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Madame Ulrich

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Madame Ulrich (born c. 1665, died after 1707) was a French playwright and writer. Along with Catherine Bernard and Charlotte Legrand , she was one of only three female authors to have had a play performed at the Comédie-Française theater in Paris during the 17th century.

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143-495: Madame Ulrich was the daughter of one of King Louis XIV 's Vingt-Quatre Violons (a five-part string ensemble at the French royal court). Her father died when she was thirteen or fourteen, and she was apprenticed to a barber. Mr. Ulrich, a butler to the Count of Auvergne , met her and decided to place her in a convent with a view to marrying her, despite their great age difference. She became

286-466: 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

429-452: A European context, it is defined as the period following the Middle Ages and preceding the advent of modernity; but the dates of these boundaries are far from universally agreed. In the context of global history , the early modern period is often used even in contexts where there is no equivalent "medieval" period. Various events and historical transitions have been proposed as the start of

572-456: A certain confusion at times, a romantic intention, the very attack of the comedy, very brilliant, hardly resembles Dancourt's manner of this period." Following the death of her friend Jean de La Fontaine, Madame Ulrich published Posthumous Works in 1696, for which she wrote a preface and a dedication to the Marquis de Sablé, as well as a portrait of the poet, and included unpublished works (including

715-479: 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

858-529: 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

1001-408: A connection between China's urgency for new discoveries being weaker than Europe's and China's inability to capitalize on its early advantages. Ronan believes that China's Confucian bureaucracy and traditions led to China not having a scientific revolution, which led China to have fewer scientists to break the existing orthodoxies, like Galileo Galilei. Despite inventing gunpowder in the 9th century, it

1144-576: A convent to repent, she was then regularly arrested and confined at Les Madelonnettes, from which she escaped, at Le Refuge, and then at Hôpital Général. After 1707, no further trace of her can be found. According to her biographer Aurore Évain , "she seems to have spent the last years of her life being maintained, gradually sinking into prostitution". Far from the "debauched courtesan, unworthy mother and venal muse" to which history has long reduced her, Aurore Évain concludes that "the few biographical and literary elements we have today enable us to re-establish

1287-508: 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

1430-505: A crisis, and by the mid-15th century, crashed. The silver imports helped fill the void left by the broken paper money system, which helps explain why the value of silver in China was twice as high as the value of silver in Spain during the end of the 16th century. China under the later Ming dynasty became isolated, prohibiting the construction of ocean going sea vessels. Despite isolationist policies

1573-457: 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

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1716-626: A founder of modern political science . Machiavelli is most famous for a short political treatise, The Prince , a work of realist political theory . The Swiss Paracelsus (1493–1541) is associated with a medical revolution while the Anglo-Irish Robert Boyle was one of the founders of modern chemistry. In visual arts, notable representatives included the "three giants of the High Renaissance", namely Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo , and Raphael , Albrecht Dürer (often considered

1859-706: A friend of the Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin, had lovers such as the comedian Florent Dancourt , Jean de La Fontaine and the Marquis de Sablé , and frequented the circle of the Duc de Bouillon. In 1690, she wrote and published a transvestite comedy, La Folle Enchère, which premiered on 30 May 1690 at the Comédie-Française and was performed before the King at the Palace of Versailles . The play

2002-496: A largely bloodless coup. Yi Seong-gye moved the capital of Korea to the location of modern-day Seoul. The dynasty was heavily influenced by Confucianism, which also played a large role to shaping Korea's strong cultural identity. King Sejong the Great (1418–1450), one of the only two kings in Korea's history to earn the title of great in their posthumous titles, reclaimed Korean territory to

2145-688: 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

2288-412: 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

2431-459: A result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and less over time. This often led to numerous confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants. None, however, proved compelling enough to seriously challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign powers. In 1392, General Yi Seong-gye established the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) with

2574-573: 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

2717-484: 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

2860-793: 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

3003-766: A time of political and economic change, as a result of mechanization in society, the American Revolution , and the first French Revolution ; other factors included the redrawing of the map of Europe by the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna and the peace established by the Second Treaty of Paris , which ended the Napoleonic Wars. In the Americas, pre-Columbian peoples had built a large and varied civilization, including

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3146-690: Is usually seen to span from the start of the 15th century, through the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. The early modern period is taken to end with the French Revolution , the Napoleonic Wars , and the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire at the Congress of Vienna . At the end of the early modern period,

3289-617: The shōguns of the Tokugawa clan . The period gets its name from the capital city, Edo , now called Tokyo. The Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle from 1603 until 1868, when it was abolished during the Meiji Restoration in the late Edo period (often called the Late Tokugawa shogunate ). Society in the Japanese " Tokugawa period " ( Edo society ), unlike the shogunates before it,

3432-654: The Aztec Empire , the Inca civilization , the Maya civilization and its cities, and the Muisca . The European colonization of the Americas began during the early modern period, as did the establishment of European trading hubs in Asia and Africa, which contributed to the spread of Christianity around the world. The rise of sustained contacts between previously isolated parts of the globe, in particular

3575-639: 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

3718-462: The British and Russian empires had emerged as world powers from the multipolar contest of colonial empires , while the three great Asian empires of the early modern period, Ottoman Turkey , Mughal India and Qing China , all entered a period of stagnation or decline. When gunpowder was introduced to Europe, it was immediately used almost exclusively in weapons and explosives for warfare. Though it

3861-887: The Columbian Exchange that linked the Old World and the New World , greatly altered the human environment. Notably, the Atlantic slave trade and colonization of Native Americans began during this period. The Ottoman Empire conquered Southeastern Europe, and parts of West Asia and North Africa. In the Islamic world , after the fall of the Timurid Renaissance , powers such as the Ottoman, Suri , Safavid , and Mughal empires grew in strength (three of which are known as gunpowder empires for

4004-480: 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

4147-560: 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

4290-470: The Durrani Empire . The Songhai Empire took control of the trans-Saharan trade at the beginning of the modern era. It seized Timbuktu in 1468 and Jenne in 1473, building the regime on trade revenues and the cooperation of Muslim merchants. The empire eventually made Islam the official religion, built mosques, and brought Muslim scholars to Gao . Many major events caused Europe to change around

4433-597: 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

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4576-618: The Jurchens . When Beijing was captured by Li Zicheng 's peasant rebels in 1644, the Chongzhen Emperor , the last Ming emperor, committed suicide. The Manchus then allied with former Ming general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing , which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty. The Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule of China proper . Schoppa,

4719-576: The Malay Peninsula , Borneo , and eastern Indonesia, though the effectiveness of this influence remains debated. Majapahit struggled to control the rising Sultanate of Malacca , which dominated Muslim Malay settlements in Phuket, Satun, Pattani, and Sumatra. The Portuguese invaded Malacca's capital in 1511, and by 1528, the Sultanate of Johor was established by a Malaccan prince to succeed Malacca. During

4862-823: The Mataram Sultanate was the dominant power in Maritime Southeast Asia. The early modern period experienced an influx of European traders and missionaries into the region. In Early Modern times, the major nations of East Asia attempted to pursue a course of isolationism from the outside world but this policy was not always enforced uniformly or successfully. However, by the end of the Early Modern Period, China, Korea and Japan were mostly closed and uninterested in Europeans, even while trading relationships grew in port cities such as Guangzhou and Dejima . Around

5005-926: 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

5148-620: The Peace of Westphalia . Along with the European colonization of the Americas , this period also contained the Commercial Revolution and the Golden Age of Piracy . The globalization of the period can be seen in the medieval North Italian city-states and maritime republics , particularly Genoa , Venice , and Milan . Russia reached the Pacific coast in 1647 and consolidated its control over

5291-536: The Portuguese on Tanegashima Isle in 1543, the Japanese adopted several of the technologies and cultural practices of their visitors, whether in the military area (the arquebus , European-style cuirasses, European ships), religion ( Christianity ), decorative art, language (integration to Japanese of a Western vocabulary ) and culinary: the Portuguese introduced tempura and valuable refined sugar. Central government

5434-591: The Russian Far East in the 19th century. The Great Divergence took place as Western Europe greatly surpassed China in technology and per capita wealth. As the Age of Revolution dawned, beginning with revolts in America and France, political changes were then pushed forward in other countries partly as a result of upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars and their impact on thought and thinking, from concepts from nationalism to organizing armies. The early period ended in

5577-488: 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

5720-411: The Sharifan dynasty . The Safavid Empire was a great Shia Persianate empire after the Islamic conquest of Persia and the establishment of Islam, marking an important point in the history of Islam in the east. The Safavid dynasty was founded about 1501. From their base in Ardabil , the Safavids established control over all of Persia and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming

5863-400: The Third Battle of Panipat halted their expansion in 1761. The development of New Imperialism saw the conquest of nearly all eastern hemisphere territories by colonial powers. The commercial colonization of India commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey , when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the British East India Company, in 1765, when the company was granted

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6006-428: 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

6149-410: The diwani , or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar , or in 1772, when the company established a capital in Calcutta , appointed its first Governor-General , Warren Hastings , and became directly involved in governance. The Maratha Confederacy, following the Anglo-Maratha wars , eventually lost to the British East India Company in 1818 with the Third Anglo-Maratha War . Rule by

6292-414: The ethnically Manchu Qing dynasty , which would be the last dynasty of China . The Qing ruled from 1644 to 1912, with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. During its reign, the Qing dynasty adopted many of the outward features of Chinese culture in establishing its rule, but did not necessarily "assimilate", instead adopting a more universalist style of governance. The Manchus were formerly known as

6435-421: The modern period , with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity . There is no exact date that marks the beginning or end of the period and its extent may vary depending on the area of history being studied. In general, the early modern period is considered to have lasted from around the start of the 16th century to the start of the 19th century (about 1500–1800). In

6578-414: The 16th century. Leaders also supported direct sea trade with Europe, particularly England and The Netherlands, which sought Persian carpet, silk, and textiles. Other exports were horses, goat hair, pearls, and an inedible bitter almond hadam-talka used as a spice in India. The main imports were spice, textiles (woolens from Europe, cotton from Gujarat), metals, coffee, and sugar. Despite their demise in 1722,

6721-430: The 17th century, Korea was invaded again, this time by Manchurians, who would later take over China as the Qing Dynasty. In 1637, King Injo was forced to surrender to the Qing forces, and was ordered to send princesses as concubines to the Qing Prince Dorgon . The rise of the Mughal Empire is usually dated from 1526, around the end of the Middle Ages. It was an Islamic Persianate imperial power that ruled most of

6864-414: The 1850s onwards, the pace of colonization shifted to a significantly higher gear. At the start of the modern era, the Spice Route between India and China crossed Majapahit , an archipelagic empire based on the island of Java . It was the last of the major Hindu empires of Maritime Southeast Asia and is considered one of the greatest states in Indonesian history. Its influence extended to Sumatra ,

7007-418: The Bold (or Rash) to his enemies, His early death was a pivotal moment in European history. Charles has often been regarded as the last representative of the feudal spirit, although in administrative affairs, he introduced remarkable modernizing innovations. Upon his death, Charles left an unmarried nineteen-year-old daughter, Mary of Burgundy , as his heir. Her marriage would have enormous implications for

7150-468: The Company lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and following the Government of India Act 1858 , the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj . In 1819, Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a key trading post for Britain in its rivalry with the Dutch. However, the rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. From

7293-414: The Dutch, while Japan engaged in the Nanban trade after the arrival of the first European Portuguese during the Azuchi–Momoyama period . Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, the Toungoo Empire along with Ayutthaya experienced a golden age and ruled a large extent of Mainland Southeast Asia, with the Nguyen and Trinh lords de facto ruling the south and north of present-day Vietnam respectively, whereas

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7436-399: The East Asian sphere. In Japan, the Edo period from 1600 to 1868 is also referred to as the early modern period. In Korea, the early modern period is considered to have lasted from the rise of the Joseon Dynasty to the enthronement of King Gojong . By the 16th century, Asian economies under the Ming dynasty and Mughal Bengal were stimulated by trade with the Portuguese, the Spanish, and

7579-419: The Emperor (distracted by the Great Turkish War ) abandoned them, and the Dutch only supported them minimally. By the Truce of Ratisbon , in 1684, Spain was forced to acquiesce in the French occupation of most of the conquered territories, for 20 years. Early modern period The early modern period is a historical period that is part of, or (depending on the historian ) immediately preceded,

7722-432: The Empire ) and France ensued, culminating in the Treaty of Senlis (1493) which gave the majority of Burgundian inheritance to the Habsburg (Mary already died in 1482). The rise of the Habsburg dynasty was a prime factor in the spreading of the Renaissance. In Central Europe, King Matthias Corvinus (1443–1490), a notable nation builder, conqueror (Hungary in his time was the most powerful in Central Europe ) and patron,

7865-443: 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 ,

8008-434: 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

8151-441: The Japanese cut off all trade with Macau , and the Dutch severed connections between Goa and Macau. The damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age , natural calamities, crop failure and sudden epidemics. The ensuing breakdown of authority and people's livelihoods allowed rebel leaders, such as Li Zicheng , to challenge Ming authority. The Ming dynasty fell around 1644 to

8294-415: 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

8437-497: The Ming economy still suffered from an inflation due to an overabundance of Spanish New World silver entering its economy through new European colonies such as Macau . Ming China was further strained by victorious but costly wars to protect Korea from Japanese Invasion . The European trade depression of the 1620s also hurt the Chinese economy, which sunk to the point where all of China's trading partners cut ties with them: Philip IV restricted shipments of exports from Acapulco ,

8580-414: 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

8723-479: 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 ,

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8866-480: The Safavids left their mark by establishing and spreading Shi'a Islam in major parts of the Caucasus and West Asia. In the 16th to early 18th centuries, Central Asia was under the rule of Uzbeks , and the far eastern portions were ruled by the local Pashtuns . Between the 15th and 16th centuries, various nomadic tribes arrived from the steppes, including the Kipchaks , Naimans , Kangly , Khongirad , and Manghuds . These groups were led by Muhammad Shaybani , who

9009-448: 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,

9152-402: The Tale of the Quiproquos, new versions of certain fables, of which she owned the manuscripts, verses and two letters written to her by La Fontaine). From 1699 onwards, Madame Ulrich's freedom of morals displeased the authorities. The pleasures and amusements of King Louis XIV's early reign had given way to austerity and devotion. Control over society and transgressive behavior intensified. After

9295-442: The area as Hindustan by the late 17th and the early 18th centuries. The empire dominated South Asia , becoming the largest global economy and manufacturing power, with a nominal GDP valued at a quarter of the global economy, superior than the combined GDP of Europe. The empire, prior to the death of the last prominent emperor Aurangzeb , was marked by a highly centralized administration connecting its different provinces . All

9438-449: 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

9581-410: The beginning of the ethnically Han Ming dynasty (1368–1644), China was leading the world in mathematics as well as science. However, Europe soon caught up to China's scientific and mathematical achievements and surpassed them. Many scholars have speculated about the reason behind China's lag in advancement. A historian named Colin Ronan claims that though there is no one specific answer, there must be

9724-409: The beginning of the modern period with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and later by various movements to reform the church (including Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Calvinist), followed by the Counter Reformation . The Hussite Crusades (1419–1434) involved military actions against the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia , concluding with the Battle of Grotniki . These wars were notable for being among

9867-438: 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

10010-479: 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

10153-399: The coming to power of Tokugawa Ieyasu after his victory over supporters of the Toyotomi clan at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Tokugawa received the title of shōgun in 1603, establishing the Tokugawa shogunate . The Edo period from 1600 to 1868 characterized early modern Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate was a feudalist regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by

10296-427: The country, particularly smaller regions, daimyōs and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyōs might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local lords. Otherwise, the largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts which did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value. As

10439-484: The country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil. In the 16th century the Ming dynasty flourished over maritime trade with the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch Empires. The trade brought in a massive amount of silver, which China at the time needed desperately. Prior to China's global trade, its economy ran on paper money. However, in the 14th century, China's paper money system suffered

10582-414: 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

10725-684: 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

10868-417: 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

11011-426: The early Ming dynasty, urbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing , also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around

11154-630: The early modern era, the Ottoman Empire enjoyed an expansion and consolidation of power, leading to a Pax Ottomana . This was perhaps the golden age of the empire. The Ottomans expanded southwest into North Africa while battling with the re-emergent Persian Shi'a Safavid Empire to the east. In the Ottoman sphere, the Turks seized Egypt in 1517 and established the regencies of Algeria , Tunisia , and Tripolitania (between 1519 and 1551), Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber state under

11297-528: The early modern period was its spreading globalizing character. New economies and institutions emerged, becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the period. The early modern period also included the rise of the dominance of mercantilism as an economic theory. Other notable trends of the period include the development of experimental science , increasingly rapid technological progress , secularized civic politics, accelerated travel due to improvements in mapping and ship design, and

11440-518: The early modern period, including the fall of Constantinople in 1453 , the start of the Renaissance , the end of the Crusades and the beginning of the Age of Discovery . Its end is often marked by the French Revolution , and sometimes also the American Revolution or Napoleon 's rise to power . Historians in recent decades have argued that, from a worldwide standpoint, the most important feature of

11583-533: The editor of The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History argues, "A date around 1780 as the beginning of modern China is thus closer to what we know today as historical 'reality'. It also allows us to have a better baseline to understand the precipitous decline of the Chinese polity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." The Sengoku period that began around 1467 and lasted around a century consisted of several continually "warring states". Following contact with

11726-522: 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

11869-409: The emergence of nation states . The early modern period is a subdivision of the most recent of the three major periods of European history : antiquity , the Middle Ages and the modern period. The term "early modern" was first proposed by medieval historian Lynn Thorndike in his 1926 work A Short History of Civilization as a broader alternative to the Renaissance . It was first picked up within

12012-642: The end of the Crusades and of religious unity in Western Europe under the Roman Catholic Church . The old order was destabilized by the Protestant Reformation , which caused a backlash that expanded the Inquisition and sparked the disastrous European wars of religion , which included the especially bloody Thirty Years' War and ended with the establishment of the modern international system in

12155-428: 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

12298-459: The field of economic history during the 1940s and 1950s and gradually spread to other historians in the following decades and became widely known among scholars during the 1990s. At the onset of the early modern period, trends in various regions of the world represented a shift away from medieval modes of organization, politically and economically. Feudalism declined in Europe, and Christendom saw

12441-547: The first European conflicts where hand-held gunpowder weapons, like muskets , played a decisive role. The Taborite faction of Hussite warriors, primarily infantry, decisively defeated larger armies with heavily armored knights, contributing to the infantry revolution. However, the Hussite Crusades were ultimately inconclusive. The final crusade, the Crusade of 1456, was organized to counter the advancing Ottoman Empire and lift

12584-444: 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

12727-561: The first native dynasty since the Sassanids to establish a unified Iranian state. Problematic for the Safavids was the powerful Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans, a Sunni dynasty, fought several campaigns against the Safavids . What fueled the growth of Safavid economy was its position between the burgeoning civilizations of Europe to its west and Islamic Central Asia to its east and north. The Silk Road , which led from Europe to East Asia, revived in

12870-680: The global inventor of the mechanical printing press . Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology (1543), which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ( On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres ) began modern astronomy and sparked the Scientific Revolution . Another notable individual was Machiavelli , an Italian political philosopher, considered

13013-480: 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

13156-594: The greatest artist of Northern Renaissance), Titian from the Venetian school , Peter Paul Rubens of the Flemish Baroque traditions. Famous composers included Guillaume Du Fay , Heinrich Isaac , Josquin des Prez , Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina , Claudio Monteverdi , Jean-Baptiste Lully . Among the notable royalty of the time was Charles the Bold (1433–1477), the last Valois Duke of Burgundy , known as Charles

13299-481: The historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the term. As a cultural movement, it encompassed a rebellion of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. Johannes Gutenberg is credited as the first European to use movable type printing , around 1439, and as

13442-494: 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

13585-520: 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

13728-421: 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

13871-592: 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

14014-407: The last medieval epic poet ) was actually a chief modernizing force of the time (whose reform initiatives led to Europe-wide revolutions in the areas of warfare and communications, among others ), who broke the back of the knight class (causing many to become robber barons) and had personal conflicts with the three other men on the matter of the knight's status. Christianity was challenged at

14157-478: 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

14300-515: 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

14443-561: 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

14586-467: The military technology that enabled them). Particularly in the Indian subcontinent , Mughal architecture , culture , and art reached their zenith, while the empire itself is believed to have had the world's largest economy, bigger than the entirety of Western Europe and worth 25% of global GDP. By the mid-18th century, India was a major proto-industrializing region. Various Chinese dynasties controlled

14729-433: 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

14872-511: 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

15015-639: The north and created the Korean alphabet . During the end of the 16th century, Korea was invaded twice by Japan, first in 1592 and again in 1597. Japan failed both times due to Admiral Yi Sun-sin , Korea's revered naval genius, who led the Korean Navy using advanced metal clad ships called turtle ships . Because the ships were armed with cannons, Admiral Yi's navy was able to demolish the Japanese invading fleets, destroying hundreds of ships in Japan's second invasion. During

15158-461: 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

15301-527: The political balance of Europe. Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor secured the match for his son, the future Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor , with the aid of Mary's stepmother, Margaret. In 1477, the territory of the Duchy of Burgundy was annexed by France. In the same year, Mary married Maximilian, Archduke of Austria . A conflict between the Burgundian side (Maximilian brought with himself almost no resources from

15444-458: The portrait of a free, cultivated woman, a promising writer [...], but whose auctorial recognition and literary creation were violently thwarted by the social and moral conditions imposed on women". Louis XIV Louis   XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great ( Louis le Grand ) or the Sun King ( le Roi Soleil ),

15587-404: 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

15730-437: 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

15873-613: 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 ),

16016-485: 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,

16159-411: 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

16302-402: 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

16445-489: 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

16588-626: The repression of prostitution, courtesans who had fled the puritanism of the Court for the pleasures of Paris and its libertine salons were put under surveillance. To discipline these rebellious wives and daughters who had freed themselves from marital or paternal guardianship, they were locked up at the Madelonnettes Convent . At the request of Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon , Madame Ulrich's actions were monitored by police lieutenant-general René d'Argenson. Initially sent with her daughter Thérèse to

16731-417: 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

16874-402: 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

17017-560: The significant monuments of the Mughals, their most visible legacy, date to this period which was characterized by the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and architectural results. The Maratha Confederacy , founded in the southwest of present-day India, surpassed the Mughals as the dominant power in India from 1740 and rapidly expanded until

17160-558: 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

17303-603: The start of the 16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall of Muslim Spain and the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin Luther 's Protestant Reformation in 1517. In England the modern period is often dated to the start of the Tudor period with the victory of Henry VII over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Early modern European history

17446-623: 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

17589-472: The time, making armor obsolete, and as a consequence the heavy musket as well. Although there is relatively little to no difference in design between arquebus and musket except in size and strength, it was the term musket which remained in use up into the 1800s. In the early modern period, the Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe under a Holy Roman Emperor the first of which

17732-447: 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

17875-411: 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

18018-453: 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,

18161-496: 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

18304-604: 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

18447-532: Was Otto I . The last was Francis II , who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars . Despite its name, for much of its history the Empire did not include Rome within its borders. The Renaissance was a cultural movement that began in the 14th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to

18590-606: 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

18733-501: 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

18876-481: Was based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi . The daimyōs (feudal lords) were at the top, followed by the warrior -caste of samurai , with the farmers , artisans , and traders ranking below. The country was strictly closed to foreigners with few exceptions with the Sakoku policy. Literacy among the Japanese people rose in the two centuries of isolation. In some parts of

19019-649: 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

19162-834: 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 ,

19305-619: Was in Europe that the classic handheld firearms, matchlocks, were invented, with evidence of use around the 1480s. China was using the matchlocks by 1540, after the Portuguese brought their matchlocks to Japan in the early 1500s. China during the Ming Dynasty established a bureau to maintain its calendar. The bureau was necessary because the calendars were linked to celestial phenomena and that needs regular maintenance because twelve lunar months have 344 or 355 days, so occasional leap months have to be added in order to maintain 365 days per year. In

19448-416: Was invented in China, gunpowder arrived in Europe already formulated for military use; European countries took advantage of this and were the first to create the classic firearms. The advances made in gunpowder and firearms was directly tied to the decline in the use of plate armor because of the inability of the armor to protect one from bullets. The musket was able to penetrate all forms of armor available at

19591-520: Was largely reestablished by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Azuchi–Momoyama period . Although a start date of 1573 is often given, in more broad terms, the period begins with Oda Nobunaga 's entry into Kyoto in 1568, when he led his army to the imperial capital in order to install Ashikaga Yoshiaki as the 15th, and ultimately final, shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate , and it lasts until

19734-399: Was long attributed to her lover Florent Dancourt before that was changed to Ulrich, although some sources continue to name Dancourt as the author. The feminine agreement of the preface, the analysis of the privilege and the style of the play all attest to Madame Ulrich's authorship. According to André Blanc, "the careful composition, the considerable role of disguises and their final resolution,

19877-473: 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

20020-510: 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

20163-702: 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

20306-665: Was the Khan of the Uzbeks. The lineage of the Afghan Pashtuns stretches back to the Hotaki dynasty. Following Muslim Arab and Turkic conquests, Pashtun ghazis (warriors for the faith) invaded and conquered much of northern India during the Lodhi dynasty and Suri dynasty . Pashtun forces also invaded Persia, and the opposing forces were defeated in the Battle of Gulnabad . The Pashtuns later formed

20449-651: Was the first who introduced the Renaissance outside of Italy. In military area, he introduced the Black Army , one of the first standing armies in Europe and a remarkably modern force. Some noblemen from the generation that lived during this period have been attributed the moniker "the last knight", with the most notable being the above-mentioned Maximilian I (1459–1519), Chevalier de Bayard (1476–1524), Franz von Sickingen (1481–1523) and Götz von Berlichingen (1480–1562). Maximilian (although Claude Michaud opines that he could claim "last knight" status by virtue of being

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