Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - History Other French revolutionabsolutism French revolutionabsolutism French Absolutism and The French Revolution During the period between 1589 through 1783, the French Monarchy had risen to its height of absolute power and then was destroyed by the French Revolution. The reigns of Henry IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI each contributed to the strengthening of the French Monarchy as well as the destruction. Class struggles were a major problem throughout the reigns of each king. France was broken into three estates that were; the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. They were each striving for more power. The enlightenment had also caused problems. Before the enlightenment people had accepted things as they were, but by the end of the enlightenment people decided to change their forms of government. The idea that life would be better if things would change became reality. This was a threat to the power of the king. The different policies of the kings also affected the rise and fall of the French Monarchy. The combination of class struggles, the enlightenment, and different policies of the kings were major contributing factors in the rise and fall of the French Monarchy. The first of the kings to deal with these problems was King Henry IV, who was an honorble ruler. Henry IV was king of France between 1589 and 1610. He was supported by Spain and the pope, however, the league refused to accept a Protestant king of France and many Catholic nobles deserted the royal army. Henry won many victories over the league and in 1593 he defeated his enemies and announced that he was converting to Catholicism, but he did not forget his Protestant roots. In 1598, he issue the Edict of Nantes, which gave partial religious freedom to the Huguenots. This sowed the seeds for religious toleration in France. His leading minister, Maximilien de Sully, reorganized the finances and promoted the economic healing of France after years of civil war. Things such as agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce were encouraged. Taxes on the peasants were reduced, and taxes on the other groups were raised. He wiped out nobles that were advising him and made a small cabinet, ensuring an absolute ruler. Sully replaced royal officers, for those managed by local representative bodies. Henry's religious principle and political advantage gave him a special place in French history. Under his rule the king became more powerful. He assured that the position of the king would be absolute. He cut off the ties with nobles and others that were a threat to the king. He restored order and prosperity to the kingdom. The economy improved as well. He supported overseas trade and built a highway system in France to promote commerce. By evenly distributing the tax burden of the peasants he successfully lessened the class conflict. According to him if the lower classes aren't happy then the upper classes will be more unhappy. The religious conflict of Catholics and Protestants was stopped with the issueing of the Edict of Nantes. Henry IV was a great ruler and did many honorable Louis XIII, the son of Henry IV, ruled France from 1610 to 1643. During this period France became a strong power in Europe. He became ruler of France at the age of four, and his mother served as regent during his minority years, however, she was weak and selfish. The first years of his rule were filled with anarchy and disorder. Louis XIII could not trust anyone. He was constantly on the look out for courtiers and nobles. Throughout the kingdom it was rumored that he was an imbosol, although he was a smart guy, yet he helped these rumors spread. When Cardinal Richileiu came into power, from 1624-1642, he made France the strongest power in Europe. He promised the king,"...to employ all my efforts and all the authority which it might please you to give me, to ruin the Huguenot party, to lay low the pride of the nobility, and to raise your renown amoung foreign nations to the point at which it ought to be," Richilieu succeeded in doing this. In 1627, Richilieu destroyed the fortresses of the Huguenots. He also built a barrier to deprive them of the sea. The Huguenots, in turn, were reduced from a powerful political party to a religious body. Richilieu leveled the castles of the nobles. Many individuals were executed for conspiring against the king. Districts were created in France and the middle class was put in charge of these districts. They were called intendants. The jobs of the intendants was to collect taxes, raise armies, and spy on the nobles. He tried to collect money from the nobles, but failed so he squeezed the money from the peasants, who were already tax-burdened. He starts to wage war on neighboring countries, especially the German Hapsburgs. Louis's rule had occassional religious differences between the Catholics and Huguenots, and many conspiracies against Richilieu. During his rule reign unity and religious peace were secured and France was raised to the first Louis XIV was ruler of France from 1643 to 1715. He was known as the Sun King. Louis imposed absolute rule on France and fought a lot of wars trying to dominate Europe. His reign was the longest in European history and was marked by flourishing French culture. He said,"The State is I," meaning that whatever he said, France was to do. Cardinal Jules Mazarin ruled as regent for Louis until he reached his legal age. Louis was given a weak education and was taught about court ceremonies, war, and kingship. His early life was very scary. He had been kidnapped many times, and everyone was trying to influence him. When Louis grew older he remembered these things and found it crirical to bring stability and reform to France. He also got a deep suspicion of the nobility. When Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661, Louis shocked France by not naming another first minister. He decided to rule alone with Jean Colbert as his financial advisor. Colbert encouraged industry and foriegn exports and rebuilt the French navy. After all that had happened to Louis during his childhood he proved to be a hardworking king. Louis had an idea to build a palace at Versailles, which became the showplace of Europe. He spent millions to turn it into a marvelous building filled with gold and emeralds. It was meant to awe people, so that when people went there they would be intimidated by him. It was the social place to be in Europe and other countries wanted to go there as well. The nobles were now trying to win the favor of the king. They had to spend time every year at Versailles. The extravagance of the court meant a heavy burden of tax for the common, who were reduced to a misery so great that they eventually rose up in rebellion.This helps ideas of enlightenment, which came into full effect under Louis XVI. To crush power, Louis XIV had the Parlement de Paris made up of judges. They registered kings edicts and had them written down. Louis had a passion for fame and a desire to increase French territory. He ignored the oppurtunities to gain an empire in America and got France into wars that ruined the country financially and paved the way for the outbreak of the French Revolution. The first wars he had France fight in brought some land, but in the end other European countries were becoming allies against him. People began to feel that life would be better if things would change. Louis wanted to prevent any recovery of the Hapsburg dynasty's power. While battling, Louis had been denying religious liberty to the Huguenots and tightening control over his Catholic clergy. He was determined to force the Huguenots to convert, so he revoked the Edict of Nantes. Protestantism became illegal again. This had a negative effect on France. religious persecution and violence rose again. Many Huguenots fled. Louis had his own economic policies, which he hoped would make France self-sufficient. He made many internal improvements so that they didn't need to rely on England. He had canal constructions, built roads, and expanded trade overseas. He also made a merchant fleet. Aside from economical policies he also modernized the army, and it became the most powerful army. At his death in 1715, France had many problems. France was in debt, they had new enemies, there were lots of casualities, and they gained no new land. There was controvery over who would be king. Louis had a lot of illegitimate children. The Parlement de Paris nullified Louis XV as king. Louis XV, who was king from 1715 to 1774, whose failure to give strong leadership and badly needed reforms contributed to the crisis that brought on the French Revolution. Duke of Orleans was regent until Louis was old enough to rule. The Duke tried to restore power to the nobles. He strengthened the Parlement de Paris by replacing middle classmen with nobles, althought the middle classmen that had jobs in the Parlement were more like nobles because they had money and their sons inherited the positions. In 1726, Louis XV appointed Andre Hercule de Fleury as prime minister. Fleury gave France a stable administration until his death 17 years later. That is when Louis took control, however, he did not take interest in government and never followed any consistent policy. During Louis's rule France was involved in three wars. The first was the War of Polish Succession and France gained the province of Lorraine. The second, the War of Austrian Succession marked the beginning of a colonial struggle with Great Britian. The third, was the Seven Years' War. After this war France lost its oversees possessions to the British. In the last years of his rule Louis cooperated with his chancellor in an effort to reform the country's insufficient system of taxation. In 1748, he tries to tax the nobility, but the Parlement refuses to register it so the king backed off. In 1764, the same thing happened and he ends up going to the peasants for his taxes. In 1771, the parlementswhich had opposed reform, were reorganized and stripped of their power to obstruct royal orders. Then, measures were taken to tax the formerly exempt nobility and clergy, but were reversed after his death. Louis was finally starting to restore power, when he died. Louis XV, was not a good king and throughout his rule he During the reign of Louis XVI, the enlightenment and class struggles came to full effect. For more than a century before Louis XVI, the French government had periodic economic crises, that were from the long wars waged during Louis's XIV rule . Mismanagement of national affairs under Louis XV, losses from the French and Indian War, and increasing debt from the loans to American colonies during the American Revolution. When Louis was first king he entrusted finances to Turgot, a great statesman. As long as the king followed his ministers advice the state of the kingdom was improved. However, most of the time he was under the influence of Marie Antoinette. Louis was also swayed by courtiers who did not want to give up their life of ease, and therefore opposed financial reformers. They were able to persuade the king to give up his able minister, who was replaced by Jacques Necker. When he became king France was burdened with debts, and heavy taxation had resulted in widespread misery amoung the French people. The supporters of social and governmental reform became increasingly vocal during the reign of Louis XVI. Within two years, however, most of the reforms had been withdrawn. Because of the actions of Louis XVI the enlightenment became vey large spread. The enlightenment was a time between the 16th and 18th centuries, when the middle and upper classes thought that they could change society for the better. One main area that they focused on was the issue of government. Before the enlightenment people had accepted things as they were and based things solely on faith. Because of the line of reason there were several revolutions, including the American Revolution and the French revolution. Ideas began to blossom into reality. People in France began to have ideas because of the actions of Louis. He disliked the english, so he supported the Americans in the American Revolution. He sent soldiers and money to America and put France further in debt. The French people began to like the ideas of freedom, liberty, constitutionalism, and democracy. He was fighting so that the people in America would have a government by the people for the poeple. By fighting for a democracy, he was making his people want a democracy rather than absolutism. So, without even knowing it he was creating his own problem, and what Because of the debt left from earlier reigns Louis XVI tried to tax the nobles. He aked them to pay volutarily, but the Parlement said no. They said that the king cannot have taxation without representation. In 1789, Louis was forced to call for a meeting of the representative body called the Estates General because he was unable to collect taxes or borrow money. it was the first gathering of the estates since 1614. Each of the three estates sent representatives. The first estate was the clergy, which had two-thirds of its people from poorer parishes. They were mostly liberal and against the king. The second estate was the nobility. Two-thirds of the nobility were conservatives and wanted to maintain there priveleges. The other one-third had liberal ideaology and wanted to distribute the wealth. The third estate was the common people, who had picked the educated, richer people to represent them. The members of the third estate refused to follow the old method of voting and finally declared themselves the National Assembly. The National Assembly promised to fight until France changed. Louis deprived the National Assmbly of its meeting hall. They responded and met at a tennis court, where they made the Tennis Court Oath. They would not dissolve until it they had drafted a constitution for France. Serious divisions split the ranks of the upper two estates. Numerous representatives of the lower clergy and a number of the liberal nobles broke off to join forces with the national Assembly. The king is told about all of this by the nobles and the tennis court is broken up. While this is going on, the peasants and the workers suffered from bad harvests and depression. Food was scarce, prices were high, and unemployment was widespread. When the king threatened the Assembly, crowds in Paris started to look for weapons. The peasants blamed the nobles and transitioned from obeying to destroying. On July 14, the crowd stormed Bastille, the prison, for gunpowder. Then they marched in to Town Hall, murdered the mayor of Paris, and set up a new city government. They romed the country side, tore up books that contained records, stopped paying taxes, and took back forests, woods, and lakes. The National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Jefferson and Lafaeyette were involved in writing the declaration. With this everyone has rights and everyone is equal. The nobility lost all of its power. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was not fast enough. The women rose up and marched from Paris to Versailles to Queen Marie Antoinette. The women started chanting,"we want bread," and the queen replied, "let them eat cake". The women slaughter the royal guards, get to the king and queen, and imprison them. Lafaeyette convinces them not to kill the king and queen. In 1792, the new French government imprisons the king with thousands of other people. There was a rumor that the king was going to overthrow the government. Beginning in September 1792, France was ruled by the National Constitutional Convention. The September Massacres occured when peasants went into jail and began to kill people. In January 1793, the National Assembly decides they were guilty of treason and Louis XVI was beheaded at the guillotine. The Convention eleceted twelve members to be a Committee of Public Safety, led by Maximilien de Robespierre, to stop any possible counterrevolution. The Committee started a Reign of Terror. More than forty thousand people were killed. The queen was one of the first to be executed, thousands of others were imprisoned. The Committee started a program of price controls and started a national draft. By 1794, France had the biggest army in Europe, it was a citizen army. Although the war lasted until 1797, the country was saved. The rule of the Committee of Public Safety had no purpose. In 1794, Robespierre and his During the period between the 16th and 18th century, there were many rulers that contributed to the rise and fall of the French Monarchy. The ideas of the enlightenment, class struggles, and policies of the king had different effects on the reigns of each king. It is very ironic that after years of fighting for a democracy, the Fench people decide that they want a dictatorship. If I was a ruler during the period of the French Revolution, I would have ruled as an absolutist. I would not expect the people to love me, as Louis XVI did, because this would only show my weakness. People are unsure of what they want and need a strong ruler to tell them what they need. I am sure that I would fall as the other rulers did, but as the saying goes,"what goes up, must come Bibliography: Word Count: 2943
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