Abstract
It is generally accepted that, from the seventeenth century onward, monarchical power in France was absolute, contrasting with earlier ideas of kingship. But in fact it seems more likely that the earlier conception of kingship, which we may call traditional, remained alive and opposed to absolutism throughout the seventeenth century. This ambivalence in the interpretation of royal power aroused the passions of contemporaries: it was generally agreed that kingship was necessary, and even holy, but the growth of absolutism was not readily accepted. Seventeenth-century men often preferred to think that the growth of absolutism was not the work of the king himself, but of ministers or officials who exercised in his name a power whose limits they exceeded.
First published in XVIIe Siècle, nos 58–9 (1963) under the title ‘Royauté française et monarchie absolue au XVIIe siècle’.
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Notes
W. Näf, Die Epochen der neueren Geschichte (Aarau, 1945);
E. Lousse, ‘Absolutisme, droit divin, despotisme éclairé’, in Schweizer Beiträge zur allgemeinen Geschichte, xvi (1958) 91–166.
See F. Olivier-Martin, L’organisation corporative de la France d’Ancien Régime (Paris, 1938), and the same author’s Histoire du droit français des origines à la Révolution, t pt 2 (Paris, 1948) ch. n, ‘La nation organisée’, pp. 357–427; his 1948–9 doctoral lectures (mimeographed) follow up the themes of this volume, ‘Les ordres, les pays, les villes et communautés d’habitants’.
C. J. Declareuil, Histoire générale du droit français des origines à 1789 (Paris, 1925) p. 397.
J. Touchard et al. Histoire des idées politiques, s (Paris, 1959) pp. 225–6, 238.
A. Luchaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capétiens, 987–1180, s (Paris, 1891) p. 134.
Cf. M. Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1961).
Quoted by J. Declareuil, ‘Les idées politiques de Guez de Balzac’, Revue de droit public et de la science politique, 24 (1907) 642–3.
G. Pagès, Les institutions monarchiques sous Louis XIII et Louis XIV (Paris, 1962) pp. 20–1.
F. Hartung, ‘L’état c’est moi’, Historische Zeitschrift (1949) 130; Olivier-Martin, ‘L’absolutisme français’, pp. 38–47.
Quoted in V.-L. Tapié, La France de Louis XIII et de Richelieu (Paris, 1952) p. 424.
A. Lemaire, Les lois fondamentales de la monarchie française (Paris, 1907);
B. Basse, La constitution de la monarchie française, Law thesis (Paris, 1959).
Olivier-Martin, ‘La réunion de la Basse-Navarre à la couronne de France’, Annuario de Historia del Derecho Espanol (1932).
E. Préclin and V.-L. Tapié, Le XVII° siècle (Paris, 1949) pp. 145–6.
E. Escalier, Lesdiguières, dernier connétable de France (Paris, Lyons, 1946).
M. A. Le Masne-Desjobert, La faculté du droit de Paris aux XVIe et XVIIIe siècles, Law thesis (Paris, 1966).
R. Villers, ‘Aspects politiques et aspects juridiques de la loi de Catholicité’, Revue de l’Histoire du Droit (1959) 196–213.
Quoted by R. Mousnier, ‘Le testament politique de Richelieu’, Revue historique (1949) 70.
J.-D. Lassaigne, Les assemblées de la noblesse de France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Law thesis (Paris, 1965).
R. Mousnier, La vénalité des offices sous Henri IV et Louis XIII (Paris, Rouen, 1945) and works cited therein; ibid., pp. 208–86.
R. Mousnier, ‘Recherches sur les syndicats d’officiers pendant la Fronde’, XVIIe Siècle (1959) 76–117.
See R. Mousnier, ‘Le Conseil du Roi de la mort de Henri IV au gouvernement personnel de Louis XIV’, Etudes d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1947) 28 ff. See also Olivier-Martin, ‘Le conseil d’etat du roi’, mimeographed notes for doctoral lectures 1947–8, pp. 43–4 and his Histoire du droit français, pp. 438–40, 444.
Olivier-Martin, Histoire du droit français pp. 541–52; V.-L. Tapié, La France de Louis XIII pp. 94–7; C. Alzon, ‘Quelques observations sur les Etats généraux français de 1614’, Schweizer Beiträge zur allgemeinen Geschichte (1958) pp. 66–73;
A. Lublinskaya, ‘Les Etats Généraux de 1614–15 en France’, in Album Helen Cam, i (Louvain, Paris, 1960) pp. 229–46.
See B. de Chantérac, Les assemblées des notables dans l’ancienne France Law thesis (Paris, 1919).
J. Petit, L’assemblée des notables de 1626–1627, Law thesis (Paris, 1937).
J. Meuvret, ‘Comment les Français du XVII° siècle voyaient l’impôt’, XVIIe Siècle (1952) 64–5.
G. Picot, Cardin le Bret, 1558–1655, et la doctrine de la souveraineté (Nancy, 1948) pp. 125–31.
J.J.Chevalier, Les grandes oeuvres politiques, de Machiavel à nos jours (Paris, 1950) pp. 48–9.
F. A. Isambert et al., Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises, 29 vols (Paris, 1821–33) xx, pp. 585 ff.
Tapié, La France de Louis XIII pp. 284–8; G. Mongrédien, La journée des Dupes (Paris, 1961).
Olivier-Martin, Histoire du droit français p. 395. The abolition of the estates of Franche-Comté was in part a consequence of their disloyalty, but in its dealings with other estates the royal government also sought to demonstrate its authority. In Burgundy, for example, when in 1661 the élus were slow in levying taxes, threatening despatches were sent to them. The élus were denied the right of deputations to protest the tax burden, but were required to send such deputations to explain what measures were in hand for the more rapid collection of taxes due. If delays were prolonged, the king would send troops to consume on the spot the moneys which had not been paid (A.D. Côte d’Or, Correspondance des élus, C 3352, 1614–75, nos 115–31; Cf. C 3353, for strong demands in respect of tax payments 1676–1715). In the case of Provence Louis XIV, in 1671, when the Assembly had had ‘the audacity to discuss his orders’, went so far as to send the lieutenant-general, M. de Grignan, blank lettres de cachet to exile the most ‘ill-disposed’ deputies to Brittany. See B. Hildesheimer, Les assemblées générales des communautés de Provence (Marseilles, 1935); for Brittany see
A. Rébillon, Les états de Bretagne de 1661 à 1789 (Paris, 1932); for Languedoc see
E. Lavisse (ed.), Histoire de la France, 9 vols in 17 parts (Paris, 1911–26) vii, pt 1, pp. 280–7.
R. Mousnier, ‘Les règlements du conseil du roi sous Louis XIII’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de France (1946).
Olivier-Martin, ‘Le conseil d’état du roi’, pp. 56–7; see also R. Mousnier, ‘Le conseil d’état du roi de la mort de Henri IV au gouvernement personnel de Louis XIV’, Etudes d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1947) 54–5.
N. Valois, Inventaire des arrêts du conseil d’état, i (Paris, 1886) p. xl.
In Burgundy, for example, after many difficulties with the intendant over the levying of the capitation, the élus were forced to accept the amount for which the tax was compounded, 1,000,000 livres per year from 1696. Of this sum, 400,000 was compounded for a total payment of 2,400,000 livres. The sum compounded thus amounted to 600,000 livres. Except for the privileged classes, who were taxed by the commissaries of the nobility, the élus drew up rolls of taxpayers in the same way as for the taille parish by parish. In Burgundy, therefore, the capitation had already become an assessed tax before 1701, the date at which this became true for the kingdom as a whole (A.D. Côte-d’Or, C 3353, f. 85; C 3141, ff. 46–80; C 5573). For the capitation in general, see G. Lardé, La capitation dans les pays de taille personnelle, Law thesis (Paris, 1906), and
S. Mitard, La première capitation, Law thesis (Rennes, 1934).
This was the normal condition of towns in the sixteenth century. Henri IV and Richelieu made some attempts to remedy the situation, but without much success: see for example the methods used by the governor de la Vallière at Moulins to nominate the mayor and échevins before the arrival of the intendant le Vayer: P. Baer, Les institutions municipales de Moulins sous l’Ancien Régime, Law thesis (Paris, 1906) pp. 110–11. For Dijon, see
M. A. Millotet, Avocat-Général au parlement, Vicomte mayeur de Dijon, Mémoire des choses qui se sont passées en Bourgogne depuis 1650 jusqu’à 1668 (Dijon, 1886), which gives a lively description of the intrigues which prevented the author from being elected. The investigation begun in 1662 into the financial administration of the cities brought to light many scandals.
Cf. for example the situation of Dijon at the beginning of the seventeenth century: ‘one great hospital’, almost ‘a great charnel-house’: G. Roupnel, La ville et la campagne au XVII° siècle. Etude sur la population du pays dijonnais (Paris, 1955) pp. 29–30. For the great public works ‘imposed from above’ on the cities at the end of the seventeenth century, see
F. Busquet, Histoire de Marseille (Paris, n.d., [1945]) and
F. Lot’s review of this book in Revue Historique (1948) 114. See also
P. Wolff, Histoire de Toulouse, 2nd ed. (Toulouse, 1961) p. 279.
G. Davy, ‘Sur la politique de Hobbes. La technique et les principes du droit public’, Mélanges Scelle, s (Paris, 1950) pp. 207–12; J.J.Chevalier, Les grands oeuvres politiques pp. 52–69.
R. Villers, ‘Opposition et doctrines d’opposition’, pp. 135–45; R. Mousnier, ‘Les idées politiques de Fénelon’, XVIIe Siècle (1952) 140–66.
Quoted by Mme Gallouedec-Genuys, La conception du Prince dans l’oeuvre de Fénelon, mimeographed Law thesis (Paris, 1961) p. 143, n.2. She provides a careful study of Fénelon’s conception of absolute, but not arbitrary, power: ibid., pp. 140–66.
P. Benichou, Morales du grand siècle (Paris, 1948) pp. 52–76.
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Dumont, F. (1976). French Kingship and Absolute Monarchy in the Seventeenth Century. In: Hatton, R. (eds) Louis XIV and Absolutism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16981-8_4
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