A Great Controversy Among Historians About the Figure of Louis XIV - Research Paper Example

Maria Beatrice Panico 17 November 2006 FORCE AND CRAFT OF LOUIS XIV Introduction During the long reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715) France knew such opulence and prosperity that his reign is universally considered as the golden era in the French monarchy, and he is named under the eponymous of the Sun King (in French Le Roi Soleil), or as Louis the Great (in French Louis le Grand) (Cronin 1996; Dunlop 2000) . Great, indeed, he was in many fields: he become the one and absolute king of France (Spielvogel 1991), he was a winner of wars, that made France become the most potent nation of Europe. But above all he was great in creating the French supremacy in any political, social and cultural aspect. France become the greatest because of his "Great Monarch", and all European states turned to France as their model in art, music, architecture, fashion style, elegance. As best summed up by Voltaire, "This then in general terms is what Louis XIV did or tried to do to make his country more flourishing. ...Louis XIV did more for his people than twenty of his predecessors put together" (Voltaire 1775, 226). The reasons for this spectacular success are numerous and have to be found in a combination of lucky circumstances and the talents of great men, as clearly stated by Steve Mulhberger in his lecture (University of Nipissing History Department). Force and statecraft The main concern of a king is to consolidate his power and to create a solid and long-lasting state. French kings strictly followed this rule; since the 12th century they tried to build up a strong government by the creation of an effective centralization (University of Nipissing History Department, Mulhberger). Therefore, when Louis XIV came to the French throne, he was the son of a long history of more or less stable central governments. Above all Louis XIV took advantage of the crucial inheritance left by Richelieu and Mazarin, who were the chief advisors (sometimes each of them was called eminent grise) to Louis XIII and the infant Louis XIV respectively. Their major challenges had been the weakness of the crown, the devastating situation of the state finances and civil wars. They succeeded in many aspects so as, when Mazarin died, Louis XIV could count on both a loyal and well established bureaucracy and a loyal effective army. But their system still wasn't stable. It was Louis XIV who for many years achieved stability, both with force and hard working, and according to S. Muhlberger, due to a great deal of illusion, too (University of Nipissing History Department, Mulhberger). First of all, he profited from coming to power when France was too proved by years of civil wars. France was ready to become one and recognize in the savior of the nation, the king! He lowered the power of any authorities under him, either the parlements1 or town governments. He benefited from a financial genius like Colbert and created Versailles, as a perpetual celebration of his glory, and therefore of the glory of France (being Louis and the state indeed identical) (University of Nipissing History Department, Mulhberger). Versailles was also a perfect instrument to keep nobility occupied and far from political aspects (it was a sort of seventeenth-century Disneyland as mentioned in Northern Virginia Community College. Division of Humanities by Prof. C. Evans). By the means of using commoners to run the state and pleasing Catholic church with the Edit de Fountainbleau (1685), he managed to further consolidate his personal power. Being the crown powerful and the country unified under his authority, he could turn to rest of Europe. Louis XIV thought that his entire life has to be the walk of a great king in a great country, the entire country being resumed in his divine-right, absolute monarch. It is possible that he never said the famous statement historians had always attributed to him, "L'tat, c'est moi" (I am the state). But, as Jacques Bousset and Jean Domat1 were theorizing (Domat 1829), he considered himself to be God's instrument on earth, and clearly felt that the state was his patrimony (L'tat a moi), as J. Nathan suggests (The Virginia Quaterly Review, J. Nathan). In his letters to his heirs he explains his thought: "A king works for himself when he has the state in mind, and the welfare of the one enhances the glory of the other". Bearing this idea in mind, he devoted his life to the achievement of his glory and, therefore, of the glory of France. And he believed that war was the main mean to achieve his greatness. Through all the wars he sustained during his life, he tried to force all European nations to accept the French hegemony. He never really worked to establish an harmonic co-existence with other European nations (The Virginia Quaterly Review, J. Nathan). He did steer France through a series of wars in order to dictate Europe his idea of order: all nations united under the legitimate hegemony of France. Diplomacy was in his hands only a mean to keep enemies occupied while he prepared the army, and nobody was better than him in betraying his own words. As once he wrote to his ambassador: "there are hardly any words in the world so clear..that do not have some exceptions and contrary reasons". This peculiar behavior was the result of his concept of statecraft. A king has to be inspired only by "the reason of state"; he has to support the interests of his nations with all means- this was the essence of what he was teaching to his son in his memories. Besides, what are treaties other than arrangements made for everybody's personal interests Of course, it is clear that the strongest and the most powerful statesman or nation decides which are the interests to support, limited only by itself (The Virginia Quaterly Review,J. Nathan). The War of Devolution (1667-1668) Few years after starting to govern on his own without the guidance of his godfather and prime minister Mazarin, Louis XIV entered France into a sequence of wars that had the objective of both securing its natural boundaries (above all "the line of the Rhine" in the East) and regaining France the territory of the Charlemagne reign (Sommerville 1994). "It is certain that he passionately wanted glory, rather than the conquests themselves" as Voltaire wrote on Louis XIV (Voltaire 1775). And in this research of glory he was certainly helped by having at his disposal an efficient and large army (increased from a peacetime force of 20,000 to a wartime machine of 400,000 professionally-organized men, as cited in Northern Virginia Community College. Division of Humanities. Prof. C. Evans) and the most disciplined and strict officer, Jean Martinet2. His first military campaign was moved by the attempt of getting the Spanish Netherlands. As the husband of Maria Theresa, the daughter of king Philip IV of Spain, he insisted on her inheriting the Spanish Netherlands after Philip being succeeded by his four-year-old son, Charles (Carlos) II. Based on the laws of Brabant (the custom of "Devolution"), Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip's first marriage, had priority in heritage on a child coming from a second marriage, as Charles was. The military power of France was devastating. The two veterans of the Thirty Years War, the Prince of Cond and Viscount Turenne, easily occupied the Spanish territory of Franche Comt and Flanders. Alarmed by French aggression, England, the Dutch and Sweden joined together into the Triple Alliance. Therefore, Louis thought it wiser to secure himself with the secret approval of Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor, to French expansion into the Spanish Netherlands after the soon expected death of the poor-healthed Charles II. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) was an easy way to give a rest to the army and to keep many of his conquests in Spanish Netherlands (Belgium), including Charleroi, Tournai and Lille (University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department. Prof. J. P. Sommerville; Northern Virginia Community College. Division of Humanities. Prof. C. Evans.) The Dutch War (1672-1678) Louis XIV never forgave the Dutch for their involvement in the War of Devolution; beside this, they were powerful trading rivals, and they were still obstacles for his interest on the Spanish Netherlands. Therefore, his diplomatic work mainly concentrated on disrupting the Triple Alliance by arranging alliances with Sweden, England and various German princes (including Bavaria, Munster, Cologne and Hanover) (University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department. Prof. J. P. Sommerville). England and French fleets fought together against the Dutch, and were initially very successful; the same thing can be said of the French army who resulted winners in invading Dutch Netherlands. These defeats made the Dutch flood part of Netherlands to obstacle French invasion, and alarmed the other European potencies. A new alliance took place, called the Grand Alliance of The Hague (1674), between Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch and Denmark. As a result of this, England decided to leave the war, and signed a separated peace in the Treaty of Westminster (February 1674), leaving France and Sweden alone to face the conflict. Nevertheless, French army under the guidance of the veteran Prince of Cond and the brilliant Vauban carried on successful battles. Due to the increasing cost of the war, Louis finally resigned to made the peace of NiImegen (1678) in which France gained the Spanish territory of Franche Comt (the area to the northeast of Switzerland), and kept the occupied province of Lorraine. The cost of the Dutch War had been enormous in terms of casualties (Prince of Cond himself died by a cannon ball in July 1675), and money. But his success in facing alone all his enemies reinforced his belief that "war was the route to French greatness" (University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department. Prof. J. P. Sommerville). The War of the League of Augsberg or The Nine Years War (1688-1697) France finances were deeply suffering from warfare. Nonetheless, Louis XIV's appetite was endless. Bearing in mind his idea of France (whose territory he intended to be the one on which Charlemagne reigned), he gave birth to the policy of "reunions". In other words, he started seizing all the territories that once had been French or that were "dependencies" of his new possessions (Sommerville 1994). Moreover, taking advantage of the general disunity of his past enemies and of the momentary weakness of the Empire in danger of Ottoman invasion, he invaded the Spanish Netherlands again, and, finally, obtained that Spain recognized "his" new possessions. Afterwards, his claim for another heritage was the reason for the war, as it had already happened in the case of the War of Devolution. The excuse this time was the death of Elector Palatine, the last direct descendant of Frederick V. In absence of a direct heir, Louis XIV pretended that his sister-in-law, Elisabeth Charlotte of the Rhine (daughter of Karl Ludwig, Elector Palatine) was either receiving the land or a fair compensation. The aim of the Sun King clearly being to further expand French influence into the Rhineland, the war was inevitable. To France great disappointment, the European scenery had rapidly and deeply changed and in a way that would have been very harmful for its king. The victory against Ottomans, the advent of William of Orange (Louis' great enemy3) on the throne of England, the choice of persecuting Huguenots (in 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes that allowed both protestants and Catholics to practice their religion) were all circumstances working against Louis' ambition. This war found all his enemies united against him; at first there was the League of Augsburg, formed by the Holy Roman Empire, Bavaria, Saxony, the Palatinate, Sweden, and Spain. Then, with the joining of England and all the Dutch the new born Great Alliance was too much even for the Sun King. Anyway, although the Alliance resulted to be superior in the seas, the French army still managed to succeed on land. But what couldn't do the military power, did the war cost. The long lasting war (nine years!), the difficult in finding new supplies for the troops, the increasing discontent against the high taxation that could not be higher than it already was, these were all the reasons to gather the enemies at Ryswick in 1697. It was the first time that France left the war without winning. French frontiers were restored to those prior to the war; William of Orange was recognized as the legitimate King of England by common consent, France included. Elisabeth Charlotte of the Rhine was given a pension as a payment for her renunciation to the Palatinate. This compensation and the town of Strasbourg were all that Louis XIV gained after nine years of war! The War of Spanish succession (1701-1714) Successions were one of the main concerns of potent countries in the early eighteenth century, and one was a cause of great debate amongst them: the succession to Charles II of Spain. His poor health made everybody foreseen his premature death, and the possible subsequent conflict over his succession. Taking into account what recent history had taught him, Louis XIV abandoned the idea of fighting all Europe, claiming the reign for the son he had from Maria Theresa of Spain. Therefore, French diplomats agreed with all other European diplomats that Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, a grandnephew of Leopold I (the Holy Roman Emperor), would inherit the throne. Unfortunately he died in 1699, before Charles II did. While a second partition treaty assigned Spain to Archduke Charles, Leopold I's younger son, Louis XIV changed his mind and persuaded Charles II to leave all his lands to Philip of Anjou, his own grandson. Of course, this decision gave birth to another war in the European scenery. A new Grand Alliance united all European nations against French attempt to gain a definite supremacy in Europe. Again the war was long and with continuous shifts in fortune and results. The military results of battles were deeply linked to political changes in the European nations, giving us the idea of how changeable and unpredictable could be the political scenery in those crucial years of Modern Age. After suffering the first great defeat of his military life at Blenheim (1704) and then at Ramillies in 1706, French army fought a crucial battle at Malplaquet (1709). The Alliance got the victory but at the cost of so many casualties that Boufflers4 told Louis XIV: "Si Dieu nous fait la grace de perdre encore une pareille bataille, Votre Majest peut compter que ses ennemis son dtruits" (If God grants us the grace to lose another such battle, Your Majesty can be assured that your enemies are ruined) (University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department. Prof. J. P. Sommerville). However, we can say that neither victories nor diplomacies decided the sort of the war, but a death. It wasn't until the death of Joseph I (Holy Roman Emperor from 1705) that all the parts reached an agreement. Neither of the nations wanted the other to become prominent. If the Allies didn't want France to control Spain, England and United Province still didn't like the idea of Hapsburg territories being combined with Spain in case of Archduke Charles coming to the Spanish throne. Eventually they decided that: 1)Archduke Charles became the new Emperor after his brother death, gaining the possession of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples; 2) Philip of Anjou became king of Spain (Philip V) on the condition of France renunciation to the union of the two reigns; 3) France ceded some colonial possession to Britain and recognised Queen Anne as the legitimate crown holder in place of James Edward the Second (France retained only its conquests in Flanders); and 4) the Dutch retained fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands in order to secure their frontiers from French aggression. Conclusion There is a great controversy among historians about the figure of Louis XIV. However, it can be said that under the Sun King, France become a modern state, due to the establishment of a modern concept of state with a social, cultural and political identity, supported by effective bureaucracy, loyal army and disciplined central authority (Northern Virginia Community College. Division of Humanities. Prof. C. Evans). Moreover, due to the wars of Louis XIV France gained territories and a political and cultural supremacy in Europe. Nevertheless, the price was too high. Louis XIV left France in bankruptcy (in spite of the talent of his economic minister, Colbert, in finding more and more incomes), and many people thanked god that "the Sun" had finally reached his sunset! The huge debts, his too expensive palaces, the religious problems following his persecutions of Huguenots prepared the way to Revolution in the next century (Lynn 1999). However, in his late years Louis himself was aware of the problems existing in his state, and of one of the main causes. He wrote, in fact: "..J'ai trop aim la guerre" (I loved war too much and "J'ai souvent entrepris la guerre trop lgrement et l'ai soutenu par vanit.." (I often undertook war too lightly and persisted it from vanity). (Louis XIV) The great personality of this man made him obtain an endless place in history; his vanity and excesses made the sun goes down. As the Duke de Saint-Simon5 wrote "He liked nobody to be in any way superior to him..This vanity, this unmeasured and unreasonable love of admiration, was his ruin"(Duc de Saint-Simon 1967). Indeed, as Latin said: IN MEDIA STAT VIRTUS (the best thing is always in the middle)! References Cronin, V. 1996. Louis XIV. London: HarperCollins. Domat, Jean. 1829. Le droit public, suite des lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel, vol. 3, Oeuvre completes, nouvelle edition revue corrige. Paris: Firmin-Didot. Duc de Saint-Simon. 1967. Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon Volume 1 1691-170. London: Hamish Hamilton. Dunlop, I. 2000. Louis XIV. New York: St. Martin's Press. Louis, King of France. 1970. A king's lessons in statecraft: Louis XIV; letters to his heirs. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press. Lynn J.A. 1999. The wars of Louis XIV 1667-1714. London, New York: Longman Press. Northern Virginia Community College. Division of Humanities. Prof. C. Evans. Illustrated lectures on Louis XIV. http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/cevans/Versailles/site/louisxiv.html Sommerville J.P. 1994. Absolutism and royalism in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700. Cambridge University Press. Spielvogel, J.J. 2005. WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Comprehensive, 6th Edition. (Chapters 1-29) 1-29). Wadsworth Publishing The Virginia Quaterly Review. James Nathan: Force, Order, and Diplomacy in the Age of Louis XIV. http://www.vqronline.org/printmedia.php/prmMediaID/7356 University of Nipissing History Department. Muhlberger, S. Louis XIV and the building of absolutism http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/2155.absol.htm University of Nipissing History Department of History.. Muhlberger, S. The wars of Louis XIV. http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/2155.warlxiv.htm University of Wisconsin-Madison History Department. Illustrated lectures by Prof. J. P. Sommerville. http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-14.htm; http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-142.htm; http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-143.htm; Voltaire, F.M.A. 1775. Le Sicle de Louis XIV. Genve: Cramer et Bardin. Read More