FRENCH ABSOLUTISM

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FRENCH ABSOLUTISM

• THE RISE OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHS

NATIONAL STATES
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MODERN NATION STATE
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CHARACTERISTICS

• Strong Central Government
• Universal laws
• Permanent Army professional soldiers paid by
  the State
• Trained Bureaucrats
• Collect taxes, enforce laws, administer justice

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CHARACTERISTICS

• Secular State
• State above Religion
• Churches do not determine state policy
• National Security
• National Power and Glory
• National language, pride, common culture, and
  history distinct from others

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NEW MONARCHS

• 16th century
• New breed of leaders ruthless
• Law and Order
• Despots of Italy, Henry VII of England, Louis XI
  of France, Ferdinand and Isabella of Aragon
  (Spain)

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NEW MONARCHS

• Kingship strong authority
• National purpose linked all classes
• Respect and Loyalty
• Ruthless treatment of opposition
• Relied on the middle-class new bourgeoisie

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RISE OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHS

• Weak Medieval Kings
• Power Feudal Nobel Lords
• Gradual Shift
• End of 17th Century England, France, Spain,
  Russia, Prussia, and Austria

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FACTORS ROYAL POWER

• Crusades many feudal lords
• Middle class supported Monarchs protect trade
  and property
• Gunpowder destroy feudal lords castle
• Reformation power away from RCC to Monarchy
• Awakening spirit of Nationalism

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DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS

• Gods earthly representative
• Obedience to God Obedience to the King
• King could do no wrong
• Bishop Jacques Bossuet
• Politics Drawn From the Very Words of the Holy
  Scripture (read pp. 20-22)
• The person of the king is sacred, and to attack
  him in any way is an attack on religion itself.

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MODERN NATION STATE

• France, England, Spain
• Prussia, Russia, Austria Diverse
• Gradual shift from loyalty to regional, local
  lords monarch rise of the Modern Nation State

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ENGLAND

• Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Celts, Danes,
  Normans
• Assimilation
• 1066 Battle of Hastings William the Conqueror
  strengthens govt
• 100 Years War (1337-1453)
• War of the Roses (1455-1485)
• King Henry VII Tudor Dynasty

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FRANCE

• Romans, Franks, Gauls, Norse, Carolingian
  Kings(8-10th c), Capetian Kings (10-14th c)
• Philip the Fair (1285-1314) Babylonian
  Captivity
• 100 Years War (1337-1453)
• Louis XI (1461-1483)
• Religious Civil Wars (16th 17th c)
• 1589 Henry IV 200 years of Bourbon rule

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SPAIN

• Romans, Visigoths, Moors
• 11th 15th c unification
• 1469 Ferdinand and Isabella married
• Inquisition persecution of Jews, Muslims
• Marriage Alliances Hapsburgs
• Charles V (1519-1555) Spain, Netherlands,
  Sicily, Southern Italy, Austria, 1520 HRE
• Philip II (1556-1598)

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RECONQUISTA
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HUGUENOTS

• French Wars of Religion (1560-1598)
• French Protestants
• Calvinists
• ½ French Nobility were Huguenots
• WHY?
• French nobles frequently adopted the reformed
  religion as a religious cloak for the
  independence
• Similar to the Peace of Augsburg

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PROTESTANT CHURCHES IN FRANCE
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KING HENRY HIS HEIRS

• The feebleness of the French monarchy was the
  seed from which the weeds of civil violence
  sprang
• Henry II (1547-1559) last powerful Valois wife
  Catherine de Medici
• Three Weak Sons
• Francis II (r. 1559-60)
• Charles IX (r. 1560-1574)
• Henry III (r. 1574-1589)

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• BOURBON
• GUISE
• HUGENOTS
• VALOIS FAMILY IN POWER (1328-1559)

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Catherine de Medici
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ST. BARTHOLOMEWS DAY MASSACRE

• 1572
• Catherine de Medici
• Daughter of Lorenzo de Medici (1492-1519)
• Well-schooled in Machiavellian politics
• Ruled from behind the scenes son Charles IX
  king 10 years old (1560)
• Huguenots threat to power

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ST. BARTHOLOMEWS DAY MASSACRE

• August 24, 1572
• Admiral Gaspard de Coligny royal council
  advisor to the King
• Unite Catholics and Protestants marriage
• Margaret Valois (Catholic) Henry of Navarre
  (Protestant)
• Catherine alarmed by Colignys influence hired an
  assassin to kill him

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ST. BARTHOLOMEWS DAY MASSACRE

• Admiral only wounded
• Charles IX full investigation
• Catherine confessed to Charles IX
• ALL HUGUENOTS MUST DIE
• 10-12,000 died between August 25th October 3rd
• Henry of Navarre escaped eventually Henry IV
  first Bourbon to rule France
• Charles IX died two years later

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WAR OF THE THREE HENRYS

• Henry III Valois
• Henry of Navarre Bourbon (Huguenot)
• Henry of Guise (Catholic)
• Henry of Guise Henry III assassinated

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BOURBON DYNASTY

• Henry IV (1589-1610) Duc of Sully
• Louis XIII (1610-1643) - Richelieu
• Louis XIV (1643-1715) Mazarin (1643-1661)
• 200 Years Bourbon Family rules France
• 1789?
• French Revolution

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HENRY IV

• 1589-1610
• Henry of Navarre
• Protestant converts to Catholicism
• Paris is well worth a mass
• Edict of Nantes (1598) religious freedoms
• Approximately 200 fortified Huguenot towns 1.25
  Million

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HENRY IV

• Poltitique The (politiques) believed man lived
  primarily in the state, not in the church.
• The politiques were men who concluded that too
  much was being made of religion, that no doctrine
  was important enough to justify everlasting war,
  that perhaps afterall there might be room for two
  churches, and that what the country needed above
  all else was civil order.

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HENRY IV

• Paved the way for French Absolutism by helping to
  restore internal peace
• New Nobility Nobles of the Robe
• Disorders of religious wars germinated the idea
  of royal absolutism and the sovereign state
• Henry IV assassinated 1610 by a Catholic
  Fanatic

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LOUIS XIII

• 1610-1643
• Son of Henry IV
• 6 years old when his father dies
• Mother Marie de Medici Regent
• Huguenot revolts
• Promoted Cardinal Richelieu Chief Advisor

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CARDINAL RICHELIEU

• 1585-1642
• Chief advisor 1624-1642
• Shrewd, Brilliant, Energetic, Loyal, Catholic
• Shaped the destiny of France
• France supreme power in Europe
• Strengthened the power of the king

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PEACE OF ALAIS

• Threats to royal power?
• Huguenots state within a state
• Peace of Alais (1629) amended the Edict of
  Nantes
• Military rights of Huguenots must be removed
• Protestantism often served as a religious cloak
• Siege of La Rochelle

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INTENDANTS

• Royal Commissioners
• Middle class, lesser nobles
• Administrative System
• France divided into 32 districts
• Duties collect taxes, recruit men for army,
  administer laws, regulate economic activities
• WHY?

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SUCCESSES of ABSOLUTISM

• Strong Central Government
• one faith, one law, one king
• Weakened forced that tended to divide nations
• Growth towards the Modern Nation State

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FAILURES of ABSOLUTISM

• Nations welfare dependent upon the ability of
  one person
• Countless costly wars
• Disregarded the needs of the rights of the common
  people

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INTELLECTUALS

• 18th century philosophers
• Enlightenment Age of Reason Intellectual
  revolution
• Brute force violated reason
• Advocated despotic govt
• Attacked legal and social inequality, serfdom,
  religious intolerance
• Prevented Progress

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ENLIGHENED DESPOTS

• Frederick the Great Prussia literature,
  music, science, promoted education, religious
  tolerance
• Catherine the Great Russia art, literature,
  science, local self-govt, legal reforms
• Joseph II Austria improved conditions of
  serfs, educational facilities, attempted equality
  of all before the law, religious toleration

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FAILURES OF DESPOTISM

• Did not remove autocracy, class distinctions,
  unfair taxation, frequent wars, could not assure
  good govt by successors