Absolute monarchy in France

Absolute monarchy in France slowly emerged in the 16th century and became firmly established during the 17th century. Absolute monarchy is a variation of the governmental form of monarchy in which the monarch holds supreme authority and where that authority is not restricted by any written laws, legislature, or customs. In France, Louis XIV was the most famous exemplar of absolute monarchy, with his court central to French political and cultural life during his reign. It ended in May 1789 during the French Revolution, when widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates-General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June 1789.

The origins of absolutism in France date back to the 16th century and the reign of Henry IV. When in 1594 Henry IV ascended the throne, he inherited a country that had been completely exhausted by 30 years of religious wars. The country was deeply divided, trade and the economy had collapsed, and the population was declining. Furthermore, the crown had lost most of its authority over the provinces.^[1]In order to re-establish royal authority, Henry IV resorted to the Masters of Request and commissioners established under Henry II.^[2] Both groups were vested with royal authority to handle matters relating to local landowners, town councils and rebellious subjects.^[3]

Based on this system, Cardinal Richelieu, sensing the dangers of an uncontrolled aristocracy that was consuming the resources of the nation, put his greatest effort into the centralization of the state, upon which the grandeur of France depended. Despite Henry IV's efforts, the provinces still enjoyed a great deal of independence, since his commissioners' powers were expressly limited and considered an extraordinary, temporary measure. It was not until 1635 that Richelieu was able to issue commissions on a more regular basis. These commissioners, now known as intendants, received authority over the justices, officers, and subjects of the Crown. They had the power to resolve and decide matters concerning royal service, security, and public peace. They could receive requests, administer justice, preside over courts, and assist governors and lieutenant-generals.^[4]

Bernard de La Roche-Flavin's 1617 work outlined the Parlement's powers of verifying, ratifying, refusing, and limiting legislation, acting as a balance among monarchy, aristocracy, and republic. This thesis was abominable to Richelieu, who viewed the checks and balance system as a weakening of the state and characterized the resistance that the Parlement showed to his actions as hors de toute raison. ^[5] Until his death, Richelieu sought to restrict the powers of the Parlement. He restricted Parlements right to remonstrante, forbade to discuss political questions and limited its judicial functions by the extensive use of judicial commissions. Moreover by claiming that the king, had the right to bring any case before his own council Richelieu was able to check most of parlements decisions.^{[6] [5]}

When Cardinal Mazarin asumed office of Principal Ministre d’État in 1642, he was repeatedly confronted with uprisings against excessive taxes, which ultimately culminated in the outbreak of the Fronde.^[7] Although the uprising was suppressed, it had a decisive influence on the adult Louis XIV. The Fronde taught Louis XIV that a divided government is a precursor to total collapse. Having been forced to flee Paris as a child during the uprisings, he developed a lifelong suspicion of the city’s populace and the Parlement of Paris, which he came to view as a threat to the crown's stability rather than a legitimate partner in governance. He realized that the high nobility, if left to their own devices in provincial strongholds, would inevitably prioritize personal ambition over national unity, leading him to centralize all political power within his own person. Moreover he was afraid that he might could meet the same fate as Charles I of England.^[8]

The were however, still many obstacles in the way of absolutism in France:

• Nobles had the means to raise private armies and build fortifications. The king did not have the means to raise and keep an army himself and had to rely on these nobles to defend the nation;
• Lesser nobles, who had the ability to read and write, also acted as the king's agents. Effectively, they were his representatives of government to the people. They collected taxes, posted edicts, and administered justice.
• The Huguenots, who since the 1598 Edict of Nantes by Henry IV, held the rights to bear arms and to build fortifications in certain locations.

To overcome these obstacles King Louis XIV adopted several measures to weaken or eliminate competing centers of power: The Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 removed the former policy of tolerance toward French Huguenots, as formalized by the Edict of Nantes.

A more subtle tactic was the demolition of a number of fortified castles still owned and occupied by members of the nobility. This Edict of 1626 was justified as a budgetary reform to reduce maintenance costs by removing obsolete fortifications within the borders of France. While a rational economic step in itself, this measure did have the additional effect of undermining the independence of the aristocracy.

Louis XIV reduced the nobles' power further by requiring them to spend at least some portion of the year as courtiers in residence at the Palace of Versailles. At Versailles, the aristocracy were removed from their provincial power centers and came under the surveillance and control of the royal government. Rather than seen as demeaning, the nobles took required membership of the royal court to be a high honor. Nobles, being granted residence at Versailles, were generally prepared to give up their former duties as royal representatives outside Paris. Louis XIV, with the help of his minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, replaced them with royal appointees drawn largely from the merchant class, who were generally better educated and whose titles were revocable and not hereditary.

The absolute monarchy was not the same as totalitarian dictatorship, and there were limits to the king's power. Known as the "fundamental laws of the Kingdom", these evolved over time and were a set of unwritten principles which placed limits on the otherwise absolute power of the king from the Middle Ages until the French Revolution in 1789. They were based on customary usage and religious beliefs about the roles of God, monarch, and subjects.^[9]

The final outcome of these acts centralized the authority of France behind the king and reduced French national debt considerably.

In the 18th century, however, the relocation of nobles and the sheer obsolescence of Versailles became an important place for a rising merchant class and an instigative press.

A notable result of absolutism in France is the emigration of the Huguenots. Their emigration effectively led to a brain drain and a loss of tax revenue for France. Moreover, barred from New France, they immigrated to other nations, most notably the Thirteen Colonies, taking their skills of printing, glass making, carpentry, ceramics, a deep belief in the needs for freedom of religion (at least for Protestantism), and the right to bear arms.

The other consequence was a large reduction of the dominating influence of the Kingdom of France in Europe, and a rise in the power of other kingdoms to strengthen their empires, especially Great Britain, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. This let to numerous deadly wars with them (in Europe, America and Africa), some of them won by France or its allies (notably for the independence of the United States). Conversely, it caused the loss of most areas of New France (most continental parts in North America, including those that would be sold later to the United States by the First French Empire, and some islands in the Caribbean), severe degradation of the economic advantage of the first French colonial Empire, accumulation of debts in the kingdom (with a growing influence of the merchants against the French nobility), and a considerable loss of economic, diplomatic, political and cultural influence in Europe, all these being left to the growing British colonial empire (even after its loss of New England) and to its allies all around France in Spain (including the Spanish Netherlands), Austria (including Italy), Nordic countries (and later the United States).

Another consequence of the creation of the United States and of the costly wars between France and all its neighbours in Europe, was also that it initiated lot of severe political and social troubles throughout the kingdom, and it paved the way to the French Revolution and finally the end of the absolute monarchy, via a short step of constitutional monarchy (restoring some parliamentary powers to the Estates General) between 1789 and 1791, and then to the First French Republic (during which the eviction of the traditional French clergy and nobility from the new Constitution further strengthened the military alliance of all European neighbours against France). That lost influence of France was never restored in the following centuries, even after the emergence of the First French Empire (which terminated the dictature, reunited a strongly divided France, restored the freedom of religion, and allowed the reemergence of a stable commercial sector, but also initiated new wars against other monarchies in continental Europe), or after the formation of a new French colonial empire by the Third Republic.

Even today's Fifth Republic in France mimics some models from other European constitutional monarchies, because of the stability and influence of the head of state (monarch or elected president) to preserve the territorial unity by an enforced balance of powers. Unlike past republics, it even accepts and protects constitutionally the presence of nobility, religions or diverse cultures, as plain components and (non absolute) actors of the republic, even if it promotes its own unified system, freely accessible to all its nationals or applicable directly only to its foreign residents.

• Ancien Régime
• Early modern France
• Absolute monarchy
• Autocracy

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