement influenced the design - elaborate design - vibrant colors - Hall of Mirrors
• The unstated purpose of Versailles was to keep the nobility under Louis' watchful eye
• An elaborate and complex court etiquette was created - failure to abide by it led to social disgrace
• Enjoyed hunting, boating, ballet, sporting events, horse shows, good food and drink
• The society created at Versailles became the envy of Europe and was imitated all over the continent
• French became the preferred language in every court (except England)
• French became the language of diplomacy
• French art and architecture were dominant
• French literature was read all over Europe - Moliere, the great playwright, mocked the failings of humanity (such as snobbery and stinginess) in his comedies - Racine was the dramatist counterpart of Moliere
• *** Louis purposely made his clothing very expensive.  Since the nobles copied him it could cost them as much as a year's income for a suit of clothing.  When they ran out of money he gave them more, thus keeping them indebted to him and in his power.
• Married Marie-Terese of Spain - fair-haired and blue-eyed - had a somewhat fleshy nose and a rather loose mouth - most complacent disposition and sincerely loved Louis
• Had a son the Grand Dauphin - very dull (*** this usually was their nice way of saying retarded) - cared nothing but playing cards and hunting - very little could be taught to him (he died before Louis) - he married a German princess who was duller still - they had 3 sons - one son the Duke of Burgundy died of malignant measles
• Marie-Terese had 5 other children - all died young
• At her death Louis married Madame de Maintenon his long time mistress

Government

• Following the death of Mazarin in 1661 Louis did not appoint a First Minister - all final power was in his hands
• Louis was a capable and hard working monarch
• Louis did appoint several able advisers to assist him run the state
• Jean-Baptiste Colbert - Finance Minister - brilliant - built a rich treasury
• Chief proponent of the economic theory of mercantilism - called for rigid government control of the economy - the goal was to create a strong economy for the purpose of waging war - self-sufficient economy - theory based on the idea that there is a limited amount of gold in the world - acquisition of the most bullion was essential to national survival - to acquire gold, exports were encouraged - to prevent imports, new industries were created and high tariffs imposed
• *** The nobles were wearing wigs and importing bales and bales of horse hair for them from Germany.  Colbert went into a snit for fear the Germans would get all the French gold.  He tried to outlaw the wig, but couldn't pull it off.
• Colbert encouraged colonization - they should exist as: a source or raw materials and a market for finished goods - new colonies were established in Canada and the Caribbean
• The navy and the merchant marine were built up
• The tax farming system was further reformed

Michel le Tellier, the Marquis of Louvois

• War Minister
• Built the French army into the largest and strongest in Europe - standing army of 100,000 in peacetime and 400,000 in wartime - army well trained and professional - pay was increased and regular - promotions were more merit based

Sebastien Vauban

• Military engineer
• Perfected the art of fortifying and besieging towns
• developed the fixed bayonet

Louis' government relied on the Intendants to keep thing running efficiently - these were royal agents - like a governor - responsible only to Louie

Problems - While the reign of Louis XIV marked a high point for France it is also a time of great mistakes

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)

• The Edict of Nantes (1598) had brought a measure of peace to the nation but tensions remained
• Louis and the Catholic Church continued to view the Huguenots as potential traitors
• Louis' government had increased persecution of the Huguenots - barred them from government service - forced to baptize their children in the Catholic Church - closed their schools
• In 1685 Louis, in grief over the loss of his wife, decided to revoke the Edict of Nantes - he was also afraid of civil war if they gained strength - he wanted to have a religiously unified France
• Under the revocation all protestant churches were closed
• Huguenot ministers were exiled
• Huguenots who refused to convert were forced to galleys as slaves
• Result - nearly 300,000 Huguenots fled the country - most to England and America - the Huguenots were among the most valuable parts of the French economy (silversmiths, jewelers, textile makers, etc.) - the French economy will take generations to recover
• Louis will be viewed as a religious fanatic all over protestant Europe and France as a dangerous bully

Wars

• Disastrous - didn't have good generals
• Louis' other big error was his nearly continual warfare
• France was at war for 42 of the 72 years he ruled
• He had built a massive army - he needed to use it
• Thirty Years War - it was going when he took the throne - strengthened France's position among European countries
• Invasion of the Netherlands - surprisingly his biggest problem was the Dutch - he realized that French control of the continent meant that the Dutch must be neutralized - in the 1670's Louis' attempts to defeat the Dutch all failed - the Dutch even opened the dikes and flooded the French army out - after 1672 the Dutch were led by young Prince William of Orange - he became the chief organizer of European opposition - married to Princess Mary of England - in 1688 he became King William III of England
• War of the League of Augsberg  (1689 - 1697) - when Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 he frightened his protestant neighbors - in 1689 he allowed his troops to devastate the area of the Palatinate (Rape of the Palatinate) - in central Germany - south east of Worms
• William used the incident to rally opposition to the French... the League of Augsburg
• France  versus  Dutch, Spain, Sweden, Holy Roman Empire, England, Bavaria, Saxony, Palatinate
• The war was fought until both sides were exhausted - but both sides also viewed the peace as a temporary truce - Peace of Ryswick  (1697) confirmed French gain but would keep France from further territorial acquisitions - minor setback for Louis XIV
• War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714) - the decisive and disastrous war of Louis' reign
• The roots of the war lay in competing claims to the throne of Spain
• Charles II (the Sufferer). the king of Spain was dying - he was a Hapsburg - he had no heir
• There were two legitimate claimants to the throne  1. Louis' grandson, Philip  2. HRH Leopold's grandson, Charles
• Whoever controlled the throne also gained control of all of Spain's European and worldwide territory
• All of the major European states had come to an informal agreement that the Spanish Empire would be divided up following Charles' death - the Spanish were not even consulted - Charles II refused to allow the division - he left a will - left everything to Louis's grandson, Philip - he wanted a powerful Catholic family on the Spanish throne - it Philip took the throne the Bourbons would rule both France and Spain
• Louis XIV had already agreed to proposed partition but no tried to renege - all of the old League of Augsburg were quickly pledged to stop the Bourbon takeover
• Charles II died in November 1700
• Philip Bourbon was proclaimed Philip V in Madrid
• WAR - very brutal - advances in weapons and combat tactics made it very bloody - Louis' enemies were out to destroy him and break French power once and for all - France lost all of the major battles - the French fleet was destroyed - League troops drove Philip V briefly out of Spain
• In 1709 with France in collapse a desperate Louis asked for peace terms - the League offered extremely harsh terms - included Louis personally removing Philip from the Spanish throne
• The unjust peace terms rallied both France and Spain to the support of their Bourbon monarch - fought to a better settlement
• Treaty of Utrecht (1714) - Philip V got to keep the Spanish crown - but the French and Spanish thrones could never be united - France lost all territory east of the Rhine River - France could have no say in Spanish colonial trade
• England was the big winner - got territory in Canada and control of Gibraltar - Royal Navy supreme for the next 240 years
• Austria (HRE) got control of the Spanish Netherlands - after 1714 the Austrian Netherlands - control of Milan, Naples, Sicily (dominant in Italy)

Louis died the following year - on his deathbed he warned his heir not to repeat his mistakes - nearly bankrupted France - "I fear that I have loved war too much."

Poverty and starvation began to appear

No priest or noble ever paid taxes

Louis XV - (king 1715 - 1774)

• Great grandson of Louis XIV
• Lazy - pleasure seeking
• *** One afternoon he came down with a slight fever.  His doctor sent him to bed with a cold damp towel for his forehead.  The next morning he woke up feeling better.  He was so grateful to his doctor he presented him with an estate which took in five villages and 207 farms.  Rentals garnered from all the property added the equivalent to $31,000 a year to the doctors annual income.  A sizable sum in those days
• Glutton
• Drunkard
• Cared little for affairs of government
• During his reign France continued to decline
• Involved in a series of wars - lost almost all colonies in America and India
• Nobility began to exercise power
• At his death (age 64) France in greater financial trouble - people very discontent

Louis XVI - (king 1774 - 1793)

• married to Marie Antoinette - Austrian
• Well meaning
• Not clever enough to solve problems
• Inherited too many problems to be effective
• France continued on a path of destruction - discontent as extravagances, court and inequalities of economic system caused serious financial troubles
• Absolutism ended with revolution in 1789