Seventeenth Century France
Louis XIII
Louis XIII was only eight years old when Henry IV was murdered. He could not be king until age thirteen and a day, so on 15 May 1610, Marie de' Medici, his mother, became regent.
The regency was run from a closed council made up of three men: Villeroi as secretary of state; Jeannin as president of the Parlement of Paris; and Sillery as chancellor of France. Equally if not more influential were the Queen's favorites: Coton, Jesuit confessor to Henry IV; Ubaldini, the papal nuncio; and Leonora Galigai, lady-in-waiting to Marie, and her husband Concini, a Florentine. The difference in the two groups is obvious: the one, the official council, all Frenchmen; the other, with unofficial influence, all foreigners.
Marie de' Medici pursued a policy of friendship with Spain, even arranging a marriage of Louis to the Spanish infanta, Anne of Austria. She showered titles on the magnates and treated them to endless celebrations in an attempt to win they support, but it was not enough. The great lords told each other that now was the time to reclaim their ancient liberties. In February 1614, they broke openly with the regency. They had to move because in a few months Louis could be declared of age and any rebellion would be less likely to succeed. Five princes - Condé, Mayenne, Nevers, Bouillon, and Longueville - withdrew from court, demanded an Estates General, and raised their private armies.
The queen mother moved boldly in this crisis. She took Louis on a tour of France, letting the people see their young king. On 2 October, he was declared legally of age. When elections to the Estates General were held, the results did not favor the princes' cause.
The Estates General met in Paris on 27 October 1614. It fell at once into quarrels. The nobles demanded abolition of the Paulette (also called the droit annuel, this was a fee paid to allow an office-holder to bequeath that office to an heir). The Third Estate replied by demanding abolition of pensions. The Third Estate quarreled with the First as well, insisting there be a proclamation that the king of France held his throne directly from God and could be deposed by no pope. The session was dismissed in February 1615, having accomplished nothing. It was the last Estates General until 1789.
The regency turned its attention to the princely rebels. Most were old and settled for bribes (Condé became head of the privy council). Concini now stepped forward, replacing ministers with men who were strong royalists. They threw Condé into the Bastille and mobilized armies against the remaining rebels. Concini instituted intendants with the power to work the king's will in the provinces.
But Louis hated Concini. He hated being a puppet king and was determined to exert himself. He had Concini declared a traitor and had his captain of the guard gun the man down in front of the Louvre on 24 April 1617. He then exiled his mother to Blois and recalled the former ministers.
Louis' favorite at this time was Charles d'Albert de Luynes. After the murder of Concini, Louis made him a duke and effectively the head of the government. But Charles was out of his depth. he could think of nothing better than to aggrandize his family and to hound Protestants. He aided Emperor Ferdinand at the Battle of White Hill and allowed Spain to occupy the Valtelline. He caused the Huguenots to rebel when he tried to restore Catholicism in Béarn. He besieged Montauban and failed, dying soon after of a fever (1621).
The king's first favorite had done more harm than good. Louis was now twenty-one and was determined to rule of his own. He went through a series of ministers. He was reconciled with his mother. He signed an uncomfortable peace with the Huguenots (18 October 1622). He tried to foster a Catholic reform that emphasized prayer and new orders. At the same time, during the early 1620s, libertinism was all the rage in Paris, and Louis' attempts at religious reform fell flat.
Louis found his true course only when he came to work with Richelieu. One of Marie's favorites, Richelieu had been turned out when de Luynes came to the fore. He returned to favor with Marie did, being made cardinal in September 1622. Louis didn't trust him at first, but mainly by association. Once he began actually working with the cardinal, he found he liked the man. Richelieu joined the royal council on 29 April 1624 and was made head of the council on 13 August.
Cardinal Richelieu
Cardinal Richelieu was an aggressive man with a clear idea of what was good for France. At home, France was to be Catholic: the Huguenots were to be tamed, if they could not be eliminated. Abroad, France had to oppose the Habsburgs, for their vast power was the single greatest threat to the kingdom. The two positions brought contradictions, for to oppose the Habsburgs meant allying with Protestants abroad even while harring them at home. Richelieu was untroubled by contradictions. He dealt with the realities as they presented themselves. The key to both goals was a strong king.
Domestically, Richelieu first moved against the libertines. In 1626 he forbade presses outside Paris and Lyons to print anything except certain religious books and doctoral theses. He also forbade private persons to have printing presses.
His first foreign policy moves got him in trouble at home. He supported Protestants financially in the Thirty Years War and attacked Spain in the Valtelline. This encouraged the Huguenots to rebel while at the same time instigated the faction around the queen mother to plot to overthrow the cardinal. Richelieu had to back off in foreign policy and to come to terms with the Huguenots (1626). However desirable his actions, if they threatened royal authority, he would have to back off.
In these early steps, as in later ones, Richelieu did not act alone. Louis was no passive king. For every decision, great or small, Richelieu prepared a careful brief. He wrote reports describing the situation and outlining various options. He noted the benefits and drawbacks of each. He then left the final decision to the king, though where he had an opinion, the cardinal made it plain enough which course he though was best. We can speak of the cardinal's policies and the king's policies interchangeably because the two men saw the world the same way. This is why Louis trusted him and why Richelieu was so valuable to him.
In 1627, La Rochelle rebelled, in part due to the encouragement of Lord Buckingham in England, who promised an army of support. Instead of a great Gascon uprising, though, only a handful of towns joined the revolt. In truth, Protestantism had been declining in France for a long time. Especially among the nobility, conversion to Catholicism was frequent.
The siege of La Rochelle was fierce, its defense heroic, and it has been immortalized in Dumas' tales of the musketeers. But the revolt ended in complete victory for Louis, who entered the city on 1 November 1628. Engalnd came to terms 24 April 1629. The last holdout was the duc de Rohan, who surrendered in 28 June 1629. Although the Edict of Nantes was confirmed, the Huguenot state was destroyed. All their fortifications were razed, their councils were disbanded, and Rohan was exiled. Protestantism persisted in the south, but it no longer formed a national political force.
The same year, 1629, Louis faced a major decision. As Richelieu presented it, the kingdom could either pursue the heretic at home, which would force it to make peace with Spain and with the magnates, sharing power with them; or it could do battle with the Habsburgs. Richelieu recommended the latter course, and Louis agreed. He appionted the cardinal "principal Minister of State" on 21 May 1629. France was committed to a long war.
The first outward sign of the new course came in April 1630 when Louis refused to yield Pinerolo to the Spanish. The queen mother and her faction was still openly pro-Spanish and there were several scenes that climaxed in a face-to-face confrontation before the king on 10 November 1630. His mother and his chief councillor were in dispute in public. At first it appeared that Marie had won the day. The magnates crowded around her in celebration, for she also stood for the rights of the nobility against the crown. But on the same day, Louis was privately telling Richelieu that he had the king's full support. On 12 November, Marillac, Marie's favorite, was arrested. The queen mother was again exiled, and this time she did not return.
The noble faction was still strong, however. Louis and Richelieu controlled the court, but not all France. The king's brother, Gaston d'Orleans, withdrew from court and began raising troops. Louis had some nobles declared guilty of Lèse-majesté, but the Parlement of Paris refused to register the declaration. This gave the magnates a legal pretext for their rebellion. Louis banished some of the officers of Parlement as punishment.
Orleans and Henri de Montmorency of Languedoc were defeated in battle at Castelnaudary on 1 September 1632. Henri was beheaded and Gaston fled to Brussels where he continued to cause trouble until he was reconciled in October 1634.
The revolt showed plainly the risks Louis ran in making his great decision in 1629. France was deeply split. Harmony at home would have meant Habsburg victory abroad. France could not have stood against a strong Spain and a united Empire. But the anti-Habsburg course meant division and even civil war at home.
This is why French power was so slow in coming to bear in the Thirty Years War. Quite simply, she was at first too busy at home. In addition to dealing with rebellion, Richelieu took steps to solidify the authority of the king. One impediment was the sovereign courts (noble courts around the country with so many rights they were nearly independent of the crown), which had to approve the raising of royal taxes in their lands. While they could not refuse a royal edict, they could delay it while they issued a remonstrace--a formal complaint that often contained a recommendation on how to address the complaint, effectively being a form of proposing policy. When king and nobility were at odds, as they were now, these courts might issue one remonstrance after another, delaying the edict for months. After 1632, the king's council had the power to override any ruling or objection of the sovereign courts if national interest was at stake. Since the nation was at war with both Spain and the Empire, this edict removed the ability of the sovereign courts to sabotage the war effort. In 1641 he went further: in matters of state they could make a remonstrance only after registering the edict, and in financial matters they were limited to two remonstrances.
War always makes finance the urgent concern, and Louis now found that his tax system was inefficient and corrupt. The tax officers (their exact title varied from region to region) held their position mainly as a family title, with little interest in efficiency. Many used their position to protect family and clients from the taxes, while the unprotected were made to bear the shifted burden. Since these were usually less wealthy, taxes were under-collected. If demand was high, rebellion might break out, with royal representatives attacked. Local judges, belonging to the same aristocracy, refused to prosecute these rebels and even helped hid the leaders.
After 1633 Richelieu made increasing use of intendants--officers sent directly by the crown for some specific purpose. Increasingly, that purpose was to oversee the collection of taxes in full. The intendants had always been an ad hoc solution, royal troubleshooters who came and went, with no local ties, used without consistency. Where local officials did their job, intendants were not used. The constant demands of war, though, caused Richelieu to use them widely and repeatedly, so that by the later 17th century, they were a permanent feature of royal government.
The indelible image of Cardinal Richelieu is from Alexander Dumas: the sinister manipulator with spies everywhere, the heartless tyrant who would send men to jail for life for daring to oppose him. The image has some bases in fact.
Richelieu did have spies everywhere. His intendants were spies of a sort, for they reported not only proven corruption but rumors as well. In fact, any royal official sent out into the field might be asked by Richelieu to keep eyes and ears open, and to report secretly. Those who sought to shine created their own local networks of spies, and so the web spread. In addition there were a number of special commissions created specifically to investigate this or that. There were official representatives to municipal corporations and sovereign courts. And there were secret agents, members of those courts or factions, suborned and bribed to be the king's eyes and ears. All their reports came to the Cardinal, who had a special staff: not yet a secret police, but a beginning in that direction. Between the Huguenots, the magnates, Spanish agents, English agents, Imperial agents, there was plenty of need for a network of information.
Chieve among them were the governor of the Bastille, who reported daily on rumors from the prison; the master of posts, who dealt with the city of Paris, its guilds and merchants; and the "Cardinal's hangman" Isaac de Laffemas, who had a knack for extracting confessions and building treason cases.
Louis and Richelieu agreed: treason was nearly impossible to prove and was far too dangerous to wait until it came into the open. It was better for crown and nation to preempt treason, to be safe rather than sorry, to imprison first and rest easy. So men were arrested on suspicion, on accusation alone, using the royal lettre de cachet. The imprisoned were held indefinitely, no told of their accuser, the evidence, or even the specifics of the allegation. Hardest hit were nobles of suspicious associations or activites. This is the background for the "Man in the Iron Mask", for example. Since the nobles were hard hit, it's not surprising that Richelieu gained his reputation, for they were in a position to influence public opinion.
Richelieu was also among the first to make use of mass communication consistently for government propaganda. The Gazette was sponsored by the government, appearing weekly. It not only received its news stories directly fromthe Cardinal, some of its stories were even written by the king himself.
The court also used the arts. Richelieu founded the Académie Française, which defined not only an official version of the French language, but also officially-approved forms of literature, painting, architecture, and so on. Approval by the Académie might not make one's fortune, but disapproval certainly ended any possibility of success inside France. The message of the greatness of France and the glory of the crown was to be put forward consistently across the whole of French culture.
Richelieu was able to control the outward forms of the Catholic Church, but he completely missed the mystical renaissance of the time. he was uninterested in St Vincent de Paul. He disapproved of Saint-Cyran, one of the founders of the Jansenists, and even had the man imprisoned. Mysticism was alien to the hard-headed politican, and vaguely disturbing. Port Royal went on without him.
Between the growing influence of the Cardinal and the burdens of a long war, revolts broke out frequently. They were usually a combination of unhappiness over these two factors coupled with some local circumstance, such as a famine or the arrest of a local favorite (or the advent of a heavy-handed royal official). There were uprisings in Paris in 1633; in Lyons in 1633 and 1642; in Rouen in 1634 and 1639; a widespread peasant revolt in 1636, the "croquants"; a peasant revolt in Normandy in 1639, the "Va-nu-pieds" (the Barefoot Ones).
In later years, as Louis' health deteriorated, he turned more and more of the government over to Richelieu, who appeared to be bent on creating a dynasty. The royal council were all his own men (including a man from Naples, Jules Mazarin), as were many of the military commanders. His chief diplomat, until his death in 1638, was Father Joseph, known as the "grey Eminence". Richelieu owned two fortresses and had two companies of soldiers at his command. He married one of his nieces into the royal family. His relatives were everywhere in the government, the army and navy, the church.
There was one final attempt to break the Cardinal's power, by Cinq-Mars. But the duke brought in too many conspirators and the plot was discovered. Because he had also been plotting with Spain, the king had him executed on 12 September 1642.
On 4 December 1642, Richelieu died. Louis followed him on 14 May 1643. A whole dynasty had passed away, and a new sun was about to rise.
Louis XIV
The new king was only four years old (born 5 September 1638). Anne of Austria became regent and the duc d'Orleans was lieutenant-general, but shortly before his death Louis XIII added a four-man council that could not be removed. All were Richelieu's men: Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister, Séguier as chancellor, Bouthillier as superintendant of finance, and Chavigny, Bouthillier's son. All decisions were to be by majority vote of the six, but this barely survived the king's death. Anne quickly got the right to reorganize the council and do dispense with the requirement of a majority vote.
She kept Cardinal Mazarin as her chief minister because she trusted him, though many others at court misliked him as a man and mistrusted him as a foreigner and as Richelieu's protegé. Rebellions broke out and plots were hatched. At times, Louis had to be spirited away and hidden, as if he himself were in a Dumas adventure. He never forgot the troubled times of his childhood, nor did he forget that it was the magnates who were responsible.
The Fronde
France was caught under intolerable financial burdens, for it was French money almost alone that kept the Protestants in the Thirty Years War and she had a war with Spain besides. The crown sold offices in such numbers that the value of the offices themselves declined. The theoretical value, though, was two or three times the market value, so offices were not sold. Since buying offices was an important form of social mobility, this caused resentment among the aristocracy and bourgeoisie alike.
When popular revolt broke out in 1648, it spread quickly across the classes. There was no unity, no common cause; rather, all of France simply boiled over.
The revolt actually began among the public servants in Paris. The initial issue had to do with the Paulette, which had lapsed after the standard nine years at the end of 1647. There were demands to have it renewed, which the government did on 30 April but, desperate for money, it kept back four years salary from the office-holders. The Parlement at this point made common cause and on 13 May 1648 declared a special assembly of deputies that should meet in the Chamber of Saint Louis to discuss reform of the state. They were joined by most of the financial officers, many of whom had seen their functions usurped by intendants and tax farmers.
On 30 June this assembly proposed that all intendants should be recalled, all tax farming should end, the taille should be reduced by 25%, and no new offices should be created. New taxes should require approval of the sovereign courts, which should also be responsible for the collection of taxes. No one should be imprisoned for more than one day without a hearing before a proper judge.
The proposals were revolutionary, though their proponents insisted they wanted only to restore ancient practices. The movement spread to the provinces and regional parlements, and in July the government gave in, or appeared to. Then Cond´ won at Lens (20 August 1648) and his army became available to the regency.
The royal council arrested Broussel, one of the leaders of Parlement. Paris took to the barricades (August 26, 27, 28). Broussel was released and the provisions of the Chamber of Saint Louis were reaffirmed on 22 October. The only compromise was that intendants could be retained in the frontier provinces to the east and south.
That winter, Mazarin tried to counter the loss of royal authority. On 5 January 1649 he called on Condé and the court fled Paris. The country was slipping into civil war. The citizens held Paris, though, and in March 1649 the Chamber agreement was again confirmed. Both sides were working toward a compromise, but Paris was insisted on the removal of Mazarin. When Condé began demanding honors and rewards for his victories against the Habsburgs, Parlement had him and two other princes of the blood arrested (January 1650).
This drove several great magnates into rebellion, led by Mme. de Longueville, wife of one of the imprisoned princes. Their demands were, naturally, that the princes of the realm should serve as the regent council. This was obviously not what Parlement had negotiated, but the two factions agreed on one point: Mazarin was a tyrant and had to go. Meanwhile the Spanish took advantage of the civil unrest and drove deep into France from the Spanish Netherlands, nearly reaching Paris. The crisis of foreign invasion at least provided another focus and the invaders were driven out that same year.
Mazarin tried to play the magnates off against each other. When he didn't deliver on his promises, he himself had to leave the court (6 February 1651). The aristocrats held the upper hand and proceeded to lose it by quarreling with one another. They called for an Estates General; elections were held but it never met. Parlement wanted no Estates General to rival its own position. The king was declared of age that September. Around the same time, Condé broke with the other magnates, left Paris, and threw in with the Spanish. Mazarin returned in December, bolstered by a German army.
1652 was even worse. By grim coincidence, France was hit by six successive years of bad harvests (1548-1653) and the countryside was by now in desperate straits. Fighting erupted all around Paris until mid-summer. On 4 July a new government was formed that simply claimed for itself the right to rule. At its heart were Broussel, Condé, and the duc d'Orleans. There was even talk of doing away with the monarchy.
Once again the victors could not refrain from squabbling. The machinery of government very nearly ceased to function: different groups issued orders and edicts, or else met and did nothing at all. Taxes were here collected twice, there not at all. Some law courts stopped hearing cases.
In August 1652 Mazarin shrewdly went into exile. All could see that utter chaos was the next step, but the rebels must be allowed to save face. With Mazarin out of the picture, Paris was at last reconciled with the government. Broussel was forced to resign and Condé could no longer get supplies from the city. On 13 October, he and Bouillon were forced to withdraw and the king returned to Paris eight days later. Mazarin was able to return in February 1653. When Bordeaux surrendered on 3 August, the Fronde was finally over.
Fouquet was finance minister and amassed immense personal wealth. He built huge chateaux, on the scale of Versailles, and built a huge art collection. Mazarin also built a dynasty.
Peace of the Pryenees, 1659. Peace of Oliva and Copenhagen, 1660
Mazarin died 9 March 1661. Louis assumed direct control of the government and never again ruled through a chief minister.
International Relations and France, 1648-1660
France got vital territories from Westphalia, including Alsace. Especially important was Breisach, on the right bank of the Rhine, which guaranteed direct access into Germany. France was guaranteed direct access into German politics as well, for it wa allowed to have an ambassador at the German Diet and to intervene in defense of "German liberties".
The point of the special provisions was to allow France to counter the Habsburgs. Should the Empire become too strong, it would be a threat to France; but, as the 30YW had shown, should conditions become too chaotic in Germany, this too would pose a danger. Both had to be guarded against, but France needed an ally within the Empire, a counterweight to imperial prestige and authority. Richelieu's original idea was that this would be the cities, but the 30YW had left them broken, economically and politically. The Electors could not be relied upon, and anyway their power had been reduced by the war as well. The great winners were the territorial princes, and Mazarin found he must deal with them
The goal of neutralizing the Habsburgs could be greatly advanced if the habsburgs were no longer emperors. This was feasible in theory because there was no law decreeing the crown was hereditary. At Münster the French had tried hard and failed to add a single clause that would have prohibited succession in the reigning imperial family, and on 31 May 1653 Ferdinand IV was elected King of the Romans while his father yet lived. That election was a measure of how disunited was the Franco-Protestant side. Then, less than a year later, Ferdinand IV died. His brother Leopold was only fourteen, so there was no chance of his being elected right away. Mazarin began maneuvering. When Ferdinand III died on 2 April 1657, the time was right for France to make a move.
Two factors worked against French interests. First, there was a lack of suitable alternatives. Mazarin floated the idea that Louis XIV might be emperor. He was, after all, heir to Charlemagne. The combined might of France and Germany could smite the Turk. he could be married to a German princess. But reception of this idea, never put forward formally, was chilly.
The greater obstacle was that the Electors wanted a Habsburg. They felt secure in their power. Some, at least, thought the young Leopold would be easy to manipulate. And most importantly, everyone feared that a change in dynasty would risk civil war. With dangerous powers on every side (Sweden, France, Spain, the Ottomans) and the memory of war fresh in everyone's mind, this risk could not be taken. On 18 July 1658, Leopold was elected and was crowned only two weeks later.
Mazarin's tactics were now to make sure the new emperor could not threaten French interests. Most famously, Louis XIV never once addressed Leopold by his title. He simply pretended that Leopold was another prince of Europe; to read Louis' public documents, you'd never know there was such a thing as an Emperor.
A more positive step was the League of the Rhine, formed in August 1658. This league was the work of the Elector of Mainz, who was also arch-chancellor of the Empire. His aim was to unify the existing Protestant and Catholic leagues, with the usual aims of national defense and internal peace. Because France had representation in the Diet, she was able to join the league. The advantage to Louis was that he got promises that the League would not allow passage of foreign troops (mainly affecting Spanish troops bound for Flanders) and would defend France's recent territorial acquisitions. In return, Louis promised not to attack Germany and to provide troops when requested by the Diet.
Security of the territorial gains was a serious concern for France. Alsace had been acquired, but it was far from yet being French. The ten imperial cities there still were insisting on their rights. The county was still mentioned as a possible trade in negotiations. And the crown was still working out what sort of status it should have in the kingdom. On a practical level, it was still occupied territory, with French troops to keep it in line. The governor of Alsace wanted to make it an independent state, to serve as a buffer between France and Germany, with himself as count, of course.
So, by 1660, Franco-German relations were, if not friendly, at least cordial. Leopold became preoccupied with a new Ottoman offensive that begin in spring 1660. Meanwhile, France had just settled up with Spain and could also pursue new directions. With Mazarin's death in 1661, French foreign policy took on a new tone, if not yet a new direction.