Absolutism and Louis XIV

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Absolutism and Louis XIV
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Absolutism

• When sovereignty or power resides in the king,
  and not n the nobility, parliament, or clergy.
  The King is considered responsible only to God,
  thus the Divine Right of Kings.

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Cardinal Richelieu

• Richelieu broke the power of the French nobles.
• He leveled castle and crushed aristocratic
  ambition
  
• He established an efficient bureaucratic system
  using intendants, which further weakened local
  nobility

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Cardinal Richelieu

• Richelieu sought to weaken the Habsburgs at every
  turn. He supported the Swedish king Adolphus
  against the Emperor in the 30 Years War.
  
• He supported the new French academie, which
  created a new French dictionary and standardized
  the French language.
  
• Richelieu embodied absolutism even though he was
  not a monarch because his policy was one of total
  subordination of all groups (nobles, parliaments,
  and clergy) to the monarchy.

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Versailles

• The palace was built to symbolize the
  overwhelming power of the monarch. Louis feared
  and distrusted the nobility. Dating from an
  aristocratic uprising in his youth (the Fronde).
  He therefore used the palace as a means to
  subvert them, requiring them to live there and
  thus away from their power bases in the
  provinces.
• His subversion of the nobility is best expressed
  in the ceremonies of the lever, diner, and
  coucher.
  
• Versailles was a prison, whether the aristocrats
  realized it or not.

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Inside the Palace
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The Levee

• Referring to Louis XIV, the Duc de Saint-Simon
  wrote, 'with an almanac and a watch, even at a
  distance of three hundred leagues, you could say
  precisely what he was doing'. A king's day had to
  be perfectly timed so that the officers serving
  the monarch knew exactly what they should do,
  when, and how. The court was regulated like
  clockwork. Levee8.30 am 'It is time, Sire',
  declares the First Valet de Chambre, waking the
  king. The levee, or ceremonial rising, thus
  begins. Doctors, family and a few favoured
  friends successively enter the King's Bedchamber
  where he is washed, combed, and every other day
  shaven. The Officers of the Chamber and the
  Wardrobe then enter in turn for full levee,
  during which the king is dressed and has a
  breakfast of broth. The most important officials
  of the kingdom are admitted it is estimated that
  the usual number of people attending numbered one
  hundred, all male.

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Mercantilism

• Mercantilism means a series of governmental
  regulations and policies, which regulate the
  economic affairs of state. Also could be seen as
  a planned economy.

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Jean Baptiste Colbert

• Colbert was another great minister of the period.
  As Louis finance minister, he sought to
  
• Encourage French industry
• Create a strong merchant marine
• Enforce protective tariffs
• Develop Canada as part of the French Empire.

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Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

• It was an error because it forced many
  Protestants to flee the country most of them
  were quite prosperous and it was a blow to the
  French economy

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The Spanish Empire

• The Spanish had reached their zenith during the
  16th century (el siglo de oro). There were
  several causes of their decline.
  
• Fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement
• Lack of a strong middle class
• The defeat of the Armada in 1588 was a crushing
  blow to Spanish pride and morale, although the
  fleet itself was quickly rebuilt.
  
• Business and agriculture had begun to suffer
• A series of kings after Philip II who were unfit
  and unable to deal with any of these problems.

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• Louis sought to push into Germany to the Rhine
• He wanted to control all of Flanders
• He wanted to install a Bourbon on the Spanish
  throne, thus capturing the Spanish Empire for
  France.
  
• In the short term he succeeded in capturing
  territory in each of these areas. But over time,
  none of these conquests would be permanent

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Absolutism vs. Totalitarianism

• Absolutism differs from totalitarianism in that
  absolute monarchs did not control all aspects of
  their subjects lives, as a totalitarian leader
  does.

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The Wars of Louis XIV

• Louis wars devastated the French economy, and
  most of the tax burden fell on the peasantry. The
  Nobles and the Church could not be taxed by
  French law.
• Later Louis broke precedent by taxing his nobles
  to pay for his wars.

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The War of the Spanish Succession

• Charles II of Spain was retarded and impotent,
  the result of generations of Habsburg inbreeding.
  Upon his death in 1700, Louis XIV and the
  Austrian Habsburgs were the main claimants to his
  Empire. When it was discovered that Charles had
  willed his Empire to his Louis grandson, the
  other powers in Europe had no choice but to go to
  war. They could not allow a universal Bourbon
  monarchy.

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The War of the Spanish Succession

• Louis was opposed by the Dutch, English,
  Austrians, and Prussians.
  
• The war was an attempt not only to carve up the
  Spanish Empire, but to control the high seas for
  future trade and commerce.
  
• Peace came in 1713 with the Peace of Utrecht,
  which forbade any union of France and Spain

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The Treaty of Utrecht

• Britain received Gibraltar and Minorca
• In America, Britain received the Hudsons Bay
  Territory and Newfoundland.
  
• Britain also received the right to the asiento.
• The Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) went to the
  Austrians.
  
• The rest of the Spanish European Empire was
  divided up.
  
• Spains overseas Empire remained largely intact