Sp Ch15 Prt2

Sp. Ch15 part 2 Pages 417-424 The Practice of Absolutism: Western Europe I. Absolute monarchy or absolutism meant that the sovereign power or ultimate authority in the state rested in the hands of a king who claimed to rule by divine right. A. Jean Bodin believed that sovereign power consisted of the authority to make laws, tax, administer justice, control the state’s administrative system, and determine foreign policy B. One of the chief theorists pf divine-right monarchy in the 17thc was the F theologian and preacher Bishop Jacques Bossuet who expressed his ideas in a book titled Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture. He argued that government was divinely ordained so that humans could live in an organized society. God established kings and then ruled through them. C. Since kings ordained their power from God, their authority was absolute. They were responsible to no one expect God. D. There was however, a large gulf between Bossuet’s theory and the practice of absolutism. A monarch’s absolute power was often limited by practical realities. Absolute Monarchy in France I. F culture, language, and manners reached into all levels of E society. F diplomacy and wars shaped the political affairs of western and central E. II. The reign of Louis XIV seemed to be imitated everywhere in E. Foundations of French Absolutism: Cardinal Richelieu I. The 50 years of F history before Louis XIV came to power were a time in which royal and ministerial governments struggled to avoid the breakdown of the state A. When L XIII and L XIV took the throne as boys, the government became dependent on royal ministers. Two especially competent ministers played crucial roles in maintaining monarchial authority II. Cardinal Richelieu, L XIII’s chief minister from 1624-1642, initiated policies that eventually strengthened the powers of the monarchy A. By eliminating the political and military rights of the Huguenots while preserving their religious ones, R transformed the H into more reliable subjects. He acted more cautiously in damaging the nobility. He understood the influential roles played by the nobles in the F state B. The dangerous ones were those who asserted their territorial independence when they were excluded from participating in the central government. R developed an efficient network of spies to uncover noble plots and then crushed the conspiracies and executed the conspirators. III. To strengthen the central administration, initially for financial reasons, R sent out royal officials called intendants to the provinces to execute the orders of the central government. As their function grew, they came into conflict w/provincial governors.

A. they were often victorious in these disagreements, strengthening the central government IV. So many people benefited from the financial system’s inefficiency and injustice that the government faced strong resistance when it tried to reform it. A. The taille—an annual direct tax usually levied on land or property— was increased and crown lands were mortgaged again B. R’s foreign policy goal of confronting the growing power of the Habsburgs in the 30 years war led to ever increasing expenditures, which soon outstripped the additional revenues. F debt continued its upward spiral under R Cardinal Mazarin I. Anne of Austria allowed Cardinal Mazarin to dominate the government. He attempted to carry on R’s policies A. the most important event in his rule was an event known as the Fronde B. He was disliked by a lot of the population b/c he was a foreigner. The nobles, who especially resented the centralized administrative power being built at the expense of the provincial nobility, temporarily allied themselves w/the members of the Parlement of Paris, who opposed new taxes levied by the government for the cost of the 30 years war, and w/the masses in Paris who didn’t like the additional taxes II. The Parlement of Paris was the most important court in F, w/jurisdiction over ½ the kingdom, and its members formed the nobles of the robe, the service of nobility of lawyers and administrators. These nobles of the robe led the 1st Fronde, which broke out in Paris and was ended by a compromise A. The 2nd Fronde, which began in 1650, was led by nobles of the sword, whose ancestors were medieval nobles. They were interested in overthrowing Mazarin for their own purposes: to secure their positions and increase their own power. The 2nd Fronde was crushed by 1652, a task made easier when the nobles began fighting each other III. W/the end of the 2nd Fronde, the vast majority of the F concluded that the best hope for stability in F lay w/the crown. When Mazarin died in 1661, the 17thc monarch Louis XIV came to supreme power The Reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715) I. L established a conscientious routine from which he seldom deviated, but he did not look on his duties as drudgery since he considered his profession grand, noble, and delightful A. Eager for glory, L created a grand and majestic spectacle at the court of Versailles. L and his court came to set the standard for monarchies and aristocracies all over E II. He believed in the theory of AM and fostered the myth of himself as the Sun King, the source of light for all his people. However, the realities fell short of his aspirations A. Despite the centralizing efforts of Cardinals R and M, 17thc F possessed a system of overlapping authorities. Provinces had their own courts, local Estates, and sets of laws. Members of the high nobility, w/their huge estates and clients among the lesser nobility, still

exercised authority. Both towns and provinces possessed privileges and powers seemingly from time immemorial that they would not easy relinquish. Administration of the Government I. One of the keys of the L’s power was that he was able to restructure the central policy-making machinery of government because it was part of his own government and household A. The royal court at V was an elaborate structure that served different purposes: it was the personal household of the king, location of the central government, and place where powerful subjects came to find favors and offices for themselves and their clients and well as the arena where rival aristocratic factions fought for power. B. The greatest danger to L’s personal rule came from the high nobles and princes of the blood who considered it their natural function to assert their royal ministers. L eliminated this threat by moving removing them from the royal council and enticing them to his court, where he could keep them preoccupied w/court life and politics. L relied on his ministers instead of other nobles. II. L domination of his ministers and secretaries gave him control of the central policy-making machinery of government and thus authority over the traditional areas of monarchial power: the formulation of foreign policy, the making of war and peace, the assertion of the secular power of crown against religious authority, and the ability to levy taxes. A. he was less successful at the w/the internal administration of his kingdom. The traditional groups of F society—nobles, officials, town councils, guilds, and representative Estates—were too powerful for the king to have direct control over. B. Control of the provinces and the people was achieved by bribing the individuals responsible for executing the king’s policy. Local authorities could obstruct execution of policies they disliked. Religious Policy I. The desire to keep religious harmony led L into conflict w/F Huguenots A. He did not want to let P practice their faith in largely Cath F. He felt that the existence of a minority undermined his power. II. In October 1685, L issued the Edict of Fontainebleau. In addition to revoking the Edict of Nantes, the new edict provided for the destruction of H churches and closing P schools. A. 200,000 H defied the prohibition on their leaving F and sought asylum in England, the United Provinces, and the German States. Many of them were skilled artisans, and their exodus weakened the F economy and strengthened the states they moved to, which later joined a coalition of P states formed to oppose L Financial Issues I. The cost of building V, maintaining his court, and pursuing his wars made finances a crucial issue of L XIV

A. He was fortunate in having the services of Jean-Baptiste Colbert as controller general of finances. Colbert sought to increase the wealth and power of F through general adherence to mercantilism, which stressed government regulation of economic activities to benefit the state. To decrease the need for imports and increase exports, C attempted to expand the quantity and improve the quality of F goods. B. He drew up instructions regulating the quality of goods, founded new luxury industries, oversaw the training of workers, and granted special privileges including tax exemptions, loans, and subsidies to individuals who established new industries. C. In order to increase communication, he built roads and canals. In order to decrease imports, he raised tariffs on foreign goods and created a merchant marine to facilitate the conveyance of F goods II. Regulations were often evaded, and the imposition of high tariffs brought foreign retaliation. F trading companies entered the scene too late to be competitive w/E and D. Colbert’s economic policies, which were supposed to make the king more powerful, were ultimately self-defeating A. the more revenue C gathered to enable the king to make war, the faster L depleted the treasury. At the same time, the burden of taxes fell increasingly on the peasants Daily Life at the Court of Versailles I. The court set a standard soon to be followed by other E II. It was the residence of the king, a reception hall for state affairs, an office building for the members of the king’s government, and the home for thousands of royal officers and aristocratic courtiers. V became a symbol for the F absolutist state and the power of the Sun King, Louis XIV. It became home to the high nobility and princes of the blood, the powerful figures who had aspired to hold the policy-making role of royal ministers. A. by keeping them involved in the myriad activities that made up daily life at the court of V, L excluded from them from real power while allowing them to share in the mystique of being among the king III. Life at V became a court ceremony w/L in the center. He had little privacy. Most daily ceremonies were carefully staged. A. A mob of nobles aspired to assist the king in carrying out these solemn activities. It was considered a great honor to participate. B. Active involvement in the activities at V was the king’s prerequisite for obtaining offices, titles, and pensions that only he could grant. The policy reduced nobles and ecclesiastics, the “people of quality” to a plane of equality, allowing L to exercise his control and prevent them from interfering in the real lines of power. C. To maintain their social prestige, the “people of quality” were expected to adhere to rigid standards of etiquette appropriate to their rank IV. Court etiquette became a complex matter. Nobles and royal princes were arranged in an elaborate order of sonority and expected to follow certain rules of precedence

A. Saint-Simon lived there, a left a controversial and critical account of his time at V The Wars of Louis XIV I. Both the increase in royal power that L pursued and his desire for military glory led him to wage war A. F developed a professional army numbering 100,000 men during peace and 400,000 during war. B. L made war an almost incessant activity in his reign. To achieve prestige and military glory as well as to ensure the domination of his Bourbon dynasty over E affairs, L waged four wars b/w 1667 and 1713 II. In 1667, L began his 1st war by invading the Spanish Netherlands to his north and Franche-Comte to the east. But the triple alliance of the Dutch, English, and Swedes forced L to sue for peace in 1668 and accept a few towns in the SN. A. He never forgave the D for arranging the alliance, and in 1672, after isolating the D, F invaded the United Provinces w/some initial success. B. The F victories led Brandenburg, S, and the HRE to form a new coalition that forced L to end the Dutch War by making peace at Nimwegen in 1678. C. While the D territory remained intact, F received F-C from S, which served merely to stimulate L’s appetite for more land III. This time, he moved east towards the HRE, which he perceived as feeble. The general annexation of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine was followed by the occupation of the city of Strasbourg, a move that led to widespread protest and the formation of a new coalition. A. The creation of the League of Augsburg—consisting of S, HRE, UP, Sweden, and England—led to L’s 3rd war, the War of the League of Augsburg (1689-1697). B. This struggle brought economic depression and famine to F. C. The Treaty of Ryswick ending the war forced L to give up most of the conquests his empire IV. L’s 4th war, the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) was over the succession of the S throne. Charles II, the son childless son and Habsburg ruler, left the throne of S in his will to a grandson of Louis XIV. When the latter became King Philip V of Spain, the suspicion that S and F would eventually be united caused the formation of a new coalition, determined to prevent a Bourbon hegemony that would mean destruction of the E balance of power. A. This coalition—England, UP, Habsburg Austria, and G states—opposed F and S in a war that dragged on in E and the colonial empires in north Am for 11 years B. An end to the war came w/the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 and of Rastatt in 1714. Although these peace treaties confirmed Philip V as the S ruler, they also affirmed that the thrones of S and F would remain separated. C. The S Netherlands, Milan, and Naples were given to Austria, and the emerging state of Brandenburg-Prussia gained additional territories. England received Gibraltar as well as F possessions in Am.

D. Two years after the treaty, L died, leaving F impoverished and surrounded by enemies The Decline of Spain I. At the beginning of the 17thc, S possessed the most populous empire in the world, controlling almost all of S Am and a # of settlements in Asia and Africa II. The treasury was empty, Philip II went bankrupt in 1596 from war expenditures, and P III did the same in 1607 by spending a fortune on his court A. the armed forces were out of date, the government inefficient, the commercial class weak in the midst of a suppressed peasantry, a luxuryloving class of nobles, and an oversupply of priests and monks B. S continued to play the role of great power, but appearances were deceiving III. During the reign of P III, many of S weaknesses became apparent. Interested only in court luxury or miracle-working relics, P III allowed his 1st minister to run the country A. Lerma’s primary goal was accumulating power and wealth for himself and his family. Reign of Philip IV I. The reign of P IV seemed to offer hope of a revival of S energies, especially in the hands of his chief minister, Gaspar de Guzman, the count of Olivares, who dominated the king’s every move and worked to revive the interests of the monarchy. A. A flurry of domestic reform decrees, aimed at curtailing the power of the CC and the landed aristocracy, was soon followed by a political reform program whose purpose was to further centralize the government of S and its possessions in monarchial lands. B. All these efforts met w/little real success. However, b/c both the number and the power of the S aristocrats made them too strong to curtail in any significant fashion II. Most of the efforts of P and O were undermined by their desire to pursue S imperial glory and by a series of internal revolts. A. S involvement in the 30 years war led to a series of expensive military campaigns that incited internal revolts and years of civil war. Unfortunately, for S, the campaigns failed to produce victory. B. At the battle of Rocroi in 1643, much of the S army was destroyed III. The defeats in E and the internal revolts of the 1640s ended any illusions about S greatness. A. D independence was formally recognized by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and the Peace of Pyrenees w/F in 1659 meant the surrender of Artois and the outlying defenses of the S Netherlands as well as certain border regions that went to F