LUE moderne (French Edition)

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In , the first steps were made towards fashioning a regular army out of the poorly disciplined mercenary bands that French kings traditionally relied on. The medieval division of society into "those who fought nobility , those who prayed clergy , and those who worked everyone else " still held strong and warfare was considered a domain of the nobles.

Early modern France - Wikipedia

Charles VIII marched into Italy with a core force consisting of noble horsemen and non-noble foot soldiers, but in time the role of the latter grew stronger so that by the middle of the 16th century, France had a standing army of cavalry and 30, infantry. The military was reorganized from a system of legions recruited by province Norman legion, Gascon legion, etc. However, the nobility and troops were often disloyal to the king, if not outright rebellious, and it took another army reform by Louis XIV to finally transform the French army into an obedient force. When Ferdinand I of Naples died in , Charles invaded the peninsula.

For several months, French forces moved through Italy virtually unopposed, since the condottieri armies of the Italian city-states were unable to resist them. Their sack of Naples finally provoked a reaction, however, and the League of Venice was formed against them. By , combined French and Aragonese forces had seized control of the Kingdom; disagreements about the terms of the partition led to a war between Louis and Ferdinand. French forces under Gaston de Foix inflicted an overwhelming defeat on a Spanish army at the Battle of Ravenna in , but Foix was killed during the battle, and the French were forced to withdraw from Italy by an invasion of Milan by the Swiss, who reinstated Maximilian Sforza to the ducal throne.

The Holy League , left victorious, fell apart over the subject of dividing the spoils, and in Venice allied with France, agreeing to partition Lombardy between them.

Louis mounted another invasion of Milan, but was defeated at the Battle of Novara , which was quickly followed by a series of Holy League victories at La Motta , Guinegate , and Flodden , in which the French, Venetian, and Scottish forces were decisively defeated. However, the death of Pope Julius left the League without effective leadership, and when Louis' successor, Francis I , defeated the Swiss at Marignano in , the League collapsed, and by the treaties of Noyon and Brussels, surrendered to France and Venice the entirety of northern Italy.

The elevation of Charles of Spain to Holy Roman Emperor , a position that Francis had desired, led to a collapse of relations between France and the Habsburgs. In , a Spanish invasion of Navarre , nominally a French fief, provided Francis with a pretext for starting a general war; French forces flooded into Italy and began a campaign to drive Charles from Naples. The French were outmatched, however, by the fully developed Spanish tercio tactics, and suffered a series of crippling defeats at Bicocca and Sesia against Spanish troops under Fernando d'Avalos.

With Milan itself threatened, Francis personally led a French army into Lombardy in , only to be defeated and captured at the Battle of Pavia ; imprisoned in Madrid , Francis was forced to agree to extensive concessions over his Italian territories in the "Treaty of Madrid" In response, Charles invaded Provence , advancing to Aix-en-Provence , but withdrew to Spain rather than attacking the heavily fortified Avignon. The Truce of Nice ended the war, leaving Turin in French hands but effecting no significant change in the map of Italy.

A Franco-Ottoman fleet captured the city of Nice in August , and laid siege to the citadel. The defenders were relieved within a month. A lack of cooperation between the Spanish and English armies, coupled with increasingly aggressive Ottoman attacks, led Charles to abandon these conquests, restoring the status quo once again. In , Henry II of France , who had succeeded Francis to the throne, declared war against Charles with the intent of recapturing Italy and ensuring French, rather than Habsburg, domination of European affairs.

An early offensive against Lorraine was successful, but the attempted French invasion of Tuscany in was defeated at the Battle of Marciano. Barely were the Italian Wars over, when France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a Concordat between France and the Papacy , granting the crown unrivalled power in senior ecclesiastical appointments, France was deeply affected by the Protestant Reformation 's attempt to break the unity of Roman Catholic Europe.

Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots , starting the first of the French Wars of Religion , during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces. Opposed to absolute monarchy, the Huguenots Monarchomachs theorized during this time the right of rebellion and the legitimacy of tyrannicide. After the assassination of both Henry of Guise and Henry III , the conflict was ended by the accession of the Protestant king of Navarre as Henry IV first king of the Bourbon dynasty and his subsequent abandonment of Protestantism Expedient of effective in , his acceptance by most of the Catholic establishment and by the Pope , and his issue of the toleration decree known as the Edict of Nantes , which guaranteed freedom of private worship and civil equality.

France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of France's rise to European hegemony. One of the most admired French kings, Henry was fatally stabbed by a Catholic fanatic in as war with Spain threatened. Troubles gradually developed during the regency headed by his queen Marie de Medici. France was expansive during all but the end of the 17th century: An English-backed Huguenot rebellion — defeated, France intervened directly in the wider European conflict following her ally Protestant Sweden 's failure to build upon initial success.

After the death of both king and cardinal, the Peace of Westphalia secured universal acceptance of Germany's political and religious fragmentation, but the Regency of Anne of Austria and her minister Cardinal Mazarin experienced a civil uprising known as the Fronde — which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War — The Treaty of the Pyrenees formalised France's seizure of the Spanish territory of Roussillon after the crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and ushered a short period of peace.

For most of the reign of Louis XIV — , France was the dominant power in Europe, aided by the diplomacy of Richelieu's successor — Cardinal Mazarin and the economic policies — of Colbert. Colbert's attempts to promote economic growth and the creation of new industries were not a great success, and France did not undergo any sort of industrial revolution during Louis XIV's reign.

Indeed, much of the French countryside during this period remained poor and overpopulated. The resistance of peasants to adopt the potato,according to some monarchist apologists, and other new agricultural innovations while continuing to rely on cereal crops led to repeated catastrophic famines long after they had ceased in the rest of Western Europe. Prior to Louis XIV's reign, French soldiers frequently went into battle barefoot and with no weapons. On the other hand, France's high birthrate until the 18th century proved beneficial to its rulers since it meant the country could field larger armies than its neighbors.

In fact, the king's foreign policy, as well as his lavish court and construction projects, left the country in enormous debt.

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The Palace of Versailles was criticized as overly extravagant even while it was still under construction, but dozens of imitations were built across Europe. Renewed war the War of Devolution — and the Franco-Dutch War — brought further territorial gains Artois and western Flanders and the free county of Burgundy , left to the Empire in , but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival powers.

French culture was part of French hegemony. In an effort to prevent the nobility from revolting and challenging his authority, Louis implemented an extremely elaborate system of court etiquette with the idea that learning it would occupy most of the nobles' time and they could not plan rebellion. By the start of the 18th century, the nobility in France had been effectively neutered and would never again have more power than the crown. Also, Louis willingly granted titles of nobility to those who had performed distinguished service to the state so that it did not become a closed caste and it was possible for commoners to rise through the social ranks.

The king sought to impose total religious uniformity on the country, repealing the Edict of Nantes in The infamous practice of dragonnades was adopted, whereby rough soldiers were quartered in the homes of Protestant families and allowed to have their way with them. Scores of Protestants fled France, costing the country a great many intellectuals, artisans, and other valuable people.

Persecution extended to unorthodox Catholics like the Jansenists , a group that denied free will and had already been condemned by the popes. Louis was no theologian and understood little of the complex doctrines of Jansenism, satisfying himself with the fact that they threatened the unity of the state. In this, he garnered the friendship of the papacy, which had previously been hostile to France because of its policy of putting all church property in the country under the jurisdiction of the state rather than of Rome.

Cardinal Mazarin oversaw the creation of a French navy that rivaled England's, expanding it from 25 ships to almost The size of the army was also considerably increased. Starting in the s, Louis XIV established the so-called Chambers of Reunion , courts in which judges would determine whether certain Habsburg territories belonged rightfully to France.

The king was relying on the somewhat vague wording in the Treaty of Westphalia, while also dredging up older French claims, some dating back to medieval times. Through this, he concluded that the strategically important imperial city of Strassburg should have gone to France in In September , French troops occupied the city, which was at once strongly fortified.

As the imperial armies were then busy fighting the Ottoman Empire, they could not do anything about this for a number of years. The basic aim of Louis' foreign policy was to give France more easily defensible borders, and to eliminate weak spots Strassburg had often been used by the Habsburgs as a gateway into France.

Following the Whig establishment on the English and Scottish thrones by the Dutch prince William of Orange in , the anti-French " Grand Alliance " of was established. With the Turks now in retreat, the emperor Leopold could turn his attention to France. The ensuing War of the Grand Alliance lasted from — France's resources were stretched to the breaking point by the cost of fielding an army of over , men and two naval squadrons. Famine in — killed up to two million people.

The exhaustion of the powers brought the fighting to an end in , by which time the French were in control of the Spanish Netherlands and Catalonia. However, Louis gave back his conquests and gained only Haiti. The French people, feeling that their sacrifices in the war had been for nothing, never forgave him. The Battle of La Hougue was the decisive naval battle in the war and confirmed the durable dominance of the Royal Navy of England. In November , the inbred, mentally retarded, and enfeebled Spanish king Charles II died, ending the Habsburg line in that country.

Louis had long waited for this moment, and now planned to put a Bourbon relative, Philip, Duke of Anjou, on the throne. Essentially, Spain was to become an obedient satellite of France, ruled by a king who would carry out orders from Versailles. Realizing how this would upset the balance of power, the other European rulers were outraged.

However, most of the alternatives were equally undesirable.

For example, putting another Habsburg on the throne would end up recreating the empire of Charles V, which would also grossly upset the power balance. After nine years of exhausting war, the last thing Louis wanted was another conflict. However, the rest of Europe would not stand for his ambitions in Spain, and so the War of the Spanish Succession began, a mere three years after the War of the Grand Alliance. The disasters of the war accompanied by another famine were so great that France was on the verge of collapse by In desperation, the king appealed to the French people to save their country, and in doing so gained thousands of new army recruits.

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Afterwards, his general Marshal Villars managed to drive back the allied forces. In , the war ended with the treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt. France did not lose any territory, and there was no discussion of returning Flanders or Alsace to the Habsburgs. While the Duke of Anjou was accepted as King Philip V of Spain , this was done under the condition that the French and Spanish thrones never be united.

Finally, France agreed to stop supporting Jacobite pretenders to the English throne. Just after the war ended, Louis died, having ruled France for 72 years. While often considered a tyrant and a warmonger especially in England , Louis XIV was not in any way a despot in the 20th-century sense.

Early modern France

The traditional customs and institutions of France limited his power and in any case, communications were poor and no national police force existed. Overall, the discontent and revolts of 16th- and 17th-century France did not approach the conditions that led to The exhaustion of Europe after two major wars resulted in a long period of peace, only interrupted by minor conflicts like the War of the Polish Succession from — Large-scale warfare resumed with the War of the Austrian Succession — But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy the " Diplomatic Revolution " of against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in the Seven Years' War — and the loss of France's North American colonies.

On the whole, the 18th century saw growing discontent with the monarchy and the established order. Louis XV was a highly unpopular king for his sexual excesses, overall weakness, and for losing Canada to the British. The writings of the philosophers such as Voltaire were a clear sign of discontent, but the king chose to ignore them. He died of smallpox in , and the French people shed few tears at his passing.

'Sacre bleu!' Do the French really say that?

While France had not yet experienced the industrial revolution that was beginning in England, the rising middle class of the cities felt increasingly frustrated with a system and rulers that seemed silly, frivolous, aloof, and antiquated, even if true feudalism no longer existed in France. Anti-establishment ideas fermented in 18th-century France in part due to the country's relative egalitarianism. While less liberal than England during the same period, the French monarchy never approached the absolutism of the eastern rulers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople in part because the country's traditional development as a decentralized, feudal society acted as a restraint on the power of the king.

Different social classes in France each had their own unique set of privileges so that no one class could completely dominate the others. Initially popular, he too came to be widely detested by the s. French intervention in the US War of Independence was also very expensive. With the country deeply in debt, Louis XVI permitted the radical reforms of Turgot and Malesherbes , but noble disaffection led to Turgot's dismissal and Malesherbes' resignation in Search France's news in English. News categories Marseille Lyon Toulouse More….

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Membership My account Gift voucher Corporate Help center. Jobs in France Browse jobs Post a vacancy. Email newsletters Newsletter sign-up Edit my subscriptions. Other pages Apartment rentals Noticeboard. Do the French really say "sacre bleu! Or is it just a myth Anglos and their media have engineered? And if they don't use them then what do the French really say when they want to swear? We take a closer look. Sign up for our free Today in France newsletter. Get notified about breaking news on The Local.

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