Absolute Unity Does Not Exist and Absolute Power Does Not Exist Absolutely 

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Those Wacky French. 

As it has generally been established, the life of the French peasantry in the Middle Ages was so terrible that if one were to apply the Hindu-caste system rationale to it then being born French was definitely a punishment for some seriously heinous karma. Following this logic, Hell is not a place, people's souls just travel back in time and reincarnate as Medieval European peasants.

Pictured: Hitler, Columbus, and Hussein in the Seventh Circle.

The peasants were unhappy with their situation and tried to deal with it just as their leaders had so set as precedent: by throwing tantrums and smashing things. 

Things were rather disorderly in the Court with all this rioting combined with the nobility's ever ongoing stubborn sulking. However, the crown and the nobles worked well enough together in their passive-aggressive system of checks and balances that France was almost a sovereign nation.  

• Sovereignty - when a state possesses a monopoly over the instruments of justice and the use of force within clearly defined boundaries. 

Eventually, the geniuses stepped up to solve the problem in France just as they always have when the croissant hits the fan. Henry IV, Cardinal Richelieu, and Louis XIV were the sort-of-Washington,  fascist Locke, and  Super-Nixon of 16th and 17th-century Not-America. 

Absolutionism

In the 17th and 18th centuries, France tried to unite itself by claiming that the monarchy held the divine right to rule and make the law of the land as a consequence. In order to enforce their power the kings weakened the nobles by leveling their castles and outlawing anyone from having a standing 

army other than the king. 

• Each ruling monarch sought to be seen as the embodiment of the state. 
• Features 
• expanded administrative bureaucracy 
• centralized government
• consent of the governed
• lack a rule of law - law made by a representative body.

Administrative Monarchy

The French Monarchy was not really absolute because it had to compromise with the nobles as the military, financial, and technological power of the state alone were not strong enough to handle affairs.

Some French You Should Love: 

It's about time something good happened to the French.

Henry IV 

was a model ruler. He had no trouble with the concept that so many monarchs fail to grasp; the reality that a king's one job is to hire the right people for a position. A king is basically a human magic 8 ball, when no one really knows what to do they just follow whatever nonsense spews from it so that something will get done.

Anyway. 

Henry created a country-wide highway system which increased prosperity. 

Kept France at peace, very little war 

Hired: 

Maximilien de Bethune, duke of Sully - the real genius in Henry's Court, the Hamilton to his Washington (see where that was going now?).  The changes he made to France's finances managed to pull the country out of ruin and into prosperity in only twelve years. 

• sharply lowered taxes
• to compensate introduced the paulette - an annual fee paid to royal officers to guarantee heredity in their offices. 
• indirect taxes on salt, sales, and leased their collection to financiers.

Armand Jean du Pleiss - Cardinal Richelieu - picked up where Henry and Sully left off. 

The Cardinal was placed into a position of authority by Marie de Medici, mother of Henry IV's successor, Louis XIII. 

Where Sully reformed France's finances for optimal efficency, Richelieu reformed the French government to function at full efficiency. 

Restored the tie of faith between the church and government, crushed Spain, Got the nobles to cooperate
Oh, and I brought the French vernacular to be the universal language. 

• General Philosophy: all groups and institutions are total subordinate to the French Monarchy. 
• Reforms
• Divided France into 32 districts 
• Put royal intendants in charge of the districts 
• Made communication between the crown and local governments much more effective. 
• Decreased the power of nobles. 
• Religious Unity - Roman Catholicism
• Ended all Protestant military and political dependence 
• Louis XIII's victory over the Protestant commercial center of La Rochelle weakened the influence of the aristocratic adherents of Calvinism. 
• Foreign Policy focus: destruction of the Habsburg territories that surrounded France.
• Supported the creation of a dictionary to standardize the French language. 
• Got the nobles to cooperate with the tax system of the monarchy despite limiting their power. Did this by sharing the proceeds of the revenue with local powers and permanently establishing the noble's freedom from taxation. 
• Created a philosophical reasoning that religiously justified the sometimes sacraligious nature of the state. 
• raison d'etat -  "Where the interests of the State are concerned, God absolves actions which, if privately committed, would be a crime.

The Fronde 

Removing Richelieu from the French Equation

• The interum between the Louis XIII/Richelieu rule and that of Louis XIV 
• A frondeur - anyone who opposed the policies of the government.
• Characterized by a lot of Civil War. 
• So horribly chaotic it would tramatize King Louis XIV, the greatest king of Europe, for the rest of his life. 
• Also notable for the defeat of Spain by the French in 1643, marking the end if Spanish military power in Europe. 

Louis XIV 

Stay tuned...