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98-824: It is best known as a royal factory supplying the court of the French monarchs since Louis XIV , and it is now run by the General Administration of the National Furniture and National Manufactures of Carpets and Tapestries (French: Administration générale du Mobilier national et des Manufactures nationales de tapis et tapisseries ) of the French Ministry of Culture . The factory is open for guided tours several afternoons per week by appointment, as well as for casual visits every day except Mondays and some specific holidays. The Galerie des Gobelins

196-470: 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

294-479: 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

392-540: 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

490-520: 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

588-673: A distant cousin who claimed descent from Louis XIII . The French Revolution of 1848 brought an end to the monarchy again, instituting a brief Second Republic that lasted four years, before its President declared himself Emperor Napoleon III , who was deposed and replaced by the Third Republic , and ending monarchic rule in France for good. The Bourbon Restoration came to an end with the July Revolution of 1830 which deposed Charles X and replaced him with Louis Philippe I ,

686-455: A distant cousin with more liberal politics. Charles X's son Louis signed a document renouncing his own right to the throne only after a 20-minute argument with his father. Because he was never crowned he is disputed as a genuine king of France. Louis's nephew Henry was likewise considered by some to be Henry V, but the new regime did not recognise his claim and he never ruled. Charles X named Louis Philippe as  Lieutenant général du royaume ,

784-461: 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

882-584: A period known as Direct Capetian rule. Afterwards, it passed to the House of Valois , a cadet branch that descended from Philip III . The Valois claim was disputed by Edward III , the Plantagenet king of England who claimed himself as the rightful king of France through his French mother Isabella . The two houses fought the Hundred Years' War over the issue, and with Henry VI of England being for

980-715: 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

1078-629: A regent to the young Henry V, and charged him to announce his desire to have his grandson succeed him to the Chamber of Deputies , the lower house of the French Parliament at the time, the French equivalent at the time of the UK House of Commons. Louis Philippe did not do this, in order to increase his own chances of succession. As a consequence, and because the French parliamentarians were aware of his liberal policies and of his popularity at

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1176-412: 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

1274-578: 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

1372-489: 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

1470-780: 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

1568-555: A time partially recognized as King of France . The Valois line died out in the late 16th century, during the French Wars of Religion , to be replaced by the distantly related House of Bourbon , which descended through the Direct Capetian Louis IX . The Bourbons ruled France until deposed in the French Revolution , though they were restored to the throne after the fall of Napoleon. The last Capetian to rule

1666-544: Is dedicated to temporary exhibitions of tapestries from the French manufactures and furnitures from the Mobilier National , built in the gardens by Auguste Perret in 1937. Along with Ōshima-tsumugi from Japan, and Persian carpets , Gobelin Tapestry are considered to be one of the worlds greatest textiles. The Gobelins were a family of dyers who, in the middle of the 15th century, established themselves in

1764-652: The Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The family consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary and becoming the real powers behind the Merovingian kings . The dynasty is named after one of these mayors of the palace, Charles Martel , whose son Pepin the Short dethroned the Merovingians in 751 and, with

1862-653: 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

1960-485: 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

2058-627: 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

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2156-613: 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

2254-753: The Faubourg Saint-Marcel  [ fr ] , Paris , on the banks of the Bièvre . In 1602, Henry IV of France rented factory space from the Gobelins for his Flemish tapestry makers, Marc de Comans and François de la Planche, on the current location of the Gobelins Manufactory adjoining the Bièvre river. In 1629, their sons Charles de Comans and Raphaël de la Planche took over their fathers' tapestry workshops, and in 1633, Charles

2352-518: The Hundred Years War to enforce their claims. The Valois were ultimately successful, and French historiography counts their leaders as rightful kings. One Plantagenet, Henry VI of England , enjoyed de jure control of the French throne following the Treaty of Troyes , which formed the basis for continued English claims to the throne of France until 1801. The Valois line ruled France until

2450-971: 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

2548-597: The Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I , king of the Franks ( r.  507–511 ), as the first king of France. However, historians today consider that such a kingdom did not begin until the establishment of West Francia , after the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century. The kings used

2646-661: 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

2744-607: 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

2842-471: The 1871 fire. They contain Le Brun's residence and workshops that served as foundries for most of the bronze statues in the park of Versailles, as well as looms on which tapestries are woven following seventeenth century techniques. The Gobelins still produces some limited amount of tapestries for the decoration of French governmental institutions, with contemporary subjects. The museum's gallery reopened to

2940-576: 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. King of France France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of

3038-443: 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 ,

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3136-476: The French throne. The Valois claimed the right to the succession by male-only primogeniture through the ancient Salic Law , having the closest all-male line of descent from a recent French king. They were descended from the third son of Philip III , Charles, Count of Valois. The Plantagenets based their claim on being closer to a more recent French king, Edward III of England being a grandson of Philip IV through his mother, Isabella . The two houses fought

3234-490: 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

3332-890: 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 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

3430-518: 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

3528-520: 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

3626-535: 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 ,

3724-578: 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,

3822-568: 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

3920-493: 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

4018-479: 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

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4116-689: The consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, was crowned King of the Franks . Under Charles the Great (r. 768–814), better known as " Charlemagne ", the Frankish kingdom expanded deep into Central Europe , conquering Italy and most of modern Germany . He was also crowned " Emperor of the Romans " by the Pope, a title that was eventually carried on by the German rulers of the Holy Roman Empire . Charlemagne

4214-414: 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

4312-565: 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

4410-417: 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

4508-487: The eastern and western parts of the land had already developed different languages and cultures. The Capetian dynasty is named for Hugh Capet, a Robertian who served as Duke of the Franks and was elected King in 987. Except for the Bonaparte-led Empires, every monarch of France was a male-line descendant of Hugh Capet. The kingship passed through patrilineally from father to son until the 14th century,

4606-528: 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

4704-428: 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

4802-444: 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

4900-480: 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

4998-498: 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

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5096-469: 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

5194-421: 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

5292-496: 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

5390-431: 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

5488-405: 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

5586-414: 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

5684-452: The line became extinct in 1589, in the backdrop of the French Wars of Religion . As Navarre did not have a tradition of male-only primogeniture, the Navarrese monarchy became distinct from the French with Joan II , a daughter of Louis X. The Valois line looked strong on the death of Henry II , who left four male heirs. His first son, Francis II , died in his minority. His second son, Charles IX , had no legitimate sons to inherit. Following

5782-433: 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

5880-415: 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

5978-461: 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

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6076-415: The possession of the territory of France. With the House of Bonaparte , the title " Emperor of the French " ( Empereur des Français ) was used in 19th-century France , during the first and second French Empires, between 1804 and 1814, again in 1815, and between 1852 and 1870. From the 14th century down to 1801, the English (and later British) monarch claimed the throne of France , though such claim

6174-404: 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

6272-457: The premature death of his fourth son Hercule François and the assassination of his third son, the childless Henry III , France was plunged into a succession crisis over which distant cousin of the king would inherit the throne. The best claimant, King Henry III of Navarre , was a Protestant, and thus unacceptable to much of the French nobility. Ultimately, after winning numerous battles in defence of his claim, Henry converted to Catholicism and

6370-437: 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

6468-508: 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 ),

6566-608: The public on May 12, 2007. Important exhibitions are organized regularly. A branch of the manufactory was established in London probably in the early 18th-century in the area that is now Fulham High Street . Around 1753 it appears to have been taken over by the priest and adventurer, Pierre Parisot , but closed only a few years later. 48°50′05″N 2°21′07″E  /  48.834656°N 2.352055°E  / 48.834656; 2.352055 Louis XIV of France Louis   XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis

6664-485: 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,

6762-411: 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

6860-402: 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

6958-489: 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

7056-417: 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

7154-402: 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

7252-567: 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

7350-648: 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

7448-463: The superintendence of the court painter , Charles Le Brun , who served as director and chief designer from 1663–1690. On account of Louis XIV's financial problems, the establishment was closed in 1694, but reopened in 1697 for the manufacture of tapestry, chiefly for royal use. It rivalled the Beauvais tapestry works until the French Revolution , when work at the factory was suspended. The factory

7546-498: The time with the French population, they proclaimed Louis Philippe as the new French king, displacing the senior branch of the House of Bourbon. The French Second Republic lasted from 1848 to 1852, when its president, Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , was declared Emperor of the French under the regnal name of Napoleon III . He would later be overthrown during the events of the Franco-Prussian War , becoming

7644-451: 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

7742-453: The title "King of the Franks" ( Latin : Rex Francorum ) until the late twelfth century; the first to adopt the title of "King of France" ( Latin : Rex Franciae ; French : roi de France ) was Philip II in 1190 (r. 1180–1223), after which the title "King of the Franks" gradually lost ground. However, Francorum Rex continued to be sometimes used, for example by Louis XII in 1499, by Francis I in 1515, and by Henry II in about 1550; it

7840-411: 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

7938-453: 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,

8036-502: 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

8134-467: Was Louis Philippe I , king of the July Monarchy (1830–1848), a member of the cadet House of Bourbon-Orléans . The House of Capet are also commonly known as the "Direct Capetians". The death of Charles IV started the Hundred Years' War between the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet , whose claim was taken up by the cadet branch known as the House of Lancaster , over control of

8232-619: 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

8330-507: 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

8428-512: Was a tumultuous time in French politics. The period is generally considered to have begun with the French Revolution , which deposed and then executed Louis XVI . Royalists continued to recognize his son, the putative king Louis XVII , as ruler of France. Louis was under arrest by the government of the Revolution and died in captivity having never ruled. The republican government went through several changes in form and constitution until France

8526-499: Was also used on coins up to the eighteenth century. During the brief period when the French Constitution of 1791 was in effect (1791–1792) and after the July Revolution in 1830, the style " King of the French " ( roi des Français ) was used instead of " King of France (and Navarre )". It was a constitutional innovation known as popular monarchy which linked the monarch's title to the French people rather than to

8624-546: Was crowned as King Henry IV, founding the House of Bourbon. This marked the second time the thrones of Navarre and France were united under one monarch, as different inheritance laws had caused them to become separated during the events of the Hundred Years Wars. The House of Bourbon was overthrown during the French Revolution and replaced by a short-lived republic . The period known as the "long nineteenth century"

8722-700: Was declared an empire, following the ascension of the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor Napoleon I. Napoleon was overthrown twice following military defeats during the Napoleonic Wars . After the Napoleonic period followed two different royal governments, the Bourbon Restoration , which was ruled successively by two younger brothers of Louis XVI, and the July Monarchy , ruled by Louis Philippe I ,

8820-653: 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

8918-852: 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 ,

9016-478: 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

9114-522: 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

9212-711: 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

9310-495: Was purely nominal excepting a short period during the Hundred Years' War when Henry VI of England had control over most of Northern France, including Paris. By 1453, the English had been mostly expelled from France and Henry's claim has since been considered illegitimate; French historiography commonly does not recognize Henry VI of England among the kings of France. The Carolingians were a Frankish noble family with origins in

9408-518: Was revived during the Bourbon Restoration and, in 1826, the manufacture of carpets was added to that of tapestry. In 1871, the building was partly burned down during the Paris Commune . The factory is still in operation today as a state-run institution. Today, the manufactory consists of a set of four irregular buildings dating to the seventeenth century, plus the building on the avenue des Gobelins built by Jean-Camille Formigé in 1912 after

9506-491: Was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), who eventually divided the kingdom between his sons. His death, however, was followed by a three-year-long civil war that ended with the Treaty of Verdun , which divided Francia into three kingdoms, one of which ( Middle Francia ) was short-lived. Modern France developed from West Francia , while East Francia became the Holy Roman Empire and later Germany . By this time,

9604-544: Was the head of the Gobelins manufactory. Their partnership ended around 1650, and the workshops were split into two. Tapestries from this early, Flemish period are sometimes called pre-gobelins . In 1662, the works in the Faubourg Saint Marcel, with the adjoining grounds, were purchased by Jean-Baptiste Colbert on behalf of Louis XIV and made into a general upholstery factory, in which designs both in tapestry and in all kinds of furniture were executed under

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