Rise of Absolute Monarchy in France: The World of Louis XIV

1
Rise of Absolute Monarchy in France The World of
Louis XIV

• By Vanessa Garcia, Michael Wilson, Elliot
  Sherell, James Carr-Thomas, and Karla Armenta

2
Years of Personal Rule

• His reign is look on as when the French monarchy
  took total control of the nation on all levels.
• It began with two powerful chief ministers
• Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)
• Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661)

3
Years of Personal Rule

• Due to their involvement, they provoked a series
  of rebellions among French nobles between
  1649-1652 called Fronded.
• He then changed his game plan, realizing that his
  heavy handed authority and policies would only
  threaten this Throne.
• His changes tactics involved a more gentle
  approach then his predecessors.

4
Years of Personal Rule

• His genius was to make the monarchy the most
  important and powerful political institution in
  France while also assuring the nobles and other
  wealthy groups of their social standing and
  influence on the local level.
• He ruled developing enormous energy in to his
  political tasks.
• With the support of the hand picked council of
  royal families, he ruled through councils that
  controlled foreign affairs, the army, domestic
  administration, and economic relations.

5
Years of Personal Rule

• He made sure that the nobility and other major
  social groups would benefit from the growth of
  his own authority.
• Even with all his power, he never tried to
  abolish those institutions or limit their local
  authority. He would consult with these political
  institutions of authority called Parliaments in
  France developed out of the previous council of
  the king.
• They had customary rights of consultation and
  deliberation with the king, he in judicial bodies
  would consult with them before passing laws that
  would effect them.
• So for a time regional parliaments and other
  authorities resented the power of the Parisian
  body and supported the Monarch

6
Versailles

• Louis never missed an opportunity to show of his
  crown, when the dauphin was born he dresses
  himself as a Roman Emperor.
• The central element of the image of the monarch
  was the Palace of Versailles, which was the
  largest secular structure in Europe.

7
Versailles

• Louis was known as the Sun King
• Versailles housed thousands of the more important
  nobles, royal officials, and servants.
• Louis supported Frances traditional social
  structure and the social privileges of the
  nobility.

8
King by Divine Right

• Louis success was due to the political theorist
  Jacques-Benigne Bossuet
• Bossuet quoted the Old Testament that Kings were
  appointed by and answerable only to God
• Although Kings might be duty bound to reflect
  Gods will in their rule, yet as Gods regents on
  earth they could not be bound to dictate of mere
  nobles and parliaments.

9
King by Divine Right

• Louis XIV declared Letat, cest moi or I am
  the state.
• His absolutism functioned primarily in the
  classic areas of European state actionthe making
  of war and peace, the regulation of religion, and
  the oversight of economic activity

10
Louiss Early Wars

• Louis XIV wanted to secure its northern borders
  along the Spanish Netherlands, the Franche-Comté,
  Alsace, and Lorraine from which foreign armies
  had invaded France and could easily do so again

11
Louiss Early Wars

• Conflicts with Spain and the United Netherlands
• War of the Devolution (he supported the alleged
  right of his first wife, Marie Therese, to
  inherit the Spanish Netherlands)
• In 1667, his armies invaded Flanders and the
  Franche-Comté
• By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) he got
  control of certain towns bordering the Spanish
  Netherlands.
• Treaty of Dover, England and France became allies
  against the Dutch. Then Louis XIV invaded the
  Netherlands again.
• Prince of Orange forged an alliance with the Holy
  Roman Emperor, Spain, Lorraine, and Brandenburg
  against Louis, and the war ended with the Peace
  of Nijmwegen.

12
Louiss Repressive Religious Policies

• Louis believed that political unity and stability
  required religious conformity, he carried out
  many repressive actions against both Roman
  Catholics and Protestants.
• The French crown and the French Roman Catholic
  Church jealously guarded their ecclesiastical
  independence or Gallican Liberties from the
  papal authority in Rome

13
Louiss Repressive Religious Policies

• After Henry IV conversion to Roman Catholicism
  Jesuits monopolized the education of French
  upper-class men.
• Jesuits served as confessors for Henry IV, Louis
  XIII, and Louis XIV
• Jansenism arose in the 1630s as an opposition to
  the theology and the political influence of the
  Jesuits.

14
Louiss Repressive Religious Policies

• Jansenism was modeled after the teachings of St.
  Augustine, who had influenced many Protestant
  doctrines.
• Jansenists, were known to live extremely pious
  and morally austere lives.

15
Louiss Repressive Religious Policies

• Jansenists became associated with opposition to
  royal authority, and sympathized with those
  families involves in the Fronde.
• Pope Innocent X declared heretical five Jansenist
  theological propositions, and banned Jansenism

16
Louiss Repressive Religious Policies

• Pope Clement XI issued the Bill of Unigenitus
  which again extensively condemned Jansenist
  teachings.
• Louis instructed the French church to accept the
  bill despite internal ecclesiastical opposition
• By prosecuting the Jansenist Louis turned his
  back on the long tradition of protecting the
  Gallican Liberties of the French Church

17
Louiss Repressive Religious Policies

• Louis influenced by Madame de Maintenon revoked
  the Edict of Nantes, causing thousands to join
  the resistance to Louis
• France became a symbol of religious repression in
  contrast to Englands reputation for moderate, it
  not complete religious toleration.

18
Louiss Later Wars

• After the Treaty of Nijmwegen Louis maintained
  his army to full strength and probed beyond his
  borders.
• Charles II, last Habsburg king of Spain, died
  without a direct heir leaving everything to Louis
  grandson Philip V of Spain.

19
Louiss Later Wars

• England, Holland, and the Holy Roman Empire
  formed the Grand Alliance to preserve the balance
  of power by once and for all securing Flanders as
  a neutral barrier between Holland and France.

20
Louiss Later Wars

• In the War of the Spanish Succession England had
  the upper hand, although French arms triumphed in
  Spain
• Soon after the war was called a stalemate.
• France kept the throne, but England got Gibraltar
  and the island of Minorca, and Louis recognized
  the right of the House of Hanover to the English
  Throne.

21
France of After Louis XIV

• John Law, a Scottish mathematician and gambler,
  took over the financial management of the Kingdom
  from the Duke of Orleans
• He Believed that a paper-money increase would
  stimulate Frances economy

22
France of After Louis XIV

• Law organized the bank of Paris called the
  Mississippi Company which issued paper-money then
  organized a monopoly.
• When stock value suddenly rose greatly, smart
  investors took their stock and sold them for
  paper-money. Which they later took and traded for
  gold.

23
France of After Louis XIV

• In February 1720, all gold payments were halted
  in France. Soon after, Law fled the country. This
  problem was called the Mississippi Bubble.
• The Mississippi Company was later reorganized and
  functioned profitably, but the fear of
  paper-money and speculation marked French
  economic life for decades.

24
France of After Louis XIV

• The Duke of Orleans made a second-decision that
  also lessened the power of the monarchy.
• He set up a system of councils in which nobles
  were to serve along with beaurocrats.
• Years of idle domestication at Versailles worked
  too well, nobility seemed to lack talent and
  desire to govern.

25
France of After Louis XIV

• The most effective instrument in this process was
  the parliaments, or courts dominated by the
  nobility.
• The Duke of Orleans reversed the policy of Louis
  XIV and formally approved the reinstitution of
  the full power of The Parliament of Paris to
  allow or disallow laws.

26

• Parliament National lawmaking body
• Parlement Regional court in France during the
  time of Louis XIV

27
The End

• The End