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143-522: Louis XII (27 June 1462 – 1 January 1515), also known as Louis of Orléans , was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans , and Marie of Cleves , he succeeded his second cousin once removed and brother-in-law, Charles VIII , who died childless in 1498. Louis was the second cousin of King Louis XI , who compelled him to marry Louis XI's disabled and supposedly sterile daughter Joan . By doing so, Louis XI hoped to extinguish

286-576: A coup d'état by Henri III , and the States summoned by the League, which sat in Paris in 1593 and whose chief object was to elect a Catholic king, were not a success. The Estates General again met in Paris in 1614 [fr] , on the occasion of the disturbances that followed the death of Henry IV ; however, though their minutes bear witness to their sentiments of exalted patriotism , dissensions between

429-562: A band of cavalry fled Milan, heading northward to the Holy Roman Empire. Louis XII, staying in Lyon , heard about the surrender of Milan on 17 September 1499. He immediately left Lyon and on 6 October 1499, Louis XII made his triumphant entry into Milan. Marshal Trevulzio presented the key to the city to Louis, who in turn appointed Marshal Trivulzio as the temporary French governor of Milan. Later, Louis appointed Georges d' Amboise as

572-562: A day of opening fire, the French batteries had knocked down 100 feet of the old medieval walls surrounding the city. Even with the breach in their walls, the Pisans put up such a determined resistance that Beaumont despaired of ever taking Pisa. On 11 July 1500, the French broke camp and retreated north. The diversion to Pisa and the failure there emboldened opponents of the French in Italy. Pursuing

715-759: A further four stillborn sons to the new king, but also two surviving daughters. The elder daughter, Claude (1499–1524), was betrothed by her mother's arrangement to the future Emperor Charles V in 1501. But after Anne failed to produce a living son, Louis dissolved the betrothal and betrothed Claude to his heir presumptive , Francis of Angoulême , thereby insuring that Brittany would remain united with France. Anne opposed this marriage, which took place only after her death in 1514. Claude succeeded her mother in Brittany and became queen consort to Francis. The younger daughter, Renée (1510–1575), married Duke Ercole II of Ferrara . After Anne's death, Louis married Mary Tudor ,

858-505: A marriage between his eldest son, Arthur, and Catherine of Aragon , the Infanta of Spain. Thus he needed to detach Spain from its close relations with England before he could deal with Henry VII. Furthermore, Spain was then a member of the anti-French League of Venice. Ferdinand of Aragon , king of the newly unified Spain, directed all relations between Spain and the French on behalf of himself and his queen, Isabella I of Castile . Ferdinand

1001-475: A much more damaging effect on Sforza's army, because his army was composed of a larger proportion of Swiss than the French army under La Trémoille. Faced with the return of the French and his own greatly reduced force, Sforza decided to slip out of Milan as he had done previously. This time, however, Sforza was captured and spent the rest of his life in a French prison. Despite Milan's openly warm welcome of Sforza (which Louis XII regarded as "treasonous"), Louis XII

1144-539: A new coalition gathered by Ferdinand II of Aragon and was forced to cede Naples to Spain in 1504. Louis, who remained Duke of Milan after the second Italian War, was interested in further expansion in the Italian Peninsula and launched a third Italian War (1508–1516), which was marked by the military prowess of the Chevalier de Bayard . Louis XII did not encroach on the power of local governments or

1287-599: A pious and chivalrous king to the public, Louis adopted titles such as Father of the People and compared himself to figures like St. Louis to highlight his commitment to justice and reform rather than simply military dominance. Louis's initial of L was often decorated with an open royal crown and laced with fleurs-de-lys . In addition, Louis's personal colors were red and yellow (or gold). Thus, guard regiment uniforms, manuscript color schemes, flags, often adorned Louis's royal colors and his initial. Moreover, Louis popularized

1430-462: A popular king. Historians often attribute Louis's popularity to his tax reduction policies. While Francis I eventually raised taxes, Louis's redaction of law codes and the creation of new parlements were longer-lasting. He duly earned the title of Father of the People (" Le Père du Peuple ") conferred upon him by the Estates in 1506. This was the first and only time that a French king was bestowed

1573-591: 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 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

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1716-472: A right of veto. In practice, however, the Estates General contributed largely to legislation. Those who sat in them had at all times the right of presenting complaints ( doléances ), requests and petitions to the king; in this, indeed, consisted their sole initiative. They were usually answered by an ordonnance , and it is chiefly through these that we are acquainted with the activity of the estates of

1859-490: A stern disciplinarian, Lord Stuart held the troops of his army to strict decorum during most of the march to Naples. However, discipline fell apart when the army passed through Capua . The French army plundered and raped Capua mercilessly. However, when news of the rape of Capua spread throughout southern Italy, resistance to the French vanished. Frederick fled and the French Army entered Naples unopposed. Louis XII claimed

2002-535: 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, the eastern and western parts of the land had already developed different languages and cultures. The Capetian dynasty

2145-487: Is known as the " Great Italian War " (1499–1504) or "King Louis XII's War". However, before initiating any war Louis XII needed to deal with the international threats that he faced. In August 1498, he signed a peace treaty with the Emperor Maximillian I of the Holy Roman Empire . With Maximillian I neutralized, Louis wanted to turn his attention to King Henry VII of England. However, Henry was then pursuing

2288-624: 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, 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

2431-484: Is true, solemn general sessions, called séances royales , because the king presided; but at these there was no discussion. At the first, the king or his chancellor announced the object of the convocation, and set forth the demands or questions put to them by the Crown; at the other royal sessions each order made known its answers or observations by the mouth of an orateur elected for the purpose. But almost all useful work

2574-637: The parlements (the most powerful of which was the Parlement of Paris ), which started as appellate courts but later used their powers to decide whether to publish laws to claim a legislative role. The Estates General had similarities with institutions in other European polities, generally known as the Estates , such as the States General of the Netherlands , the Parliament of England ,

2717-659: The Angoulême cadet branch of the House of Valois. Louis d'Orléans was born on 27 June 1462 in the Château de Blois , Touraine (in the modern French department of Loir-et-Cher ). The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans , and Marie of Cleves . His father was almost seventy years old when Louis was born. Louis was only three years old when he succeeded as Duke of Orléans upon the death of his father in 1465. Louis XI, who had become king of France in 1461, became highly distrustful of

2860-619: The Auld Alliance between France and Scotland that had been in existence since King Philippe IV of France first recognised Robert the Bruce (1306–1329) as King of Scotland in 1309. In early 1499, the old alliance between Scotland and France was renewed and the attentions of England were drawn northwards towards Scotland rather than southwards towards continental Europe. With the major powers preoccupied or pledged to peace with France, Louis XII could attend to two other neighbours on his border:

3003-748: The Estates General began to arrive in Tours, France. The deputies represented three different "estates" in society. The First Estate was the Church; in France this meant the Roman Catholic Church. The Second Estate was composed of the nobility and the royalty of France. The Third Estate was generally composed of commoners and the class of traders and merchants in France. Louis, the current Duke of Orleans and future Louis XII, attended as part of

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3146-844: The Estates of Parliament of Scotland , the Sejm of Poland-Lithuania , the Cortes of Portugal , the Cortes of Spain , the Imperial Diet ( Reichstag ) of the Holy Roman Empire , the Diets ( German : Landtage ) of the " Lands ", the Parliamentum Publicum of Hungary, and the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates . Unlike some of these institutions, however, France's Estates General were only summoned at irregular intervals by

3289-600: The Holy League of the League of Cambrai specifically to thwart the ambitions of France. The French were eventually driven from Milan in 1513 by the Swiss . Under Louis XII, there was an unprecedented explosion of propaganda and publicity for the French crown. Louis XII had numerous large ceremonies for the various marriages, funerals, and other events that occurred under his reign. These occasions provided Louis with opportunities to project royal power and elevate Louis, which

3432-477: 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 the possession of the territory of France. With the House of Bonaparte , the title " Emperor of the French " ( Empereur des Français )

3575-752: 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 , 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

3718-740: The National Assembly , an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People". They invited the other orders to join them, but emphasized that they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them. King Louis XVI of France tried to resist. When he shut down the Salle des États where the Assembly met, the Assembly moved its deliberations to a nearby tennis court. They swore the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France

3861-454: The Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois . When Louis XII became king in 1498, he had his marriage with Joan annulled by Pope Alexander VI and instead married Anne, Duchess of Brittany , the widow of Charles VIII. This marriage allowed Louis to reinforce the personal Union of Brittany and France . Louis of Orléans was one of the great feudal lords who opposed the French monarchy in

4004-675: The Swiss Confederation and the Duchy of Savoy . In March 1499, Louis signed an agreement with the Swiss Confederation that promised 20,000 francs as an annual subsidy for simply allowing the French to recruit an unspecified number of troops in the Confederation. In exchange, Louis promised to protect the Confederation from any aggression from Maximillian and the Holy Roman Empire. Louis opened negotiations with

4147-421: The Treaty of Granada , which brought Spain into Italian politics in a big way for the first time. Louis XII was severely criticized by contemporary historians including Niccolò Machiavelli ; Machiavelli's criticism of Louis XII is contained in his work The Prince . Louis's failure to hold on to Naples prompted a commentary by Niccolò Machiavelli in his book, The Prince : King Louis was brought into Italy by

4290-487: The cahiers of 1614 and with the observations of various assemblies of notables that followed them. The peculiar power of the Estates General was recognized, but was of a kind that could not often be exercised. It was, essentially, a constituent power. The ancient public law of France contained a number of rules called the " fundamental laws of the kingdom " ( lois fondamentales du royaume ), though most of them were purely customary. Chief among these were rules that determined

4433-428: The conseil du roi according to which the convocation of 1789 was decided, said (as did the declaration of 23 June), that on matters of common interest the deputies of the three orders could deliberate together, if each of the others decided by a separate vote in favour of this, and if the king consented. The working of the Estates General led to an almost exclusive system of deliberation by committees . There were, it

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4576-461: The direct taxes of the capitation and of the dixième or vingtième , and many indirect taxes . It was sufficient for the law creating them to be registered by the cours des aides and the parlements . It was only in 1787 that the parlement of Paris declared that it could not register the new taxes, the land-tax and stamp duty ( subvention territoriale and impôt du timbre ), as they did not know whether they would be submitted to by

4719-406: The ransom of King John II of France without a vote of the Estates General, although the assembly met several times during this period. Custom confined this tendency. During the second half of the 15th century, the chief taxes, the taille , aids and gabelle became definitely permanent for the benefit of the Crown. In some cases, there was formal consent of the Estates General, as in 1437 in

4862-410: The taille for two years only, at the same time reducing it to the amount it had reached at the end of the reign of Charles VII. They demanded, and obtained, the promise of the Crown that they should be summoned again before the two years had ended. But this promise was not kept, and the Estates General were not summoned again until 1560. During this 76-year interim, successive kings expanded the role of

5005-481: 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 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

5148-406: The 14th and 15th centuries. In the latest form, and from the estates of 1484 onwards, this was done by a new and special procedure. The Estates had become an entirely elective assembly, and at the elections (at each step of the election if there were several) the electors drew up a cahier de doléances (statement of grievances), which they requested the deputies to present. This even appeared to be

5291-431: The 14th and the first half of the 15th centuries, the Estates General had only a limited elective element. The lay lords and the ecclesiastical lords ( bishops and other high clergy) who made up the Estates General were not elected by their peers, but directly chosen and summoned by the king. In the order of the clergy, however, certain ecclesiastical bodies, e.g. abbeys and chapters of cathedrals , were also summoned to

5434-400: The 14th century, they were considerable. The king could not, in theory, levy general taxation . Even in the provinces attached to the domain of the Crown , he could levy it only where he had retained the haute justice over the inhabitants, but not on the subjects of lords having the haute justice . The privileged towns generally had the right of taxing themselves. To collect general taxes,

5577-408: The 16th century, however, the estates again claimed that their consent was necessary for the establishment of new taxation, and, on the whole, the facts seemed to be in favour of this view at the time. However, in the course of the 17th century the principle gained recognition that the king could tax on his own sole authority. Thus were established in the second half of the 17th century, and in the 18th,

5720-433: The Crown's domain, tended to become permanent and independent of the vote of the estates. This result drew from many causes, particularly, the Crown endeavoured to transform and change the nature of the "feudal aid" to levy a general tax by right, on its own authority, in such cases as those in which a lord could demand feudal aid from his vassals . For instance, the Crown thus raised the necessary taxes for twenty years to pay

5863-500: The Crown. But when the struggle was over, they renounced the power of the purse . At the estates of 1484, however, after the death of Louis XI , the Duke of Orleans sought to obtain the regency during the minority of Charles VIII . The Estates sided with Charles's sister Anne de Beaujeu and refused. Deputies of the three orders united their efforts in the hope of regaining the right of periodically sanctioning taxation. They voted

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6006-591: The Duchy of Milan, weakened by an economic crisis, and on 11 June 1495 he occupied with his troops the city of Novara, which was given to him for treason. He was on the verge of subjugating the Moro, who proved unable to cope with the situation, but clashed with the fierce opposition of his wife Beatrice d'Este , who forced him to a long and exhausting siege from which he finally came out defeated. After becoming king in 1499, Louis XII pursued his ambition to claim Milan in what

6149-480: The Duchy of Savoy and by May 1499 had hammered out an agreement that allowed French troops to cross Savoy to reach the Duchy of Milan. The agreement with Savoy also allowed France to purchase supplies and to recruit troops in Savoy. Finally, Louis was ready to march into Italy. The French army had been a potent force in 1494 when Charles VIII had first invaded Italy. However, during the remainder of Charles VIII's reign,

6292-510: 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 the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The family consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making

6435-531: The Florentine governors of the city. The Florentines requested aid from the French to recapture Pisa, as the city of Florence had long been an ally of France in Italian affairs. However, Louis and his advisers were miffed at Florence because in the recent fight against Sforza, Florence had chosen to abandon France and remain strictly neutral. The French knew that they would need Florence in the coming campaign in

6578-678: 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 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

6721-530: 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 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 )

6864-490: The French army had swollen to 30,000 men by recruitment along the way. Many of these new recruits in the French army were Swiss mercenaries. The government of the Swiss Confederation heard about the coming battle and forbade any Swiss soldier from fighting against a fellow Swiss, which effectively subtracted all the Swiss from both sides for this particular battle. These troops then started to march back home to Switzerland. This had

7007-598: The French by changing sides in the war and joining the anti-French League of Venice (sometimes called the "Holy League"). This left Louis, the Duke of Orleans, in an awkward and inferior military position at the Battle of Fornovo on 6 July 1495. As a result, Louis had come to hate Ludovico Sforza. Accordingly, even before he became King of France, Louis began to claim the Duchy of Milan as his own inheritance, which should have come to his by right of his paternal grandmother Valentina Visconti . On this occasion he tried to conquer

7150-566: 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 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

7293-454: The Kingdom of France. To sustain this union, Louis XII had his marriage to Joan annulled (December 1498) after he became king so that he could marry Charles VIII's widow, Anne of Brittany. The annulment, described as "one of the seamiest lawsuits of the age", was not simple. Louis did not, as one might have expected, argue the marriage to be void due to consanguinity (the general allowance for

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7436-510: The Kingdom of Naples between France and Spain. The Pope was pleased and enthusiastically issued a bull naming the two kings – Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Spain – as the Pope's vassals in Naples. Indeed, the public announcement of the treaty in the Vatican was the first news that King Frederick of Naples had received about his fate and his betrayal by his own cousin, Ferdinand. Being

7579-407: The Kingdom of Naples – French troops would need to cross Florentine territory on their way to Naples and they would need Florentine agreement to do so. Accordingly, a French army including 600 knights and 6,000 Swiss infantrymen under the command of Sire de Beaumont was sent to Pisa. On 29 June 1500, a combined French and Florentine force laid siege to Pisa and set up batteries around the town. Within

7722-473: The Kingdom of Naples, Louis XII sent an army under the command of Bernard Stuart of Aubigny composed of 1,000 lances, 10,000 infantrymen including 5,000 Swiss troops to Naples in early June 1501. In May 1501, Louis had obtained free passage for his troops to march through Bologne on the way to Naples. As the army approached Rome, Spanish and French ambassadors notified Pope Alexander VI of the thus far secret Treaty of Grenada, signed 11 November 1500, which divided

7865-746: The Prince and Princess of Provence, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya Barcelona, originally in the church of San Bartolomeo in Caspano . The King and Queen of France, identified as princes of Provence, are kneeling, the King has in his hands the crown that appears on the coins minted by the Mint of Milan. This is the only portrait, full-length, of a king of France, performed by a painter of the Italian Renaissance, who has come up to us. Under Louis's reign,

8008-516: The Second Estate. Each estate brought its chief complaints to the Estates General in hopes to have some impact on the policies that the new King would pursue. The First Estate (the Church) wanted a return to the " Pragmatic Sanction ". The Pragmatic Sanction had been first instituted by King Charles VII, the former King Charles VIII's grandfather. The Pragmatic Sanction excluded the papacy from

8151-540: The Venetians began to see the folly of what they had done, since in order to gain for themselves a couple of districts in Lombardy, they had now made the king master of a third of Italy. Consider how easy it would have been for the king to maintain his position in Italy if he had observed the rules [of not worrying about weaker powers, decreasing the strength of a major power, not introducing a very powerful foreigner in

8294-436: The Venetians was excusable, since it gave Louis a foothold in Italy; the division of Naples with Spain was an error, since there was no such necessity for it. [When Louis made the final mistake of] depriving the Venetians of their power (who never would have let anyone else into Lombardy unless they were in control), he thus lost Lombardy. Niccolò Machiavelli , The Prince , Chapter III To assert his claim to his half of

8437-400: The ambition of Alexander and keep him from becoming master of Tuscany , he was forced to come to Italy himself [in 1502]. Not satisfied with having made the Church powerful and deprived himself of his friends, he went after the kingdom of Naples and divided it with the king of Spain (Ferdinand II). And where before he alone had been the arbiter of Italy, he brought in a rival to whom everyone in

8580-505: The ambition of the Venetians, who expected by his coming to get control of half the state of Lombardy . I don't mean to blame the king for his part in the scheme; he wanted a foothold in Italy, and not only had no friends in the province, but found all doors barred against him because of King Charles's behavior. Hence he had to take what friendships he could get; and if he had made no further mistakes in his other arrangements, he might have carried things off very successfully. By taking Lombardy,

8723-449: The annulment on the grounds that Louis did not freely marry, but was forced to marry by Joan's father Louis XI. Outraged, Joan reluctantly submitted, saying that she would pray for her former husband. She became a nun; she was canonized in 1950. Louis married the reluctant queen dowager, Anne, in 1499. Still only 22, Anne, who had borne as many as seven stillborn or short-lived children during her previous marriage to King Charles, now bore

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8866-488: The appointment of Philip of Cleves , a cousin of Louis XII, as its new governor. Additionally, the French king now began to espouse his claim to the Kingdom of Naples , though the legal rationale for this claim was weaker than for his claim to Milan, stemming only from his position as the successor to Charles VIII. Nonetheless, Louis XII pursued the claim with vigor. The presence of several French garrisons in southern Italy,

9009-438: The army had been allowed to deteriorate through neglect. Ever since becoming king, Louis XII had been rebuilding the French army. Now he could put it to use. On 10 August 1499, after marching across Savoy and through the town of Asti , the French army crossed the border into the Duchy of Milan. Contrary to the wishes of the Second Estate (the nobles and royalty of France), expressed at the Estates General in 1484, this French army

9152-468: The assembly. Since these bodies, being persons in the moral but not in the physical sense, could not appear in person, their representative had to be chosen by the monks of the convent or the canons of the chapter. Only representatives of the Third Estate were chosen by election. Originally, all commoners were not called upon to seek representation in the estates. Only the bonnes villes , or

9295-469: The case of the aids . The critical periods of the Hundred Years' War favoured the Estates General, though at the price of great sacrifices. Under the reign of King John II, from 1355 to 1358, the Estates General had controlled not only the voting but, through their commissaries, the administration of and jurisdiction over the taxes. In the first half of the reign of Charles VII , they had been summoned almost every year and had dutifully voted subsidies for

9438-571: The centralised state through various means. In the mid-16th century, public officials ( officiers ) explored the option of forming a fourth order of their own kind but their attempts went nowhere, largely because of the attractiveness of becoming nobility to many of them. The Estates General was revived in the second half of the 16th century because of scarcity of money and the quarrels and Wars of Religion . There would be estates at Orleans in 1560 , followed by those of Pontoise in 1561 , and those of Blois in 1576 and 1588 . Those of 1588 ended with

9581-455: The city rose up. On 1 February 1500, Marshal Trivulzio decided that he could not hold the city, and the French retreated to the fortresses west of the city. Sforza was welcomed back into the city by a joyous crowd of his supporters on 5 February 1500. Louis XII raised another army under Louis de La Trémoille and sent him to recapture Milan. By the time Trémoille reached the forts west of Milan where Marshal Trivulzio and his force were holding out,

9724-467: The claim to the Kingdom of Naples had become politically impossible until some of the opponents were neutralized. One opponent in particular was Spain. It was at this point, in 1500, that Louis XII pursued the claim of his immediate predecessor to the Kingdom of Naples with Ferdinand II, the King of Aragon and with Queen Isabel of Castile, ruler of Spain. On 11 November 1500, Ferdinand II and Louis XII signed

9867-548: The close relationship between the Orleanists and the Burgundians and began to oppose the idea of an Orleanist ever coming to the throne of France. However, Louis XI might have been more influenced in this opinion by his opposition to the entire Orleanist faction of the royal family than by the actual facts of this paternity case. Despite any alleged doubts that King Louis XI had, the King, nevertheless, became "godfather" of

10010-577: The command of Louis d' Armagnac, Duke of Nemours against the Spanish in Apulia . Louis's greatest success came in the War of the League of Cambrai (1508–1516), his final war, fought against the Venetians, who had again become his enemy. The French army won the Battle of Agnadello on 14 May 1509. However, things became much more difficult in 1510, when the army of Pope Julius II intervened. Julius II founded

10153-464: The conflict known as the Mad War . At the royal victory in the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488, Louis was captured, but Charles VIII pardoned him and released him. He subsequently took part in the Italian Wars , initiating a second Italian campaign for the control of the Kingdom of Naples . Louis conquered the Duchy of Milan in 1500 and pushed forward to the Kingdom of Naples, which fell to him in 1501. Proclaimed King of Naples, Louis faced

10296-421: The country, and that the consent of the representatives of the tax-payers must be asked. The Estates General had legally no share in the legislative power, which belonged to the king alone. The Estates of Blois demanded in 1576 that the king be bound to turn into law any proposition voted in identical terms by each of the three orders; but Henry III would not grant this demand, which would not even have left him

10439-456: 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 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 ,

10582-407: The death of Louis XIV in 1715, the nobles had enjoyed a resurgence in power. By the time of the revolution, they had almost a monopoly over distinguished government service, higher offices in the church, army, and parliaments, and most other public and semi-public honors. Under the principle of feudal precedent, they were not taxed. The Third Estate comprised about 25 million people: the bourgeoisie,

10725-454: The deputies were told that there was no more money to pay their salaries, and the Estates General meekly concluded its business and went home. The Estates General of 1484 is called, by historians, the most important Estates General until the Estates General of 1789. Important as they were, many of the reforms suggested at the meeting of the Estates General were not immediately adopted. Rather the reforms would only be acted on when Louis XII came to

10868-409: The dissolution of a marriage at that time). Though he could produce witnesses to claim that the two were closely related due to various linking marriages, there was no documentary proof, merely the opinions of courtiers. Likewise, Louis could not argue that he had been below the legal age of consent (fourteen) to marry: no one was certain when he had been born, with Louis claiming to have been twelve at

11011-568: 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 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

11154-458: The east in an attempt to aid the Milanese army before it was too late. Accordingly, Marshal Trivulzio marched his army to Pavia , the last fortified town in the Duchy of Milan. With French troops already near Pavia, a short distance west of the city of Milan, Lodovico Sforza determined that it was useless to continue resisting the French. Accordingly, on the night of 2 September 1499, Sforza and

11297-402: The estates nominated commissaries in equal numbers for each order. But in the ancient Estates General, there was never any personal vote. The unit represented for each of the three orders was the bailliage or sénéchaussé and each bailliage had one vote, the majority of the deputies of the bailliage deciding in what way this vote should be given. At the estates of the 16th century, voting

11440-475: 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" 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,

11583-538: The favor of the regent Orléans , the death of Louis XIV did not see a summoning of the Estates. At the time of the revolution, the First Estate comprised 100,000 Catholic clergy and owned 5–10% of the lands in France—the highest per capita of any estate. All property of the First Estate was tax exempt. The Second Estate comprised the nobility, which consisted of 400,000 people, including women and children. Since

11726-413: The fortified town of Rocca di Arazzo in the western part of the Duchy of Milan. After five hours of bombardment by the French artillery batteries, the walls of Rocca di Arazzo were breached and the town was taken by the French. Louis XII had ordered his army to massacre the garrison and many civilians as a message to the other towns in the Duchy against resistance to the French army. The legal rationale for

11869-466: The gates of town of Alessandro, and his batteries began battering the walls of the town on 25 August 1499. At first, a vigorous defense was mounted by the garrison, but on 29 August 1499, the city gave up and the garrison and the governor of the city slipped out of town before dawn. Marshal Trivulzio now became aware that the Venetian army, allies of the Duchy of Milan, were crossing into the Duchy from

12012-542: The great-grandson of King Charles V , the most senior claimant as heir of Charles VIII. Thus, Louis, Duke of Orleans, succeeded to the throne on 7 April 1498 as Louis XII upon the death of King Charles VIII. Although he came late (and unexpectedly) to power, Louis acted with vigour, reforming the French legal system, reducing taxes, and improving the government much like his contemporary Henry VII did in England. To meet his budget after having reduced taxes, Louis XII reduced

12155-461: The institution of the Estates General. Liberal minds, however, in the entourage of Louis, duc de Bourgogne , who were preparing a new plan of government in view of his expected accession to the French throne in succession to Louis XIV, thought of reviving the institution. It figures in the projects of Saint-Simon and Fénelon , though the latter would have preferred to begin with an assembly of non-elected notables. But though St Simon stood high in

12298-454: The king did not always adopt the propositions contained in the cahiers , and often modified them in forming them into an ordonnance . These latter were the ordonnances de reforme (reforming ordinances), treating of the most varied subjects, according to the demands of the cahiers . They were not, however, for the most part very well observed. The last of the type was the grande ordonnance of 1629 ( Code Michau ), drawn up in accordance with

12441-632: The king quickly regained the reputation lost by Charles. Genoa yielded, and the Florentines turned friendly, the Marquis of Mantua , the Duke of Ferrara , the Bentivogli (of Bologna), the countess of Forlì ( Caterina Sforza ), the lords of Faenza , Pesaro , Rimini , Camerino , Piombino , and the people of Lucca , Pisa, and Siena all sought him out with professions of friendship. At this point

12584-408: The king required consent of the lay and ecclesiastical lords, and of the towns. This amounted to needing authorization from the Estates General, which granted these subsidies only temporarily and for fairly short periods. As a result, they were summoned frequently and their power over the Crown became considerable. In the second half of the 14th century, however, certain royal taxes, levied throughout

12727-516: The king, and never grew into a permanent legislative body. The first national assembly of the Estates General was in 1302, summoned by King Philip IV , to address a conflict with Pope Boniface VIII . The letters summoning the assembly of 1302 are published by Georges Picot in his collection of Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire de France . During Philip's reign, the Estates General were subsequently assembled several times to give him aid by granting subsidies . Over time, subsidies came to be

12870-494: The kingdom who was ambitious on his own account or dissatisfied with Louis could have recourse. He could have left in Naples a caretaker king of his own, but he threw him out, and substituted a man capable of driving out Louis himself. If France could have taken Naples with her own power, she should have done so; if she could not, she should not have split the kingdom with the Spaniards. The division of Lombardy that she made with

13013-447: The legitimate monarch of France, rejecting the claims of the president of France and of one another. These groups are: Estates General (France) The Estates General first met in 1302 and 1303 in relation to King Philip IV 's conflict with the papacy . They met intermittently until 1614 and only once afterward, in 1789, but were not definitively dissolved until after the French Revolution . The Estates General were distinct from

13156-545: 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 the time with the French population, they proclaimed Louis Philippe as the new French king, displacing

13299-413: The massacre at Rocca di Arazzo was that defenders of the town were traitors because they had risen up in arms against their rightful lord, Louis XII. The French repeated the episode at Annone , the next fortified town on the road to the city of Milan. This time the massacre had the desired effect, as three more fortified towns surrendered without a fight. Marshall Trivulzio then brought the French Army up to

13442-409: The midst of his new subjects and taking up residence among his new subjects and/or setting up colonies], and become the protector and defender of his new friends. They were many, they were weak, some of them were afraid of the Venetians, others of the Church, hence they were bound to stick by him; and with their help, he could easily have protected himself against the remaining great powers. But no sooner

13585-419: The military. The deputies of the Third Estate (the merchants and traders) wanted taxes to be drastically reduced and that the revenue needs of the crown be met by reducing royal pensions and the number of offices. All three of the estates were in agreement on the demand for an end to the sale of government offices. By 7 March 1484, the King announced that he was leaving Tours because of poor health. Five days later

13728-506: The most frequent motive for their convocation. The composition and powers of the Estates General remained the same: they always included representatives of the First Estate ( clergy ), Second Estate (the nobility ), and Third Estate ( commoners : all others), and monarchs always summoned them either to grant subsidies or to advise the Crown , to give aid and counsel. Their composition, however, as well as their effective powers, varied greatly at different times. In their primitive form in

13871-444: The most important feature of an election. The deputies of each order in every bailliage also brought with them a cahier des doléances , arrived at, for the third estate, by a combination of statements drawn up by the primary or secondary electors. On the assembly of the estates, the cahiers of the bailliages were incorporated into a cahier for each gouvernement , and these again into a cahier general or general statement, which

14014-425: The newborn. King Louis XI died on 30 August 1483. He was succeeded to the throne of France by his thirteen-year-old son, Charles VIII. Nobody knew the direction which the new king (or more accurately his regent and oldest sister, Anne of France) would take in leading the kingdom. Accordingly, on 24 October 1483, a call went out for a convocation of the Estates General of the French kingdom. In January 1484, deputies of

14157-467: The night". Louis also claimed that his sexual performance had been inhibited by witchcraft . Joan responded by asking how he was able to know what it was like to try to make love to her. Had the Papacy been a neutral party, Joan would likely have won, for Louis's case was exceedingly weak. Pope Alexander VI, however, had political reasons to grant the annulment, and ruled against Joan accordingly. He granted

14300-675: 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 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 ",

14443-465: The peasants, and everyone else in France. Unlike the First and Second Estates, the Third Estate were compelled to pay taxes. The bourgeoisie found ways to evade them and become exempt. The major burden of the French government fell upon the poorest in French society: the farmers, peasantry, and working poor. The Third Estate had considerable resentment toward the upper classes. In 1789, the Estates General

14586-512: The pensions for the nobility and for foreign princes. In religious policy, Louis XII reinstituted the Pragmatic Sanction, which established the Roman Catholic Church in France as a "Gallic Church" with most of the power of appointment in the hands of the king or other French officials. As noted above, these reforms had been proposed at the meeting of the Estates General in 1484. Louis was also skilled in managing his nobility, including

14729-481: The permanent governor of Milan. In an attempt to win popularity with the public in Milan, Louis lowered the old Sforza taxes by as much as one-third. Meanwhile, Ludovico Sforza had been gathering an army, mainly among the Swiss, to take Milan back. In mid-January 1500, his army crossed the border into the Duchy of Milan and marched toward the city of Milan. Upon hearing the news of Sforza's return, some of his partisans in

14872-526: The powerful Bourbon faction, greatly contributing to the stability of French government. In the Ordinance of Blois of 1499 and the Ordinance of Lyon issued in June 1510 he extended the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption in the law. Highly complex French customary law was codified and ratified by the royal proclamation of the Ordinance of Blois of 1499. The Ordinance of Lyon tightened up

15015-399: The privileged towns, were called upon. They were represented by elected procureurs , who were frequently the municipal officials of the town, but deputies were also elected for the purpose. The country districts, the plat pays , were not represented. Even within the bonnes villes , the franchise was quite narrow. The effective powers of the Estates General likewise varied over time. In

15158-438: The privileges of the nobility, in opposition with the long tradition of the French kings to attempt to impose absolute monarchy in France . A popular king, Louis was proclaimed " Father of the People " ( French : Le Père du Peuple ) for his reduction of the tax known as taille , legal reforms, and civil peace within France. Louis XII died in 1515 without a male heir. He was succeeded by his cousin and son-in-law Francis I from

15301-432: The process of appointing bishops and abbots in France. Instead, these positions would be filled by appointment made by the cathedrals and monastery chapters themselves. All church prelates within France would be appointed by the King of France without reference to the pope. The deputies representing the Second Estate (the nobility) at the Estates General of 1484 wanted all foreigners to be prohibited from command positions in

15444-472: The province of Brittany finally became a de facto permanent province of France – although this was not legally completed until 1547. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes. In spite of his military and diplomatic failures, Louis proved to be

15587-556: The provincial assemblies. When the Estates General convened in Versailles on 5 May 1789, however, it became clear that the double representation was something of a sham: voting was to occur "by orders", which meant that the collective vote of the 578 representatives of the Third Estate would be weighed the same as that of each of the other, less numerous Estates. Royal efforts to focus solely on taxes failed totally. The Estates General reached an immediate impasse, debating (with each of

15730-568: 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 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

15873-401: The remnants of Charles VIII's first invasion of Italy, provided Louis XII with a toehold in southern Italy from which he hoped to enforce his claim to the Kingdom of Naples. However, Louis first had to deal with a recurring problem in northern Italy. In 1406, the city of Pisa was conquered by Florence but had been in constant revolt almost ever since. In 1494, the Pisans successfully overthrew

16016-579: The royal army at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier on 28 July 1488 but was defeated and captured. Pardoned three years later, Louis joined his cousin King Charles VIII in campaigns in Italy, leading the vanguards of the army. All four children of Charles VIII by Anne of Brittany died in infancy. The French interpretation of the Salic Law permitted claims to the French throne only by male agnatic descendants of French kings. This made Louis,

16159-508: 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 the last monarch to rule France. Various pretenders descended from the preceding monarchs have claimed to be

16302-481: The sister of Henry VIII of England , in Abbeville , France, on 9 October 1514. This represented a final attempt to produce an heir to his throne, for despite two previous marriages the king had no living sons. Louis died on 1 January 1515, less than three months after he married Mary, reputedly worn out by his exertions in the bedchamber, but more likely from the effects of gout . Their union produced no children, and

16445-411: The specific honorific of Father of the People . In 1476 he was forced by King Louis XI (his second cousin) to marry his daughter Joan of France. Charles VIII (son of Louis XI) succeeded to the throne of France in 1483, but died childless in 1498, when the throne passed to Louis XII. Charles had been married to Anne, Duchess of Brittany , in order to unite the quasi-sovereign Duchy of Brittany with

16588-446: The state portrait as a propaganda tool. He employed numerous artists to capture him and produce individualized, miniature portraits that can be found in manuscripts today. Furthermore, Louis's propaganda arsenal was greatly expanded with the addition of portrait coins – first minted in France in 1514. As the Duke of Milan, Louis XII, he is portrayed in the painting of Alvise De Donati, Maria Maddalena, Marta, Lazarro and Maximino adored by

16731-514: The succession to the Crown and rules forbidding alienation of the domain of the Crown. The king, supreme though his power might be, could not abrogate, modify or infringe them. But it was admitted that he might do so by the consent of the Estates General. The Estates could give the king a dispensation from a fundamental law in a given instance; they could even, in agreement with the king, make new fundamental laws. The Estates of Blois of 1576 and 1588 offer entirely convincing precedents in this respect. It

16874-469: The tax collection system requiring, for instance, that tax collectors forward all money to the government within eight days after they collected it from the people. Fines and loss of office were prescribed for violations of this ordinance. The French Kingdom under Charles VIII invaded Italy in 1494 to protect the Duchy of Milan from the threats of the Republic of Venice . At the time, the Duchy of Milan

17017-493: The three estates meeting separately) its own structure rather than the nation's finances. On 28 May 1789, Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: Commons ), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so, completing the process on June 17. They voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves

17160-408: The three orders rendered them weak. They dissolved before completing their work and were not summoned again until 1789. As to the question whether the Estates General formed one or three chambers for the purposes of their working, from the constitutional point of view the point was never decided. What the king required was to have the consent, the resolution of the three estates of the realm ; it

17303-506: The throne of Naples and pursuant to the sharing agreement with Ferdinand II shared half the income of Naples with Spain. However, as Machiavelli had predicted, the agreement could not last and in early 1502 relations between France and Spain had gone sour. Negotiations were started between France and Spain over their disagreements about Naples. However, in April 1502, without waiting for the conclusion of these negotiations, Louis sent an army under

17446-648: The throne passed to Francis I of France, who was Louis's first cousin once removed, and also his son-in-law. Louis XII had an illegitimate son, Michel Bucy , Archbishop of Bourges , from 1505, who died in 1511 and was buried in Bourges . King of France France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I , king of

17589-476: The throne. Since Charles VIII was only thirteen years of age when he became king, his older sister Anne was to serve as regent until Charles VIII became 20 years old. From 1485 through 1488, there was another war against the royal authority of France conducted by a collections of nobles. This war was the Mad War (1485–1488), Louis's war against Anne. Allied with Francis II, Duke of Brittany , Louis confronted

17732-520: The time, and others ranging in their estimates between eleven and thirteen. As there was no real proof, he had perforce to bring forward other arguments. Accordingly, Louis (much to the dismay of his wife) claimed that Joan was physically malformed (providing a rich variety of detail precisely how) and that he had therefore been unable to consummate the marriage. Joan, unsurprisingly, fought this uncertain charge fiercely, producing witnesses to Louis's boast of having "mounted my wife three or four times during

17875-484: 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 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

18018-404: 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 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

18161-413: Was being led by a foreigner, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio . Marshall Trivulzio had been in the service of the French throne since the reign of Louis XI, but he had been born and raised in Milan. The French army that Marshal Trivulzio now commanded consisted of 27,000 men of which 10,000 were mounted. The French army was also supplied with 5,000 Swiss mercenaries. In the campaign of 1499, the French army surrounded

18304-465: Was by gouvernements , each gouvernement having one vote, but the majority of the bailliages composing the gouvernement decided how it should be given. The Estates General, when they gave counsel, had in theory only a consultative faculty. They had the power of granting subsidies, which was the chief and ordinary cause of their convocation. But it had come to be a consent with which the king could dispense, as permanent taxation became established. In

18447-457: Was common belief at the time that the porcupine could shoot its quills, the porcupine symbolized the offensive and defensive capabilities of the king. During his years of conquest, Louis portrayed his kingdom to the public as a porcupine – a supposedly invincible creature feared by all. However, by the second half of his reign, Louis began to relegate the aggressive porcupine into a simple heraldic symbol for identification. Seeking to paint himself as

18590-486: 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 , 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

18733-474: 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 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

18876-430: Was done in the sections , among which the deputies of each order were divided. At the estates of 1484, they were divided into six nations or sections , corresponding to the six généralités then existing. Subsequently, the deputies belonging to the same gouvernement formed a group or bureau for deliberating and voting purposes. Certain questions, however, were discussed and decided in full assembly; sometimes, too,

19019-483: Was he established in Milan than he took exactly the wrong tack, helping Pope Alexander to occupy the Romagna . And he never realized that by this decision he was weakening himself, driving away his friends and those who had flocked to him, while strengthening the Church by adding vast temporal power to the spiritual power which gives it so much authority. Having made this first mistake, he was forced into others. To limit

19162-560: Was in reality of little importance to him whether their resolutions expressed themselves in common or separately. At the Estates General of 1484, the elections were made in common for the three orders, and the deputies also arrived at their resolutions in common. But after 1560, the rule was that each order deliberate separately; the royal declaration of 23 June 1789 (at the outbreak of the French Revolution) even stated that they formed three distinct chambers. But Necker 's report to

19305-440: Was largely done through iconography . Furthermore, while these royal images flooded the kingdom, popular writers – encouraged by Louis's lack of censorship – disseminated praise of their king. Louis adopted the porcupine as his personal badge and as a royal beast. As a result, the popularity of the now royal creature exploded, resulting in the placement of porcupines in illuminated manuscripts , on edifices, and on cannons. As it

19448-458: 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 , 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 ,

19591-409: Was one of the most prosperous regions of Europe. Louis, the current Duke of Orleans and future King Louis XII, joined Charles VIII on this campaign. The French Kingdom was responding to an appeal for assistance from Ludovico Sforza , Duke of Milan. The invasion set off a series of wars that would last from 1494 until 1559 and would become known as the " Italian Wars ". In 1495, Ludovico Sforza betrayed

19734-437: Was presented to the king, and which he answered in his council. When the three orders deliberated in common, as in 1484, there was only one cahier général ; when they deliberated separately, there were three, one for each order. The drawing up of the cahier general was looked upon as the main business ( le grand œuvre ) of the session. By this means, the Estates General furnished the material for numerous ordonnances , though

19877-420: Was so hostile to France that he had founded the anti-French League of Venice in 1495. In August 1498, Louis XII succeeded in signing a treaty with Spain that ignored all the territorial disputes between France and Spain and merely pledged mutual friendship and non-aggression. This allowed enough freedom for Louis XII to start negotiating with Scotland for an alliance. Actually, Louis was merely seeking to revive

20020-473: Was summoned for the first time since 1614. As François Fénelon had promoted in the 17th century, an Assembly of Notables in 1787 (which already displayed great independence) preceded the Estates General session. According to Fénelon's model of 1614, the Estates General would consist of equal numbers of representatives of each Estate. During the Revolution, the Third Estate demanded, and ultimately received, double representation, which they already had achieved in

20163-567: Was universally recognized that in the event of the line of Hugh Capet becoming extinct, it would be the function of the States-General to elect a new king. The Estates General of 1614 proved the last for over a century and a half. A new convocation had indeed been announced to take place on the majority of Louis XIII , and letters were even issued in view of the elections, but this ended in nothing. Absolute monarchy progressively became definitely established, and appeared incompatible with

20306-501: 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 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,

20449-418: Was very generous to the city in victory. While Sforza had been in charge of Milan, the export of grain had been forbidden. Now the French reopened the trade in grain, setting off a decade of prosperity in Milan. Milan was to remain a French stronghold in Italy for twelve years. Using Milan as his firmly established base, Louis XII began to turn his attention to other parts of Italy. The city of Genoa agreed to

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