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97-588: The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre , sometimes called: House of Bourbon-Toulouse-Penthièvre , had been called the House of Bourbon-Toulouse during the lifetime of the duc de Penthièvre's father, the comte de Toulouse . The comte had received his title in 1681 as an appanage from his father, Louis XIV , and his residence in Paris, the Hôtel de Toulouse was named after this title. Upon his death, his descendants were members of

194-470: A centralised state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France; by compelling many members of the nobility to reside at his lavish Palace of Versailles , he succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many of whom had participated in the Fronde rebellions during his minority. He thus became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated

291-479: A chief minister: "Up to this moment I have been pleased to entrust the government of my affairs to the late Cardinal. It is now time that I govern them myself. You [secretaries and ministers] will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them. I request and order you to seal no orders except by my command . . . I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport . . . without my command; to render account to me personally each day and to favor no one". Capitalizing on

388-540: A common diplomatic front against France, leading to the Triple Alliance , between England, the Dutch and Sweden . The threat of an escalation and a secret treaty to divide Spanish possessions with Emperor Leopold , the other major claimant to the throne of Spain, led Louis to relinquish many of his gains in the 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle . Louis placed little reliance on his agreement with Leopold and as it

485-520: A counterweight against his domestic Orangist opponents. Louis provided support in the 1665-1667 Second Anglo-Dutch War but used the opportunity to launch the War of Devolution in 1667. This captured Franche-Comté and much of the Spanish Netherlands ; French expansion in this area was a direct threat to Dutch economic interests. The Dutch opened talks with Charles II of England on

582-461: A favoured few. Financial officials were required to keep regular accounts, revising inventories and removing unauthorized exemptions: up to 1661 only 10 per cent of income from the royal domain reached the king. Reform had to overcome vested interests: the taille was collected by officers of the Crown who had purchased their post at a high price, and punishment of abuses necessarily lowered the value of

679-715: A powerful but war-weary kingdom, in major debt after the War of the Spanish Succession that had raged on since 1701. Some of his other notable achievements include the construction of the Canal du Midi , the patronage of artists , and the founding of the French Academy of Sciences . Louis   XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye , to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria . He

776-412: A result, and Anne was forced, under intense pressure, to free Broussel. Moreover, on the night of 9–10 February 1651, when Louis was twelve, a mob of angry Parisians broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king. Led into the royal bed-chamber, they gazed upon Louis, who was feigning sleep, were appeased, and then quietly departed. The threat to the royal family prompted Anne to flee Paris with

873-578: A secret marriage to Queen Anne. However, Louis's coming-of-age and subsequent coronation deprived them of the Frondeurs ' pretext for revolt. The Fronde thus gradually lost steam and ended in 1653, when Mazarin returned triumphantly from exile. From that time until his death, Mazarin was in charge of foreign and financial policy without the daily supervision of Anne, who was no longer regent. During this period, Louis fell in love with Mazarin's niece Marie Mancini , but Anne and Mazarin ended

970-489: A strong position and on the Spanish marriage. Additionally, Mazarin's relations with Marie Mancini were not good, and he did not trust her to support his position. All of Louis's tears and his supplications to his mother did not make her change her mind. The Spanish marriage would be very important both for its role in ending the war between France and Spain, because many of the claims and objectives of Louis's foreign policy for

1067-833: A system of absolute monarchy in France that endured until the French Revolution . Louis also enforced uniformity of religion under the Catholic Church . His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades , effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, virtually destroying the French Protestant community. During Louis's long reign, France emerged as

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1164-632: Is homophonous to the French word for "book" (from the Latin word liber ), the distinction being that the two have different genders . The monetary and weight unit is feminine, la/une livre, while "book" is masculine, le/un livre. For much of the Middle Ages, different duchies of France were semi-autonomous if not practically independent from the weak Capetian kings, and thus each minted its own currency. Charters would need to specify which region or mint

1261-610: Is the longest of any sovereign . An emblematic character of the Age of Absolutism in Europe, Louis XIV's legacy is widely characterized by French colonial expansion , the conclusion of Eighty Years' War involving the Habsburgs , and his architectural bequest , marked by commissioned works of art and buildings. His pageantry, opulent lifestyle and ornate cultivated image earned him enduring admiration. Louis   XIV raised France to be

1358-654: The comté de Dreux , ( County of Dreux ) in 1775, the duc de Penthièvre transferred the nine bodies of his family from the 12th century Saint-Lubin church in Rambouillet to the Collégiale Saint-Étienne de Dreux . He himself was buried there in March 1793. On November 21, 1793, the crypt was desecrated by the revolutionaries and the bodies thrown into a grave in the Chanoines cemetery, the cemetery of

1455-490: The livre tournois as the standard currency of his lands, gradually replacing even the livre of Paris, and ultimately the currencies of all French-speaking areas he controlled. This was a slow process lasting many decades and not completed within Philip II's lifetime. The result was that from 1200 onwards, following the beginning of King Philip II's campaigns against King John, the currency used within French speaking lands

1552-653: The Battle of Lens , Mazarin, on Queen Anne's insistence, arrested certain members in a show of force. The most important arrest, from Anne's point of view, concerned Pierre Broussel , one of the most important leaders in the Parlement de Paris . People in France were complaining about the expansion of royal authority, the high rate of taxation, and the reduction of the authority of the Parlement de Paris and other regional representative entities. Paris erupted in rioting as

1649-605: The Bourbon-Vendôme (again as a comté ) families. . The House of Bourbon-Vendôme had the title of comte de Penthièvre: Louis XIV Louis   XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great ( Louis le Grand ) or the Sun King ( le Roi Soleil ), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days

1746-617: The Collégiale . In 1816, the duc de Penthièvre's daughter, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, duchesse d'Orléans , had a chapel built, on the site of the grave, as the new final resting place for the members of the House of Bourbon-Penthièvre . Today, the Chapelle royale de Dreux is the burial place of the members of the royal House of Orléans, into which the House of Bourbon-Penthièvre had merged when its heiress, Mlle de Penthièvre, married

1843-485: The Duchess of Longueville ; dukes of legitimised royal descent, such as Henri, Duke of Longueville , and François, Duke of Beaufort ; so-called " foreign princes " such as Frédéric Maurice, Duke of Bouillon , his brother Marshal Turenne , and Marie de Rohan , Duchess of Chevreuse; and scions of France's oldest families, such as François de La Rochefoucauld . Queen Anne played the most important role in defeating

1940-627: The Duke of Beaufort and Marie de Rohan , who conspired against him in 1643. The best example of Anne's loyalty to France was her treatment of one of Richelieu's men, the Chancellor Pierre Séguier . Séguier had brusquely interrogated Anne in 1637 (like a "common criminal", as she recalled) following the discovery that she was giving military secrets to her father in Spain, and Anne was virtually under house arrest for years. By keeping

2037-613: The Electorate of Cologne . Rapid French advance led to a coup that toppled De Witt and brought William III to power. Leopold viewed French expansion into the Rhineland as an increasing threat, especially after they seized the strategic Duchy of Lorraine in 1670. The prospect of Dutch defeat led Leopold to an alliance with Brandenburg-Prussia on 23 June, followed by another with the Republic on 25th. Although Brandenburg

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2134-653: The Enfants-Trouvés cemetery in Paris. Later attempts to find her remains proved unsuccessful. The title of Penthièvre was in the possession of several noble families during the Ancien Régime . It has been used twice within the House of Bourbon , once as a comté and once as a duché . Previously it had passed by marriage from the Luxembourg (as a duché ) to the Lorraine (as a comté ) then to

2231-477: The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre . Due to the illegitimate birth of the comte de Toulouse , members of the House of Bourbon-Penthièvre were not Princes and Princesses du Sang , although they held a high rank at court as members of the king's family, and lived in apartments near those of the king in Versailles. Because of the death, in 1768, of the prince de Lamballe , the son of the duc de Penthièvre , and

2328-441: The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre : Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon was created duc de Penthièvre on his birth in 1725 and, as the only child of the comte de Toulouse , he inherited from his father not only his fortune and titles, but his posts as: Part of the vast wealth accumulated by the duc de Penthièvre originally derived from the fortune of La Grande Mademoiselle , the first cousin of King Louis XIV. The duc du Maine's fortune

2425-971: The Peace of Westphalia , which ended the Thirty Years' War . Its terms ensured Dutch independence from Spain , awarded some autonomy to the various German princes of the Holy Roman Empire , and granted Sweden seats on the Imperial Diet and territories controlling the mouths of the Oder , Elbe , and Weser Rivers . France, however, profited most from the settlement. Austria, ruled by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III , ceded all Habsburg lands and claims in Alsace to France and acknowledged her de facto sovereignty over

2522-661: The Secretary of War , helped maintain large field armies that could be mobilised much more quickly, allowing them to mount offensives in early spring before their opponents were ready. The French were nevertheless forced to retreat from most of the Dutch Republic, which deeply shocked Louis; he retreated to St Germain for a time, where no one, except a few intimates, was allowed to disturb him. French military advantages allowed them however to hold their ground in Alsace and

2619-607: The Three Bishoprics of Metz , Verdun , and Toul . Moreover, many petty German states sought French protection, eager to emancipate themselves from Habsburg domination. This anticipated the formation of the 1658 League of the Rhine , which further diminished Imperial power. As the Thirty Years' War came to an end, a civil war known as the Fronde erupted in France. It effectively checked France's ability to exploit

2716-491: The duc du Maine who had been a beneficiary of several great estates (the county of Eu, the duchy of Aumale and the principality of Dombes) of La Grande Mademoiselle ( Louis XIV 's cousin), the duc de Penthièvre was the sole heir of the duc du Maine's fortune, which, added to his own, made the Bourbon-Toulouse-Penthièvre family, consisting solely of the duc de Penthièvre and the duchesse de Chartres,

2813-710: The Emperor (distracted by the Great Turkish War ) abandoned them, and the Dutch only supported them minimally. By the Truce of Ratisbon , in 1684, Spain was forced to acquiesce in the French occupation of most of the conquered territories, for 20 years. French livre The livre (abbreviation: £ or ₶. , French for libra (pound)) was the currency of Kingdom of France and its predecessor states of Francia and West Francia from 781 to 1794. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre

2910-443: The French crown and nobility: the king might raise taxes on the nation without consent if only he exempted the nobility. Only the "unprivileged" classes paid direct taxes, which came to mean the peasants only, as most bourgeois finagled exemptions in one way or another. The system laid the whole burden of state expenses on the backs of the poor and powerless. After 1700, with the support of Louis's pious secret wife Madame de Maintenon ,

3007-490: The Fronde because she wanted to transfer absolute authority to her son. In addition, most of the princes refused to deal with Mazarin, who went into exile for a number of years. The Frondeurs claimed to act on Louis's behalf, and in his real interest, against his mother and Mazarin. Queen Anne had a very close relationship with the Cardinal, and many observers believed that Mazarin became Louis   XIV's stepfather by

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3104-518: The King's authority, in a manner that was much more radical than the one proposed by Mazarin. The Cardinal depended totally on Anne's support and had to use all his influence on the Queen to temper some of her radical actions. Anne imprisoned any aristocrat or member of parliament who challenged her will; her main aim was to transfer to her son an absolute authority in the matters of finance and justice. One of

3201-520: The Peace of Westphalia. Anne and Mazarin had largely pursued the policies of Cardinal Richelieu, augmenting the Crown's power at the expense of the nobility and the Parlements . Anne was more concerned with internal policy than foreign affairs; she was a very proud queen who insisted on the divine rights of the King of France. All this led her to advocate a forceful policy in all matters relating to

3298-535: The Reunions . Warfare defined Louis's foreign policy, impelled by his personal ambition for glory and power: "a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique". His wars strained France's resources to the utmost, while in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. Upon his death in 1715, Louis   XIV left his great-grandson and successor, Louis XV ,

3395-630: The Spanish Netherlands while retaking Franche-Comté. By 1678, mutual exhaustion led to the Treaty of Nijmegen , which was generally settled in France's favour and allowed Louis to intervene in the Scanian War . Despite the military defeat, his ally Sweden regained much of what it had lost under the 1679 treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , Fontainebleau and Lund imposed on Denmark–Norway and Brandenburg. Yet Louis's two primary goals,

3492-568: The aristocracy, this rebellion represented a protest for the reversal of their political demotion from vassals to courtiers . It was headed by the highest-ranking French nobles, among them Louis's uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans and first cousin Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier , known as la Grande Mademoiselle ; Princes of the Blood such as Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti , and their sister

3589-493: The boundaries of his kingdom. Contemporary treaties were intentionally phrased ambiguously. Louis established the Chambers of Reunion to determine the full extent of his rights and obligations under those treaties. Cities and territories, such as Luxembourg and Casale , were prized for their strategic positions on the frontier and access to important waterways. Louis also sought Strasbourg , an important strategic crossing on

3686-479: The capital and the larger strategic picture, with the old military aristocracy ( noblesse d'épée , nobility of the sword) monopolizing senior military positions and the higher ranks. Louvois modernized the army and reorganised it into a professional, disciplined, well-trained force. He was devoted to the soldiers' material well-being and morale, and even tried to direct campaigns. Louis's legal reforms were enacted in his numerous Great Ordinances . Prior to that, France

3783-414: The creation of a coalition headed mainly by Marie de Rohan and the duchess of Longueville. This aristocratic coalition was strong enough to liberate the princes, exile Mazarin, and impose a condition of virtual house arrest on Queen Anne. All these events were witnessed by Louis and largely explained his later distrust of Paris and the higher aristocracy. "In one sense, Louis's childhood came to an end with

3880-575: The denier itself served as the model for many of Europe's currencies, including the British pound , Italian lira , Spanish dinero and the Portuguese dinheiro . This first livre is known as the livre carolingienne . Only deniers were initially minted, but debasement led to larger denominations being issued. Different mints in different regions used different weights for the denier, leading to several distinct livres of different values. "Livre"

3977-565: The destruction of the Dutch Republic and the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands, had failed. Louis was at the height of his power, but at the cost of uniting his opponents; this increased as he continued his expansion. In 1679, he dismissed his foreign minister Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne , because he was seen as having compromised too much with the allies. Louis maintained the strength of his army, but in his next series of territorial claims avoided using military force alone. Rather, he combined it with legal pretexts in his efforts to augment

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4074-417: The direction of religious policy strongly in hand until her son's majority in 1661. She appointed Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister, giving him the daily administration of policy. She continued the policies of her late husband and Cardinal Richelieu , despite their persecution of her, in order to win absolute authority in France and victory abroad for her son. Anne protected Mazarin by exiling her followers

4171-484: The duc de Chartres in 1769. Among the seventy-five members of both families buried in the new chapel are: Of the members of the Toulouse-Penthièvre family who predeceased Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon, the only one not buried in the newly built chapel is the princesse de Lamballe . After her "execution", her body and head were buried separately, at different times, and probably not in the same mass grave in

4268-554: The duc de Chartres, who inherited the title of duc d'Orléans at the death of his father, Louis-Philippe I d'Orléans in 1785, but took the name Philippe Egalité during the French Revolution of 1789. Mlle de Penthièvre had brought with her a dowry of 6 million livres , and an annual allowance of over 500,000 livres. Upon the death of the duc de Penthièvre in 1793, the Bourbon-Penthièvre fortune Louise Adélaïde

4365-528: The effective Séguier in his post, Anne sacrificed her own feelings for the interests of France and her son Louis. The Queen sought a lasting peace between Catholic nations, but only after a French victory over her native Spain. She also gave a partial Catholic orientation to French foreign policy. This was felt by the Netherlands, France's Protestant ally, which negotiated a separate peace with Spain in 1648. In 1648, Anne and Mazarin successfully negotiated

4462-428: The exemplar nation-state of the early modern period , and established a cultural prestige which lasted through the subsequent centuries until today. Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister Cardinal Mazarin , when the King famously declared that he would take over the job himself. An adherent of the divine right of kings , Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating

4559-412: The first gold écu d'or and silver gros d'argent , whose weights (and thus monetary divisions) were roughly equivalent to the livre tournois and the denier . Between 1360 and 1641, coins worth 1₶. were minted known as francs . This name persisted in common parlance for 1₶. but was not used on coins or paper money. The official use of the livre tournois accounting unit in all contracts in France

4656-444: The first knots which tied me to my mother. But attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood." It was his mother who gave Louis his belief in the absolute and divine power of his monarchical rule. During his childhood, he was taken care of by the governesses Françoise de Lansac and Marie-Catherine de Senecey . In 1646, Nicolas V de Villeroy became

4753-480: The grandson of Louis   XIV and Maria Theresa. The War of Devolution did not focus on the payment of the dowry; rather, the lack of payment was what Louis   XIV used as a pretext for nullifying Maria Theresa's renunciation of her claims, allowing the land to "devolve" to him. In Brabant (the location of the land in dispute), children of first marriages traditionally were not disadvantaged by their parents' remarriages and still inherited property. Louis's wife

4850-707: The ground floor of the Palace underneath the Grand Appartement du roi . Originally called the Appartements des Bains , they were the former apartments of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan , the mother of the duc du Maine, the comte de Toulouse, the duchesse d'Orléans and the princesse de Condé . On November 25, 1783, after having sold the Château de Rambouillet, to his cousin Louis XVI , who had given him

4947-694: The issues of the Banque Royale, their value plummeted. The last coins and notes of the livre currency system were issued in Year II of the Republic (1794). In 1795, the franc was introduced, worth 1₶.3d. ( 1 + 1 ⁄ 80 ₶), and the first one- franc coin was struck in 1803. Still the word livre survived; until the middle of the 19th century it was indifferently used alongside the word franc, especially to express large amounts and transactions linked with property (real estate, property incomes or "rentes", cattle, etc...). The livre had also been used as

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5044-446: The king and his courtiers. Shortly thereafter, the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia allowed Condé's army to return to aid Louis and his court. Condé's family was close to Anne at that time, and he agreed to help her attempt to restore the king's authority. The queen's army, headed by Condé, attacked the rebels in Paris; the rebels were under the political control of Anne's old friend Marie de Rohan . Beaufort, who had escaped from

5141-525: The king at the opulent château of Vaux-le-Vicomte , flaunting a wealth which could hardly have accumulated except through embezzlement of government funds. Fouquet appeared eager to succeed Mazarin and Richelieu in power, and he indiscreetly purchased and privately fortified the remote island of Belle Île . These acts sealed his doom. Fouquet was charged with embezzlement; the Parlement found him guilty and sentenced him to exile; and finally Louis altered

5238-421: The king was persuaded to change his fiscal policy. Though willing enough to tax the nobles, Louis feared the political concessions which they would demand in return. Only towards the close of his reign under the extreme exigency of war, was he able, for the first time in French history, to impose direct taxes on the aristocracy. This was a step toward equality before the law and toward sound public finance, though it

5335-548: The king's infatuation by sending Mancini away from court to be married in Italy. While Mazarin might have been tempted for a short time to marry his niece to the King of France, Queen Anne was absolutely against this; she wanted to marry her son to the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain , for both dynastic and political reasons. Mazarin soon supported the Queen's position because he knew that her support for his power and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain from

5432-483: The leaders of the Parlement of Paris, whom she had jailed, died in prison. The Frondeurs , political heirs of the disaffected feudal aristocracy, sought to protect their traditional feudal privileges from the increasingly centralized royal government. Furthermore, they believed their traditional influence and authority was being usurped by the recently ennobled bureaucrats (the Noblesse de Robe , or "nobility of

5529-529: The leading European power and regularly made war. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his personal rule, Louis fought three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War , the Nine Years' War , and the War of the Spanish Succession . In addition, France contested shorter wars such as the War of Devolution and the War of

5626-414: The left bank of the Rhine and theretofore a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire , annexing it and other territories in 1681. Although a part of Alsace, Strasbourg was not part of Habsburg-ruled Alsace and was thus not ceded to France in the Peace of Westphalia. Following these annexations, Spain declared war, precipitating the War of the Reunions . However, the Spanish were rapidly defeated because

5723-433: The net outflow of precious metals from France. Louis instituted reforms in military administration through Michel le Tellier and his son François-Michel le Tellier , successive Marquis de Louvois. They helped to curb the independent spirit of the nobility, imposing order on them at court and in the army. Gone were the days when generals protracted war at the frontiers while bickering over precedence and ignoring orders from

5820-415: The next 50 years would be based upon this marriage, and because it was through this marriage that the Spanish throne would ultimately be delivered to the House of Bourbon. Louis XIV was declared to have reached the age of majority on the 7th of September 1651. On the death of Mazarin, in March 1661, Louis personally took the reins of government and astonished his court by declaring that he would rule without

5917-448: The only heir to the title, the House of Bourbon-Penthièvre became extinct at the death of the duc in 1793, after having merged with the House of Orléans through the marriage of Mlle de Penthièvre , to the duc de Chartres . (The title of duc de Penthièvre was revived briefly in 1820 for Charles d'Orléans (1820–1828), the fourth son of Louis-Philippe I, King of the French .) At the death, in 1775, of Louis Charles, Count of Eu , son of

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6014-461: The outbreak of the Fronde. It was not only that life became insecure and unpleasant – a fate meted out to many children in all ages – but that Louis had to be taken into the confidence of his mother and Mazarin on political and military matters of which he could have no deep understanding". "The family home became at times a near-prison when Paris had to be abandoned, not in carefree outings to other chateaux but in humiliating flights". The royal family

6111-404: The practice by prohibiting the separation of families. Additionally, in the colonies, only Roman Catholics could own slaves, and these had to be baptised. Louis ruled through a number of councils: The death of Louis's maternal uncle King Philip IV of Spain in 1665 precipitated the War of Devolution . In 1660, Louis had married Philip   IV's eldest daughter, Maria Theresa , as one of

6208-437: The prison where Anne had incarcerated him five years before, was the military leader in Paris, under the nominal control of Conti. After a few battles, a political compromise was reached; the Peace of Rueil was signed, and the court returned to Paris. Unfortunately for Anne, her partial victory depended on Condé, who wanted to control the queen and destroy Mazarin's influence. It was Condé's sister who pushed him to turn against

6305-508: The provisions of the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees . The marriage treaty specified that Maria Theresa was to renounce all claims to Spanish territory for herself and all her descendants. Mazarin and Lionne , however, made the renunciation conditional on the full payment of a Spanish dowry of 500,000 écus . The dowry was never paid and would later play a part persuading his maternal first cousin Charles II of Spain to leave his empire to Philip, Duke of Anjou (later Philip V of Spain ),

6402-485: The purchase. Nevertheless, Colbert achieved excellent results, with the deficit of 1661 turning into a surplus by 1666, with interest on the debt decreasing from 52 million to 24 million livres. The taille was reduced to 42 million in 1661 and 35 million in 1665, while revenue from indirect taxation progressed from 26 million to 55 million. The revenues of the royal domain were raised from 80,000 livres in 1661 to 5.5 million in 1671. In 1661,

6499-411: The queen. After striking a deal with her old friend Marie de Rohan, who was able to impose the nomination of Charles de l'Aubespine, marquis de Châteauneuf as minister of justice, Anne arrested Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti , and the husband of their sister Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, duchess of Longueville . This situation did not last long, and Mazarin's unpopularity led to

6596-402: The receipts were equivalent to 26 million British pounds, of which 10 million reached the treasury. The expenditure was around 18 million pounds, leaving a deficit of 8 million. In 1667, the net receipts had risen to 20 million pounds sterling , while expenditure had fallen to 11 million, leaving a surplus of 9 million pounds. Money was the essential support of

6693-489: The reorganized and enlarged army, the panoply of Versailles, and the growing civil administration. Finance had always been the weakness of the French monarchy: tax collection was costly and inefficient; direct taxes dwindled as they passed through the hands of many intermediate officials; and indirect taxes were collected by private contractors called tax farmers who made a handsome profit. The state coffers leaked at every joint. The main weakness arose from an old bargain between

6790-405: The richest in France up to the Revolution of 1789. The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre is not only related to the modern day royal House of Orléans , but also, through the marriages of several of Louis-Philippe's children, to the royal houses of Belgium, Brazil, and Portugal. As he inherited not only his father's fortune, but that of his cousins, the duc de Penthièvre was said to be, and probably

6887-417: The robe"), who administered the kingdom and on whom the monarchy increasingly began to rely. This belief intensified the nobles' resentment. In 1648, Anne and Mazarin attempted to tax members of the Parlement de Paris . The members refused to comply and ordered all of the king's earlier financial edicts burned. Buoyed by the victory of Louis, duc d'Enghien (later known as le Grand Condé ) at

6984-402: The sentence to life imprisonment. Fouquet's downfall gave Colbert a free hand to reduce the national debt through more efficient taxation. The principal taxes included the aides and douanes (both customs duties ), the gabelle (salt tax), and the taille (land tax). The taille was reduced at first, and certain tax-collection contracts were auctioned instead of being sold privately to

7081-567: The sole regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his son's behalf, with Anne at its head. Louis XIII died on 14 May 1643. On 18 May Queen Anne had her husband's will annulled by the Parlement de Paris , a judicial body of nobles and high clergymen, and she became sole regent. She exiled her husband's ministers Chavigny and Bouthilier and appointed the Count of Brienne as her minister of foreign affairs. Anne kept

7178-648: The state's registers, not the church's, and it strictly regulated the right of the Parlements to remonstrate. The Code Louis later became the basis for the Napoleonic code , which in turn inspired many modern legal codes. One of Louis's more infamous decrees was the Grande Ordonnance sur les Colonies of 1685, the Code Noir (black code). Although it sanctioned slavery, it attempted to humanise

7275-451: The time. Contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is highly likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis's journal entries, such as: "Nature was responsible for

7372-411: The treasury verged on bankruptcy. To rectify the situation, Louis chose Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Controller-General of Finances in 1665. However, Louis first had to neutralize Nicolas Fouquet , the powerful Superintendent of Finances . Although Fouquet's financial indiscretions were not very different from Mazarin's before him or Colbert's after him, his ambition worried Louis. He lavishly entertained

7469-453: The widespread public yearning for peace and order after decades of foreign and civil strife, the young king consolidated central political authority and at the expense of the feudal aristocracy. Praising his ability to choose and encourage men of talent, the historian Chateaubriand noted: "it is the voice of genius of all kinds which sounds from the tomb of Louis". Louis began his personal reign with administrative and fiscal reforms. In 1661,

7566-457: The years of 1720 and 1723) essentially creating a coin worth 1 livre. These re-struck coins, however, eventually were assigned the value of 18 sous. A kind of paper money was reintroduced by the Caisse d'Escompte in 1776 as actions au porteur , denominated in livres. These were issued until 1793, alongside assignats from 1789. Assignats were backed (in theory) by government-held land. Like

7663-502: The young king's tutor. Louis   XIV became friends with Villeroy's young children, particularly François de Villeroy , and divided his time between the Palais-Royal and the nearby Hotel de Villeroy. Sensing imminent death in the spring of 1643, King Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order for his four-year-old son Louis   XIV. Not trusting the judgement of his Spanish wife Queen Anne, who would normally have become

7760-411: The écu varying between three and six livres tournois until 1726 when it was fixed at 6₶. The louis was initially (1640) worth 10₶., and fluctuated too, until its value was fixed at 24₶. in 1726. In 1667, the livre parisis was officially abolished. However, the sole remaining livre was still frequently referred to as the livre tournois until its demise. The first French paper money was issued in 1701 and

7857-619: Was Philip   IV's daughter by his first marriage, while the new king of Spain, Charles   II, was his son by a subsequent marriage. Thus, Brabant allegedly "devolved" to Maria Theresa, justifying France to attack the Spanish Netherlands . During the Eighty Years' War with Spain , France supported the Dutch Republic as part of a general policy of opposing Habsburg power. Johan de Witt , Dutch Grand Pensionary from 1653 to 1672, viewed this as crucial for Dutch security and

7954-507: Was a patchwork of legal systems, with as many traditional legal regimes as there were provinces, and two co-existing legal systems— customary law in the north and Roman civil law in the south. The Grande Ordonnance de Procédure Civile of 1667, the Code Louis , was a comprehensive legal code imposing a uniform regulation of civil procedure throughout the kingdom. Among other things, it prescribed baptismal, marriage and death records in

8051-542: Was being used: "money of Paris" or "money of Troyes ". The first steps towards standardization came under the first strong Capetian monarch, Philip II Augustus (1165–1223). Philip II conquered much of the continental Angevin Empire from King John of England , including Normandy , Anjou , and Touraine . The currency minted at the city of Tours in Touraine was considered very stable, and Philip II decided to adopt

8148-445: Was denominated in livres tournois. However, the notes did not hold their value relative to silver due to massive over–production. The Banque Royale (the last issuer of these early notes) crashed in 1720, rendering the banknotes worthless (see John Law for more on this system). In 1726, under Louis XV 's minister Cardinal Fleury , a system of monetary stability was put in place. Eight Troy ounces (a mark , or about 250 grams) of gold

8245-653: Was driven out of Paris twice in this manner, and at one point Louis   XIV and Anne were held under virtual arrest in the royal palace in Paris. The Fronde years planted in Louis a hatred of Paris and a consequent determination to move out of the ancient capital as soon as possible, never to return. Just as the first Fronde (the Fronde parlementaire of 1648–1649) ended, a second one (the Fronde des princes of 1650–1653) began. Unlike that which preceded it, tales of sordid intrigue and half-hearted warfare characterized this second phase of upper-class insurrection. To

8342-852: Was forced out of the war by the June 1673 Treaty of Vossem , in August an anti-French alliance was formed by the Dutch, Spain , Emperor Leopold and the Duke of Lorraine . The French alliance was deeply unpopular in England, and only more so after the disappointing battles against Michiel de Ruyter 's fleet. Charles   II of England made peace with the Dutch in the February 1674 Treaty of Westminster . However, French armies held significant advantages over their opponents; an undivided command, talented generals like Turenne , Condé and Luxembourg and vastly superior logistics. Reforms introduced by Louvois ,

8439-416: Was in a state of flux, as the livre tournois was gradually introduced into other areas. Until the thirteenth century and onwards, only deniers were actually minted as coin money. Both livres and sous did not actually exist as coins but were used only for accounting purposes. Upon his return from the crusades in the 1250s, Louis IX instigated a royal monopoly on the minting of coinage in France and minted

8536-445: Was legislated in 1549. However, in 1577, the livre tournois accounting unit was officially abolished and replaced by the écu , which was at that time the major French gold coin in actual circulation. In 1602, the livre tournois accounting unit was brought back. Louis XIII of France stopped minting the franc in 1641, replacing it with coins based on the silver écu and gold Louis d'or . The écu and louis d'or fluctuated in value, with

8633-478: Was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given) and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent : Dauphin . At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Louis's relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for

8730-522: Was now clear French and Dutch aims were in direct conflict, he decided to first defeat the Republic , then seize the Spanish Netherlands. This required breaking up the Triple Alliance; he paid Sweden to remain neutral and signed the 1670 Secret Treaty of Dover with Charles, an Anglo-French alliance against the Dutch Republic. In May 1672, France invaded the Republic , supported by Münster and

8827-711: Was predictably diminished by concessions and exemptions won by the insistent efforts of nobles and bourgeois. Louis and Colbert also had wide-ranging plans to grow French commerce and trade. Colbert's mercantilist administration established new industries and encouraged manufacturers and inventors, such as the Lyon silk manufacturers and the Gobelins tapestry manufactory . He invited manufacturers and artisans from all over Europe to France, such as Murano glassmakers, Swedish ironworkers, and Dutch shipbuilders. He aimed to decrease imports while increasing French exports, hence reducing

8924-400: Was supplemented with many expensive gifts from his adoring father, the king. The duc had two sons, both of whom were childless, and when his last living son, Louis-Charles de Bourbon, comte d'Eu , died in 1775, the duc de Penthièvre was the sole heir to his fortune. The châteaux of Sceaux , Anet , Aumale, Dreux and Gisors were part of this huge inheritance. In addition, the duc de Penthièvre

9021-468: Was the name of coins and of units of account. The livre was established by Charlemagne as a unit of account equal to one pound of silver . It was subdivided into 20 sous (also sols ), each of 12 deniers . The word livre came from the Latin word libra , a Roman unit of weight and still the name of a pound in modern French , and the denier comes from the Roman denarius . This system and

9118-535: Was the only heir of his father, the comte de Toulouse, from whom he inherited the Hôtel de Toulouse in Paris, and the Château de Rambouillet. The death of his son, the prince de Lamballe, in 1768, had left the duc de Penthièvre with no male heir and, as a result, his daughter, Mlle de Penthièvre, was his sole heiress. Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon was first known as Mademoiselle d'Ivoy , then Mademoiselle de Penthièvre . In April 1769, she married her distant cousin,

9215-412: Was the wealthiest man in France. In 1744, he married Marie Thérèse Félicité d'Este , princesse de Modène (1726–1754), the daughter of Francesco III d'Este , the sovereign Duke of Modena and Reggio. The couple was said to have been very happy. They had seven children, but only two survived infancy, and the duchesse de Penthièvre died in childbirth on April 30, 1754.: The following titles belonged to

9312-621: Was to inherit was confiscated by the revolutionary government. It is only after her return to France during the First Bourbon Restoration of 1814 that she was able, through numerous legal battles, to regain what was left of some of her land estates, many of them having been either sold, gutted or nearly destroyed during the Revolution. At the Palace of Versailles , the family also occupied a suite of apartments located on

9409-536: Was worth 740₶.9s. (so, one Troy ounce of gold was worth approximately 4 Louis or 93₶.); 8 Troy ounces of silver was worth 51₶.2s.3d. This led to a strict conversion rate between gold and silver (14.4867 to 1) and established the values of the coins in circulation in France at: However a coin of 1₶. was not minted. Yet in 1720 a special coin minted in pure silver was produced and assigned a token value of 1₶. Additionally, France took Navarrese 20-sou coins minted in 1719 and 1720, re-struck them as 1 ⁄ 6 écu (between

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