05. Louis XIV: The Triumph of Absolutism

Louis XIV by Rigaud, 1701

Louis XIV was five years old on succeeding to the throne in 1643. He would rule France for some 72 years, dying in 1715. To this day no other European monarch has ever reigned as long. He would outlive his son and grandson. Two generations of Frenchmen would grow up and die knowing no other king. He would become the most powerful king in the history of France. He was known as Le Roi Soleil, the Sun King. Indeed, he was the sun that shone over both France and Europe. The purpose of this reading is not to take one through the history of Louis’ reign but to provide an understanding of how Louis built and exercised royal absolutism. First, however, a glimpse into the man who was king.

As a personality, Louis XIV was intelligent, handsome, and witty. Thrust into monarchy at such an early age, he never had the pleasures of a real childhood, so he made up for it in adult life. He loved theater and opera and often starred, as Apollo or some other figure from Greek mythology, in plays written especially for him. He enjoyed gambling, hunting, lavish balls and masquerades, and being with beautiful women. In later life, he kept a watchful eye on the operations of his government, utilizing a sophisticated system of spies to monitor the nobility and officials who might violate his trust.

Under the tutelage of his mother, Queen Anne, and his First Minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Louis received an extensive political education in his responsibilities as a monarch. One of the lessons was that a king had a duty to his country that transcended his personal feelings. While deeply in love with a young woman named Maria Mancini (Mazarin’s niece), 20-year-old Louis bowed to the realities of his position and dutifully married Princess Marie Therese of Spain, thus solemnizing the 1659 treaty ending France’s war with Spain. He never saw Maria again.

Louis’ marriage to Marie Therese would last until her death in 1683. They would have six children, only one of whom (Prince Louis) would survive infancy. During their marriage Louis would have several mistresses by two of whom he would have eight additional children, all of whom would later be legitimized. The last of these women was Françoise d’Aubigné, known to history as Madame de Maintenon. She came to Louis’ attention as a governess for the royal children. Following Marie Therese’s death, Louis lived with and married Maintenon. Their marriage, while legal, was kept secret. (The king would suffer great embarrassment and loss of prestige were it known that he had married one of his mistresses.) Their marriage would last 30 years until his death. He would have no children by her nor would he take any other mistresses. Louis loved Maintenon for more than her physical attractiveness. She was intelligent, devotedly loyal to him, reliable, and comforting. Often he would consult her on matters of state. Ironically, she became his moral conscience urging him to moderate the lavishness of Versailles court life, donate to charity, and go to mass. While the necessary ceremonial of court continued, Louis settled into a simpler private life, often meeting his with ministers in her rooms at the palace.

During his reign Louis built the French monarchy into the most powerful crown in Europe. Centered at the magnificent royal palace at Versailles, his dazzling court reflected a grandeur that was the envy of every monarch throughout the Continent. He had a talent for recognizing talent and chose his ministers for their ability. They served him well with enthusiasm, loyalty, and efficiency. Through his economic policies France continued to grow in wealth. If there is a tragedy to Louis XIV, it was that his foreign policy overextended and exhausted his country’s resources in war. He died at age 77 in 1715 and was succeeded by his eight-year-old great grandson, Louis XV.

The Foundations of Louis’ Absolutism

The expression most commonly associated with Louis XIV is “L’État,c’est moi” (I am the State.) There is no documented proof that he actually said this, but it certainly reflected his belief on monarchy and his role in the political life of France. Ruling with an absolutism unparalleled in French history, he was the State. His absolutism was built on several foundations: his inheritance, his mother’s regency, a rebellion, and the idea of the divine right of kings.

On succeeding to the throne, Louis inherited the political legacy of Henry IV and Richelieu. The concept of a sovereign monarchy had been part of the French experience for over forty years. As was seen in earlier readings, Henry IV’s policies of religious peace and mercantilism provided stability upon which to build a strong crown. Richelieu continued that work by bringing the Huguenots and nobility under greater direct royal control and by laying the groundwork for centralization through the system of intendants.

On the death of Louis XIII, his widow Queen Anne became regent for her son. Louis’ will, however, named a council of officers as responsible for the heir’s government. This was unacceptable to Anne. She prevailed upon the Parlement of Paris[1] to consider revision of the will. The five-year-old king, trained in what to say and sitting on a pile of cushions, appeared before the panel of judges and appealed for the revision. The will was revised. Having been virtually isolated from matters of state during Richelieu’s governance, Anne showed remarkable political astuteness as regent. She recognized that what her son needed most was an able administrator to direct his government. Thus it was that Cardinal Jules Mazarin (left) continued in office. Mazarin had been selected and trained by Richelieu to be his successor. When Richelieu died in 1642, Mazarin assumed the position of the king’s chief minister, a position he would hold until his death in 1661. Mazarin and Anne worked well together. Mazarin continued Richelieu's domestic and foreign policy, especially the difficult task of directing France’s war effort for the remaining years of the Thirty Years War. Both saw to young Louis' political education, Mazarin taking the king to meetings with his ministers, and Anne tutoring him on his duty as a monarch. He would receive a valuable lesson in the dangers of government in 1648. In that year a rebellion called the Fronde broke out.

The Fronde (1648 - 1652) was a rebellion by the nobility and bourgeois-dominated parlements (law courts) against the authority of Mazarin and Queen Anne. The nobles sought to prevent further royal absolutism and restore their lost feudal rights and privileges. The judges of the courts feared increasing royal absolutism would replace justice based on precedent and custom with that of royal order. The violence of the Fronde came primarily from Parisian mobs sometimes armed with slings called frondes (hence, the name of the rebellion). Lower class support for the “Frondeurs” was largely the result of opposition to high taxes. Assured by Mazarin that the king would respect the traditions of justice, the parlements ended their resistance. The nobles continued their opposition.

The Fronde ultimately failed because the nobles were unable to effectively form a common strategy with which to resist royal authority. The nobles also called upon Spain to provide military assistance. As France was then at war with Spain, the nobles' actions were seen as treasonous and undermined what little support there might have been for their cause. On collapse of the rebellion, its leaders were exiled to distant parts of the country.

During the Fronde, a Parisian mob, incited by the nobles, attacked a carriage carrying the young king and his mother. Although neither the king nor his mother was injured, the attack so frightened and impressed Louis that he resolved never to allow any group to ever again have the ability to threaten the crown. He also came to hate the city of Paris.

Louis XIV's absolutism was also based in part on the political theory of Bishop Jacques Benigne Bossuet. Bossuet (1627 - 1704) was the King's Confessor (private priest) and tutor to Louis' children. He later would be appointed Bishop of Meaux. In 1679 Bossuet published a book titled Politics as Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture. Using "proof texts" quoted from the Bible, this book provided the philosophical justification of divine right absolute monarchy. Bossuet was convinced that order and authority were essential to society. The absolutist government of Louis XIV, Bossuet argued, was sanctioned by God's will. The Bible proved that God created government to bring humanity peace and stability. The most perfect form of government was monarchy. It also proved that all political power originated with God and those who hold power were responsible to God for how they used it. Kings, therefore...

.

.. were God's representatives in the political affairs of earth. Royal power, according to Bossuet, was absolute but not arbitrary: not arbitrary because it must be reasonable and just, like the will of God which it reflected; absolute in that it was free from dictation by parliaments, estates or other subordinate elements within the country. Law, therefore, was the will of

the sovereign king, so long as it conformed to the higher law which was the will of God. This doctrine, affirming the divine right of kings, was popularly held in France at the time and was taught in the churches. It was fortified by the principles of Roman law, which also held that laws could be made and unmade, modified, and amended by act of the sovereign power. In addition, the authority of Louis XIV rested on purely practical considerations. Experience showed absolutism to be the corrective to anarchy, and the king was widely believed to represent the interests of his country better than anyone else. (Palmer et al., 172)

Bossuet's views of absolute monarchy were not original or unique. The Scottish king, James VI (who was later James I of England), published a similar scholarly book on royal absolutism in 1598 titled The True Law of Free Monarchy. But because of the prestige given monarchy by the power and style of Louis XIV, Bossuet's work became the "standard" justification of royal absolutism. Under Louis XIV France was strong, prosperous, and at peace with itself - the envy of Europe. Divine right absolute monarchy seemed to be the ideal form of political system.

Royal Government and Administration

In the exercise of administration, Louis XIV's goal was centralization of royal power. Centralization means the policy of bringing all aspects of law and administration under the direct control of the central government. Much of the organizational structure of the crown’s government had been established by Richelieu and Mazarin. The operation of the royal government was the responsibility of the ministers of the Councils of State of the Royal Council. The Councils of State were the top-level administrative bodies (similar to modern cabinet-level departments). They were the Council of State (major issues and foreign affairs), Council of Dispatches (domestic affairs and civil administration), Council of Finances (revenues, taxation), and Council of War (military defense and strategy). Louis personally attended each council meeting, usually held daily at Versailles.

We have already seen how Richelieu began centralizing the crown's authority through the revitalization of the intendant system. While Louis would depend on the intendant system for the exercise of royal authority throughout the country, provincial traditions of governance and identity remained strong. Accordingly, Louis spent great sums of money to “encourage” (bribe) influential nobles and provincial officials to support his policies. In an effort to improve upon Richelieu, Louis sought further centralization of power through three means: reform of the army, effective use of grandeur, and political use of the bourgeoisie (middle class).

The Army

Prior to the 17th century there were no such things as royal national armies. Traditional armies were made up of professional soldiers, largely mercenaries, recruited and paid on commission by the government employing their services. Governments, therefore, had little control over such armies, which were largely autonomous bands of armed men loyal to the officers who paid them. It was armies such as these that wreaked such devastation and destruction throughout Germany during the Thirty Years War. Louis XIV reformed the military to such an extent that he made war an act of state.

The reform of Louis' army was largely the responsibility of Francois Louvois, Louis' Minister of War (1666 - 1691). The training and discipline of the army was the work of General Jean Martinet. Today the word martinet has come into English to mean a strict disciplinarian.

What characterized the reform of the French army? The royal government would supervise the entire process of recruiting, training, and maintaining the army. The command would be centralized in the crown, the king being the ultimate commander-in-chief. Direction of the army would be the responsibility of the Council for War, a department of the royal government staffed by civilians and headed by a Minister of War, appointed by and responsible to the king. Under the Council of War, the professional military officers were organized in hierarchical ranks of command and subordination. Their titles of command have become characteristic of all armies ever since: general, colonel, major, captain, lieutenant, sergeant, corporal, private. The several types of military forces – infantry (foot soldiers), cavalry (horse soldiers), and artillery (cannons) – would be used in coordination of tactics and strategy. Previously they had acted independently of each other. The royal government would provide the military with all that it needed for its maintenance and use: food, uniforms, housing, training and drilling, transportation, supplies and equipment, weapons and ammunition, and salaries. The costs would be borne by the taxpaying public. Louis increased the royal army from 100,000 troops to 400,000, making it the largest, best-equipped and most modern fighting force in Europe. Such an army would assure the king’s peace throughout the country. It would also serve the king’s expansionist foreign policy, an alarming prospect to France’s Dutch and Spanish neighbors. In view of the reformed French army, the armies of other states became “obsolete.” The French army became the model for the reformation of the armies of all other European countries.

Grandeur

Very simply, grandeur came to mean the ceremonial demonstration of the personal magnificence of the king as a policy of state. Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of Louis’ grandeur was the magnificent palace of Versailles. Originally a modest hunting lodge built for Louis XIII, Versailles became the center of the French court, and, as such, the center of French life. Tremendous in size, the expanded palace was built over 40 years by some 35, 000 workers. Beyond its lavish state rooms (such as the Hall of Mirrors, theater, and chapel) were the royal suites centered around the king's and queen's separate bedchambers. There were also some 600 apartments wherein the nobility were housed and served by 4000 servants. Beyond the building itself were the expansive palace grounds with acres of woodlands and beautifully landscaped gardens. A sophisticated hydraulics system provided water for the palace’s magnificent fountains, lakes, and canals. A separate smaller palace called the Trianon was located on the grounds at Versailles.

Palace of Versailles, 1722

At Versailles, the King’s grandeur was also reflected in elaborate ceremonies and rituals. Under the tutelage of Queen Anne and Mazarin, young Louis learned the importance of the king's duty to his people and state. For Louis, this meant in part making the king's person and daily life appear to be far superior to that of even his wealthiest and most influential subjects. Louis transformed the routines of daily life - getting up in the morning (lever), dining (dîner), retiring at night (coucher) - into elaborate state rituals wherein he would be attended by hundreds of the highest-ranking princes, nobles, and state officers. In effect, it became a great honor to assist the king in getting dressed in the morning or waiting on him while he took his meals.

Ever since the Fronde, Louis viewed the nobility with suspicion. He believed, rightfully, that they resented his power and were a potential threat to his monarchy. He would control them by bringing them under his roof. Nobles were “invited” (summoned is perhaps the more operative term) to take residence at Versailles, where they lived in apartments and were brought into and overwhelmed by the extravagance of court life. They would be part of his grandeur. They would attend his lavish receptions, balls, theater, and opera. They would gamble their fortunes in the palace game rooms. Their wives would spend thousands of livres on extravagant gowns to be worn at royal social functions. In this way he effectively brought them under his control. Not to be invited to Versailles was a sure sign of royal disfavor. For a noble, the ultimate sign of the King’s favor came not in the form of an appointment as an official in a state ministry but as a member of the King’s household, one who participated in the lever or dîner. Over all of this Louis employed a complex system of spies and informants who listened and watched as the nobility lived in idle luxury. Louis allowed the nobility to retain their exemption from royal taxes and their traditional feudal rights over the peasants who lived on their estates, but he removed them entirely from any productive role in French political life.

The Bourgeoisie

Bourgeoisie is the French word that identifies the middle class. Louis saw great political value in the bourgeoisie. The middle class, as merchants, manufacturers, bankers, and professionals, were responsible for France’s commercial wealth. They were prosperous, productive, educated, and, above all, loyal. As the middle class saw business as best served by a strong state at peace with itself, they supported the idea of strong, centralized monarchy. To a monarch seeking greater power, the bourgeoisie were a natural ally.

Louis created a strong system of administrative coordination through which royal authority reached all parts of his kingdom. As described earlier, this system was based on the Councils of State and the intendants. As did Richelieu for Louis XIII, Louis picked his councilors of state and intendants from the bourgeoisie. Not trusting the nobility, he preferred men who were dependent upon the crown for both their salaries and careers.

Economics and Royal Finances

Considering how successfully Henry IV, Richelieu, and Mazarin had used mercantilist measures to increase the real wealth of France, one would think Louis XIV's government would be able to raise extensive revenues for meeting the crown's expenses. This, however, was not the case. Louis' government was unable to raise enough tax money to pay for the costs of governing France. There are several reasons. Despite the closer supervision of the intendants, the tax farming system continued to prove unreliable. The tax burden fell primarily on the poorest elements of the population - the peasants. The peasantry consisted of 80 % of the French population, yet it was collectively poorer than the nobility and bourgeoisie. An average peasant paid from 50 to 75 % of his income in taxes to the Church and crown and other feudal payments to his landlord. The wealthiest elements of the population, the nobility and clergy, were exempt from taxes. The bourgeoisie paid taxes but, in a healthy business climate, the burden was considerably less for the middle class than it was for the peasants.

Bearing in mind the costs of royal government and the extent of royal power, Louis would not consider asking the nobility to pay taxes. The French clergy and nobility, as privileged estates, were exempt from paying royal taxes. Despite the tremendous expenses of royal government and the difficulty of collecting revenues, Louis opted, essentially for the same reasons as did Henry IV and Richelieu, not to tax them. If he were to tax them, they would want a voice in the King's government, much as had the English nobility as the House of Lords in Parliament. If the nobles and clergy had a deciding voice in government, the crown would no longer be sovereign or absolute. Louis resented the nobility. They had rebelled against his government during the Fronde (1648 - 1651), and he would never forget nor forgive them for that. He endeavored, quite successfully, to remove them from the political life of the nation by diverting them with the attractions of court life at Versailles and appointing his officials from the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Thus, an educated and talented - and the wealthiest - portion of the population, one that could have made a considerable contribution to the overall wellbeing of the state, was removed from any meaningful role in the political life of France.

How did Louis’ government attempt to raise needed revenues? In addition to raising tax rates on those who already paid taxes, the peasantry and middle class, Louis's financial officers employed numerous other methods of collecting revenues. Among these were the selling of government offices, judgeships, and commissions as military officers. The Crown would revoke town charters (the royal documents that gave towns their legal right to exist) and sell them back to the towns requiring them to make higher annual payments for the continued privilege of holding the charters. To make the increased payments to the Crown, the town governments would have to raise the taxes paid by their citizens to the town governments. In addition the Crown would also sell patents (titles) of nobility to wealthy bourgeoisie (a practice started by Richelieu). The prestige of a title of nobility was attractive to many bourgeoisie who resented their status as "commoners." The "price" of a title was often extremely high, limiting the privilege to only a relative few very wealthy middle classmen. By selling titles Louis also showed his contempt for the hereditary nobility who greatly resented the King's appointment of new nobles who had acquired their titles through purchase.