Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order , a religious order of the Catholic Church .
96-510: Although initially a male order, Cistercian female monasteries began to appear by 1125. The first Cistercian monastery for women, Le Tart Abbey , was established at Tart-l'Abbaye in the Diocese of Langres (now Dijon), in 1125, by nuns from the Benedictine monastery of Juilly, and with the co-operation of Stephen Harding , abbot of Cîteaux . At Juilly, a dependence of Molesme Abbey , Humbeline ,
192-466: A centralised state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France; by compelling many members of the nobility to reside at his lavish Palace of Versailles , he succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many of whom had participated in the Fronde rebellions during his minority. He thus became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated
288-479: A chief minister: "Up to this moment I have been pleased to entrust the government of my affairs to the late Cardinal. It is now time that I govern them myself. You [secretaries and ministers] will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them. I request and order you to seal no orders except by my command . . . I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport . . . without my command; to render account to me personally each day and to favor no one". Capitalizing on
384-529: A common diplomatic front against France, leading to the Triple Alliance , between England, the Dutch and Sweden . The threat of an escalation and a secret treaty to divide Spanish possessions with Emperor Leopold , the other major claimant to the throne of Spain, led Louis to relinquish many of his gains in the 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle . Louis placed little reliance on his agreement with Leopold and as it
480-508: A counterweight against his domestic Orangist opponents. Louis provided support in the 1665-1667 Second Anglo-Dutch War but used the opportunity to launch the War of Devolution in 1667. This captured Franche-Comté and much of the Spanish Netherlands ; French expansion in this area was a direct threat to Dutch economic interests. The Dutch opened talks with Charles II of England on
576-457: A favoured few. Financial officials were required to keep regular accounts, revising inventories and removing unauthorized exemptions: up to 1661 only 10 per cent of income from the royal domain reached the king. Reform had to overcome vested interests: the taille was collected by officers of the Crown who had purchased their post at a high price, and punishment of abuses necessarily lowered the value of
672-688: A powerful but war-weary kingdom, in major debt after the War of the Spanish Succession that had raged on since 1701. Some of his other notable achievements include the construction of the Canal du Midi , the patronage of artists , and the founding of the French Academy of Sciences . Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye , to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria . He
768-412: A result, and Anne was forced, under intense pressure, to free Broussel. Moreover, on the night of 9–10 February 1651, when Louis was twelve, a mob of angry Parisians broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king. Led into the royal bed-chamber, they gazed upon Louis, who was feigning sleep, were appeased, and then quietly departed. The threat to the royal family prompted Anne to flee Paris with
864-573: A secret marriage to Queen Anne. However, Louis's coming-of-age and subsequent coronation deprived them of the Frondeurs ' pretext for revolt. The Fronde thus gradually lost steam and ended in 1653, when Mazarin returned triumphantly from exile. From that time until his death, Mazarin was in charge of foreign and financial policy without the daily supervision of Anne, who was no longer regent. During this period, Louis fell in love with Mazarin's niece Marie Mancini , but Anne and Mazarin ended
960-484: A strong position and on the Spanish marriage. Additionally, Mazarin's relations with Marie Mancini were not good, and he did not trust her to support his position. All of Louis's tears and his supplications to his mother did not make her change her mind. The Spanish marriage would be very important both for its role in ending the war between France and Spain, because many of the claims and objectives of Louis's foreign policy for
1056-793: A system of absolute monarchy in France that endured until the French Revolution . Louis also enforced uniformity of religion under the Catholic Church . His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades , effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, virtually destroying the French Protestant community. During Louis's long reign, France emerged as
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#17328758810901152-478: The Vignoble de Bourgogne , others located at Beaune , Chambolle-Musigny , Morey-Saint-Denis , Chézeaux and Vosne-Romanée . Physical labour in the fields and vineyards was regarded as too strenuous for female religious, and the work was undertaken by lay brothers from Cîteaux. These were often in short supply, and the nuns were obliged to hire day-labourers to make up the shortfall. The abbot of Cîteaux also oversaw
1248-639: The Battle of Lens , Mazarin, on Queen Anne's insistence, arrested certain members in a show of force. The most important arrest, from Anne's point of view, concerned Pierre Broussel , one of the most important leaders in the Parlement de Paris . People in France were complaining about the expansion of royal authority, the high rate of taxation, and the reduction of the authority of the Parlement de Paris and other regional representative entities. Paris erupted in rioting as
1344-688: The Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal for three sisters to help him with his mission in Nova Scotia, established them there and, after probation, admitted them to the profession of simple vows of the Third Order of La Trappe. However, the community never in reality formed a part of the Order of Cîteaux nor wore the Cistercian habit. The Monastery of Our Lady of Good Counsel, at Saint-Romuald near Quebec City ,
1440-480: The Duchess of Longueville ; dukes of legitimised royal descent, such as Henri, Duke of Longueville , and François, Duke of Beaufort ; so-called " foreign princes " such as Frédéric Maurice, Duke of Bouillon , his brother Marshal Turenne , and Marie de Rohan , Duchess of Chevreuse; and scions of France's oldest families, such as François de La Rochefoucauld . Queen Anne played the most important role in defeating
1536-608: The Duke of Beaufort and Marie de Rohan , who conspired against him in 1643. The best example of Anne's loyalty to France was her treatment of one of Richelieu's men, the Chancellor Pierre Séguier . Séguier had brusquely interrogated Anne in 1637 (like a "common criminal", as she recalled) following the discovery that she was giving military secrets to her father in Spain, and Anne was virtually under house arrest for years. By keeping
1632-597: The Electorate of Cologne . Rapid French advance led to a coup that toppled De Witt and brought William III to power. Leopold viewed French expansion into the Rhineland as an increasing threat, especially after they seized the strategic Duchy of Lorraine in 1670. The prospect of Dutch defeat led Leopold to an alliance with Brandenburg-Prussia on 23 June, followed by another with the Republic on 25th. Although Brandenburg
1728-926: The Peace of Westphalia , which ended the Thirty Years' War . Its terms ensured Dutch independence from Spain , awarded some autonomy to the various German princes of the Holy Roman Empire , and granted Sweden seats on the Imperial Diet and territories controlling the mouths of the Oder , Elbe , and Weser Rivers . France, however, profited most from the settlement. Austria, ruled by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III , ceded all Habsburg lands and claims in Alsace to France and acknowledged her de facto sovereignty over
1824-645: The Secretary of War , helped maintain large field armies that could be mobilised much more quickly, allowing them to mount offensives in early spring before their opponents were ready. The French were nevertheless forced to retreat from most of the Dutch Republic, which deeply shocked Louis; he retreated to St Germain for a time, where no one, except a few intimates, was allowed to disturb him. French military advantages allowed them however to hold their ground in Alsace and
1920-589: The Three Bishoprics of Metz , Verdun , and Toul . Moreover, many petty German states sought French protection, eager to emancipate themselves from Habsburg domination. This anticipated the formation of the 1658 League of the Rhine , which further diminished Imperial power. As the Thirty Years' War came to an end, a civil war known as the Fronde erupted in France. It effectively checked France's ability to exploit
2016-585: The Augustinians at Les Gardes, in the Diocese of Angers. The Trappistines spread over France, and into other countries of Europe. Since the reunion of the three congregations of La Trappe, in 1892, they have been officially entitled Reformed Cistercians of the Strict Observance . The status of Cistercian nuns had been ambiguous from the start. Over time, the Cistercian orders put more and more restrictions on
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#17328758810902112-866: The Bishop of Langres. At the same time she changed the previous system, whereby the abbot of Cîteaux had directly nominated the abbess, to a three-yearly election by the nuns. The community was dissolved during the French Revolution . After passing through a number of uses, the buildings are now a museum of Burgundian life, the Musée Perrin de Puycousin , and the former church is now the Dijon Museum of Sacred Art ( Musée d'art sacré de Dijon ). 47°11′3″N 5°14′36″E / 47.18417°N 5.24333°E / 47.18417; 5.24333 Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis
2208-492: The French crown and nobility: the king might raise taxes on the nation without consent if only he exempted the nobility. Only the "unprivileged" classes paid direct taxes, which came to mean the peasants only, as most bourgeois finagled exemptions in one way or another. The system laid the whole burden of state expenses on the backs of the poor and powerless. After 1700, with the support of Louis's pious secret wife Madame de Maintenon ,
2304-485: The Fronde because she wanted to transfer absolute authority to her son. In addition, most of the princes refused to deal with Mazarin, who went into exile for a number of years. The Frondeurs claimed to act on Louis's behalf, and in his real interest, against his mother and Mazarin. Queen Anne had a very close relationship with the Cardinal, and many observers believed that Mazarin became Louis XIV's stepfather by
2400-869: The Great ( Louis le Grand ) or the Sun King ( le Roi Soleil ), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any sovereign . An emblematic character of the Age of Absolutism in Europe, Louis XIV's legacy is widely characterized by French colonial expansion , the conclusion of Eighty Years' War involving the Habsburgs , and his architectural bequest , marked by commissioned works of art and buildings. His pageantry, opulent lifestyle and ornate cultivated image earned him enduring admiration. Louis XIV raised France to be
2496-629: The Holy Will of God (La Sainte-Volonté de Dieu), situated in the Bas-Valais , Switzerland. The Trappistines, for so the new religious were called, were obliged to leave Switzerland in 1798. They followed the Trappist monks in their travels over Europe, returned to Switzerland in 1803, and remained there until 1816, when at length they were able to return to France and take up their abode at Forges , near La Trappe . Two years later they occupied an old monastery of
2592-510: The King's authority, in a manner that was much more radical than the one proposed by Mazarin. The Cardinal depended totally on Anne's support and had to use all his influence on the Queen to temper some of her radical actions. Anne imprisoned any aristocrat or member of parliament who challenged her will; her main aim was to transfer to her son an absolute authority in the matters of finance and justice. One of
2688-510: The Peace of Westphalia. Anne and Mazarin had largely pursued the policies of Cardinal Richelieu, augmenting the Crown's power at the expense of the nobility and the Parlements . Anne was more concerned with internal policy than foreign affairs; she was a very proud queen who insisted on the divine rights of the King of France. All this led her to advocate a forceful policy in all matters relating to
2784-530: The Reunions . Warfare defined Louis's foreign policy, impelled by his personal ambition for glory and power: "a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique". His wars strained France's resources to the utmost, while in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. Upon his death in 1715, Louis XIV left his great-grandson and successor, Louis XV ,
2880-611: The Spanish Netherlands while retaking Franche-Comté. By 1678, mutual exhaustion led to the Treaty of Nijmegen , which was generally settled in France's favour and allowed Louis to intervene in the Scanian War . Despite the military defeat, his ally Sweden regained much of what it had lost under the 1679 treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , Fontainebleau and Lund imposed on Denmark–Norway and Brandenburg. Yet Louis's two primary goals,
2976-578: The abbey had amassed sufficient wealth, mostly in the form of land, and gained sufficient ability to manage it, to secure their future through the hardships to come, of which there were many: the Hundred Years' War , the Grandes Compagnies and the Écorcheurs , and the epidemics and calamities that these brought with them, lasted more or less right up to the start of the French Wars of Religion . For
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3072-411: The abbey under Papal protection by a bull of 1147, confirmed by his successors. Thanks to its support from the upper echelons of society, if not to more popular appeal, the abbey received sufficient endowments to ensure its financial stability through the difficult times to come. Its lands included several vineyards, and the sale of wine was a significant element in the abbey's economy: five hectares of
3168-412: The abbey was in a state of advanced decadence and moral collapse, which neither bishops nor popes were able to remedy, and was notorious for its worldly life and sexual impropriety. In 1617, however, Jeanne-Françoise de Courcelles de Pourlan (b. 1591), who had been educated as a girl at Tart, returned as abbess, with a strong determination to bring about the required reform. Despite the great resistance of
3264-556: The aristocracy, this rebellion represented a protest for the reversal of their political demotion from vassals to courtiers . It was headed by the highest-ranking French nobles, among them Louis's uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans and first cousin Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier , known as la Grande Mademoiselle ; Princes of the Blood such as Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti , and their sister
3360-558: The banks of the River Ouche and only a few miles away from Cîteaux Abbey , the Cistercian mother house. The community moved to Dijon in 1623, and the abbey buildings in Tart were destroyed by war shortly afterwards; only ruins remain. The foundation charter of Tart Abbey is dated 1132, although the deed mentions three previous gifts from 1125. The founder was Arnoul Cornu, lord of Tart-le-Haut , and his wife Emeline, and their gift consisted of
3456-450: The basis that in a town it was far easier to maintain seclusion and the discipline of the spiritual life. Accordingly, those of the community who were willing to accept the new and stricter life - five, plus two novices - moved to Dijon on 24 May 1623. The first few years in Dijon were not comfortable. There were long delays in preparing suitable premises, made longer by the severe reduction in
3552-488: The boundaries of his kingdom. Contemporary treaties were intentionally phrased ambiguously. Louis established the Chambers of Reunion to determine the full extent of his rights and obligations under those treaties. Cities and territories, such as Luxembourg and Casale , were prized for their strategic positions on the frontier and access to important waterways. Louis also sought Strasbourg , an important strategic crossing on
3648-479: The capital and the larger strategic picture, with the old military aristocracy ( noblesse d'épée , nobility of the sword) monopolizing senior military positions and the higher ranks. Louvois modernized the army and reorganised it into a professional, disciplined, well-trained force. He was devoted to the soldiers' material well-being and morale, and even tried to direct campaigns. Louis's legal reforms were enacted in his numerous Great Ordinances . Prior to that, France
3744-414: The creation of a coalition headed mainly by Marie de Rohan and the duchess of Longueville. This aristocratic coalition was strong enough to liberate the princes, exile Mazarin, and impose a condition of virtual house arrest on Queen Anne. All these events were witnessed by Louis and largely explained his later distrust of Paris and the higher aristocracy. "In one sense, Louis's childhood came to an end with
3840-565: The destruction of the Dutch Republic and the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands, had failed. Louis was at the height of his power, but at the cost of uniting his opponents; this increased as he continued his expansion. In 1679, he dismissed his foreign minister Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne , because he was seen as having compromised too much with the allies. Louis maintained the strength of his army, but in his next series of territorial claims avoided using military force alone. Rather, he combined it with legal pretexts in his efforts to augment
3936-417: The direction of religious policy strongly in hand until her son's majority in 1661. She appointed Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister, giving him the daily administration of policy. She continued the policies of her late husband and Cardinal Richelieu , despite their persecution of her, in order to win absolute authority in France and victory abroad for her son. Anne protected Mazarin by exiling her followers
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4032-522: The effective Séguier in his post, Anne sacrificed her own feelings for the interests of France and her son Louis. The Queen sought a lasting peace between Catholic nations, but only after a French victory over her native Spain. She also gave a partial Catholic orientation to French foreign policy. This was felt by the Netherlands, France's Protestant ally, which negotiated a separate peace with Spain in 1648. In 1648, Anne and Mazarin successfully negotiated
4128-428: The exemplar nation-state of the early modern period , and established a cultural prestige which lasted through the subsequent centuries until today. Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister Cardinal Mazarin , when the King famously declared that he would take over the job himself. An adherent of the divine right of kings , Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating
4224-603: The female branch. For example, by 1213, the number of nuns in a house was limited by the supervising abbot if necessary. In addition, the nuns could receive no visitors without permission. A Cistercian novice who came from Europe at the same time as the Trappists, and who was joined by seventeen women from the United States, tried to establish a community, but circumstances prevented its success. Vincent de Paul (born Jacques Merle; 1769–1853), at Tracadie, Nova Scotia , having asked
4320-492: The first century of its existence, under the close supervision of the mother house at Cîteaux, Tart Abbey maintained very high standards of devotion and rigour, which assured its predominant position at the head of the women's houses of the Cistercian Order. After that, however, a decline began to set in, brought about partly by deteriorating external conditions - wars, famine, pestilence, economic crisis and so on - but also by
4416-510: The first genuine community of Cistercian nuns in America, was established in 1902 by Hémery Lutgarde , Prioress of Bonneval , France, when on 21 November 1902, she brought a small colony of religious women. On 29 July of the following year, Cyrille Alfred Marois, as delegate of the Archbishop of Quebec , blessed the new monastery. The means of subsistence for this house were agricultural labour and
4512-444: The first knots which tied me to my mother. But attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood." It was his mother who gave Louis his belief in the absolute and divine power of his monarchical rule. During his childhood, he was taken care of by the governesses Françoise de Lansac and Marie-Catherine de Senecey . In 1646, Nicolas V de Villeroy became
4608-651: The fourteenth century was felt also in the monasteries of nuns. At this time, the Conceptionist Order was founded in Toledo, Spain , by Beatrice of Silva . Her nuns were quick to abandon the Cistercian Rule for that of the Poor Clares . In France Jeanne de Courcelles de Pourlan, having been elected Abbess of Tart in 1617, restored the regular discipline in her community, which was transferred to Dijon in 1625. Owing to
4704-480: The grandson of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa. The War of Devolution did not focus on the payment of the dowry; rather, the lack of payment was what Louis XIV used as a pretext for nullifying Maria Theresa's renunciation of her claims, allowing the land to "devolve" to him. In Brabant (the location of the land in dispute), children of first marriages traditionally were not disadvantaged by their parents' remarriages and still inherited property. Louis's wife
4800-646: The hostility of the Abbot of Cîteaux to the reform Abbess de Pourlan had the Holy See withdraw her abbey from the jurisdiction of the Order of Cîteaux. In 1602, another reform was effected at Port-Royal des Champs by Angélique Arnauld , who, to provide for the ever-increasing members of the community, founded Port-Royal de Paris , in the Faubourg of Saint-Jacques (1622). Queen Marie de Medicis declared herself protectress of this institution, and Pope Urban VIII exempted it from
4896-418: The income of the community in Dijon that resulted when in 1636 the troops of Matthias Gallas sacked and burnt the abbey buildings at Tart in the course of the Thirty Years' War , except for an isolated chapel. After the election of an opponent of the reform, Pierre Nivelle, as abbot of Cîteaux, Jeanne de Pourlan (who had taken the religious name of Jeanne de Saint Joseph) put herself under the jurisdiction of
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#17328758810904992-690: The jurisdiction of the Abbot of Cîteaux, placing it under that of Paris. The religious of Port-Royal de Paris and of Port-Royal des Champs ended by consecrating themselves to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament . However, the vicinity of the Abbé de Saint-Cyran became dangerous for them, and they saw the suppression and destruction of Port-Royal des Champs by order of the Louis XIV in 1710, while they themselves were dispersed. The property and abbatial titles were annexed to Port-Royal de Paris, which subsisted up to
5088-494: The king and his courtiers. Shortly thereafter, the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia allowed Condé's army to return to aid Louis and his court. Condé's family was close to Anne at that time, and he agreed to help her attempt to restore the king's authority. The queen's army, headed by Condé, attacked the rebels in Paris; the rebels were under the political control of Anne's old friend Marie de Rohan . Beaufort, who had escaped from
5184-469: The king at the opulent château of Vaux-le-Vicomte , flaunting a wealth which could hardly have accumulated except through embezzlement of government funds. Fouquet appeared eager to succeed Mazarin and Richelieu in power, and he indiscreetly purchased and privately fortified the remote island of Belle Île . These acts sealed his doom. Fouquet was charged with embezzlement; the Parlement found him guilty and sentenced him to exile; and finally Louis altered
5280-421: The king was persuaded to change his fiscal policy. Though willing enough to tax the nobles, Louis feared the political concessions which they would demand in return. Only towards the close of his reign under the extreme exigency of war, was he able, for the first time in French history, to impose direct taxes on the aristocracy. This was a step toward equality before the law and toward sound public finance, though it
5376-496: The king's infatuation by sending Mancini away from court to be married in Italy. While Mazarin might have been tempted for a short time to marry his niece to the King of France, Queen Anne was absolutely against this; she wanted to marry her son to the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain , for both dynastic and political reasons. Mazarin soon supported the Queen's position because he knew that her support for his power and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain from
5472-447: The land of Tart, the tithes of Rouvres and Tart-la-Ville and the grange of Marmot. It seems clear that the creation of this community was the result of a lengthy series of transactions, which may have begun in about 1120, involving not only Arnoul but the lord of Vergy (his overlord); Josserand de Brancion , Bishop of Langres ; the family of Hugh II, Duke of Burgundy ; the cathedral chapter of Langres; and Stephen Harding , abbot of
5568-471: The largest number. [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Cistercian Sisters ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Le Tart Abbey Tart Abbey , also Le Tart Abbey , was the first nunnery of the Cistercian movement. It was located in the present commune of Tart-l'Abbaye in Burgundy ( Côte-d'Or ), near Genlis , on
5664-431: The leaders of the Parlement of Paris, whom she had jailed, died in prison. The Frondeurs , political heirs of the disaffected feudal aristocracy, sought to protect their traditional feudal privileges from the increasingly centralized royal government. Furthermore, they believed their traditional influence and authority was being usurped by the recently ennobled bureaucrats (the Noblesse de Robe , or "nobility of
5760-405: The leading European power and regularly made war. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his personal rule, Louis fought three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War , the Nine Years' War , and the War of the Spanish Succession . In addition, France contested shorter wars such as the War of Devolution and the War of
5856-414: The left bank of the Rhine and theretofore a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire , annexing it and other territories in 1681. Although a part of Alsace, Strasbourg was not part of Habsburg-ruled Alsace and was thus not ceded to France in the Peace of Westphalia. Following these annexations, Spain declared war, precipitating the War of the Reunions . However, the Spanish were rapidly defeated because
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#17328758810905952-416: The manufacture of chocolate. The community was under the direction of the Archbishop of Quebec. Another, Notre-Dame de l'Assomption Abbey at Nouvelle-Arcadie, New Brunswick , where there were already some Cistercian monks, was established by the sisters expelled by the French Government from their Monastery of Vaise , at Lyon . There are numerous monasteries scattered throughout Europe, with France having
6048-403: The monasteries of Santa Lucia at Syracuse, San Michele at Ivrea, and that of Conversano, the only one in the peninsula in which the abbesses carry a crosier . A century later the Cistercian nuns had established houses in Switzerland, Germany ( St. Marienthal Abbey in 1234), and Flanders. The decline which manifested itself in the communities of monks of the Cistercian Order towards the middle of
6144-410: The nearby Cîteaux Abbey. The first abbess was Elizabeth de Vergy, widow of Humbert de Mailly, lord of Faverney or Fauverney , daughter of Savary de Donzy, Count of Chalon-sur-Saône. She was previously a novice in a Benedictine nunnery, Jully Abbey or Priory, at Jully-les-Nonnains , from where the new foundation at Tart was settled. She remained its head for the next 40 years. Pope Eugene III put
6240-433: The net outflow of precious metals from France. Louis instituted reforms in military administration through Michel le Tellier and his son François-Michel le Tellier , successive Marquis de Louvois. They helped to curb the independent spirit of the nobility, imposing order on them at court and in the army. Gone were the days when generals protracted war at the frontiers while bickering over precedence and ignoring orders from
6336-415: The next 50 years would be based upon this marriage, and because it was through this marriage that the Spanish throne would ultimately be delivered to the House of Bourbon. Louis XIV was declared to have reached the age of majority on the 7th of September 1651. On the death of Mazarin, in March 1661, Louis personally took the reins of government and astonished his court by declaring that he would rule without
6432-461: The outbreak of the Fronde. It was not only that life became insecure and unpleasant – a fate meted out to many children in all ages – but that Louis had to be taken into the confidence of his mother and Mazarin on political and military matters of which he could have no deep understanding". "The family home became at times a near-prison when Paris had to be abandoned, not in carefree outings to other chateaux but in humiliating flights". The royal family
6528-426: The power of preaching in her church and hearing confessions of her religious. In the following year, 1190, the eighteen abbesses of France held their first general chapter at Tart. The abbesses of France and Spain themselves made the regular visits to their houses of filiation. The Council of Trent , by its decrees regarding the cloister of nuns, put an end to the chapter and the visits. In Italy, 1171 CE, were founded
6624-404: The practice by prohibiting the separation of families. Additionally, in the colonies, only Roman Catholics could own slaves, and these had to be baptised. Louis ruled through a number of councils: The death of Louis's maternal uncle King Philip IV of Spain in 1665 precipitated the War of Devolution . In 1660, Louis had married Philip IV's eldest daughter, Maria Theresa , as one of
6720-437: The prison where Anne had incarcerated him five years before, was the military leader in Paris, under the nominal control of Conti. After a few battles, a political compromise was reached; the Peace of Rueil was signed, and the court returned to Paris. Unfortunately for Anne, her partial victory depended on Condé, who wanted to control the queen and destroy Mazarin's influence. It was Condé's sister who pushed him to turn against
6816-508: The provisions of the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees . The marriage treaty specified that Maria Theresa was to renounce all claims to Spanish territory for herself and all her descendants. Mazarin and Lionne , however, made the renunciation conditional on the full payment of a Spanish dowry of 500,000 écus . The dowry was never paid and would later play a part persuading his maternal first cousin Charles II of Spain to leave his empire to Philip, Duke of Anjou (later Philip V of Spain ),
6912-485: The purchase. Nevertheless, Colbert achieved excellent results, with the deficit of 1661 turning into a surplus by 1666, with interest on the debt decreasing from 52 million to 24 million livres. The taille was reduced to 42 million in 1661 and 35 million in 1665, while revenue from indirect taxation progressed from 26 million to 55 million. The revenues of the royal domain were raised from 80,000 livres in 1661 to 5.5 million in 1671. In 1661,
7008-411: The queen. After striking a deal with her old friend Marie de Rohan, who was able to impose the nomination of Charles de l'Aubespine, marquis de Châteauneuf as minister of justice, Anne arrested Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti , and the husband of their sister Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, duchess of Longueville . This situation did not last long, and Mazarin's unpopularity led to
7104-402: The receipts were equivalent to 26 million British pounds, of which 10 million reached the treasury. The expenditure was around 18 million pounds, leaving a deficit of 8 million. In 1667, the net receipts had risen to 20 million pounds sterling , while expenditure had fallen to 11 million, leaving a surplus of 9 million pounds. Money was the essential support of
7200-489: The reorganized and enlarged army, the panoply of Versailles, and the growing civil administration. Finance had always been the weakness of the French monarchy: tax collection was costly and inefficient; direct taxes dwindled as they passed through the hands of many intermediate officials; and indirect taxes were collected by private contractors called tax farmers who made a handsome profit. The state coffers leaked at every joint. The main weakness arose from an old bargain between
7296-459: The rest of the community, she found a powerful ally in Sébastien Zamet , Bishop of Langres. Opposition to the reform, inside and outside the nunnery, was so great that there was an attempt on the bishop's life. Eventually they decided that reform was impossible as long as the community remained in the abbey at Tart, and that the only way to bring it about was to transfer the nunnery to Dijon , on
7392-417: The robe"), who administered the kingdom and on whom the monarchy increasingly began to rely. This belief intensified the nobles' resentment. In 1648, Anne and Mazarin attempted to tax members of the Parlement de Paris . The members refused to comply and ordered all of the king's earlier financial edicts burned. Buoyed by the victory of Louis, duc d'Enghien (later known as le Grand Condé ) at
7488-402: The sentence to life imprisonment. Fouquet's downfall gave Colbert a free hand to reduce the national debt through more efficient taxation. The principal taxes included the aides and douanes (both customs duties ), the gabelle (salt tax), and the taille (land tax). The taille was reduced at first, and certain tax-collection contracts were auctioned instead of being sold privately to
7584-637: The sister of Bernard of Clairvaux , lived and died. The Cistercian nuns of Le Tart founded successively Ferraque (1140) in the Diocese of Noyon , Blandecques (1153) in the Diocese of St-Omer , and Montreuil-les-Dames (1164) near Laon . In Spain the first Cistercian monastery of women was that of Tulebras (1134) in the Kingdom of Navarre . Then came Santa María la Real de las Huelgas (Valladolid) (1140), Espírito Santo Olmedo (1142), Villabona , or San Miguel de las Dueñas (1155), Perales (1160), Gradefes (1168), Cañas (1169) and others. The most celebrated
7680-558: The sole regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his son's behalf, with Anne at its head. Louis XIII died on 14 May 1643. On 18 May Queen Anne had her husband's will annulled by the Parlement de Paris , a judicial body of nobles and high clergymen, and she became sole regent. She exiled her husband's ministers Chavigny and Bouthilier and appointed the Count of Brienne as her minister of foreign affairs. Anne kept
7776-461: The spiritual discipline of the nunnery and was responsible for the appointment of the abbess, who was not elected by the community, as was the practice elsewhere. Tart soon became the head of the female branch of the Cistercians, and was directly responsible for the foundation of many further nunneries in France and more in Spain. By the end of the 13th century, when the supply of gifts was drying up,
7872-623: The state's registers, not the church's, and it strictly regulated the right of the Parlements to remonstrate. The Code Louis later became the basis for the Napoleonic code , which in turn inspired many modern legal codes. One of Louis's more infamous decrees was the Grande Ordonnance sur les Colonies of 1685, the Code Noir (black code). Although it sanctioned slavery, it attempted to humanise
7968-411: The tendency, which affected most if not all medieval women's religious foundations, for wealthy and influential families to use them as secure accommodation for their unmarried and widowed female relatives. Such women were by no means always inclined to the religious life, and their presence in any numbers inevitably affected a community's spiritual practice and discipline for the worse. By the 16th century
8064-533: The time of the French Revolution , before being transformed first into a prison, and then into a maternity hospital. After the French Revolution another reform took place. Augustin de Lestrange gathered the scattered Cistercian nuns of France, with members of other orders that had been equally dispersed, and reconstructed the Cistercian Sisterhood. In 1795, he gave them a monastery which he called
8160-447: The time. Contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is highly likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis's journal entries, such as: "Nature was responsible for
8256-411: The treasury verged on bankruptcy. To rectify the situation, Louis chose Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Controller-General of Finances in 1665. However, Louis first had to neutralize Nicolas Fouquet , the powerful Superintendent of Finances . Although Fouquet's financial indiscretions were not very different from Mazarin's before him or Colbert's after him, his ambition worried Louis. He lavishly entertained
8352-453: The widespread public yearning for peace and order after decades of foreign and civil strife, the young king consolidated central political authority and at the expense of the feudal aristocracy. Praising his ability to choose and encourage men of talent, the historian Chateaubriand noted: "it is the voice of genius of all kinds which sounds from the tomb of Louis". Louis began his personal reign with administrative and fiscal reforms. In 1661,
8448-496: The young king's tutor. Louis XIV became friends with Villeroy's young children, particularly François de Villeroy , and divided his time between the Palais-Royal and the nearby Hotel de Villeroy. Sensing imminent death in the spring of 1643, King Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order for his four-year-old son Louis XIV. Not trusting the judgement of his Spanish wife Queen Anne, who would normally have become
8544-404: Was Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas near Burgos, founded in 1187 by Alfonso VIII of Castile . Cistercian nunneries were relatively few in Europe before the late 12th century. The observance was established there by Cistercian nuns who came from Tulebras , under the guidance of Misol , who became its first abbess. The second abbess was Constance, daughter of the founder, who believed she had
8640-606: Was Philip IV's daughter by his first marriage, while the new king of Spain, Charles II, was his son by a subsequent marriage. Thus, Brabant allegedly "devolved" to Maria Theresa, justifying France to attack the Spanish Netherlands . During the Eighty Years' War with Spain , France supported the Dutch Republic as part of a general policy of opposing Habsburg power. Johan de Witt , Dutch Grand Pensionary from 1653 to 1672, viewed this as crucial for Dutch security and
8736-501: Was a patchwork of legal systems, with as many traditional legal regimes as there were provinces, and two co-existing legal systems— customary law in the north and Roman civil law in the south. The Grande Ordonnance de Procédure Civile of 1667, the Code Louis , was a comprehensive legal code imposing a uniform regulation of civil procedure throughout the kingdom. Among other things, it prescribed baptismal, marriage and death records in
8832-649: Was driven out of Paris twice in this manner, and at one point Louis XIV and Anne were held under virtual arrest in the royal palace in Paris. The Fronde years planted in Louis a hatred of Paris and a consequent determination to move out of the ancient capital as soon as possible, never to return. Just as the first Fronde (the Fronde parlementaire of 1648–1649) ended, a second one (the Fronde des princes of 1650–1653) began. Unlike that which preceded it, tales of sordid intrigue and half-hearted warfare characterized this second phase of upper-class insurrection. To
8928-834: Was forced out of the war by the June 1673 Treaty of Vossem , in August an anti-French alliance was formed by the Dutch, Spain , Emperor Leopold and the Duke of Lorraine . The French alliance was deeply unpopular in England, and only more so after the disappointing battles against Michiel de Ruyter 's fleet. Charles II of England made peace with the Dutch in the February 1674 Treaty of Westminster . However, French armies held significant advantages over their opponents; an undivided command, talented generals like Turenne , Condé and Luxembourg and vastly superior logistics. Reforms introduced by Louvois ,
9024-473: Was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given) and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent : Dauphin . At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Louis's relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for
9120-510: Was now clear French and Dutch aims were in direct conflict, he decided to first defeat the Republic , then seize the Spanish Netherlands. This required breaking up the Triple Alliance; he paid Sweden to remain neutral and signed the 1670 Secret Treaty of Dover with Charles, an Anglo-French alliance against the Dutch Republic. In May 1672, France invaded the Republic , supported by Münster and
9216-702: Was predictably diminished by concessions and exemptions won by the insistent efforts of nobles and bourgeois. Louis and Colbert also had wide-ranging plans to grow French commerce and trade. Colbert's mercantilist administration established new industries and encouraged manufacturers and inventors, such as the Lyon silk manufacturers and the Gobelins tapestry manufactory . He invited manufacturers and artisans from all over Europe to France, such as Murano glassmakers, Swedish ironworkers, and Dutch shipbuilders. He aimed to decrease imports while increasing French exports, hence reducing
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