FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV                                                       

LOUIS XIV (reign: 1643-1715) "Le roi soleil" /  Sun king
1643-1651: Regency of his mother, Anne of Austria (Hapsburg);
                           Chief Minister Cardinal Mazarin (Richelieu's chosen successor)
1651-1715: starting at age 14, Louis’ personal rule

FRONDE 1648-1653: armed political rising due to
1) 1640's  agricultural crisis: jacqueries = peasant revolts 
2) disbanding of armed nobility after Thirty Years' War
3) expansion of royal taxation under Richilieu and Mazarin:
        rentes: interest on secured government loans
        edit du rachat: increase in paulette (tax on officeholders)
        venality of office: sale of more parlementaire (judicial) offices
        toisé: house tax

PARTICIPANTS IN THE FRONDE:
1) Parlement of Paris revolt of officeholders (noblesse de robe):
        lit de justice: Mazarin forces registration of tax edicts  
        remonstrance: officeholders' grievances
        arrêt d'union: financial & constitutional reforms proposed
2) Frondeurs (slingshots) : 
         Paris: urban riots in support of parlement
3) Aristocratic revolt:
          armed feudal nobility supports parlement
          Mazarin exiled; Anne & Louis flee Paris (to Poitiers)
1652: Louis re-enters Paris, declares majority at age 14
         rules as absolute monarch, never forgets the Fronde 

ABSOLUTISM: divine right monarchy
                       "L'état, c'est moi."  [I am the state.]
Bishop Jacques BOSSUET:
                    theorist of absolutism under Louis XIV
        1662 sermon: "Vous êtes Dieu." [You are God.] 
        1707 Politics drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture
       sovereignty is indivisible, belongs to king by divine mandate                  

VERSAILLES: royal palace as symbol of royal absolutism
       architects Le Vau (builder of Vaux le Vicomte) & Le Brun
       Memoirs of Duc de St. Simon: record court life
                  as "government by spectacle"
                  ritualization of King's daily activities
                         le petit lever (AM),  le petit coucher (PM)
       domestication of the nobility at Versailles
           
ECONOMICS:
      JEAN BAPTIST COLBERT: finance minister 1664-1683
             called “the vile bourgeois” (by Duc de St. Simon)
             raises taxes to support Louis' wars; mercantilist
       MERCANTILISM: state controlled economic system
             balance of trade, tariffs
             state factories: GOBELIN WORKSHOP in Paris

TAXATION UNDER LOUIS XIV
            to support court at Versailles, army, bureaucracy
           1661    85 million livres  (pounds
           1683   116   “        “
           1715   152   “        “  (almost double 1661 amount)
      taxes:    taille réelle     on real estate
                   taille personnelle  head tax
                   gabelle   salt tax
                   aides     indirect taxes on commodities

Religious Issues under Louis XIV

1) GALLICAN CHURCH:
      Assembly of Clergy -- representative body of French Church
      right of regale: King receives revenues of vacant Bishopric

      1681: Assembly protests to Rome, appeal to Pope Innocent XI
      1684: Four Articles formulated by BOSSUET
                limit authority of Pope in France, deny infallibility of Pope
      1684-89: standoff between King and Pope

2) HUGUENOTS: (total population of France about 20 million)
      1660 1.75 million Huguenots, 630 churches, 750 ministers
      1659 prohibition of national synod of Huguenots
      1678 strict enforcement of Edict of Nantes to letter of the law
      1681 dragonnades (troops stationed Huguenot towns); 
      1683  widowed Louis marries Madame de Maintenon

      1685 revocation Edict of Nantes:
             abolition of la religione pretendue reformée
                         expulsion of Huguenots whose refuse to convert
              200,000 Huguenots emigrate to Holland, Germany, America
              Motto of Louis XIV --
             "Un roi, un loi, une foi." [One king, one law, one faith.]

3) JANSENISTS:    strict religious movement at Abbey of Port Royal
                             an almost Protestant view of grace and salvation

    JESUITS: enemies of Jansenists, specialize in casuistry:
             discussion of moral options in "cases of conscience" (casus)
                debate over contrition versus attrition in case of Louis XIII and
               Richelieu's aid to German Protestants in 30 Years War

    CORNELIUS JANSEN (d. 1638) Flemish Bishop of Ypres,
            1640 Augustinus: against Jesuit teachings on grace, salvation
    ARNAULD FAMILY:  prominent Parisians, opposed to Jesuits
       1643 On Frequent Communion  against Jesuit confession theory
       1653 Jansenism declared heresy
       1656 PASCAL, Provincial Letters: defense of Jansenism
       1713 Papal condemnation of Jansenism secured by Louis XIV