Early Modern France
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French history that falls in the early modern period from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century (or from the French Renaissance to the eve of the French Revolution). During this period France evolved from a feudal country to an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences) organized around a powerful absolute monarchy which relied on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explicit support of the established Church.
Early Modern France and the French
Geography
During this period, France expanded to nearly its modern territorial form through the acquisition of Picardy, Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Provence, Brittany, Franche-Comté, Flanders, Navarre, Roussillon, the Duchy of Lorraine, Alsace and Corsica. Only the Duchy of Savoy, the city of Nice and some other small papal (like Avignon) and foreign possessions would be acquired later. (For a map of historic French provinces, see Provinces of France). France also embarked on exploration, colonization and mercantile exchanges with the Americas (New France, Louisiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Guyane), India (Pondichery), the Indian ocean (Réunion), the Far East and portions of Africa.
Although Paris was the capital of France, the later Valois kings had largely abandoned the city as their primary residence, preferring instead various châteaux of the Loire Valley and Parisian countryside. Henri IV made Paris his primary residence (promotting a major building boom in private mansions), but Louis XIV would once again withdraw from the city in the last decades of his reign and Versailles became the primary seat of French power for much of the following century.
The administrative and legal system in France in this period is generally called the Ancien Régime (see below).
Demographics
The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348. The concurrent Hundred Years' War slowed recovery. It would be the early sixteenth century before the population recovered to mid-fourteenth century levels. With an estimated population of 17 million in 1400, 20 million in the 1600s, and 28 million in 1789, until 1795 France was the most populated country in Europe (above even Russia and twice the size of Britain and the Netherlands) and the third most populous country in the world, behind only China and India (see Demographics of France).These demographic changes also lead to a massive increase in urban populations, although on the whole France remained a profoundly rural country. Paris was one of the most populated cities in Europe (estimated at 400,000 inhabitants in 1550; 650,000 at the end of the 18th century). Other major French cities include Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille. These centuries saw a number of periods of epidemics and crop failures due to wars and climatic changes (historians speak of the period 1550-1850 as the "Little Ice Age"): in 1693-1694, France lost 6% of its population; in the extremely harsh winter of 1709, France lost 3.5% of its population (in the past 300 years, no period has been so proportionally deadly for the French, both World Wars included).[#endnote_iceage]
Language
Linguistically, the differences in France were extreme. Before the Renaissance, the language spoken in the north of France was a collection of different dialects called Oïl languages. By the 16th century there had developed a generalized form of French (called Middle French) which would be the basis of the standardized "modern" French of the 17th and 18th century (in 1539, with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, Francis I made French alone the language for legal and juridical acts). Nevertheless, in 1790, perhaps 50% of the French population did not speak or understand this modern French; the southern half of the country continued to speak one of the Occitan languages (such as Provençal) and other inhabitants spoke Breton, Catalan, Basque, Flemish, and Franco-provençal. In the north of France, regional dialects of the various langues d'oïl continued to be spoken in rural communities. France would only become a linguistically unified country by the end of the 19th century.History of Early Modern France
The Treaty of Étaples (1492) marks the begin of Early Modern Times in France.
After the so-called Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and the Treaty of Picquigny (1475) – its official date of end – now in 1492 and 1493 Charles VIII of France signed up three treaties as well as with Henry VII of England and with Maximilian I of Habsburg and with Ferdinand II of Aragon respectively at Étaples (1492), Senlis (1493) and in Barcelona (1493).
These three treaties gave the possibility to France for engaging the long Italian Wars (1494-1559) which marked the beginning of Early Modern France.
After Charles VIII the Affable, the last Valois direct, three other branchs reigned in France till the fall of the Ancien Régime in 1792:
Valois-Angoulême (1515-1589) House of Bourbon (1589-1792)- Henry IV
- the Regency of Marie de Medici
- Louis XIII and his minister Cardinal Richelieu
- the Regency of Anne of Austria and her minister Cardinal Mazarin
- Louis XIV
- the Régence of Philip II of Orleans
- Louis XV
- Louis XVI
French Renaissance
For the cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century, see French Renaissance.Despite the beginnings of rapid demographic and economic recovery after the Black Death of the 14th century, the gains of the previous half-century were to be jeopardised by a further protracted series of conflicts, the Italian Wars (1494-1559), where French efforts to gain dominance ended in the increased power of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors of Germany.
Ludovico Sforza, seeking an ally against the Republic of Venice, encouraged Charles VIII of France to invade Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples, then under Aragonese control, as a pretext. When Ferdinand I of Naples died in 1494, Charles invaded the peninsula. For several months, French forces moved through Italy virtually unopposed, since the condottieri armies of the Italian city-states were unable to resist them. Their sack of Naples finally provoked a reaction, however, and the League of Venice was formed against them. Italian troops defeated the French at the battle of Fornovo, forcing Charles to withdraw to France. Ludovico, having betrayed the French at Fornovo, retained his throne until 1499, when Charles' successor, Louis XII of France, invaded Lombardy and seized Milan.
In 1500, Louis, having reached an agreement with Ferdinand II of Aragon to divide Naples, marched south from Milan. By 1502, combined French and Aragonese forces had seized control of the Kingdom; disagreements about the terms of the partition led to a war between Louis and Ferdinand. By 1503, Louis, having been defeated at the Battle of Cerignola and Battle of the Garigliano, was forced to withdraw from Naples, which was left under the control of the Spanish viceroy, Ramon de Cardona. French forces under Gaston de Foix inflicted an overwhelming defeat on a Spanish army at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, but Foix was killed during the battle, and the French were forced to withdraw from Italy by an invasion of Milan by the Swiss, who reinstated Maximilian Sforza to the ducal throne. The Holy League, left victorious, fell apart over the subject of dividing the spoils, and in 1513 Venice allied with France, agreeing to partition Lombardy between them.
Louis mounted another invasion of Milan, but was defeated at the battle of Novara, which was quickly followed by a series of Holy League victories at La Motta, Guinegate, and Flodden Field, in which the French, Venetian, and Scottish forces were decisively defeated. However, the death of Pope Julius left the League without effective leadership, and when Louis' successor, Francis I, defeated the Swiss at Marignano in 1515, the League collapsed, and by the treaties of Noyon and Brussels, surrendered to France and Venice the entirety of northern Italy.
The elevation of Charles of Spain to Holy Roman Emperor, a position that Francis had desired, led to a collapse of relations between France and the Habsburgs. In 1519, a Spanish invasion of Navarre, nominally a French fief, provided Francis with a pretext for starting a general war; French forces flooded into Italy and began a campaign to drive Charles from Naples. The French were outmatched, however, by the fully-developed Spanish tercio tactics, and suffered a series of crippling defeats at Bicocca and Sesia against Spanish troops under Fernando de Avalos. With Milan itself threatened, Francis personally led a French army into Lombardy in 1525, only to be defeated and captured at the battle of Pavia; imprisoned in Madrid, Francis was forced to agree to extensive concessions over his Italian territories in the "Treaty of Madrid" (1526).
The inconclusive third war between Charles and Francis began with the death of Francesco Maria Sforza, the duke of Milan. When Charles' son Phillip inherited the duchy, Francis invaded Italy, capturing Turin, but failed to take Milan. In response, Charles invaded Provence, advancing to Aix-en-Provence, but withdrew to Spain rather than attacking the heavily fortified Avignon. The Truce of Nice ended the war, leaving Turin in French hands but effecting no significant change in the map of Italy. Francis, allying himself with Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire, launched a final invasion of Italy. A Franco-Ottoman fleet captured the city of Nice in August 1543, and laid siege to the citadel. The defenders were relieved within a month. The French, under François, Count d'Enghien, defeated an Imperial army at the Battle of Ceresole in 1544, but the French failed to penetrate further into Lombardy. Charles and Henry VIII of England then proceeded to invade northern France, seizing Boulogne and Soissons. A lack of cooperation between the Spanish and English armies, coupled with increasingly aggressive Ottoman attacks, led Charles to abandon these conquests, restoring the status quo once again.
In 1547, Henry II of France, who had succeeded Francis to the throne, declared war against Charles with the intent of recapturing Italy and ensuring French, rather than Habsburg, domination of European affairs. An early offensive against Lorraine was successful, but the attempted French invasion of Tuscany in 1553 was defeated at the Battle of Marciano. Charles' abdication in 1556 split the Habsburg empire between Phillip II of Spain and Ferdinand I, and shifted the focus of the war to Flanders, where Phillip, in conjunction with Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, defeated the French at St. Quentin. England's entry into the war later that year led to the French capture of Calais, and French armies plundered Spanish possessions in the Low Countries; but Henry was nonetheless forced to accept the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, in which he renounced any further claims to Italy.
Barely were the Italian Wars over, when France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a Concordat between France and the Papacy (1516), granting the crown unrivalled power in senior ecclesiastical appointments, France was deeply affected by the Protestant Reformation's attempt to break the unity of Roman Catholic Europe. A growing urban-based Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots) faced ever harsher repression under the rule of Franis I's son King Henry II. After Henry II's unfortunate death in a joust, the country was ruled by his widow Catherine de Medici and her sons Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1562), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, German and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces.
After the assassination of both Henry of Guise (1588) and Henry III (1589), the conflict was ended by the accession of the Protestant king of Navarre as Henry IV (first king of the Bourbon dynasty) and his subsequent abandonment of Protestantism (Expedient of 1592) effective in 1593, his acceptance by most of the Catholic establishment (1594) and by the Pope (1595), and his issue of the toleration decree known as the Edict of Nantes (1598), which guaranteed freedom of private worship and civil equality.
France in the 17th and 18th centuries
France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of France's rise to European hegemony, although at his death in 1610, the Regency of his wife Marie de Medici suffered from internal conflicts with the noble families.
Henry IV's son Louis XIII and his minister (1624-1642) Cardinal Richelieu, elaborated a policy against Spain and the German emperor during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) which had broken out among the lands of Germany's Holy Roman Empire. An English-backed Huguenot rebellion (1625-1628) defeated, France intervened directly (1635) in the wider European conflict following her ally (Protestant) Sweden's failure to build upon initial success.
After the death of both king and cardinal, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) secured universal acceptance of Germany's political and religious fragmentation, but the Regency of Anne of Austria and her minister Cardinal Mazarin experienced a civil uprising known as the Fronde (1648-1653) which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War (1653-1659). The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) formalised France's seizure (1642) of the Spanish territory of Roussillon after the crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and ushered a short period of peace.
During the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), France was the dominant power in Europe, aided by the diplomacy of Richelieu's successor (1642-1661) Cardinal Mazarin and the economic policies (1661-1683) of Colbert. Renewed war (the War of Devolution 1667-1668 and the Franco-Dutch War 1672-1678) brought further territorial gains (Artois and western Flanders and the free county of Burgundy, left to the Empire in 1482), but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival powers.
Following the seizure of the (then separate) English, Irish and Scottish thrones by the Dutch prince William of Orange in 1688, the anti-French "Grand Alliance" of 1689 inaugurated more than a century of intermittent European conflict in which Britain would play an ever more important role, seeking in particular to keep France out of the Netherlands (the Dutch provinces and the future Belgium, then under Spanish rule).
The battle of La Hougue (1692) was the decisive naval battle in the Nine Years War (1689-1697) and confirmed the durable dominance of the Royal Navy.
After the Nine Years War gained France only Haiti (lost to a slave revolt a century later), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) ended with the undoing of Louis's dreams of a Franco-Spanish Bourbon empire: the two conflicts strained French resources already weakened by disastrous harvests in the 1690s and in 1709, as well as by the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes and the consequent loss of Huguenot support and manpower.
The reign (1715-1774) of Louis XV saw an initial return to peace and prosperity under the regency (1715-1723) of Philip II, Duke of Orléans, whose policies were largely continued (1726-1743) by Cardinal Fleury, prime minister in all but name, renewed war with the Empire (1733-1735 and 1740-1748) being fought largely in the East. But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy (the "Diplomatic Revolution" of 1756) against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763).
With the country deeply in debt, Louis XVI permitted the radical reforms of Turgot and Malesherbes, but noble disaffection led to Turgot's dismissal and Malesherbes' resignation 1776. They were replaced by Jacques Necker. Louis supported the American Revolution in 1778, but in the Treaty of Paris (1783), the French gained little except an addition to the country's enormous debt. Necker had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by Calonne and Brienne, before being restored in 1788.
On the eve of the French Revolution of 1789, France was in a profound institutional and financial crisis, but the ideas of the Enlightenment had begun to permeate the educated classes of society.
On 1792 September 21 the French monarchy was effectively abolished by the proclamation of the French First Republic
Structure of the Ancien Régime
| Ancien Régime |
|---|
| Structure |
| Estates of the realm |
| Parlements |
| French nobility |
| Taille |
| Gabelle |
| Seigneurial system |
Overview
The political structure of the early modern period in France is often referred to as the Ancien Régime. It was the result of centuries of nation-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal conflicts and civil wars. Much of the medieval political centralization of France had been lost in the Hundred Years' War and the Valois Dynasty's attempts at re-establishing control over the scattered political centers of the country were hindered by the Wars of Religion. Much of the reigns of Henry IV, Louis XIII and the early years of Louis XIV were shaped by powerful internal conflicts which protested against this centralization.The need for centralization was directly linked to the question of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and 17th centuries (the Wars of Religion, the conflict with the Habsburgs) and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century demanded great sums which needed to be raised through taxes, such as the taille and the gabelle and by contributions of men and service from the nobility.
One key to this centralization was the replacing of personal "clientel" systems organized around the king and other nobles by institutional systems around the state. The creation of the Intendants -- representatives of royal power in the provinces -- would do much to undermine local control by regional nobles. The same was true with the greater reliance shown by the royal court on the "noblesse de robe" as judges and royal counselors. The creation of regional parlements had initially the same goal of facilitating the introduction of royal power into newly assimilated territories, but as the parlements gained in self-assurance, they began to be sources of disunity.
Despite efforts by the kings to create a centralized state, France in this period remained a patchwork of local privileges and historical differences, and the arbitrary power of the monarch (as implied by the expression "absolute monarchy") was in fact much limited by historic and regional particularities (the most notable exception to these limitations being the king's right to issue lettres de cachet). The south of France was governed by written law adapted from the Roman legal system, the north of France by common law (in 1453 these common laws were codified into a written form). Administrative (including taxation), legal (parlement), judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives overlapped. Certain provinces and cities had won special privileges (such as lower rates in the gabelle or salt tax). The French nobility struggled to maintain their own rights in the matters of local government and justice. Many of these irregularities would continue until the French Revolution imposed a radical suppression of administrative incoherence.
Lower courts
Justice in seigneurial lands (including those held by the church or within cities) was generally overseen by the seigneur or his delegated officers. Since the 15th century, much of the seigneur's legal purview had been given to the bailliages or sénéchaussées and the présidiaux (see below), leaving only affairs concerning seigeurial dues and duties, and small affairs of local justice. Only certain seigneurs -- those with the power of haute justice (seigeurial justice was divided into "high" "middle" and "low" justice) -- could enact the death penalty, and only with the consent of the présidiaux.Crimes of desertion, highway robbery, and mendicants (so-called cas prévôtaux) were under the supervision of the prévôt des maréchaux, who exacted quick and impartial justice. In 1670, their purview was overseen by the présidiaux (see below).
The national judicial system was made-up of tribunals divided into bailliages (in northern France) and sénéchaussées (in southern France); these tribunals (numbering around 90 in the 16th century, and far more at the end of the 18th) were supervised by a lieutenant général and were subdivided into:
- prévôtés supervised by a prévôt
- or (as was the case in Normandy) into vicomtés supervised by a vicomte (the position could be held by non-nobles)
- or (in parts of northern France) into châtellenies supervised by a châtelain (the position could be held by non-nobles)
- or, in the south, into vigueries or baylies supervised by a viguier or a bayle.
The prévôts or their equivalent were the first-level judges for non-nobles and ecclesiastics. In the exercise of their legal functions, they sat alone, but had to consult with certain lawyers (avocats or procureurs) chosen by themselves, whom, to use the technical phrase, they "summoned to their council". The appeals from their sentences went to the bailliages, who also had jurisdiction in the first instance over actions brought against nobles. Bailliages and présidiaux were also the first court for certain crimes (so-called cas royaux; these cases had formerly been under the supervision of the local seigneurs): sacrilege, lèse-majesté, kidnapping, rape, heresy, alteration of money, sedition, insurrections, and the illegal carrying of arms. To appeal a bailliage's decisions, one turned to the regional parlements.
The most important of these royal tribunals was the prévôté and présidial of Paris, the Châtelet, which was overseen by the prévôt of Paris, civil and criminal lientenants, and a royal officer in charge of maintaining public order in the capital, the lieutenant-général de police.
Superior courts
The following were cours souveraines, or superior courts, whose decisions could only be revoked by "the king in his conseil" (see administration section below).- Parlements - eventually 13 in number: Paris, Languedoc (Toulouse), Provence (Aix), Franche-Comté (Besançon), Guyenne (Bordeaux), Burgundy (Dijon), Flanders (Douai), Dauphiné (Grenoble), Lorraine (Nancy), Metz (formerly one of the Trois-Évêchés), Navarre (Pau), Brittany (Rennes, briefly in Nantes), Normandy (Rouen). The parlements were originally only judicial in nature (appellate courts for lower civil and ecclestiacial courts), but began to subsume limited legislative functions (see administation section below). The most important of the parlements, both in administrative area and prestige, was the parlement of Paris, which also was the court of first instance for peers of the realm and for regalian affairs.
- Conseils souverains - Alsace (Colmar), Roussillon (Perpignan), and (from 1553-1559) Corsica (Bastia); formerly Flanders, Navarre and Lorraine (converted into parlements). The conseils souverains were regional parliaments in recently conquered lands.
- Chambre des comptes - Paris, Dijon, Blois, Grenoble, Nantes. The chambre des comptes supervised the spending of public funds, the protection of royal lands (domaine royal), and legal issues involving these areas.
- Cours des aides - Paris, Clermont, Bordeaux, Montauban. The cours des aides supervised affairs in the pays d'élections, often concerning taxes on wine, beer, soap, oil, metals, etc.
- Chambre des comptes combined with Cours des aides - Aix, Bar-le-Duc, Dole, Nancy, Montpellier, Pau, Rouen
- Cours des monnaies - Paris; additionally Lyon (1704-1771), and (after 1766), the chambre des comptes of Bar-le-Duc and Nancy. The cours des monnaies oversaw money, coins and precious metals.
- Grand Conseil - created in 1497 to oversee affairs concerning ecclesiastical benefices; occasionally the king sought the Grand Conseil's intervention in affairs considered to be too contentious for the parlement.
State finances
Efficient tax collection was one of the major causes for French administrative and royal centralization in the early modern period. The taille became a major source of royal income. Exempted from the taille were clergy and nobles (except for non-noble lands they held in "pays d'état", see below), officers of the crown, military personnel, magistrates, university professors and students, and certain cities ("villes franches") such as Paris.The provinces were of two sorts, the "pays d'élection" and the "pays d'état" (Brittany, Languedoc, Burgundy, Auvergne, Normandy, Béarn, Dauphiné and Provence). In the "pays d'élection", the assessment and collection of taxes were trusted to elected (at least originally, later these positions were bought) officials (generally wealthy individuals), and the tax was "personal", meaning it was attached to non-noble individuals. In the pays d'état, the assessment of the tax was established by local councils and the tax was "real", meaning that it was attached to non-noble lands (meaning that nobles possessing such lands were required to pay taxes on them).
Until the late 17th century, tax collectors were called receveurs royaux. In 1680, the system of the Ferme Générale was established, a franchised customs and excise operation in which individuals bought the right to collect the taille on behalf of the king, through 6-years adjudications (certain taxes like the aides and the gabelle had been farmed out in this way as early as 1604). The major tax collectors in that system were known as the fermiers généraux (farmers-general in English).
The taille was only one of a number of taxes. There also existed the "taillon" (a tax for military purposes), a national salt tax (the gabelle), national tarifs (the "aides") on various products (wine, beer, oil, and other goods), local tarifs on speciality products (the "douane") or levied on products entering the city (the "octroi") or sold at fairs, and local taxes. Finally, the church benefited from a mandatory tax or tithe called the "dîme".
Louis XIV of France created several additional tax systems, including the "captation" (begun in 1695) which touched every person including nobles and the clergy (although exemption could be bought for a large one-time sum) and the "dixième" (1710-1717, restarted in 1733), enacted to support the military, which was a true tax on income and on property value. In 1749, under Louis XV of France, a new tax based on the "dixième", the "vingtième" (or "one-twentieth"), was enacted to reduce the royal deficit, and this tax continued through the ancien régime
Another key source of state financing was through charging fees for state positions (such as most members of parlement, magistrates, maître des requêtes and financial officers). Many of these fees were quite elevated, but some of these offices conferred nobility and could be financially advantageous. The venality of offices had become standard practice as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. A law in 1467 made these offices unrevocable, except through the death, resignation or forfeiture of the title holder, and these offices, once bought, tended to become hereditary charges (with a fee for transfer of title) passed on within families. In an effort to increase revenues, the state often turned to the creation of new offices. Another tactic available tot eh crown was the "40 days rule" established in the 1530s: if the title-holder died within 40 days of transferring title, the office returned to the state. In 1604, Sully created a new tax, the "paulette" or "annual tax" (1/60 of the amount of the official charge), which permitted the title-holder to be free of the 40 day rule. The "paulette" and the venality of offices would become key concerns in the parlementarian revolts of the 1640s (La Fronde).
The state also demanded of the church a "free gift", which the church collected from holders of eccleciastic offices through taxes called the "décime" (roughly 1/20th of the official charge, created under François I).
State finances also relied heavily on borrowing, both private (from the great banking families in Europe) and public. The most important public source for borrowing was through the system of rentes sur l'Hôtel de Ville of Paris, a kind of government bond system offering investers annual interest. This system first came to use in 1523 under François I.
Until 1661, the head of the financial system in France was the surintendant; with the fall of Fouquet, this was replaced by the position of contrôleur général of finances.
Administration
One of the established principles of the French monarchy was that the king could not act without the advice of his counsel; the formula "le roi en son conseil" expressed this deliberative aspect. The administration of the French state in the early modern period went through a long evolution, as a truly administrative apparatus -- relying on old nobility, newer chancellor nobility ("noblesse de robe") and administrative professionals -- was substituted to the feudal clientel system.Under Charles VIII and Louis XII the king's counsel was dominated by members of twenty or so noble or rich families; under François I the number of counsellors increased to roughly 70 individuals (although the old nobility was proportionally more important than in the previous century). The most important positions in the court were those of the Great Officers of the Crown of France, headed by the connétable (chief military officer of the realm; position eliminated in 1627) and the chancellor. The royal administration in the Renaissance was divided between a small counsel (the "secret" and later "high" counsel) of 6 or fewer members (3 members in 1535, 4 in 1554) for important matters of state; and a larger counsel for judicial or financial affairs. François I was sometimes criticized for relying too heavily on a small number of advisors, while Henri II, Catherine de Medici and their sons found themselves frequently unable to negotiate between the opposing Guise and Montmorency families in their counsel.
Under Henry IV and Louis XIII this administrative apparatus was expanded and the proportion of the "noblesse de robe" increased, culminating in the following positions during the reign of Louis XIV:
- Ministers (2 in number): the chancellor of France (also called the "garde des Scéaux", or "Keeper of the Seals") and the contrôleur général des finances (formerly called the surintendant of finances).
- Secretaries of state (4 in number, created by Henri II): secretaries of war, foreign affairs, Protestant affairs, the navy, the clergy, Paris, the "Maison du roi" (the king's personal military guard), and agriculture (the purview of ministries were combined in various ways).
- Surintendant of the postal system
- Directeur général of buildings
- Directeur général of fortifications
- Lieutenant général de la police (in charge of public order in the capital)
- Counsellors of state (generally 30)
- Maître des requêtes (generally 80)
- Intendants of finance
- Intendants of commerce
- Treasurers
- Farmers general
- Archbishop of Paris
- Royal confessor
The decision-making apparatus was further divided into several royal counsels:
- Conseil d'en haut ("High Counsel", concerning the most important matters of state) - composed of the king, the crown prince (the "dauphin"), the chancellor, the contrôleur général des finances, and the secretary of state in charge of foreign affairs. During the Régence, matters of state were decided by a "polysynod" or multiple-person counsel, but the above system returned (with slight changes) under Louis XV and Louis XVI.
- Conseil royal des finances ("Counsel of Finances") - composed of the king, the "chef du conseil des finances" (an honorary post), the chancellor, the contrôleur général des finances and two of his consellors, and the intendants of finance.
- Conseil des dépêches ("Counsel of Messages", concerning notices and administrative reports from the provinces) - composed of the king, the chancellor, the secretaries of state, the contrôleur général des finances, and other councellors according to the issues discussed.
- Conseil privé or Conseil d'État ("Privy Counsel" or "Counsel of State", concerning the judicial system, officially instituted in 1557) - the largest of the royal counsels, composed of the chancellor, the dukes with peerage, the ministers and secretaries of state, the contrôleur général des finances, the 30 counsellors of state, the 80 maître des requêtes and the intendants of finance.
- various other commissions and special counsels.
Royal administration in the provinces had been the role of the bailliages and sénéchaussées in the Middle Ages, but this declined in the early modern period, and by the end of the 18th century, the bailliages served only a judicial function. The main source of royal administrative power in the provinces in the 16th and early 17th centuries fell to the gouverneurs (who represented "the presence of the king in his province"), positions which had long been held by only the highest ranked families in the realm. With the civil wars of the early modern period, the king increasing turned to more tractable and subservient emissaries, and this was the reason for the growth of the intendants under Louis XIV (they were first created by Henri II of France). Indendants were chosen from among the maître des requêtes and were of three types: indendants attached to a province, intendants of finances, and intendants of commerce.
By the 18th century, royal administrative power was firmly established in the provinces, despite protestations by local parlements. In addition to their role as appellate courts, regional parlements had gained the privilege to register the edicts of the king and to present the king with official complaints concerning the edicts; in this way, they had acquired a limited role as the representative voice of (predominantly) the magistrate class. In case of refusal on parlement's part to register the edicts (frequently concerning fiscal matters), the king could impose registration through a royal assize ("lit de justice").
The other traditional representatives bodies in the realm were the Etats généraux (created in 1302) which reunited the three estates of the realm (clergy, nobility, the third estate) and the "États provinciaux" (Provincial Estates). The "Etats généraux" (convoked in this period in 1484, 1560-1, 1576-7, 1588-9, 1593, 1614, and 1789) had been reunited in times of fiscal crisis or convoked by parties malcontent with royal prerogatives (the Ligue, the Hugenots), but they had no true power, the dissensions between the three orders rendered them weak and they were dissolved before having completed their work. As a sign of French absolutism, they ceased to be convoked from 1614 to 1789. The provincial estates proved more effective, and were convoked by the king to respond to fiscal and tax policies.
The Church
The French monarchy was irrevocably linked to the Catholic church (the formula says "la France est la fille aînée de l'église", or "France is the eldest daughter of the church"), and French theorists of the divine right of kings and sacerdotal power in the Renaissance had made these links explicit: Henri IV was able to ascend to the thrown only after abjuring protestantism. The symbolic power of the Catholic monarch was apparent in his crowning (the king was annoited by blessed oil in Rheims) and he was popularly believed to be able to cure scrofula by the laying on of his hands (accompanied by the formula "the king touches you, but god heals you").In 1500, France had 14 archibishoprics (Lyon, Rouen, Tours, Sens, Bourges, Bordeaux, Auch, Toulouse, Narbonne, Aix-en-Provence, Embrun, Vienne, Arles, and Rheins) and 100 bishoprics; by the eighteenth century, archbishoprics and bishoprics had expanded to a total of 139. The upper levels of the French church were made up predominantly of old nobility, both from provincial families and from royal court families, and many of the offices had become de facto hereditary possessions, with some members possessing mutiple offices. In addition to fiefs that church members possessed as seigneurs, the church also possessed seigneurial lands in its own right and enacted justice upon them.
Other temporal powers of the church included playing a political role as the first estate in the "États Généraux" and the "États Provinciaux" (Provincial Assemblies) and in Provincial Conciles or Synods convoked by the king to discuss religious issues. The church also claimed a prerogative to judge certain crimes, most notably heresy, although the Wars of Religion did much to place this crime in the purview of the royal courts and parlement. Finally, abbots, cardinals and other prelates were frequently employed by the kings as ambassadors, members of his councils (such as Richelieu and Mazarin) and in other administrative positions.
The faculty of theology of Paris (often called the Sorbonne), maintained a censor board which reviewed publications for their religious orthodoxy. The Wars of Religion saw this control over censorship however pass to the parlement, and in the seventeenth century to the royal censors, although the church maintained a right to petition.
The church was the primary provider of schools (primary schools and "colleges") and hospitals ("hôtel-Dieu", the Sisters of Charity) and distributor of relief to the poor in pre-revolutionary France
The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438, suppressed by Louis XI but brought back by the États Généraux of Tours in 1484) gave the election of bishops and abbots to the cathedral chapter houses and abbeys of France, thus stripping the pope of effective control of the French church and permitting the beginning of a Gallican church. However, in 1515, François I signed a new agreement with Pope Leo X, the Concordat of Bologna, which gave the king the right to nominate candidates and the pope the right of investiture; this agreement infuriated gallicans, but gave the king control over important ecclesiastical offices with which to benefit nobles.
Although exempted from the taille, the church was required to pay the crown a tax called the "free gift" ("don gratuit"), which it collected from its office holders, at roughly 1/20 the price of the office (this was the "décime", reapportioned every five years). In its turn, the church exacted a mandatory tithe from its parishoners, called the "dîme".
- For church history in the 16th century, see Reformation and French Wars of Religion.
Although the church would come under attack in the 18th century by the philosophers of the Enlightenment and recruitment of clergy and monastic orders would drop after 1750, figures show that, on the whole, the population remained a profoundly Catholic country (absenteism from services did not exceed 1% in the middle of the century[#endnote_absent]). At the eve of the revolution, the church possessed upwards of 7% of the country's land (figures vary) and generated yearly revenues of 150 million livres.
Economy of Early Modern France
French Exploration and Colonies
Literature
- French Renaissance literature
- French literature of the 17th century
- French literature of the 18th century
Art
References
- Bluche, François. L'Ancien régime: Institutions et société. Collection: Livre de poche. Paris: Fallois, 1993. ISBN 2253064237
- Jouanna, Arlette and Philippe Hamon, Dominique Biloghi, Guy Thiec. La France de la Renaissance; Histoire et dictionnaire. Collection: Bouquins. Paris: Laffont, 2001. ISBN 2221074268
- Jouanna, Arlette and Jacqueline Boucher, Dominique Biloghi, Guy Thiec. Histoire et dictionnaire des Guerres de religion. Collection: Bouquins. Paris: Laffont, 1998. ISBN 2221074251
- Kendall, Paul Murray. Louis XI: The Universal Spider. New York: Norton, 1971. ISBN 0393302601
- Knecht, R.J. The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France. London: Fontana Press, 1996. ISBN 0006861679
- Pillorget, René and Suzanne Pillorget. France Baroque, France Classique 1589-1715. Collection: Bouquins. Paris: Laffont, 1995. ISBN 2221081102
- Viguerie, Jean de. Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières 1715-1789. Collection: Bouquins. Paris: Laffont, 1995. ISBN 2221048105
Notes
- ↑ Pillorget, 996, 1155-7.
- ↑ Viguerie, 280.
See also
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