tates and clients among the lesser nobility still exercised much authority. Both towns and provinces possessed privileges and powers seemingly from time im memorial that they would not easily relinquish. Much of Louis's success rested less on the modernization of ad ministrative machinery, as is frequently claimed, than on his clever and adroit manipulation of the traditional priorities and values of French society.... Instead of the high nobility and royal princes, Louis relied for his ministers on nobles who came from rela tively new aristocratic families. Such were Michel Le Tellier, secretary of state for war; Hugues de Lionne, secretary for foreign affairs; and Nicholas Fouquet, su perintendent of finances. His ministers were expected to be subservient; said Louis, "I had no intention of sharing my authority with them." When Fouquet began to flaunt the enormous wealth and power he had amassed in the King's service, Louis ordered his arrest and imprisoned The maintenance of religious harmony had long been considered an area of monarchical power. The desire to keep it led Louis into conflict with the French Hugue nots and the papacy. Louis XIV did not want to allow Protestants to practice their faith in largely Catholic France. Perhaps he was motivated by religion, but it is more likely that Louis, who believed in the motto, "one king, one law, one faith," felt that the existence of this minority undermined his own political authority. His anti-Protestant policy, aimed at converting the Hugue nots to Catholicism, began mildly by offering rewards, but escalated by 1681 to a policy of forced conversions. The most favored method was to quarter French soldiers in Huguenot communities and homes with the freedom to misbehave so that their hosts would "see the light quickly." This approach did produce thousands of imme diate conversions. In October 1685, Louis issued the Edict of Fontainebleau. In addition to revoking the Edict of Nantes, t...
