A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 24

CHAPTER VII

THE GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN BOURBONS AND HABSBURGS, 1661-1743

THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV

Upon the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, the young king Louis XIV declared that he would a.s.sume personal charge of the domestic and foreign affairs of the French monarchy. From that date, throughout a long reign, Louis was in fact as well as in name ruler of the nation, and his rule, like that of Napoleon, stands out as a distinct epoch in French history.

[Sidenote: Louis XIV the Heir to Absolutist Tendencies]

Louis XIV profited by the earlier work of Henry IV, Sully, Richelieu, and Mazarin. He inherited a fairly compact state, the population of which was patriotic and loyal to the crown. Insurrections of Protestants or rebellions of the n.o.bles were now things of the past.

The Estates-General, the ancient form of representative government, had fallen into disuse and oblivion. Local administration was conducted by faithful middle-cla.s.s officials, the intendants; and all powers of taxation, war, public improvements, police, and justice were centered in the hands of the king. Abroad, the rival Habsburgs had been humbled and French boundaries had been extended and French prestige heightened.

Everything was in readiness for a great king to practice absolutism on a scale never before realized.

[Sidenote: Absolutism. Monarchy by Divine Right]

The theories of government upon which the absolutism of Louis XIV was based received a cla.s.sic expression in a celebrated book written by Bossuet (1627-1704), a learned and upright bishop of the time.

Government, according to Bossuet, [Footnote: The statements of the arguments in favor of monarchy by divine right are taken from Bossuet's famous book, _La politique tiree des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte_.] is divinely ordained in order to enable mankind to satisfy the natural instincts of living together in organized society. Under G.o.d, monarchy is, of all forms of government, the most usual and the most ancient, and therefore the most natural: it is likewise the strongest and most efficient, therefore the best. It is a.n.a.logous to the rule of a family by the father, and, like that rule, should be hereditary. Four qualities are referred by the eloquent bishop to such an hereditary monarch: (1) That he is sacred is attested by his anointing at the time of coronation by the priests of the Church--it is accordingly blasphemy and sacrilege to a.s.sail the person of the king or to conspire against him; (2) That he is to provide for the welfare of his people and watch over their every activity may be gathered from the fact that he is, in a very real sense, the father of his people, the paternal king; (3) His power is absolute and autocratic, and for its exercise he is accountable to G.o.d alone--no man on earth may rightfully resist the royal commands, and the only recourse for subjects against an evil king is to pray G.o.d that his heart be changed; (4) Greater reason is given to a king than to any one else--the king is an earthly image of G.o.d's majesty, and it is wrong, therefore, to look upon him as a mere man. The king is a public person and in him the whole nation is embodied. "As in G.o.d are united all perfection and every virtue, so all the power of all the individuals in a community is united in the person of the king."

[Sidenote: Louis XIV]

Such was the theory of what is called divine-right monarchy or absolutism. It must be remembered that it had been gaining ground during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until it was accepted practically by all the French people as well as by most of their Continental neighbors. Even in England, as we shall presently see,[Footnote: See below, pp. 263 ff.] the Stuart kings attempted, for a time with success, to a.s.sert and maintain the doctrine. It was a political idea as popular in the seventeenth century as that of democracy is to-day. And Louis XIV was its foremost personification.

Suave, dignified, elegant in manners and speech, the French king played his part well; he appeared to have been born and divinely appointed to the kingly calling.

For a king, Louis worked hard. He was conscientious and painstaking.

Day after day he reviewed the details of administration. Over all things he had a watchful eye. Systematically he practiced what he termed the "trade of a king." "One reigns by work and for work," he wrote his grandson.

No prince was more fortunate than Louis XIV in his personal advisers and lieutenants. Not only were his praises proclaimed by the silver- tongued Bossuet, but he was served by such men as Colbert, the financier and reformer; Louvois, the military organizer; Vauban, the master builder of fortifications; Conde and Turenne, unconquerable generals; and by a host of literary lights, whom he patronized and pensioned, and who cast about his person a glamour of renown. Louis was hailed as the "Grand Monarch," and his age was appropriately designated the Age of Louis the Fourteenth.

[Sidenote: Versailles and the Court of Louis XIV]

At Versailles, some twelve miles from Paris, in the midst of what had been a sandy waste, the Grand Monarch erected those stately palaces, with their lavish furnishings, and broad parks and great groves and myriads of delightful fountains, which became Europe's pleasure center.

Thither were drawn the French n.o.bility, who, if shorn of all political power, were now exempted from disagreeable taxes and exalted as essential parts of a magnificent social pageant. The king must have n.o.blemen as _valets-de-chambre_, as masters of the wardrobe or of the chase or of the revels. Only a n.o.bleman was fit to comb the royal hair or to dry off the king after a bath. The n.o.bles became, like so many chandeliers, mere decorations for the palace. Thus, about Versailles gathered the court of France, and the leaders of fashion met those of brains.

[Sidenote: "The Age of Louis XIV"]

It was a time when French manners, dress, speech, art, literature, and science were adopted as the models and property of civilized Europe.

Corneille (1606-1684), the father of the French stage; Moliere (1622- 1673), the greatest of French dramatists; Racine (1639-1699), the polished, formal playwright; Madame de Sevigne (1626-1696), the brilliant and witty auth.o.r.ess of memoirs; La Fontaine (1621-1695), the popular rhymer of whimsical fables and teller of scandalous tales; and many another graced the court of Versailles and tasted the royal bounty. French became the language of fashion as well as of diplomacy-- a position it has ever since maintained.

[Sidenote: "Rule of the Robe"]

While the court of Louis XIV was thus the focal point of French--almost of European--life, the professional and mercantile cla.s.ses, who const.i.tuted the Third Estate, enjoyed comparative security and prosperity and under the king held all of the important offices of actual administration. Because of the judicial offices which the middle cla.s.s filled, the government was popularly styled the "rule of the robe."

[Sidenote: "Colbert"]

Colbert (1619-1683), one of Louis's greatest ministers, was the son of a merchant, and was intensely interested in the welfare of the cla.s.s to which he belonged. Installed in office through the favor of Mazarin, he was successively named, after the cardinal's death, superintendent of public works, controller-general of finances, minister of marine, of commerce and agriculture, and of the colonies. In short, until his death in 1683, he exerted power in every department of government except that of war. Although he never possessed the absolute personal authority which marked the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin, being plainly subservient to the king's commands, nevertheless he enjoyed for many years the royal favor and by incessant toil succeeded in accomplishing a good deal for the material prosperity of France. In many respects his policies and achievements resembled Sully's.

[Sidenote: Attempted Financial Reform]

First, financial reform claimed all the energies of Colbert. Under the government of Richelieu, and more particularly under that of Mazarin, the hard savings of Sully had been squandered, enormous sums had been granted to favorites, and the ever-increasing n.o.ble cla.s.s had been exempted from taxation, an evil system of tax-gathering, called "farming the taxes," [Footnote: "Farming the taxes," that is, intrusting the collection of taxes to individuals or corporations that squeezed as much money as they could from the taxpayers and kept for themselves what they collected over and above the lump sum due the government.] had grown up, and the weight of the financial burden had fallen almost exclusively upon the wretched peasantry. Colbert sternly and fearlessly set about his task. He appointed agents whose honesty he could trust and reformed many of the abuses in tax-collecting. While he was unable to impose the direct land tax--the _taille_--upon the privileged n.o.bility, he stoutly resisted every attempt further to augment the number of exemptions, and actually lowered this direct tax upon the peasantry by subst.i.tuting indirect taxes, or customs duties, which would in some degree affect all the people. To lighten the burden of the country-folk, he sought to promote agriculture. He provided that no farmers' tools might be seized for debt. He encouraged the breeding of horses and cattle. He improved the roads and other means of interior communication. The great ca.n.a.l of Languedoc, joining the Mediterranean with the Garonne River and thence with the Atlantic, was planned and constructed under his patronage. As far as possible, the duties on the pa.s.sage of agricultural produce from province to province were equalized.

[Sidenote: Colbert and French Merchantilism]

In forwarding what he believed to be his own cla.s.s interests, Colbert was especially zealous. Manufactures and commerce were fostered in every way he could devise. New industries were established, inventors protected, workmen invited from foreign countries, native workmen prohibited to leave France. A heavy tariff was placed upon foreign imports in order to protect "infant industries" and increase the gain of French manufacturers and traders. Liberal bounties were allowed to French ships engaged in commerce, and foreign ships were compelled to pay heavy tonnage duties for using French ports. And along with the protective tariff and subsidizing of the merchant marine, went other pet policies of mercantilism, [Footnote: See above, pp. 63 f.] such as measures to prevent the exportation of precious metals from France, to encourage corporations and monopolies, and to extend minute governmental supervision over the manufacture, quality, quant.i.ty, and sale of all commodities. What advantages accrued from Colbert's efforts in this direction were more than offset by the unfortunate fact that the mercantile cla.s.s was unduly enriched at the expense of other and numerically larger cla.s.ses in the community, and that the centralized monarchy, in which the people had no part, proved itself unfit, in the long run, to oversee the details of business with wisdom or honesty.

[Sidenote: Colbert's "World Policy"]

Stimulation of industry and commerce has usually necessitated the creation of a protecting navy. Colbert appreciated the requirement and hastened to fulfill it. He reconstructed the docks and a.r.s.enal of Toulon and established great ship-yards at Rochefort, Calais, Brest, and Havre. He fitted out a large royal navy that could compare favorably with that of England or Spain or Holland. To supply it with recruits he drafted seamen from the maritime provinces and resorted to the use of criminals, who were often chained to the galleys like so many slaves of the new industry.

Likewise, the adoption of the mercantile policy seemed to demand the acquisition of a colonial empire, in which the mother-country should enjoy a trade monopoly. So Colbert became a vigorous colonial minister.

He purchased Martinique and Guadeloupe in the West Indies, encouraged settlements in San Domingo, in Canada, and in Louisiana, and set up important posts in India, in Senegal, and in Madagascar. France, under Colbert, became a serious colonial compet.i.tor with her older European rivals.

Colbert was essentially a financier and economist. But to the arts of peace, which adorned the reign of Louis XIV, he was a potent contributor. He strengthened the French Academy, which had been founded by Richelieu, and himself established the Academy of Sciences, now called the Inst.i.tute of France, and the great astronomical observatory at Paris. He pensioned many writers, and attracted foreign artists and scientists to France. Many buildings and triumphal arches were erected under his patronage.

[Sidenote: Louvois and French Militarism under Louis XIV]

In the arts of war, Louis XIV possessed an equally able and hard- working a.s.sistant. Louvois (1641-1691) was one of the greatest war ministers that the world has ever seen. He recruited and supported the largest and finest standing army of his day. He introduced severe regulations and discipline. He prescribed, for the first time in history, a distinctive military uniform and introduced the custom of marching in step. Under his supervision, camp life was placed upon a sanitary basis. And under his influence, promotion in the service no longer depended primarily on social position but upon merit as well. In Vauban (1633-1707), Louvois had the greatest military engineer in history--for it was Vauban who built those rows of superb fortifications on the northern and eastern frontiers of France. In Conde and Turenne, moreover, Louvois had first-cla.s.s generals who could give immediate effect to his reforms and policies.

[Sidenote: Deceptive Character of the Glamour of the Age of Louis XIV]

Thus was the Grand Monarch well and faithfully served. Yet the outward show and glamour of his reign were very deceptive of the true internal conditions. Colbert tried to do too many things, with the result that his plans repeatedly miscarried. The n.o.bles became more indolent, wasteful, and pleasure-loving, and the middle cla.s.s more selfish and more devoted to their own cla.s.s interests, while the lot of the peasantry,--the bulk of the nation,--despite the spasmodic efforts of the paternal government, steadily grew worse under the unrelieved burden of taxation. Then, too, the king was extravagant in maintaining his mistresses, his court, and his favorites. His excessive vanity had to be appeased by expensive entertainment and show. He preferred the spectacular but woeful feats of arms to the less pretentious but more solid triumphs of peace. Indeed, in course of time, Colbert found his influence with the king waning before that of Louvois, and when he died it was with the bitter thought that his financial retrenchment had been in vain, that his husbanded resources were being rapidly dissipated in foreign war. It was Louis's wars that deprived his reign of true grandeur and paved the way for future disaster.

[Sidenote: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685]

Before turning our attention to the foreign wars of Louis XIV, mention must be made of another blot on his reign. It was Louis XIV who renewed the persecution of the Protestants. He was moved alike by the absolutist's desire to secure complete uniformity throughout France and by the penitent's religious fervor to make amends for earlier scandals of his private life. For a time he contented himself with so-called dragonnades--quartering licentious soldiers upon the Huguenots--but at length in 1685 he formally revoked the Edict of Nantes. France, which for almost a century had led Europe in the principle and practice of religious toleration, was henceforth reactionary. Huguenots were still granted liberty of conscience, but were denied freedom of worship and deprived of all civil rights in the kingdom. The immediate effect of this arbitrary and mistaken action was the emigration of large numbers of industrious and valuable citizens, who added materially to the political and economic life of England, Holland, and Prussia, the chief Protestant foes of France.

EXTENSION OF FRENCH FRONTIERS

Louis XIV was not a soldier himself. He never appeared in military uniform or rode at the head of his troops. What he lacked, however, in personal genius as a great military commander, he compensated for in a genuine fondness for war and in remarkable personal gifts of diplomacy.

He was one of the greatest diplomats of his age, and, as we have seen, he possessed large loyal armies and able generals that he could employ in prosecuting the traditional foreign policy of France.

[Sidenote: Traditional Foreign Policy of France]

This foreign policy, which had been pursued by Francis I, Henry II, Henry IV, Richelieu, and Mazarin, had for its goal the humiliation of the powerful Habsburgs, whether of Austria or of Spain. Although France had gained materially at their expense in the treaties of Westphalia and of the Pyrenees, much remained to be done by Louis XIV. When the Grand Monarch a.s.sumed direct control of affairs in 1661, the Spanish Habsburgs still ruled not only the peninsular kingdom south of France, but the Belgian Netherlands to the north, Franche Comte to the east, and Milan in northern Italy, while their kinsmen of Austria maintained shadowy imperial government over the rich Rhenish provinces on the northeastern boundary of France. France was still almost completely encircled by Habsburg holdings.

[Sidebar: Doctrine of "Natural Boundaries"]

To justify his subsequent aggressions, Louis XIV propounded the doctrine of "natural boundaries." Every country, he maintained, should secure such frontiers as nature had obviously provided--mountains, lakes, or rivers; and France was naturally provided with the frontiers of ancient Gaul--the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine River, and the Ocean. Any foreign monarch or state that claimed power within such frontiers was an interloper and should be expelled.

[Sidenote: The Wars of Louis XIV]

For many years, and in three great wars, Louis XIV endeavored, with some success, to reach the Rhine. These three wars--the War of Devolution, the Dutch War, and the War of the League of Augsburg--we shall now discuss. A fourth great war, directed toward the acquisition of the Spanish throne by the Bourbon family, will be treated separately on account of the wide and varied interests involved.

[Sidenote: The "War of Devolution"]

The War of Devolution was an attempt of Louis to gain the Spanish or Belgian Netherlands. It will be remembered that in accordance with the peace of the Pyrenees, Louis had married Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of Philip IV of Spain. Now by a subsequent marriage Philip IV had had a son, a weak-bodied, half-witted prince, who came to the throne in 1665 as Charles II. Louis XIV at once took advantage of this turn of affairs to a.s.sert in behalf of his wife a claim to a portion of the Spanish inheritance. The claim was based on a curious custom which had prevailed in the inheritance of private property in the Netherlands, to the effect that children of a first marriage should inherit to the exclusion of those of a subsequent marriage. Louis insisted that this custom, called "devolution," should be applied not only to private property but also to sovereignty and that his wife should be recognized, therefore, as sovereign of the Belgian Netherlands. In reality the claim was a pure invention, but the French king thought it would be a sufficient apology for the robbery of a weak brother-in-law.