218-550: Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais ( [pjeʁ(oɡystɛ̃ kaʁɔ̃ də) bomaʁʃɛ] ; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French polymath . At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker , inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist , arms dealer , satirist, financier and revolutionary (both French and American). Born a Parisian watchmaker's son, Beaumarchais rose in French society and became influential in
436-561: A costume ball celebrating carnival in 1745. By July, she was the King's mistress and was formally given the title of the Marquise de Pompadour. For the next twenty years, she was the King's confidante and advisor, helping him choose or demote ministers. Her opinions led to the downfall of some very competent ministers, including Machault d'Aurnouville and the Marquis d'Argenson , and to the promotion of
654-670: A British fleet in the Mediterranean and captured Minorca from Britain . Meanwhile, the French army greatly outnumbered its British and Prussian counterparts on the continent, and after some fighting France signed the Convention of Klosterzeven with the Duke of Cumberland , which resulted in French troops occupying parts of Hanover and the Hanoverians withdrawing from the conflict entirely. Another French army had already invaded Saxony and Hanover ,
872-531: A Catholic doctrine based largely on the teachings of Saint Augustine . Jansenism had attracted many important followers in France, including the philosopher Blaise Pascal , the poet Racine , aristocrats including Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Lafayette. The faculty of the Sorbonne, then primarily a theological college and a center of Jansenism, demanded clarification from the government. The Jansenists were allied with
1090-616: A French invasion of the rest of the Netherlands, urged a quick settlement, despite objections from Austria and Sardinia. The Treaty was quickly negotiated and signed by all the parties in September and October 1748. Louis was also eager for a quick settlement, because the naval war with Britain was extremely costly to French maritime trade. The proposition of Louis was surprisingly generous; in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle , Louis offered to return all of
1308-527: A celebrity lawyer, Nicolas Bergasse . On 2 April 1790, M. Kornmann and Bergasse were found guilty of calumny (slander), but Beaumarchais's reputation was also tarnished. Meanwhile, the French Revolution broke out. Beaumarchais was no longer quite the idol he had been a few years before, as he thought the excesses of the revolution were endangering liberty. He was financially successful, mainly from supplying drinking water to Paris, and had acquired ranks in
1526-577: A comparable sum and donate it freely to the government. His support for the church came both from the teachings of his tutor, Cardinal Fleury, and his gratitude to Archbishop de Beaumont, who defended him against the attacks of the Jansenists and the criticisms of the Parlement, and the Archbishop's tolerance of the King's own personal life and mistresses. Despite the French victories, the war dragged on both in
1744-512: A defensive treaty signed on 6 August 1726 between Prussia, Russia and Austria. In 1732 the coalition came into direct conflict with France over the succession to the Polish throne . The King of Poland and Elector of Saxony , Augustus II , was dying, and the favoured candidate to succeed him was Stanislaus I Leszczyński , the father of the Queen of France. In the same year Russia, Prussia and Austria signed
1962-406: 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
2180-405: A libel of one of his mistresses, Madame du Barry . Beaumarchais was sent to London to persuade the French spy Chevalier d'Éon to return home, but while there he began gathering information on British politics and society. Britain's colonial situation was deteriorating and in 1775 fighting broke out between British troops and American rebels. Beaumarchais became a major source of information about
2398-574: A major victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Mollwitz . On 18 May, Fleury assembled a new alliance combining France, Prussia, Spain and Bavaria, later joined by Poland and Sardinia. However, in 1742, the balance of the war shifted against France. The German-born British King, George II , who was also the Elector of Hanover, joined the war on the side of Austria and personally took charge of his soldiers fighting
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#17328630643732616-511: A massive increase in urban populations, although on the whole France remained a profoundly rural country. Paris was one of the most populated cities in Europe (estimated at 400,000 inhabitants in 1550; 650,000 at the end of the 18th century). Other major French cities include Lyon , Rouen , Bordeaux , Toulouse , and Marseille . These centuries saw several periods of epidemics and crop failures due to wars and climatic change. (Historians speak of
2834-483: A massive territorial expansion and an attempt to better integrate its provinces into an administrative whole. During this period, France expanded to nearly its modern territorial extent through the acquisition of Picardy , Burgundy , Anjou , Maine , Provence , Brittany , Franche-Comté , French Flanders , Navarre , Roussillon , the Duchy of Lorraine , Alsace and Corsica . French acquisitions from 1461 to 1789: Only
3052-400: A number of incompetent military commanders. Her most successful choice was the promotion of the Duke de Choiseul , who became one of the King's most effective ministers. She ceased all sexual intimacy with the King by 1750, but remained his closest advisor and titular mistress . She was promoted to Duchess in 1752, and Dame of the Queen's Palace in 1756, and was an important patron of music and
3270-513: A policy against Spain and the German emperor during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) which had broken out among the lands of Germany's Holy Roman Empire. An English-backed Huguenot rebellion (1625–1628) defeated, France intervened directly (1635) 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,
3488-679: A practical education in government. Beginning in 1720 he attended the regular meetings of the Regency Council. One economic crisis disrupted the Regency; the Scottish economist and banker John Law was named controller-general of finances. In May 1716, he opened the Banque Générale Privée ("General Private Bank"), which soon became the Banque Royal. It was mostly funded by the government, and
3706-586: A pretext. When Ferdinand I of Naples died in 1494, 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. Italian troops defeated the French at the Battle of Fornovo , forcing Charles to withdraw to France. Ludovico, having betrayed
3924-475: A prime minister. Two of his ministers took the most prominent positions in his government; the finance minister, Jean Baptiste de Machault D'Arnouville , and the minister of the armies, Comte d'Argenson . With the end of the war, Louis decided to take the opportunity to reduce the debt and modernize the system of taxation of the Kingdom. The package of reforms was put together by his finance minister D'Arnouville and
4142-458: A public or a secret nature. I will, if possible, remove all obstacles that may oppose your wishes from the politics of Europe. At this very time, and without waiting for any answer from you, I have procured for you about 200 pieces of brass cannon, four pounders, which will be sent to you by the nearest way; 20,000 lbs. of cannon powder, 20,000 of excellent fusils, some brass mortars, bombs, cannon balls, bayonets, platines, clothes, linens, &c. for
4360-467: A reputation of marrying for financial gain, and both Franquet and Lévêque had previously married into wealthy families. While there was insufficient evidence to support the accusations, whether or not the poisonings took place is still the subject of debate. France in the early modern period The Kingdom of France in the early modern period , from the Renaissance ( c. 1500–1550 ) to
4578-472: A result of these repressive acts, religious dissent remained an issue throughout the King's reign. Tension grew between the Duke of Bourbon and Cardinal de Fleury over the King's favor. The Duke's rigid and cold personality did not appeal to the young King, who turned to his old tutor for advice on how to run the affairs of state. When the King insisted that Fleury was to be included in all meetings between himself and
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#17328630643734796-550: A rival, however it was rumored at the time that one of the methods by which Marie Anne kept the interest of the king was to periodically offer him a ménage à trois with Diane Adélaïde. These widespread rumors made the sisters' visit to the King in Metz a national scandal and during their notorious visit the King suddenly fell gravely ill. Death appeared imminent, yet the King's chaplain refused him absolution unless he renounced his mistress, which he did. Marie Anne left The Court and after
5014-500: A royal office, and he gave up watchmaking. Shortly after his marriage, he adopted the name "Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais", which he derived from "le Bois Marchais", the name of a piece of land belonging to his new wife. He believed the name sounded grander and more aristocratic and adopted at the same time an elaborate coat of arms . His wife died less than a year later, which plunged him into financial problems, and he ran up large debts. Beaumarchais' problems were eased when he
5232-559: A secret agreement to exclude Stanislaus from the throne, and put forward another candidate, Augustus III , son of the deceased Polish king. The death of Augustus on 1 February 1733, with two heirs claiming the throne, sparked the War of the Polish Succession . Stanislaus traveled to Warsaw , where he was elected and crowned on 12 September. Empress Anna of Russia immediately marched her regiments into Poland to support her candidate. Stanislaus
5450-509: A small squadron with two thousand soldiers, which after a fierce action was sunk by the Russians. On 3 July Stanislaus was forced to flee again, in disguise, to Prussia, where he became the guest of King Frederick William I of Prussia in the castle of Königsberg . To bring the war to an end, Fleury and Charles VI negotiated an ingenious diplomatic solution. Francis III, Duke of Lorraine , left Lorraine for Vienna, where he married Maria Theresa ,
5668-490: A son, Augustin, but he died in 1772. Beaumarchais lived with his lover, Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz, for 12 years before she became his third wife in 1786. Together they had a daughter, Eugénie. Beaumarchais was accused by his enemies of poisoning his first two wives in order to lay claim to their family inheritance. Beaumarchais, though having no shortage of lovers throughout his life, was known to care deeply for both his family and close friends. However, Beaumarchais also had
5886-673: A territory from the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and extending down the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys to Louisiana , compared with a population of one million settlers in the British 13 Colonies . To defend its territories, France had constructed Fort Duquesne to defend its frontier against the indigenous Americans; Britain sent the young George Washington with a small force to construct his own fortification, Fort Necessity , nearby. In 1754, after
6104-458: A war between Louis and Ferdinand. By 1503, Louis, having been defeated at the Battle of Cerignola and Battle of Garigliano , was forced to withdraw from Naples, which was left under the control of the Spanish viceroy, Ramón de Cardona . French forces under Gaston de Foix inflicted an overwhelming defeat on a Spanish army at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, but Foix was killed during the battle, and
6322-413: A year later, and that was followed by performances in other European countries. The sequel, Le Mariage , was initially passed by the censor in 1781, but was soon banned from performance by Louis XVI after a private reading. Queen Marie-Antoinette lamented the ban, as did various influential members of her entourage. Nonetheless, the King was unhappy with the play's satire on the aristocracy and overruled
6540-532: Is named after him. In 1786, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed an opera, Le nozze di Figaro , based on The Marriage of Figaro , with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte based on the play. Several composers including Paisiello in 1782 wrote operas based on The Barber of Seville . Although not received well at first, Rossini 's 1816 version of Barber is his most successful work and still often performed. In 1966, Darius Milhaud composed an opera, La mère coupable , based on The Guilty Mother . Beaumarchais
6758-463: Is probably best known for his theatrical works, especially the three Figaro plays. Beaumarchais was born Pierre-Augustin Caron in the Rue Saint-Denis , Paris, on 24 January 1732. He was the only boy among the six surviving children of André-Charles Caron, a watchmaker from Meaux . The family had previously been Huguenots , but had converted to Roman Catholicism in the wake of the revocation of
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6976-508: The Age of Enlightenment in France quietly began. On 15 June 1722, as Louis approached his thirteenth birthday, the year of his majority, he left Paris and moved back to Versailles, where he had happy memories of his childhood, but where he was far from the reach of public opinion. On 25 October, Louis was crowned King at the Cathedral of Reims . On 15 February 1723, the king's majority was declared by
7194-459: The American War of Independence . Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and financial assistance to the rebels in the years before France's formal entry into the war in 1778. He later struggled to recover money he had personally invested in the scheme. Beaumarchais was also a participant in the early stages of the 1789 French Revolution. Beaumarchais
7412-459: The Battle of Ceresole in 1544, but the French failed to penetrate further into Lombardy. Charles and Henry VIII of England then proceeded to invade northern France, seizing Boulogne and Soissons . 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 1547, Henry II of France , who had succeeded Francis to
7630-617: The Duchy of Lorraine , while another crossed the Alps and captured Milan on 3 November, handing it over to the King of Sardinia. Fleury was less energetic in his actions to restore the Polish throne to Stanislaus, who was blockaded by the Russian navy and army in Danzig. Instead of sending the largest part of the French fleet from its station off Copenhagen to Danzig, he ordered it to return to Brest and sent only
7848-494: The Duke of Anjou , was born in 1730 and died in 1733. Of the daughters only the two oldest daughters, who were fraternal twins, were raised at Versailles; the others were sent away to be raised at the Abbey of Fontevrault . Marie was a pious and timid Queen who spent most of her time secluded with her own courtiers. She was a musician, read extensively, and played social games with her courtiers. After 1737, she did not share her bed with
8066-605: The Duke of Noailles was defeated by a force of British, Hessian and Hanover soldiers led by George II at the Battle of Dettingen , and in September French forces were compelled to abandon Germany. In 1744, the Austrian Netherlands became the primary battlefield of the war, and the French position began to improve. Frederick the Great decided to rejoin the war on the French side. Louis XV left Versailles to lead his armies in
8284-456: The Dutch Republic , declared war on Spain. Spain was defeated on both land and sea, and quickly sought peace. A Franco-Spanish treaty was signed on 27 March 1721. The two governments proposed to unite their royal families by marrying Louis to his cousin, Mariana Victoria of Spain , the three-year-old daughter of Philip V of Spain , who was himself a grandson of Louis XIV. The marriage contract
8502-481: The Edict of Nantes (1598), 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 1610 as war with Spain threatened. Troubles gradually developed during the regency headed by his queen Marie de Medici . France
8720-513: The Edict of Nantes and the increased persecution of Protestants that followed. The family was comfortably middle-class and Beaumarchais had a peaceful and happy childhood. As the only son, he was spoiled by his parents and sisters. He took an interest in music and played several instruments. Though born a Catholic, Beaumarchais retained a sympathy for Protestants and would campaign throughout his life for their civil rights . One of his sisters, Marie-Josèphe Caron , later became an artist; their cousin
8938-557: The Franco-Dutch War 1672–1678) brought further territorial gains ( Artois and western Flanders and the free county of Burgundy , left to the Empire in 1482), but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival powers. French culture was part of French hegemony. In the early part of the century French painters had to go to Rome to shed their provinciality ( Nicolas Poussin , Claude Lorrain ), but Simon Vouet brought home
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9156-687: The Kingdom of England ); there were also foreign enclaves, like the Comtat Venaissin . In addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families (like the Bourbonnais , Marche , Forez and Auvergne provinces held by the House of Bourbon until the provinces were forcibly integrated into the royal domaine in 1527 after the fall of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon ). The late 15th, 16th and 17th centuries would see France undergo
9374-531: The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts ), internal conflicts and civil wars, but they remained a confusing patchwork of local privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution took place in a radical time suppression of administrative incoherence. The Peace of Etaples (1492) marks, for some, the beginning of the early modern period in France. After the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), France supported
9592-451: The Parlement of Paris, the assembly composed of high nobles and wealthy Parisians who had purchased seats, it was rejected by a vote of one hundred and six to forty nine; the majority asked for more time to consider the project. The King responded by demanding immediate registration, which the Parlement reluctantly granted on 19 May. Resistance to the new measures grew with the church and in
9810-569: The Peace of Westphalia (1648) 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 (1648–1653) which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War (1653–1659). The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) formalised France's seizure (1642) of the Spanish territory of Roussillon after
10028-460: The Revolution (1789–1804), was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon (a Capetian cadet branch ). This corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime ("old rule"). The territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country , and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. The period is dominated by
10246-517: The War of the Polish Succession from 1733 to 1735. Large-scale warfare resumed with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy (the " Diplomatic Revolution " of 1756) against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the loss of France's North American colonies. On the whole,
10464-421: The vingtième , a tax of five percent on net revenue, which, unlike the dixième , taxed the income of all French citizens, including for the first time the income from the property of the clergy and the nobility. While the new tax was supported by many, including Voltaire , it met immediate and fierce resistance from both the nobility and the church. When on 5 May 1749 it was presented for formal registration to
10682-447: The "Treaty of Madrid" (1526). The inconclusive third war between Charles and Francis began with the death of Francesco II Sforza , the duke of Milan . When Charles' son Philip inherited the duchy, Francis invaded Italy, capturing Turin , but failed to take Milan. 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
10900-722: The 14th century, the gains of the previous half-century were to be jeopardised by a further protracted series of conflicts, the Italian Wars (1494–1559), where French efforts to gain dominance ended in the increased power of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors of Germany. In 1445, 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
11118-510: The 15th century drew to a close, French kings could take confidence in the fact that England had been mostly driven from their territory and so they could now embark on an expansionist foreign policy. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1494 began 62 years of war with the Habsburgs (the Italian Wars ). Despite the beginnings of rapid demographic and economic recovery after the Black Death of
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#173286306437311336-403: The 1630s, and with Pascal , Descartes , Bayle , Corneille , Racine and Molière , France became the cultural center of Europe. 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
11554-459: 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. A strong ruler like Louis XIV could enhance the position of the monarchy, while Louis XV weakened it. 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 1774, and
11772-400: 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
11990-608: The 19th century. The Ancien Régime, the French term rendered in English as "Old Rule", "Old Kingdom", or simply "Old Regime", refers primarily to the aristocratic , social and political system established in France from (roughly) the 15th century to the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of state-building, legislative acts (like
12208-484: The American army. In order to secretly funnel aid to the rebels, he helped set up a fictitious business called Roderigue Hortalez and Company . To restore his civil rights, Beaumarchais pledged his services to Louis XV. He traveled to London, Amsterdam and Vienna on various secret missions. His first mission was to travel to London to destroy a pamphlet, Les mémoires secrets d'une femme publique , which Louis XV considered
12426-711: The Archbishop of Paris threatened to excommunicate any member of the Church who read the Jansenist journal, Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques . The Parlement was strictly forbidden to discuss religious questions, preventing them from opposing the Unigenitus bull. Priests who did not accept Unigenitus were denied the authority to administer last rites to the dying. A new tax, the cinquantième , was levied against religious figures who had previously been exempted from taxation. Jansenists and Protestants were threatened with prison and banishment. As
12644-481: The Austrian Netherlands. The King's defense of his action was practical: he did not want the Netherlands to be a permanent source of contention between France and other powers; he also felt that France had already reached its proper borders, and it was better to cultivate its prosperity rather than make it larger. His basis was also religious; he had been taught by Fleury that the Seventh Commandment forbade taking
12862-629: The Austrian ambassador in Paris to Madame de Pompadour for delivery to the King. She proposed a secret alliance between Austria and France, to meet the threats of the growing power of Prussia, which was still formally an ally of France, and Britain. In the New World, conflict had already begun between Great Britain and France. New France was at an enormous demographic disadvantage vis-à-vis its British counterparts; there were about 70,000 French colonists spread over
13080-479: The Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé ), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) in 1723, the kingdom was ruled by his grand-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans , as Regent of France . Cardinal Fleury was chief minister from 1726 until his death in 1743, at which time
13298-629: The Countess Almaviva) the only ones present in all three plays. They are indicative of the change in social attitudes before, during, and after the French Revolution. Prototypes of Almaviva and Rosine first appeared under the names Lindor and Pauline in the short and incomplete play Le Sacristain , in which Lindor disguises himself as a monk and music teacher in order to meet Pauline under the watchful eyes of her elderly husband. Beaumarchais wrote it around 1765 and dubbed it "an interlude, imitating
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#173286306437313516-503: The Duchy of Savoy , the city of Nice and some other small papal (e.g., Avignon ) and foreign possessions would be acquired later. (For a map of historic French provinces, see Provinces of France ). France also embarked on exploration, colonisation, and mercantile exchanges with the Americas ( New France , Louisiana , Martinique , Guadeloupe , Haiti , French Guiana ), India ( Pondicherry ),
13734-409: The Duke of Bourbon, the Duke was infuriated and began to undermine Fleury's position at court. When the King became aware of the Duke's intrigue, he abruptly dismissed him and replaced him with Fleury. From 1726 until his death in 1743, Fleury effectively ruled France with the king's assent. Fleury dictated the choices to be made, and encouraged the king's indecision and flattered his pride. He forbade
13952-433: The Duke of Noailles, showed the King a letter that Louis XIV had written to his grandson, Philip V of Spain ; it counseled: "Don't allow yourself to be governed; be the master. Never have a favorite or a prime minister. Listen, consult your Council, but decide yourself. God, who made you King, will give you all the guidance you need, as long as you have good intentions." Louis followed this advice and decided to govern without
14170-437: The Duke's mistress, with the result that Beaumarchais was thrown in jail from February to May 1773. La Blache took advantage of Beaumarchais' court absence and persuaded Goezman to order Beaumarchais to repay all his debts to Duverney, plus interest and all legal expenses. To garner public support, Beaumarchais published a four-part pamphlet entitled Mémoires contre Goezman . The action made Beaumarchais an instant celebrity, for
14388-514: The Duke's own sisters Henriette Louise de Bourbon and Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon . In the end, the 21-year-old Marie Leszczyńska , daughter of Stanislaus I , the deposed king of Poland, was chosen. The marriage was celebrated in September 1725 when the king was 15 and Marie was 22. Louis was said to have fallen in love with Marie instantly, and consummated his marriage to her seven times on their wedding night. From 1727 to 1737, Marie gave Louis XV ten children: eight girls and two boys. Of
14606-614: The European stage, particularly Russia under Peter the Great and his successor, Catherine . The Habsburg monarchy under Charles VI was assembling a scattered but impressive empire as far as Serbia in southeastern Europe with territories taken from the Ottoman Empire , and from Spain, acquiring the Austrian Netherlands , Milan and the Kingdom of Naples . A new coalition against France began to assemble in eastern Europe, sealed by
14824-525: The French and Spanish crowns, that supplied the American rebels with weapons, munitions, clothes and provisions, all of which would never be paid for. In an August 18, 1776, letter from Beaumarchais to the Committee of Secret Correspondence and under the signature of Roderique Hortales & Co., he wrote Your deputies, gentlemen, will find in me a sure friend, an asylum in my house, money in my coffers, and every means of facilitating their operations, whether of
15042-641: The French army in the German states along the Rhine. British naval supremacy prevented France from reinforcing its colonies overseas, and British naval squadrons raided the French coast at Cancale and Le Havre and landed on the Ile d'Aix and Le Havre. In 1759 the British attacked Martinique and Guadeloupe in the French West Indies , and captured Port Louis and Quebec . A series of French naval defeats forced Louis to abandon plans for invasion of Britain . In India,
15260-402: The French at Fornovo, retained his throne until 1499, when Charles's successor, Louis XII of France , invaded Lombardy and seized Milan . In 1500, Louis XII, having reached an agreement with Ferdinand II of Aragon to divide Naples, marched south from Milan. By 1502, combined French and Aragonese forces had seized control of the Kingdom; disagreements about the terms of the partition led to
15478-400: The French colony at Pondicherry was besieged by the British, and surrendered the following year. On 8 September 1760, Montreal surrendered, bringing to an end French rule in Canada. Martinique fell to the British in 1762. On 5 January 1757, as the King was getting into his carriage in the courtyard of the Grand Trianon Versailles, a demented man, Robert-François Damiens , pushed through
15696-443: 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
15914-494: The French government agreed to the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance . France officially entered the American War of Independence soon after, followed by Spain in 1779 and the Dutch Republic in 1780. Shortly after the death of Voltaire in 1778, Beaumarchais set out to publish Voltaire's complete works, many of which were banned in France. He bought the rights to most of Voltaire's many manuscripts from
16132-503: The French in Germany. Maria Theresa's Hungarian army recaptured Linz and marched into Bavaria as far as Munich. In June, Frederick of Prussia withdrew from the alliance with France, after gaining the Duchies of Silesia from the Austrians. Belleville had to abandon Prague, with a loss of eight thousand men. For seven years, France was engaged in a costly war with constantly shifting alliances. Orry,
16350-462: The French nearly two to one, decisively defeated the army of the Prince de Soubise at the Battle of Rossbach . The new British Prime Minister, William Pitt , named a new commander, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel , and the French armies were gradually pushed back to the Rhine, and defeated again at the Battle of Krefeld on 23 June. Thereafter, Britain and Prussia held the upper hand, tying down
16568-558: The French nobility. In 1791, he took up a lavish residence across from where the Bastille once stood. He spent under a week in prison during August 1792 for criticising the government, and was released only three days before a massacre took place in the prison where he had been detained. Nevertheless, he pledged his services to the new republic. He attempted to purchase 60,000 rifles for the French Revolutionary army from Holland, but
16786-464: The French people shed few tears at his passing. 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
17004-404: The French revolution, the teaching of French was promoted in all the schools. The French used would be that of the legal system, which differed from the French spoken in the courts of France before the revolution. Like the orators during the French revolution, the pronunciation of every syllable would become the new language. France would not become a linguistically unified country until the end of
17222-453: 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 1513 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
17440-567: 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 (1692) was the decisive naval battle in the war and confirmed the durable dominance of the Royal Navy of England. In November 1700, the severely ill Spanish king Charles II died, ending
17658-570: The Gallicans, theologians who wanted the Catholic Church in France to be distinctly French. The opposition to Unigenitus was particularly strong among the members of the Parlement of Paris , the assembly of the nobles. Despite the protests, on 24 March 1730 Cardinal Fleury persuaded the King to issue a decree that Unigenitus was the law of France as well as that of the Church. The government and church imposed repressive measures. On 27 April 1732,
17876-403: The Great in 1717; at their first meeting and contrary to ordinary protocol between such great rulers, the two-meter-tall Tsar greeted Louis by picking him up under the arms and giving him a kiss. Louis also learned the skills of horseback riding and hunting, which became great passions. In 1720, following the example of Louis XIV, Villeroy had the young Louis dance in public in two ballets—once at
18094-702: The Habsburg empire, or Louis's generals, who for a century had won glory fighting Austria. The King in Prussia had died on 31 May and was succeeded by his son Frederick the Great , a military genius with ambitions to expand Prussia's borders. The Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, supported by Frederick, challenged the succession of Maria Theresa, and on 17 December 1740 Frederick invaded the Austrian province of Silesia . The elderly Cardinal Fleury had too little energy left to oppose this war. Fleury sent his highest ranking general, Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle ,
18312-475: 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
18530-515: The Habsburgs since the early 16th century. As a result, the Ottoman Empire in 1740 renewed the French capitulations , which marked the supremacy of French trade in the Middle East. With these successes, Louis XV's prestige reached its highest point. In 1740 Frederick William I of Prussia declared "Since the Treaty of Vienna France is the arbiter of Europe." On 29 October 1740, a courier brought
18748-459: 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
18966-586: The Indian Ocean ( Réunion ), the Far East, and a few African trading posts. Although Paris was the capital of France, the later Valois kings largely abandoned the city as their primary residence, preferring instead various châteaux of the Loire Valley and Parisian countryside. Henry IV made Paris his primary residence (promoting a major building boom in private mansions), but Louis XIV once again withdrew from
19184-643: 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 (1516) , 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. A growing urban-based Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots ) faced ever harsher repression under
19402-555: The Jansenists and the so-called "Gallicans" in Parlements of nobles. After the dismissal of 139 members of provincial parlements for opposing the official government and papal doctrine of Unigenitus , the Parlement of Paris had to register the Unigenitus papal bull and was forbidden to hear religious cases in the future. In the first years of his governance, Fleury and his foreign minister Germain Louis Chauvelin sought to maintain
19620-469: The King and Parlement was fought over the status of the Hôpital Général , a semi-religious organization which operated six different hospitals and shelters in Paris, with a staff of some five thousand persons. Many of the hospital staff and officials were Jansenists, while the board of directors of the hospital included many prominent members of the Parlement of Paris . In 1749, the King decided to purge
19838-482: The King by sentencing Damiens to the most severe possible penalty. On 28–29 March 1757 Damiens was executed on the Place de Grève in Paris by drawing and quartering, following which his body was burned on a bonfire. The house where he was born was burned down, his father, wife and daughter were banished from France, and his brothers and sisters were required to change their name. The King recovered physically very quickly, but
20056-569: The King left Versailles in order to take personal command of his armies fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession. This otherwise popular move was marred by the King's indiscreet decision to bring along Marie Anne. When Marie Anne visited the King in Metz in August 1744 she was accompanied by her sister Diane Adélaïde de Mailly . While an amiable companion, Marie Anne did not consider her simple sister to be much of
20274-419: The King recovered he made a triumphal entry into Paris. On 25 November, Minister Maurepas was obliged to recall Marie Anne to Versailles, but she soon fell sick with convulsive pains and died on 8 December 1744. Following her death the King consoled himself with Diane Adélaïde until he met Madame de Pompadour in 1745. The King's adultery confession, which was distributed publicly, embarrassed him and tarnished
20492-464: The King to go into mourning and for a time he turned to religion for consolation. When the King finally recovered his spirits, Louise Julie introduced the King to her youngest sister, Marie Anne de Mailly . The King was immediately attracted to Marie Anne, however she insisted that he expel her older sister from the Court before she would become his mistress. The King gave in, and on 4 October 1742, Marie Anne
20710-560: The King told him, "You see what a victory costs. The blood of our enemies is still the blood of men. The true glory is to spare it." Saxe went on to win further victories at Rocoux (1746) and Lauffeld (1747). In 1746 French forces besieged and occupied Brussels , which Louis entered in triumph. The King gave de Saxe the Chateau de Chambord in the Loire Valley as a reward for his victories. After Fleury's death in January 1743, his war minister,
20928-458: The King's guards and attacked the King, stabbing him in the side with a small knife. The King's guards seized Damiens, and the King ordered them to hold him but not harm him. The King walked up the steps to his rooms at the Trianon, where he found he was bleeding profusely. He summoned his doctor and a priest, and then fainted. Louis was saved from greater harm by the thickness of the winter clothing he
21146-450: The King. She was deeply upset by the death of her son the Dauphin in 1765, and died on 24 June 1768. One of the first serious conflicts that disturbed the early reign of Louis XV was a battle within the Catholic Church over a Papal Bull called Unigenitus . The Bull was requested by Louis XIV of Pope Clement XI and granted on 8 September 1713. It was a fierce condemnation of Jansenism ,
21364-460: The Kingdom of France must be governed by a regent until a given king had reached the age of 13. The title of regent was customarily assigned to an under-aged king's nearest adult living relative, often his mother or an uncle. But as Louis's mother had been struck down by disease, and as his only uncle had already been enthroned as King of Spain, the job fell to his great-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans . However Louis XIV had distrusted Philippe, who
21582-740: The Lancastrian side in The Wars of the Roses . France and England signed the Treaty of Picquigny in 1475 — the official end date of the Hundred Years' War. In 1492 and 1493, after supporting the victorious House of Tudor in the Battle of Bosworth Field , Charles VIII of France signed three additional treaties with Henry VII of England , Maximilian I of Habsburg , and Ferdinand II of Aragon respectively at Étaples (1492), Senlis (1493) and in Barcelona (1493). As
21800-668: The Maréchal de Belle-Isle, the grandson of Nicolas Fouquet , the famous disgraced controller of finances of Louis XIV, as his ambassador to the Diet of Frankfurt, with instructions to avoid a war by supporting the candidacy of the Elector of Bavaria to the Austrian throne. Instead, the Maréchal, who detested the Austrians, made an agreement to join with the Prussians against Austria, and the war began. French and Bavarian armies quickly captured Linz and laid siege to Prague . On 10 April 1741 Frederick won
22018-562: The Navy and household of the King, the Conte de Maurepas, was in office the entire period. In all he had just thirteen ministers over the course of nineteen years, while the King, in his last thirty-one years, employed forty-three. Louis's Controller-General of Finances Michel Robert Le Peletier des Forts (1726–1730), stabilized the French currency, though he was expelled for enriching himself in 1730. His successor, Philibert Orry , substantially reduced
22236-565: The Netherlands and in Italy, where Maréchal Belle-Isle was besieging the Austrians in Genoa. By the summer of 1747 France occupied the entire Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). In March 1748, Louis proposed a conference in Aix-la-Chapelle to bring the war to an end. The process was advanced by the capture of Maastricht by the Maréchal de Saxe on 10 April 1748. Britain, pressed by the threat of
22454-493: The Netherlands in person, and French field command was given to the German-born Maréchal Maurice de Saxe , a highly competent general. At the Battle of Fontenoy on 11 May 1745, Louis, accompanied by his young son the Dauphin, came under fire for the first time and witnessed a French victory over combined British, Dutch and Austrian forces. When the Dauphin became excited at the sight of so many dead enemy soldiers,
22672-532: 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 1688, the anti-French " Grand Alliance " of 1689
22890-536: The Parlement of Paris, officially ending the regency. Philippe continued to manage the government, and took the title of Prime Minister in August 1723, but while visiting his mistress, far from the court and medical care, he died in December of the same year. Following the advice of his preceptor Fleury, Louis XV appointed his cousin Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon , to replace the late Duke of Orléans as prime minister. One of
23108-508: The Parlement, and the Parlement, without taking any action, went on vacation. On 20 November, when the Parlement returned, the King again summoned de Maupeou for an audience and again demanded action without delay. This time the Parlement members met but refused to discuss the Hospital. On 28 January 1752, the King instructed the Grand Council to change the administration of the Hospital without
23326-566: The Queen's entreaties to allow its performance. Over the next three years, Beaumarchais gave many private readings of the play, as well as making revisions to try to pass the censor. The King finally relented and lifted the ban in 1784. The play premiered that year and was enormously popular even with aristocratic audiences. Mozart's opera based on the play, Le Nozze di Figaro premiered just two years later in Vienna. Beaumarchais's final play, La Mère coupable , premiered in 1792 in Paris. In homage to
23544-594: The Spanish style." Naturally, this thinly veiled government criticism did not go without opposition. Upon first reading a manuscript of Beaumarchais's play, King Louis XVI stated that "this man mocks everything that must be respected in a government" and refused to let it be performed. To a lesser degree, the Figaro plays are semi-autobiographical. Don Guzman Brid'oison ( Le Mariage ) and Bégearss ( La Mère ) were caricatures of two of Beaumarchais's real-life adversaries, Goezman and Bergasse. The page Chérubin ( Le Mariage ) resembled
23762-684: The Tuileries Palace on 24 February 1720, and then again in The Ballet des Elements on 31 December 1721. The shy Louis was terrified of these performances, and never danced in another ballet. The King's tutor was the Abbé André-Hercule de Fleury , the bishop of Fréjus (and later to become Cardinal de Fleury), who saw that he was instructed in Latin, Italian, history and geography, astronomy, mathematics and drawing, and cartography. The King had charmed
23980-515: 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 1776. They were replaced by Jacques Necker . Necker had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by Calonne and Brienne , before being restored in 1788. A harsh winter that year led to widespread food shortages, and by then France
24198-413: The affair into a play, but decided to leave it to others—including Goethe , who wrote Clavigo in 1774. Beaumarchais hoped to be made consul to Spain, but his application was rejected. Instead he concentrated on developing his business affairs and began to show an interest in writing plays. He had already experimented in writing short farces for private audiences, but he now had ambitions to write for
24416-533: The age of seven, the King was taken away in tears from his beloved governess Madame Ventadour and placed in the care of François de Villeroy , the 73-year-old Duke and Maréchal de France , named as his governor in Louis XIV's will of August 1714. Villeroy instructed the young King in court etiquette, taught him how to review a regiment, and how to receive royal visitors. His guests included the Russian Tsar Peter
24634-467: The ancestral home of George II . However, the best French commander, Maurice de Saxe , had died two years after the War of the Austrian Succession , and his successors, the Prince de Soubise , the Duke D'Estrees and the Duke de Broglie detested each other, and were rarely willing to cooperate. In August Frederick of Prussia made a lightning strike into Saxony and on 5 November 1757, though outnumbered by
24852-449: The approval of the Parlement . Voltaire, describing the affair, wrote, "Never before has such a small affair caused such a great emotion of the spirit." It was the first overt disobedience of the legislature against the King, and one of the first signs that the Parlement believed it, not the King, was the legitimate source of laws in the nation. The King's original plans to tax the church also ran into difficulty. A royal decree ordered all
25070-451: The arts, as well as religious establishments. She remained close to the King until her death in 1764. He was devastated, and remained in seclusion for several weeks after she died. The peace achieved by Louis with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle lasted only seven years. At the end of August 1755, Marie Therese , the Empress of Austria, discreetly wrote a letter to Louis XV, which was passed by
25288-613: The assassination of both Henry of Guise (1588) and Henry III (1589), 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 1592) effective in 1593, his acceptance by most of the Catholic establishment (1594) and by the Pope (1595), and his issue of the toleration decree known as
25506-423: The attack had a depressive effect on his spirits. One of his chief courtiers, Duford de Cheverny, wrote afterwards: "it was easy to see that when members of the court congratulated him on his recovery, he replied, 'yes, the body is going well', but touched his head and said, 'but this goes badly, and this is impossible to heal.'" After the assassination attempt, the King invited his heir, the Dauphin, to attend all of
25724-504: The boys, only the elder, the Dauphin Louis (1729–1765), survived childhood. While he did not live to rule, his birth as the awaited heir was welcomed with celebration in all spheres of French society. (The Dauphin Louis would go on to marry Maria Josephina of Saxony in 1747, who gave birth to the next three Kings of France: Louis XVI , Louis XVIII , and Charles X ). Louis XV's second son,
25942-475: The city in the last decades of his reign and Versailles became the primary seat of the French monarchy for much of the following century. The administrative and legal system in France in this period is generally called the Ancien Régime . The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348. The concurrent Hundred Years' War slowed recovery. It would be
26160-416: The clergy to submit a declaration of their revenue by 17 February 1751, but that day passed without any declarations given. Instead it became known that the King had quietly issued a new decree in December 1750, canceling the tax and relying again, entirely, on the " don gratuit ", the voluntary donation by the church of 1,500,000 livres. Under the new decree, instead of a tax, the church would each year collect
26378-408: The clothing of your toops; and lead for musket balls. This policy came to fruition in 1777 when John Burgoyne 's army capitulated at Saratoga to a rebel force largely clothed and armed by the supplies Beaumarchais had been sending; it marked a personal triumph for him. Beaumarchais was injured in a carriage accident while racing into Paris with news of Saratoga. In April 1777, Beaumarchais purchased
26596-484: 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
26814-506: The country, repealing the Edict of Nantes in 1685. 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 ,
27032-404: The court of Louis XV as an inventor and music teacher. He made a number of important business and social contacts, played various roles as a diplomat and spy, and had earned a considerable fortune before a series of costly court battles jeopardized his reputation. An early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais lobbied the French government on behalf of the American rebels during
27250-517: The crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and ushered a short period of peace. For most of the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), France was the dominant power in Europe, aided by the diplomacy of Richelieu's successor (1642–1661) Cardinal Mazarin and the economic policies (1661–1683) 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
27468-459: The death of both the Grand and Petit dauphins, Louis's elder brother immediately became Dauphin of France , but just over two weeks further still, on 7 March, it was found that both the elder Louis and the younger Louis had also contracted measles. The two brothers were treated in the traditional way, with bloodletting . On the night of 8–9 March, the new Dauphin, age five, died from the combination of
27686-505: The debt caused by the War of the Spanish Succession, and simplified and made more fair the tax system, though he still had to depend upon the unpopular dixieme , or tax of the tenth of the revenue of every citizen. Orry managed, in the last two years of Fleury's government, to balance the royal budget, an accomplishment never again repeated during the rest of the reign. Fleury's government expanded commerce, both within France and with
27904-486: The disastrous Seven Years' War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Corsican Republic into the Kingdom of France. Historians generally criticize his reign, citing how reports of his corruption embarrassed the monarchy, while his wars drained the treasury and produced little gain. However, a minority of scholars argue that he was popular during his lifetime, but that his reputation
28122-464: The disease and the treatment. The governess of Louis, Madame de Ventadour , forbade the doctors to bleed the two year old Duke of Anjou by hiding him in a palace closet where she cared for him alone; where he survived despite being very ill. When Louis XIV himself finally died on 1 September 1715, Louis, at the age of five, trembling and crying and against all probability, inherited the throne as Louis XV. According to Charles V's royal ordinance of 1374
28340-430: The early 16th century before the population recovered to mid-14th-century levels. With an estimated population of 11 million in 1400, 20 million in the 17th century, and 28 million in 1789, until 1795 France was the most populated country in Europe (even twice the size of Britain or the Dutch Republic ) and the third most populous country in the world, behind only China and India. These demographic changes also led to
28558-447: 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 1519, 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
28776-525: The eternal object of jealousy." Louis lacked the communicative skills to explain his decision to the French public, and further, did not see any need to do so. The news that the King had returned the Southern Netherlands to Austria was met with disbelief and bitterness. The French obtained so little of what they had fought for that they adopted the expressions Bête comme la paix ("Stupid as the peace") and Travailler pour le roi de Prusse ("To work for
28994-693: The figure of the "Sun King", Louis XIV (his reign of 1643–1715 being one of the longest in history ), who managed to eliminate the remnants of medieval feudalism and established a centralized state under an absolute monarch , a system that would endure until the French Revolution and beyond . In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon , Cerdagne , Calais , Béarn , Navarre , County of Foix , Flanders , Artois , Lorraine , Alsace , Trois-Évêchés , Franche-Comté , Savoy , Bresse , Bugey , Gex , Nice , Provence , Corsica and Brittany ) were autonomous or foreign-held (as by
29212-497: The first priorities of the Duke of Bourbon was to find a bride for the King, to assure the continuity of the monarchy, and especially to prevent the succession to the throne of the Orléans branch of the family, the rivals of his branch. A list of 99 princesses was prepared, among them being Princess Anne of Great Britain , Barbara of Portugal , Princess Charlotte Amalie of Denmark , Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine , Enrichetta d'Este and
29430-546: The focus of the war to Flanders , where Philip, in conjunction with Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy , defeated the French at St. Quentin . England's entry into the war later that year led to the French capture of Calais , England's last possession on the French mainland, and French armies plundered Spanish possessions in the Low Countries ; but Henry was nonetheless forced to accept the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis , in which he renounced any further claims to Italy. Barely were
29648-469: 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 1525, 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
29866-470: The great French playwright Molière , Beaumarchais also dubbed La Mère coupable "The Other Tartuffe ". All three Figaro plays enjoyed great success, and are still frequently performed today in theatres and opera houses. The death of Duverney on 17 July 1770 triggered a decade of turmoil for Beaumarchais. A few months earlier, the two had signed a statement cancelling all debts that Beaumarchais owed Duverney (about 75,000 pounds), and granting Beaumarchais
30084-633: The heir presumptive to the Habsburg thrones. The vacant throne of Lorraine was to be occupied by Stanislaus, who abandoned his claim to the Polish throne. Upon the death of Stanislaus, the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar would become part of France. Francis, as the future emperor, would be compensated for the loss of Lorraine by the granting of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany . The King of Sardinia would be compensated with certain territories in Lombardy. The marriage of Francis of Lorraine and Maria Theresa took place in 1736, and
30302-466: The hospital of Jansenists and corruption, appointed a new "Supérieure" against the will of the administrators, who resigned, then appointed four temporary administrators, and asked the First President of the Parlement of Paris, René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou , to implement his decree for the reorganization of the hospital. De Maupeou refused to carry out the decree without the authorization of
30520-539: The idea for himself, writing a letter to the French Academy of Sciences describing the "Lepaute system". Beaumarchais was outraged when he read in the September issue of Le Mercure de France that M. Lepaute had just invented the most wonderful mechanism for a more portable clock and wrote a strongly-worded letter to that same newspaper defending the invention as his own and urging the French Academy of Sciences to see
30738-427: 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 200. The size of the army was also considerably increased. Starting in the 1670s, 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
30956-459: The killing of French envoy, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville , the French sent reinforcements and compelled Washington and his men to withdraw. The undeclared French and Indian War followed, with British and French colonies in North America engaging in open conflict. By the end of 1755, British ships had captured over 300 French merchantmen. In January 1756, Louis sent an ultimatum to London, which
31174-512: The king of Prussia", i.e. working for nothing). Louis had been very much in love with the Queen, and they were inseparable in the early years of his reign, but as his family grew, and the Queen was constantly pregnant or exhausted by her maternities, he began to look elsewhere. He first became attached to one of the ladies of the Queen's court, Louise Julie de Mailly , who was the same age as he and from an ancient noble family. Without courtship or ceremony, he made her his mistress, and raised her to
31392-474: The king to discuss politics with the Queen. In order to save on court expenses, he sent the youngest four daughters of the king to be educated at the Abbey of Fontevrault. On the surface it was the most peaceful and prosperous period of the reign of Louis XV, but it was built upon a growing volcano of opposition, particularly from the noble members of the Parlements, who saw their privileges and power reduced. Fleury made
31610-416: The king took sole control of the kingdom. His reign of almost 59 years (from 1715 to 1774) was the second longest in the history of France, exceeded only by his predecessor, Louis XIV, who had ruled for 72 years (from 1643 to 1715). In 1748, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands , won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745. He ceded New France in North America to Great Britain and Spain at the conclusion of
31828-406: The king's mistresses were widely distributed and read. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson , better known as Madame de Pompadour, was the most famous and influential of the mistresses of Louis XV. She was the illegitimate daughter of a Paris fermier-general , and was married to a banker, Charles Guillaume Lenormant d'Étoiles . She was noticed by the King following one of his hunts, and formally met him at
32046-462: The language for legal and juridical acts.) Nevertheless, in 1790, only half of the population spoke or understood standard French. The southern half of the country continued to speak Occitan languages (such as Provençal ), and other inhabitants spoke Breton , Catalan , Basque , Dutch ( West Flemish ), and Franco-Provençal . In the north of France, regional dialects of the various langues d'oïl continued to be spoken in rural communities. During
32264-402: The laws of succession instituted by Louis XIV, and, as his oldest surviving male descendant, could now legally become king if the legitimate direct line of succession became extinguished. In August 1714, shortly before his own death, the King rewrote his will to restrict the powers of the regent; it stipulated that the nation was to be governed by a Regency Council made up of fourteen members until
32482-624: The marriage was called off. Beaumarchais's business deals dragged on, and he spent much of his time soaking up the atmosphere of Spain, which would become a major influence on his later writings. Although he befriended important figures such as the foreign minister Grimaldi , his attempts to secure the contracts for Duverney eventually came to nothing and he went home in March 1765. Although Beaumarchais returned to France with little profit, he had managed to acquire new experience, musical ideas, and ideas for theatrical characters. Beaumarchais considered turning
32700-420: The modest sum of 15,000 pounds. Duverney's sole heir, Count de la Blache, took Beaumarchais to court, claiming the signed statement was a forgery. Although the 1772 verdict favoured Beaumarchais, it was overturned on appeal the following year by a judge, a magistrate named Goezman, whom Beaumarchais tried in vain to bribe. At the same time, Beaumarchais was also involved in a dispute with the Duke de Chaulnes over
32918-426: The new king reached the age of majority. Philippe, nephew of Louis XIV, was named president of this Council, but other members included the Duke of Maine and at least seven of his well-known allies. According to the will, all decisions were to be made by majority vote, meaning that the president could always be outvoted by Maine's party and effectively allowing Maine to rule France for the next eight years. Philippe saw
33136-562: The news to the King, who was hunting in Fontainebleau, that the Emperor Charles VI was dead, and his daughter Maria Theresa was set to succeed him. After two days of reflection, Louis declared, "In these circumstances, I don't want to get involved at all. I will remain with my hands in my pockets, unless of course they want to elect a Protestant emperor." This attitude did not please France's allies, who saw an opportunity to take parts of
33354-548: The next century. 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. Ludovico Sforza , the Duke of Milan, seeking an ally against the Republic of Venice , encouraged Charles VIII of France to invade Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples , then under Aragonese control, as
33572-535: The old 50-gun ship of the line Hippopotame , and used her, renamed to Fier Rodrigue , to ferry arms to the insurgents. Beaumarchais had dealt with Silas Deane , an acting member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence in the Second Continental Congress . For these services, the French Parliament reinstated Beaumarchais's civil rights in 1776. In 1778, Beaumarchais' hopes were fulfilled when
33790-492: The other exchanges took place in turn. With the death of Stanislaus in 1766, Lorraine and the neighboring Duchy of Bar became part of France. In September 1739, Fleury scored another diplomatic success. France's mediation in the war between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire led to the Treaty of Belgrade (September 1739), which favoured the Ottoman Empire, beneficiary of a Franco-Ottoman alliance against
34008-503: 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. 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 1667–1668 and
34226-454: The others. Upon Louis XV's death, his grandson Louis XVI became king. Initially popular, he too came to be widely detested by the 1780s. Again a weak ruler, he was married to an Austrian archduchess, Marie Antoinette , whose naïvety and cloistered/alienated Versailles life permitted ignorance of the true extravagance and wasteful use of borrowed money (Marie Antoinette was significantly more frugal than her predecessors). French intervention in
34444-579: The papal doctrine Unigenitus part of French law and forbade any debate in Parlement, which caused the silent opposition to grow. He also downplayed the importance of the French Navy, which would prove be a fatal mistake in future conflicts. Fleury showed the King the virtues of a stable government; he kept the same Minister of War, Bauyn d'Angervilliers, and controller of the currency, Philibert Orry , for twelve years, and his minister of foreign affairs, Germain Louis Chauvelin , for ten years. His minister of
34662-525: The peace by maintaining the French alliance with Great Britain, despite their colonial rivalry in North America and the West Indies . They also rebuilt the alliance with Spain, which had been shaken by the anger of the Spanish King when Louis refused to marry the Spanish infanta . The birth of the king's male heir in 1729 dispelled the risks of a succession crisis in France. However, new powers were emerging on
34880-415: The period 1550–1850 as the " Little Ice Age ".) Between 1693 and 1694, France lost 6% of its population. In the extremely harsh winter of 1709, France lost 3.5% of its population. In the past 300 years, no period has been so proportionally deadly for the French, both World Wars included. Linguistically, the differences in France were extreme. Before the Renaissance, the language spoken in the north of France
35098-407: The prestige of the monarchy. Although Louis XV's recovery earned him the epithet "well-beloved" from a public relieved by his survival, the events at Metz diminished his standing. The military successes of the War of the Austrian Succession inclined the French public to overlook Louis' adulteries, but after 1748, in the wake of the anger over the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, pamphlets against
35316-514: The proof for themselves. "In the interests of truth and my reputation," he says, "I cannot let such an infidelity go by in silence and must claim as mine the invention of this device." Lepaute defended himself with a statement by three Jesuits that claimed he had shown them such a mechanism in May 1753. The following February, the Academy indeed ruled that the mechanism was Beaumarchais' and not Lepaute's, catapulting Beaumarchais to stardom and relegating Lepaute to infamy, as l'affaire Lepaute had been
35534-430: The property of others by fraud or violence. Louis often cited a Latin maxim declaring, "if anyone who asks by what means he can best defend a kingdom, the answer is, by never wishing to augment it." He also received support from Voltaire, who wrote, "It seems better, and even more useful for the court of France to think about the happiness of its allies, rather than to be given two or three Flemish towns which would have been
35752-403: The provinces, which had their own parlements . While the Parlements of Burgundy, Provence and Artois bowed to the King's demands, Brittany and Languedoc refused. The royal government closed down the Parlement of Brittany, ordered the members of the Parlement of Languedoc to return to their estates and parishes, and took direct control of the Provence. Within Paris, the battle between
35970-418: The public at the time saw Beaumarchais as a champion for social justice and liberty. Goezman countered Beaumarchais's accusations by launching a lawsuit of his own. The verdict was equivocal. On 26 February 1774, both Beaumarchais and Mme. Goezman (who had taken the bribe from Beaumarchais) were sentenced to "blâme" meaning they were nominally deprived of their civil rights. Naturally, Beaumarchais followed few of
36188-431: The publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke in February 1779. To evade French censorship, he set up the Société littéraire typographique de Kehl in nearby Germany. The company, at its peak, became the largest printing works in Europe. He bought the complete foundry of the famous English type designer John Baskerville from his widow and also purchased three paper mills. Seventy volumes were published between 1783 and 1790. While
36406-450: The rank of Duchess. The Duke of Luynes commented on the King's behavior: "The King loves women, and yet there is absolutely no gallantry in his spirit." In 1738, after the Queen lost an unborn child, her doctors forbade her to have relations with the King for a time. The King was offended by her refusal and thereafter never shared her bed. Acknowledging that he was committing adultery, Louis refused thereafter to go to confession and to take
36624-399: The rebellion for the French government and sent a regular stream of reports with exaggerated rumours of the size of the success of the rebel forces blockading Boston . Once back in France, Beaumarchais began work on a new operation. Louis XVI, who did not want to break openly with Britain , allowed Beaumarchais to found a commercial enterprise, Roderigue Hortalez and Company , supported by
36842-612: The rest of the world. Transportation and shipping were improved with the completion of the Saint-Quentin canal (linking the Oise and Somme rivers) in 1738, which was later extended to the Escaut River and the Low Countries , and the systematic building of a national road network. By the middle of the 18th century, France had the most modern and extensive road network in the world. The Council of Commerce stimulated trade, and French foreign maritime trade increased from 80 to 308 million livres between 1716 and 1748. The Government continued its policy of religious repression, aimed at
37060-450: The restrictions placed upon him. Magistrate Goezman was removed from his post. At the same time, Goezman's verdict in the La Blache case was overturned. The Goezman case was so sensational that the judges left the courtroom through a back door to avoid the large, angry mob waiting in front of the court house. Before France officially entered the war in 1778, Beaumarchais played a major role in delivering French munitions, money and supplies to
37278-439: The right of the king to govern nor did they question the Church. The reign (1715–1774) of Louis XV saw an initial return to peace and prosperity under the regency (1715–1723) of Philip II, Duke of Orléans , whose policies were largely continued (1726–1743) by Cardinal Fleury , prime minister in all but name. The exhaustion of Europe after two major wars resulted in a long period of peace, only interrupted by minor conflicts like
37496-458: The right to challenge a king's decisions – which had been removed by Louis XIV. The droit de remontrance would impair the monarchy's functioning and marked the beginning of a conflict between the Parlement and King which contributed to the French Revolution in 1789. In the mean time, however, the will was annulled and Philippe was installed as Regent with full powers to act in the name of the King in all matters. On 9 September 1715, Philippe had
37714-405: The right to import slaves to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Beaumarchais went to Madrid with a letter of introduction from the Duc de Choiseul , who was now his political patron. Hoping to secure Clavijo's support for his business deals by binding him by marriage, Beaumarchais initially shamed Clavijo into agreeing to marry Lisette, but when further details emerged about Clavijo's conduct,
37932-434: The rule of Francis I's son King Henry II . After Henry II's unfortunate death in a joust, the country was ruled by his widow Catherine de' Medici and her sons Francis II , Charles IX and Henry III . Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1562), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion , during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on
38150-565: The sacrament. The Cardinal de Fleury tried to persuade him to confess and to give up his mistress, but without success. In 1738, the King turned his attentions to the sister of Louise Julie, Pauline Félicité de Mailly . Pauline Félicité became pregnant in 1740, allegedly by the King, and subsequently died during childbirth (The illegitimate son of the King and Pauline Félicité came to be known as "Demi-Louis" due to his visual resemblance to his father who took care of his financial needs but gave him little attention.). Pauline Félicité's death caused
38368-409: 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 . The Wars of Religion culminated in the War of the Three Henrys in which Henry III assassinated Henry de Guise , leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic league , and the king was murdered in return. After
38586-411: The superintendent of French finance, was forced to reinstate the highly unpopular dixieme tax to fund the war. Cardinal de Fleury did not live to see the end of the conflict; he died on 29 January 1743, and thereafter Louis ruled alone. The war in Germany was not going well; the French and Bavarian forces were faced with the combined armies of Austria, Saxony, Holland, Sardinia and Hanover. The army of
38804-413: The talk of Paris. Soon afterwards, he was asked by King Louis XV to create a watch mounted on a ring for his mistress Madame de Pompadour . Louis was so impressed by the result that he named Beaumarchais "Purveyor to the King", and the Caron family business became prosperous. In 1755 Beaumarchais met Madeleine-Catherine Aubertin, a widow, and married her the following year. She helped Beaumarchais secure
39022-489: The taste for a classicized baroque that would characterise the French Baroque , epitomised in the Académie de peinture et de sculpture , in the painting of Charles Le Brun and the sculpture of François Girardon . With the Palais du Luxembourg , the Château de Maisons and Vaux-le-Vicomte , French classical architecture was admired abroad even before the creation of Versailles or Perrault's Louvre colonnade. Parisian salon culture set standards of discriminating taste from
39240-463: The territories he had conquered in the Netherlands to the Austrians, Maastricht to the Dutch, Nice and Savoy to the Sardinians, and Madras in India to the English. The Austrians would give the Duchy of Parma and some other territory to the Spanish Infante , Philip , while Britain would return to France Louisbourg and the island of Cape Breton . France also agreed to expel the Stuart pretender Charles Edward Stuart from its territory. The end of
39458-480: The theatre. His name as a writer was established with his first dramatic play, Eugénie , which premiered at the Comédie-Française in 1767. This was followed in 1770 by another drama, Les Deux amis [ de ; fr ] . Beaumarchais's Figaro plays are Le Barbier de Séville , Le Mariage de Figaro , and La Mère coupable . Figaro and Count Almaviva, the two characters Beaumarchais most likely conceived in his travels in Spain, are (with Rosine, later
39676-459: 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
39894-418: 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 1553 was defeated at the Battle of Marciano . Charles's abdication in 1556 split the Habsburg empire between Philip II of Spain and Ferdinand I , and shifted
40112-412: The title of Secretary-Councillor to the King in 1760–61, thereby gaining access to French nobility. This was followed by the purchase in 1763 of a second title, the office of Lieutenant General of Hunting, a position which oversaw the royal parks. Around this time, he became engaged to Pauline Le Breton, who came from a plantation -owning family from Saint-Domingue , but broke it off when he discovered she
40330-447: The trap. The Parlement of Paris , an assembly of French nobles among whom Philippe had many friends, was the only judicial body in France with the authority to have this portion of the deceased King's will annulled, and immediately after the King's death Philippe approached the Parlement requesting that they do just this. In exchange for their support he agreed to restore to the Parlement its droit de remontrance (right of remonstrance) –
40548-501: The venture proved a financial failure, Beaumarchais was instrumental in preserving many of Voltaire's later works which otherwise might have been lost. It was not long before Beaumarchais crossed paths again with the French legal system. In 1787, he became acquainted with Mme. Kornmann, who was implicated and imprisoned in an adultery suit, which was filed by her husband to expropriate her dowry. The matter went to court, with Beaumarchais siding with Mme. Kornmann, and M. Kornmann assisted by
40766-404: The visiting Russian Tsar in 1717 by identifying the major rivers, cities and geographic features of Russia. In his later life the King retained his passion for science and geography; he created departments in physics (1769) and mechanics (1773) at the Collège de France , and he sponsored the first complete and accurate map of France, the Cartes de Cassini. Besides his academic studies, he received
40984-401: The war had caused celebration in Paris, but the publication of the details of the treaty on 14 January 1749 caused dismay and anger. The Stuart pretender Charles Edward Stuart refused to leave Paris and was acclaimed by the Parisians. He was finally arrested on 10 December 1748, and transported by force to Switzerland. The French military commanders, including de Saxe, were furious about giving up
41202-415: The war, leaving Turin in French hands but effecting no significant change in the map of Italy. Francis, allying himself with Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire , launched a final invasion of Italy. A Franco-Ottoman fleet captured the city of Nice in August 1543, and laid siege to the citadel. The defenders were relieved within a month. The French, under François, Count d'Enghien, defeated an Imperial army at
41420-421: The young King transported away from the court in Versailles to Paris, where the Regent had his own residence in the Palais Royal . On 12 September, the King performed his first official act, opening the first lit de justice of his reign at the Palais Royal. From September 1715 until January 1716 he lived in the Château de Vincennes , before moving to the Tuileries Palace . In February 1717, when he had reached
41638-419: The youthful Beaumarchais, who did contemplate suicide when his love was to marry another. Suzanne, the heroine of Le Mariage and La Mère , was modelled after Beaumarchais's third wife, Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz. Meanwhile, some of the Count's monologues reflect on the playwright's remorse over his numerous sexual exploits. Le Barbier premiered in Paris in 1775. An English translation premiered in London
41856-403: Was Jean-André Lepaute , the royal clockmaker in France, whose clocks could be found in the Palais du Luxembourg , Tuileries Palace , the Palais-Royal , and the Jardin des plantes . Lepaute had been a mentor to Beaumarchais after discovering the boy's talent in a chance encounter in the Caron family's shop. He encouraged him as he worked on the new invention, earned his trust, and promptly stole
42074-474: Was a collection of different dialects called Oïl languages whereas the written and administrative language remained Latin . By the 16th century, there had developed a standardised form of French (called Middle French ) which would be the basis of the standardised "modern" French of the 17th and 18th century which in turn became the lingua franca of the European continent. (In 1539, with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts , Francis I of France made French alone
42292-465: Was a powder keg ready to explode. On the eve of the French Revolution of 1789, France was in a profound institutional and financial crisis, but the ideas of the Enlightenment had begun to permeate the educated classes of society. On 1792 September 21 the French monarchy was effectively abolished by the proclamation of the French First Republic . Valois (1328–1498) Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis
42510-403: Was a renowned soldier but was regarded by the late King as an atheist and libertine. The King referred privately to Philippe as a Fanfaron des crimes ("braggart of crimes"). Louis XIV had desired for France to be ruled by his favorite but illegitimate son, the Duke of Maine (illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan ), who was in the council and who, because of a dramatic change in
42728-562: Was also the librettist for Antonio Salieri 's opera Tarare , which premiered in Paris in 1787. Beaumarchais married three times. His first wife was Madeleine-Catherine Franquet (née Aubertin), whom he married on 22 November 1756; she died under mysterious circumstances only 10 months later. He married Geneviève-Madeleine Lévêque (née Wattebled) in 1768. Again, the second Mme. de Beaumarchais died under mysterious circumstances two years later, though most scholars believed she actually suffered from tuberculosis . Before her death in 1770, she bore
42946-520: Was appointed to teach Louis XV's four daughters the harp . His role soon grew and he became a musical advisor for the royal family. In 1759, Caron met Joseph Paris Duverney , an older and wealthy entrepreneur. Beaumarchais assisted him in gaining the King's approval for the new military academy he was building, the École Royale Militaire , and in turn Duverney promised to help make him rich. The two became very close friends and collaborated on many business ventures. Assisted by Duverney, Beaumarchais acquired
43164-415: Was approved by the King and presented in two decrees issued in May 1749. The first measure was an issue of bonds, paying five percent interest, to pay off the 36 million livres of debt caused by the cost of the war. This new measure was an immediate success. The second measure was the abolition of the dixième , a tax of ten percent of revenue, which had been created to finance the war, and its replacement by
43382-405: Was born in the Palace of Versailles on 15 February 1710 and was immediately styled the Duke of Anjou. At this time, the possibility of the Duke of Anjou becoming the next king seemed rather remote as Louis XIV's eldest son and heir, Louis's paternal grandfather Louis Le Grand Dauphin , was expected to assume the throne upon the old king's death. Next in line to the throne behind the Grand Dauphin
43600-465: Was considered a domain of the nobles. 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 5000 cavalry and 30,000 infantry. The military was reorganized from a system of legions recruited by province (Norman legion, Gascon legion, etc.) to regiments, an arrangement which persisted into
43818-440: 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 1688 to 1697. France's resources were stretched to the breaking point by the cost of fielding an army of over 300,000 men and two naval squadrons. Famine in 1692–1693 killed up to two million people. The exhaustion of the powers brought the fighting to an end in 1697, by which time
44036-500: Was evicted by his father, only to be later allowed back after apologising for his poor behaviour. At the time, pocket watches were commonly unreliable for timekeeping and were worn more as fashion accessories. In response to this, Beaumarchais spent nearly a year researching improvements. In July 1753, at the age of twenty-one, he invented an escapement for watches that allowed them to be made substantially more accurate and compact. The first man to take an interest in this new invention
44254-430: Was expansive during all but the end of the 17th century: the French began trading in India and Madagascar , founded Quebec and penetrated the North American Great Lakes and Mississippi , established plantation economies in the West Indies and extended their trade contacts in the Levant and enlarged their merchant marine . Henry IV's son Louis XIII and his minister (1624–1642) Cardinal Richelieu , elaborated
44472-496: Was forced to flee to the fortified port of Danzig , while on 5 October Augustus III was crowned in Warsaw. Cardinal Fleury responded with a carefully orchestrated campaign of diplomacy. He first won assurances from Britain and Holland that they would not interfere in the war, while lining up alliances with Spain and Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia in exchange for pieces of the Habsburg monarchy . On 10 October 1733, Louis formally declared war against Austria. A French army occupied
44690-521: Was his eldest son- Louis's father Le Petit Dauphin and then Louis's elder brother, a child named Louis, Duke of Brittany. Disease, however, steered the line of succession forward three generations and sideways: on 14 April 1711 the Grand Dauphin, died of smallpox , and less than a year later, on 12 February 1712 the future king's mother, Marie Adélaïde, who had been stricken with measles , died, followed six days later by Louis's father, her devoted husband who would not leave her side during her illness. With
44908-435: Was later blackened by revolutionary propaganda. His grandson and successor Louis XVI inherited a large kingdom in need of financial and political reform which would ultimately lead to the French Revolution of 1789. Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV and the third son of the Duke of Burgundy (1682–1712), and his wife Marie Adélaïde of Savoy , who was the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy . He
45126-425: Was named a Lady of the Court of the Queen, and a month later the King ordered her older sister to leave the Court and to live in Paris. The King made his new mistress the Duchess of Châteauroux. The King's relationships with the sisters became a subject of gossip in the court and in Paris, where a popular comic poem was recited, ending: "Choosing an entire family – is that being unfaithful, or constant?" In June 1744,
45344-431: Was not as wealthy as he had been led to believe. In April 1764, Beaumarchais began a ten-month sojourn in Madrid, ostensibly to help his sister, Lisette, who had been abandoned by her fiancé, Clavijo , an official at the Ministry of War. While in Spain, he was mostly concerned with striking business deals for Duverney. They sought exclusive contracts for the newly acquired Spanish colony of Louisiana and attempted to gain
45562-425: Was not in any way a despot in the 20th-century sense. 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 1789. Events such as the Frondes were a naïve, unrevolutionary discontent and the people did not challenge
45780-416: Was on the verge of collapse by 1709. In desperation, the king appealed to the French people to save their country, and in doing so gained thousands of new army recruits. Afterwards, his general Marshal Villars managed to drive back the allied forces. In 1714, 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
45998-501: Was one of the earliest banks to issue paper money, which he promised could be exchanged for gold. He also persuaded wealthy Parisians to invest in the Mississippi Company , a scheme for the colonization of the French territory of Louisiana. The stock of the company first soared and then collapsed in 1720, taking the bank with it. Law fled France, and wealthy Parisians became reluctant to make further investments or trust any currency but gold. In 1719, France, in alliance with Britain and
46216-438: 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 1515, the League collapsed, and by the treaties of Noyon and Brussels, surrendered to France and Venice
46434-529: Was rejected by the British government. A few months later, on 16 January 1756, Frederick the Great of Prussia signed the Treaty of Westminster , allying himself with Britain. Louis responded immediately on 1 May 1756 by sealing a formal defensive treaty with Austria, the first Treaty of Versailles , offering to defend Austria in case of a Prussian attack – a reversal of France's historic conflict with Austria. Louis declared war on Great Britain on 9 June 1756, confident of success. The French navy quickly defeated
46652-413: 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 1648. In September 1681, French troops occupied the city, which was at once strongly fortified. As the imperial armies were then busy fighting
46870-457: Was signed on 25 November 1721, and the future bride came to France and took up residence in the Louvre. However, after the death of the Regent, in 1725, the new Prime Minister decided she was too young to have children soon enough, and she was sent back to Spain. During the rest of the Regency, France was at peace, and in 1720, the Regent decreed an official silence on religious conflicts. Montesquieu and Voltaire published their first works, and
47088-462: Was the artist Suzanne Caron . From the age of ten, Beaumarchais had some schooling at a "country school" where he learned some Latin . Two years later, Beaumarchais left school at twelve to work as an apprentice under his father and learn the art of watchmaking. He may have used his own experiences during these years as the inspiration for the character of Cherubin when he wrote the Marriage of Figaro . He generally neglected his work, and at one point
47306-471: Was unable to complete the deal. While he was out of the country, Beaumarchais was falsely declared an émigré (a loyalist of the old regime) by his enemies. He spent two and a half years in exile, mostly in Germany, before his name was removed from the list of proscribed émigrés. He returned to Paris in 1796, where he lived out the remainder of his life in relative peace. He is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris
47524-403: Was wearing. When the news reached Paris, anxious crowds gathered in the streets. The Pope, the Archduchess of Austria, and King George II, with whom France was at war, sent messages hoping for his swift recovery. Damiens was tortured to see if he had accomplices, and was tried before the Parlement of Paris , which had been the most vocal critic of the King. The Parlement demonstrated its loyalty to
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