17th C—Growth of French Absolutism

17th Century politics

French Domination, Wars

Absolutism develops in FranceHenry IV: • curtailed privileges of French nobility• issued Edict of Nantes without nobility’s permission

or cooperation• instituted middle class bureaucracy to administer for

king (with state salaries)• financed activities through granting of monopolies

and charters; Estates General never met during his reign

Cardinal Richelieu• Regent for Louis XIII (13 when Henry IV

assassinated)• Aim: break power of nobility and thwart

conspiracies against king• Intendants—middle class control = 32 districts with intendants,

not natives of districts (loyal only to king)• Standardized French language (N. Parisian French dialect

imposed on S.)• Abolished fortified cities• Stopped Huguenot rebellions: religious, but not political rights • Entered 30 Years’ War on side of Protestants vs Habsburgs• France became most powerful nation in Europe; cultural leader

“What is done for the state is done for God, who is the basis and foundation of it......Where the interests of the state are concerned, God absolves actions which, if privately committed, would be a crime.”

"If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him."       — Cardinal Richelieu

Mazarin• Regent for Louis XIV, king at age 5

• Fronde: – Nobles rebelled after 5 years of Louis’

/Mazarin rule (after Westphalia); • wanted power with parlements (French law

court staffed by nobles that could register or refuse king’s edicts) as check on royal power

• demanded right to tax and appoint intendants

•fails because aristocracy and bourgeoisie wouldn’t work together to overthrow king;

•French people outraged when nobility hire Spanish troops as mercenaries;

•distrust of nobles, support of king: kept nobles out of government

Justification of Absolutism: France: Bossuet

• Bishop 1627-1704

• Justifies absolutism with scriptures– Let no one judge the judge--Ecclesiastes

• “Divine right of kings” monarch’s power from God; monarch = God’s representative on earth

Justification of Absolutism: England--Hobbes

• 1588-1679, English writer/philosopher

• Supported absolute power for monarch in Leviathan, because man in “state of nature,” without strong rule=chaos and violence

• “Life is nasty, brutish, and short”– King must have power to keep men from lives

of destruction; must be able to enforce order

Exhibit 1: Louis XIV• “Sun King” ruled 1661-1715• Politics:

– “L’etat, se moi”– Middle class in charge of local

issues, including courts, police, tax collection

– Chief ministers from middle class; no nobles in daily councils

– Permanent standing army paid for by state; before largest army =100,000; Louis’= 400,000

– Control of economy through Colbertism, mercantilism

Louis XIV, continued

Estates General: representatives of three estates, 1=clergy 2=nobles 3=commoners; supposed to OK taxes; rarely meets, never during Louis’s 72 year reign

Versailles

• Moved court from Paris, 12 miles outside; to glorify his rule and subdue military

• Baroque monument, heavily ornate; arches, colonnades, domes, and manicured gardens

• $1 billion for palace; 1 billion for grounds; – 37,000 acres, 3600 bricklayers; 6,000 horses 20 years– 1400 fountains, 1200 orange trees, 400 sculptures– Hall of Mirrors—243’ l; 17 arched mirrors 33’ tall

• Nobility forced to live there: CONTROL– gave them trivial offices and trivial concerns and

conspiracies– Master of the Bedchamber; Master of the Bath; honored

even to be in chamber while he bathed; – intrigue, but not politics)

Colbert = Mercantilism• Louis XIV finance minister, middle class;

policies to benefit them, as well as king

• Strength of economy/nation= nation with most bullion

• Want + balance of payments; self sufficiency with good ag + own industries

• Colonies for jobs, money, markets; source of resources for industries

• Totally regulated economy: – Free trade area N. half of France; no internal tariffs

– Commercial code replaces strong guild system

– French E. India Co (navy = colonies; 1661-18 ships, 1681- 276 ships); explorer, La Salle/La.

– Forbade food exports to keep France self sufficient; price of bread fell

Religious Control• “One king, one law, one

faith”

• Repeal of Edict of Nantes

• Jansenism: ultra Augustine

• “Holy Terror of 1685”– Protestant = death; convert or

take kids away, raised Catholic

– 50,000 to Holland & Prussia

– France lost large % of artisans, lots of francs

– Prussia gained a middle class

French Wars of Expansion

• Aim: Louis XIV wanted to expand France to its “natural boundaries”– North: Rhine– East: Alps– South: Pyrenees

War of Devolution 1667• Louis attacked Spanish Netherlands (which Dutch saw as

security buffer strip)• Louis justified his claim to that territory as an inheritance of his

wife (Maria Therese, daughter of king of Spain), but part of treaty that NOT

• Conde led in aggression, besieging Spanish held towns• William of Orange Formed Triple Alliance (Dutch, English,

Swedish)• Louis’s armies couldn’t hold such a long line, so agree to ….• RESULTS: Treaty of Aix-l-Chapelle

– France gained some territory in Flanders – Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comté returned to Spain– Inwardly, Louis XIV seethed, feeling he deserved Spanish Netherlands – felt betrayed by the Dutch, to French eyes only independent due to

French help in their war of independence. – war led directly to the Franco Dutch War of 1672-78

Franco Dutch War of 1672-78• Dutch boasted about war of Devolution—they’d humbled Louis XIV• Louis (+ Charles II) of England attacked Spanish Netherlands again

– Louis annoyed by Dutch noncooperation in dividing Spanish Netherlands– Dutch army not developed since last war—French marched to heart of Republic

and took towns

• William III of Orange allied with HRE, Spain, Denmark and Savoy vs French alliance– William probably had the leading Dutch politician de Witt deposed and

murdered, and was acclaimed stadtholder. – French promised Dutch cities to the English, so in no hurry to capture them– tried to extort sixteen million guilders from the Dutch in exchange for a separate

peace. – stiffened Dutch resistance, and negotiations gave the Republic time to flood the

countryside by deliberate flooding, blocking Fr

• Fr/Brit attempt to invade Dutch Republic by sea, but thwarted by Admiral de Ruyter in four victories – England abandoned the war in 1674

(Dutch War Continued)• Results: Treaty of Nijmegan

– Louis gives up idea of expansion into Holland– Gets more of Spanish Netherlands and Franche

Comte

League of Augsburg (Grand Alliance)

• Louis wants another part of his “natural boundaries”—the Palatine, country near the Rhine

• He bribes – ½ of the princes of the HRE to take it; – pays Turks and Hungarians to attack the HRE under Leopold– Irish to attack the British

• William III of Orange (now also William III, king of England) inspires Leopold, to found League of Augsburg vs France and Turkey– Leopold has success vs Turks– Many of HRE including Prussia/Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, along

with Spain, Sweden, Savoy

Palatinate

Alsace/Lorraine/Franche Comte

Consequences: War of Great Alliance

• Treaty of Rysnick– Louis gets Franche

Comte from HRE/ German provinces

– All others back to own sides, but Alliance remains

• Stalemate in fighting– Some fighting in

Americas called King William’s War

War of Spanish Succession• Charles II of Spain

– All the worst of Habsburg genetics• Couldn’t chew, hardly spoke

• Couldn’t stand alone

• Practically Imbecilic

– No issue

– His father, Philip IV, willed succession to Habsburg HRE Leopold I

– He willed it to Bourbon Philip

wanted the throne after Charles’s death:• Leopold I of HRE

– Mother a Spanish princess, sister of Charles’s father– His monarchy would have united Spain back with Austria/HRE, spoil

balance of power in Europe

• Philip, gson of Louis XIV– Louis’s mother another Spanish princess, sister of Charles’s father– Louis’s wife (gmother of Philip) Charles II half sister– His monarchy would possible unite France and Spain, along with their

American possessions, setting up a powerful empire, upsetting balance of power, too

• Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria – Leopold’s I grandson thru daughter, not Habsburg nor Bourbon– favored by Dutch & British: would retain balance of power

The War:• Charles II agrees to will succession to Joseph Ferdinand

– all agree to split Spanish American colonies between France and Spain—Spain unhappy split up empire

– BUT Joseph Ferdinand dies of smallpox– Philip proclaimed king, others forced to recognize him, not

wanting war, until Louis cut Dutch and English out of trade with Spanish colonies, recognized James II, not William, as king of E

• Grand Alliance– England, Holland, HRE, Brandenburg/Prussia, Denmark,

Austria, Portugal, Savoy– Lead by William III of Orange/England

• Main general = Churchill, Duke of Marlborough• His wife best friend of Queen of England, Mary

• France, Spain and Bavaria

What each country wanted:

– France: combine French and Spanish New World territories (become most powerful nation in Europe with a “universal monarchy”)

– Austria: keep Habsburg territories in family– Holland: keep French out of Spanish

Netherlands; distract from French colonies– Spain: uphold will of dead king; remain powerful– England: keep French supported Stuarts out of

England; keep, expand American colonies– Brandenburg/Prussia and Savoy: whatever

advantage available

The fighting: 10 Year “Civilized”• French Bavarian army defeats Alliance

almost to gates of Vienna

• Other fighting in Spain and border of France

• Battle of Blenheim: Duke of Marlborough defeats Louis XIV armies– First definitive defeat for Louis; stops his

eastern push

– 30,000 casualties

• Battle of Malplaquet– Alliance 3 invasions into France

– Near Paris clashed with the French under the Duc de Villars

– Defeat for France (royal commanders couldn’t agree)

Peace of Utrecht• French lost N. Am -- Newfoundland and Nova Scotia• Spain lost Euro territories: Naples, Sicily, Milan, Spanish Netherlands• Elector of Brandenburg becomes Ferdinand III, king of Prussia (before

just king in Prussia) more prestige • Austria got Spanish Netherlands (Austrian Nethelands)• England got Gibraltar, asiento = right to African slave trade w Am

colonies• France got the throne for Philip (V), but promised NEVER part of

France

Overall Assessment Louis XIV• Successes

– Centralized government– Improved military—largest, best army in Europe– Improved French commerce—rival to Britain– Tamed French aristocracy– King = state

• BUT– Taxed peasants, not nobles to pay for wars, luxuries– Too extravagant, too much debt– Court at Versailles too removed from lives,

problems of commoners

AT the death of Louis, his heir (Louis XV) inherited:

• $3 billion debt from wars, Versailles

• 1 million lives lost in wars

• 40,000 noble titles sold to help finance wars; each free from taxes

• Because of titles multiplying, tax base decreased, so increased taxes on 3rd estate.