Key Dates – Dynasties
- 450 – 754 – MEROVINGIAN
NB Clovis (481 – 511) - 768 – 987 – CAROLINGIAN
NB Charlemagne (769 – 814) - 987 – 1328 – CAPETIANS
NB Hugues Capet; Philippe Auguste (1180 – 1223); St Louis (Louis IX) (1226 – 1270) - 1328 – 1589 – VALOIS
NB Charles VII (1422 – 1461); Francis I (1515 – 1547); Henry II (1547 – 1559); Francis II (1559 – 1560); Charles IX (1560 – 1574); Henry III (1574 – 1589) - 1589 – 1793 – BOURBON
Henry IV (1589 – 1610); Louis XIII to Louis XVI - 1814 – 1848 – BOURBON (Restoration)
Louis XVIII (1814 – 1824); Charles X (1824 – 1830); Louis Philippe (1830 – 1848)
The descendants of Louis Philippe (Bourbon–Orleans line) carry the title Comte de Paris. The current one is the pretender to the throne.
Overview
Until the coronation of Hugues Capet in 987, there was no concept of France as a single nation state.
The territory known to the Romans as Gaul was conquered by Julius Caesar. The five centuries of Roman occupation that followed laid the foundations of both French law and language. From the 3rd century onwards, Germanic tribes began to invade from the east and by 476 the Western Roman Empire had ceased to exist. Among the invaders, it was the Franks (giving France its modern name) who finally triumphed, occupying the northern half of the country.
The Franks were a tribal people who elected their chiefs. Clovis, king of the Franks from 481 – 511, was the first Christian ruler. He was baptised in 500 and from then on he and his tribe became defenders of the Church.
By the end of the 8th century Charlemagne, the last of the great Frankish kings, had welded a number of petty states into an Empire, which extended well beyond the frontiers of what is now France. Charlemagne’s authority was firmly based on the feudal system, underpinned by the moral authority of the Christian Church. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided Charlemagne’s Empire among his three grandsons, separating France from Lotharingia and Germany. French society again broke up into a series of small power bases ruled by contentious Dukes, Counts and feudal lords who had little respect for their ineffectual king.
By the 10th century it was the Capetians, from their rich domain in the heart of the Paris basin, who gradually achieved supremacy. With the coronation of Hugues Capet ends the history of the Franks and the history of France begins.
The Valois Kings
(To be used in conjunction with the ACIS Loire Valley TM Notes).
The Hundred Years’ War (1337 – 1453) was neither the beginning nor the end of the almost legendary rivalry between England and France. Even today you will find French people readily evoke Joan of Arc, Waterloo and other examples of la perfide Albion, and only half jokingly. It is worth remembering that the intermingling of territorial interests began with the Norman conquest of England in 1066. France cannot be regarded as a unified nation under the rule of one king until around the time of Louis XI. Before that powerful feudal lords governed the various provinces. The English king ruled over vast and profitable lands in France, although he pledged nominal fealty to the French monarch, and the court of the Dukes of Burgundy at Dijon was far more splendid than that of Paris.
When Charles the Fair, the last Capetian king, died without an heir there were three contestants for the throne, one of whom was Edward III of England. The throne actually went to Philip of Valois since he had been born in France, but Edward later used his claim to the French crown to start a war which was to last on and off for a hundred years.
Philip VI (1328 – 1350) and John II (1350 – 1364)
These first two Valois kings were largely concerned with feudal privilege. They failed to appreciate the significance of the crushing defeat of the French at Crécy against the vastly superior and more modern English arms. John was captured and bargained away a third of his territory to regain his freedom.
Charles V (1364 – 1380)
He ruled as Regent during the captivity of John and was the first crown prince to bear the title of Dauphin. (This had been a condition attached to the sale of the Dauphiné to the Crown in 1349). By dint of diplomacy and with the help of a brilliant military adviser, Du Guesclin, Charles succeeded in almost sweeping the English out of France. His biggest mistake was to favour the marriage of his brother the Duke of Orleans to the Countess of Flanders, thus uniting under one house all the provinces which covered France’s borders to the north and east. Charles had not foreseen the danger of having a hostile sovereign based in Brussels and with a powerful court in Dijon.
Charles VI (1380 – 1422) m. Isabelle of Bavaria
Charles was only 12 years old when his father died. He reaped the whirlwind of his predecessor’s imprudence as the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans plundered the country in their struggle for power. The king’s authority was further undermined by his periodic bouts of madness. Charles was married to the scandalous Isabella of Bavaria. She was known to have shared her bed with many gentlemen of the court and even with servants and other commoners. The Duke of Orleans was also reputed to have been her lover.
Henry V of England took advantage of the raging civil hatreds in France to revive Edward III’s claim to the throne. The French suffered another disaster at Agincourt and the Queen persuaded Charles to condone the marriage of Henry V to their daughter Catherine, making the English king regent and eventually heir to the French throne.
When Henry and Charles died, within three months of each other, the Herald of France cried “Long live Henry VI, by the grace of God King of France and England”. As the new king was a baby of 10 months, the Duke of Bedford governed as regent in Paris.
Charles VII (1422 – 1461) m. Marie d’Anjou
So it was that by 1429 Charles VII was still the Dauphin and had not been crowned king. He was deeply pious and irresolute and, because of his mother’s scandalous misconduct, feared that he was not the legitimate heir.
In 1429 Joan of Arc, a 16-year-old shepherdess from Lorraine, miraculously travelled unharmed with six men-at-arms across France to Chinon to persuade the king of his destiny. Essentially Joan desired three things: to restore the Dauphin’s faith in his birthright (Charles was very devout and would believe in “voices from heaven”; also he knew the prophecy that France had been “lost by a woman” (Isabella of Bavaria) and would be “saved by a maid”); to deliver Orléans in a symbolic victory to give confidence to the French; and to have Charles crowned in Reims because the holy oil would legitimise his power.
She achieved all these aims and continued her armed struggle against the English. She was captured and burned at the stake in 1431 at the age of 19. Charles did nothing to save her and waited 15 years before beginning the process of her rehabilitation.
She stands as the symbol of French purity and patriotism. She created France’s moral unity and restored the sacred legitimacy of the monarchy. Charles VII was the first king to levy a tax to maintain a standing army under his own command, a notable move that greatly strengthened the king’s authority.
Louis XI (1461 – 1483) m. Charlotte of Savoy
Louis was a strange, threatening figure. He had conspired with the Dukes of Burgundy against his father and Charles suspected him of having had Agnes Sorel poisoned. He kept no oaths and believed that every man had his price. He is called the Spider and remembered for the caged prisoners he kept in the castle of Loches.
The feudal lords, predictably, hated him, but it was he who really achieved the unification of France as one nation, largely through strokes of good fortune. Burgundy and Picardy reverted to the crown when the Duke died without a male heir. The same happened in Maine and Anjou. At the death of Louis XI, France was unified except for Brittany, Alsace and Lorraine.
Charles VIII (1483 – 1498) m. Anne of Brittany
Charles was thirteen at the time of his father’s death and his sister Anne de Beaujeu ruled as regent. She wisely annulled the betrothal of Charles to Marguerite of Austria in favour of his marriage to Anne of Brittany. It was vital that the Duchy should not pass through marriage to the royal house of Austria.
Charles had grown up at Amboise and it is from his reign that the golden age of the Loire begins. He led various unsuccessful military campaigns to Italy, seeking wider territories for a now peaceful and prosperous France. The gardeners and craftsmen he employed to work on the château at Amboise brought the first breath of the Italian Renaissance to France.
Charles died young as a result of an accident at Amboise and left no heir, so the crown passed to his cousin.
Louis XII (1498 – 1515) m. Anne of Brittany
On his accession to the throne Louis was delighted to obtain from the Pope the annulment of his forced marriage to the undesirable Jeanne de France. This enabled him to marry Anne of Brittany with whom he was secretly in love, and also to retain the Duchy for the crown. Louis mostly lived at Blois, where he had grown up, and carried out many improvements there.
Francis I (1515 – 1547) m. Claude de France
Louis XII had no heir, so the crown again passed to a cousin. Francis I’s reign was almost exactly contemporary with that of Henry VIII of England, and indeed pictures of them show two quite similar looking men. Francis was a “new king” in the sense of nouveau riche: young, vigorous and full of fire and life. He dreamed of being elected Holy Roman Emperor, but failed to secure enough influence with the electors, who chose instead the Hapsburg Charles V.
Francis’s military campaigns were unsuccessful, his extravagant building at Chambord, Fontainebleau, Blois and Amboise depleted the coffers, but he brought the exuberance and vitality of the spirit of the Renaissance into the French court, which he made a school of elegance, taste and culture. He encouraged artists, poets and scientists and created a brilliant court in which ladies, for the first time, played an important and respected role.
In a further attempt to secure French interests in Italy and at the papal court in Rome, he arranged the marriage of his son to Catherine of the influential Medici family.
Henry II (1547 – 1559) m. Catherine de Medici
Henry is largely remembered for his well-documented passion for Diane de Poitiers and for the jealous sufferings of his wife Catherine. He also had to deal with the Huguenot problem, to which he applied an alternate policy of tolerance and the most violent repression. A special tribunal (la chambre ardente) was set up to try heretics who, if found guilty, were burned at the stake.
He wisely negotiated a treaty which, although unpopular at the time, secured France’s eastern border by the acquisition of the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun. During the subsequent celebrations he insisted on taking part in a tournament and was fatally wounded in the eye. His unexpected death left his three small sons and a foreign wife to support a tottering dynasty in the face of the internal tensions arising from the religious problems and the Catholic League led by the powerful Guise family.
Francis II (1559 – 1560) m. Mary Stuart
Charles IX (1560 – 1574) m. Elizabeth of Austria
Henry III (1574 – 1589) m. Louise of Lorraine
Henry II’s three sons followed each other on the throne in quick succession. As kings they could all be said to have been failures, since each of them in turn was unable to control the ferment of unrest raging in France, to overthrow the Guise faction and to impose himself as the single royal authority. Catherine, their mother, did all she could to achieve these aims through diplomacy. She failed, probably because she was distrusted as a foreigner, a commoner and a woman.
All three kings were young, vacillating and easily impressionable. They resorted to massacre and assassination, which is no way for a king to assert his legitimate power. Finally, by forming an (unholy) alliance with his cousin Henry of Navarre, Henry III marched on Paris and laid siege to the city. The King’s connivance at the murder of the Duke of Guise had not been forgotten however, and he was himself in turn assassinated. With his last breath he recognised Henry of Navarre as his legitimate heir. This marked the end of the Valois line and the start of the Bourbon kings, the last French dynasty.
The Bourbon Kings
(To be used in conjunction with the ACIS Versailles TM Notes).
Henry IV (1589 – 1610) m. Marguerite de Valois; m. Marie de Medici
By shrewd diplomacy and his pragmatic attitude, Henry IV brought to an end the interminable religious conflicts. He who had been the champion of the Huguenot cause was received into the Catholic Church in order to assume the crown of France. But he promulgated the Edict of Nantes (1598), which allowed religious tolerance and equitable rights of justice and employment for Protestants.
France had been ruined by the long years of war and in some towns the population had decreased by two thirds. Henry fostered the perennial ability of the French to recuperate swiftly from such depths by strengthening and reorganising the economy and modernising land administration.
The statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf (built during his reign) and near the Square du Vert Galant reminds us of his nickname “the gay old spark”. He was twice married, first to Catherine de Medici’s daughter Marguerite de Valois (the occasion of the bloody St Bartholomew’s Day massacre). Marguerite had long been separated from the king and the marriage had produced no children. Not because of the king’s impotence however, he is recorded as having had over fifty-six mistresses and produced a flourishing crop of bastards.
Nevertheless the problem of the Dauphin was serious. Marguerite was prepared to agree to an annulment, but did not wish to see the king’s favourite, the beautiful Gabrielle d’Estrées, crowned in her place. Gabrielle died suddenly, some said by poison, and the king married Marie de Medici. She shortly presented him with a son, the future Louis XIII.
Louis XIII (1610 – 1643) m. Anne of Austria
Henry had, rather surprisingly, been assassinated by a madman and his widow was made Regent during the minority of the 9-year-old Louis. She ruled for 7 years, during which time she did much to reverse her husband’s policies, notably by cementing an alliance with Spain through the marriage of her daughter and betrothing Louis to Anne of Austria.
Meanwhile Louis grew up into a hard young man, aware of his rights. He distrusted his mother, ordered the assassination of her adviser Concini and exiled Marie to Blois. There is an amusing story of her undignified escape: being let down in a basket at dead of night to a waiting boat in the moat. Cardinal Richelieu, who had manoeuvred to attract the Regent’s attention and now dominated her, finally effected reconciliation between Louis and his mother. Louis XIII later came to rely a great deal on Richelieu. The reign of Louis XIII is marked by an unswerving determination to assert the absolute supremacy of the king.
A Huguenot revolt was crushed and the Huguenots stripped of their political privileges and their right to fortified towns, whilst religious tolerance was maintained. The power of the nobles was severely curtailed and they were ordered to destroy all fortified castles.
Louis was determined to strengthen the frontiers of France and to bring down the power of the Hapsburgs, whose territories encircled France to the southwest and along the Rhine. He laid down the foundations of a professional army, which was to fight so magnificently in the service of Louis XIV. By his adroit entry into the Thirty Years’ War in 1635, when France declared war on Spain, he was able to secure Roussillon and, most importantly, Lorraine for France.
Louis XIII does not seem to have been much of a ladies’ man. He waited five years before entering the Queen’s bed, and then only when he was led to it by his favourite. Twenty-four years passed before Anne presented him with a son. Great was the rejoicing at the birth of the future Louis XIV, and France was solemnly dedicated to the Virgin Mary in thanksgiving.
Louis XIV (1643 – 1715) m. Maria Theresa
Probably enough has been written about Louis XIV, the Sun King, to make him a familiar figure.
A minor of five years at his father’s death, history repeated itself, and his mother ruled as Regent with the assistance of Cardinal Mazarin for 18 years. Their greatest coup was the acquisition of Alsace by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
Louis XIV ruled for 72 years over a period of incomparable splendour and prestige for France. Nevertheless, his reign was too long both for his own reputation and for the future of France and her monarchy. At a period when England was emerging as a constitutional monarchy and a colonial power, Louis concentrated solely on his own absolute power and the supremacy of France within a territorially limited Europe.
In 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes and religious persecutions began again. In his foreign policy he did not know when to stop. He was forced to give up Lorraine and his costly campaigns, together with the ruinous project of Versailles, severely strained the economy.
Full details of the splendour of the Court at Versailles are to be found in the ACIS Versailles TM Notes.
Louis XV (1715 – 1774) m. Marie Leszczyńska
Yet another king of five years old, and yet another Regent. Louis XIV had outlived both his son and grandson. The Regent was the old king’s nephew, Philip of Orléans.
It is easy to see the reign of Louis XV as the start of the decline of the monarchy and that slipping away of authority and sense of unreality which was to lead to their downfall at the Revolution. Louis in a sense never really took over as king. Involved in his world of mistresses, elegance and luxury, with his endearing passion for botany, he did not impose on the country.
He was at the Trianon, botanising, when he felt the first symptoms of the smallpox which was to kill him. The courtiers had to persuade him that it was not suitable for him to remain there, and escorted him back to the palace to die in dignity.
Louis XVI (1774 – 1793) m. Marie Antoinette
Everyone knows that Louis XVI lost his head to the guillotine in 1793, shortly followed by his wife, Marie Antoinette.
The Queen was detested by the French and accused of lesbianism and treason. The mob called her l’autrichienne, a corruption of l’autre chienne (she was a Hapsburg) meaning “the other bitch”.
Louis, on the other hand, was not personally disliked. He would have been a good peacetime king but did not have the fibre to rise above a crisis. Pious and noble, well-intentioned but inflexible, the grandson of Louis XV allowed the tide of events to sweep over him and bring to an end a dynasty which had ruled for 200 years.
In 1789 the mob marched to Versailles demanding the King’s return to Paris where at first he was upheld as the enlightened defender of the revolution, the immediate aims of which were for democracy rather than the overthrow of the monarchy. Later the situation hardened, and the royal family was held practically captive in the Louvre.
From her captivity, Marie Antoinette was intriguing with her Austrian family, imploring them to attack France with the Imperial army supported by the French émigré nobles. The great European powers viewed with some dismay the proletarian ferment in France and feared that their heads too might roll if the revolution were to be successful. The plot was discovered however and this, together with the attempted escape of the royal couple (they were apprehended on the road to the eastern border) sealed their fate.
The Restoration (1814 – 1848)
After the defeat and exile of Napoleon, the Bourbon line was restored to the throne of France.
The first two kings were the brothers of Louis XVI. Since the Dauphin had died in captivity in the Louvre, the first king was called Louis XVIII as a mark of respect to the Louis XVII who never reigned.
Charles X, his brother, succeeded him in 1824, but his attempts to restore an ancien régime style of autocratic monarchy were short-lived and he was deposed by a minor revolution in 1830.
The crown was offered to Louis Philippe of the Orléans branch of the Bourbon family. He is known as the “bourgeois king” and made great efforts to appeal to the newly-emerged middle class. He sent his children to public schools, walked in the park, waved from balconies when required and so on. He also, however, was at pains to assert the legitimacy and noble lineage of his house. You will see, for example at Fontainebleau, the redecorations which he undertook, incorporating the initials of his various royal predecessors.
Perversely, the French found him too low-key as a monarch. He was deposed in the French wave of the revolutions that swept over Europe in 1848.
He was replaced by the nephew of Napoleon, who swiftly created himself Emperor and revived a certain notion of Imperial court splendour, which the French, although fiercely republican, seem to find it hard to do without.