Thinking Like a Historian: What Was Absolutism?

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What Was Absolutism?

Historians have long debated the nature of “absolutism” in seventeenth-century Europe. While many historians have emphasized the growth of state power in this period, especially under Louis XIV of France, others have questioned whether such a thing as “absolutism” ever existed. The following documents will allow you to draw your own conclusions about absolutism.

1 Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, political treatise, 1709. In 1670 Louis XIV appointed Bishop Bossuet tutor to his son and heir, known as the dauphin. In Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture, Bossuet argued that royal power was divine and absolute, but not without limits.

image It appears from all this that the person of the king is sacred, and that to attack him in any way is sacrilege. God has the kings anointed by his prophets with the holy unction in like manner as he has bishops and altars anointed. But even without the external application in thus being anointed, they are by their very office the representatives of the divine majesty deputed by Providence for the execution of his purposes. Accordingly God calls Cyrus his anointed. “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him.” Kings should be guarded as holy things, and whosoever neglects to protect them is worthy of death. . . . There is something religious in the respect accorded to a prince. The service of God and the respect for kings are bound together. St. Peter unites these two duties when he says, “Fear God. Honour the king.”. . . But kings, although their power comes from on high, as has been said, should not regard themselves as masters of that power to use it at their pleasure; . . . they must employ it with fear and self-restraint, as a thing coming from God and of which God will demand an account.

2 Letter of the prince of Condé, royal governor of the province of Burgundy, to Controller General Jean-Baptiste Colbert, June 18, 1662. In this letter, the king’s representative in the province of Burgundy reports on his efforts to compel the leaders of the province to pay taxes levied by the royal government. The Estates of Burgundy comprised representatives of the three orders, or estates, of society: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners.

image Since then the Estates have deliberated every day, persuaded that the extreme misery in this province — caused by the great levies it has suffered, the sterility [of the land] in recent years, and the disorders that have recently occurred — would induce the king to give them some relief. That is why they offered only 500,000 for the free gift. Then, after I had protested this in the appropriate manner, they raised it to 600,000, then 800,000, and finally 900,000 livres. Until then I had stood firm at 1.5 million, but when I saw that they were on the verge of deciding not to give any more . . . I finally came down to the 1.2 million livres contained in my instructions and invited them to deliberate again, declaring that I could not agree to present any other proposition to the king and that I believed that there was no better way to serve their interests than to obey the king blindly. They agreed with good grace and came this morning to offer me a million. They begged me to leave it at that and not to demand more from them for the free gift; and since I told them they would have to do a little better to satisfy the king completely on this occasion, they again exaggerated their poverty and begged me to inform the king of it, but said that, rather than not please him, they preferred to make a new effort, and they would leave it up to me to declare what they had to do. I told them that I believed His Majesty would have the goodness to be satisfied with 1.05 million livres for the free gift, and they agreed. . . . So Monsieur, there is the deed done.

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3 Louis XIV, Memoir for the Instruction of the Dauphin. In 1670 Louis XIV finished a memoir he had compiled for the education of his son and heir. Presented in the king’s voice — although cowritten with several royal aides — the memoir recounts the early years of Louis’s reign and explains his approach to absolute rule.

image For however it be held as a maxim that in every thing a Prince should employ the most mild measures and first, and that it is more to his advantage to govern his subjects by persuasive than coercive means, it is nevertheless certain that whenever he meets with impediments or rebellion, the interest of his crown and the welfare of his people demand that he should cause himself to be indispensably obeyed; for it must be acknowledged there is nothing can so securely establish the happiness and tranquility of a country as the perfect combination of all authority in the single person of the Sovereign. The least division in this respect often produces the greatest calamities; and whether it be detached into the hands of individuals or those of corporate bodies, it always is there in a state of fermentation.

. . . [B]esides the insurrections and the intestine commotions which the ambition of power infallibly produces when it is not repressed, there are still a thousand other evils created by the inactivity of the Sovereign. Those who are nearest his person are the first to observe his weakness, and are also the first who are desirous of profiting by it. Every one of those persons have necessarily others who are subservient to their avaricious views, and to whom they at the same time give the privilege of imitating them. Thus, from the highest to the lowest is a systematic corruption communicated, and it becomes general in all classes.

4 Hyacinthe Rigaud, portrait of Louis XIV, 1701. This was one of Louis XIV’s favorite portraits of himself. He liked it so much that he had many copies of the portrait made; his successors had their own portraits painted in the same posture with the same clothing and accoutrements.
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(Louis XIV in Royal Costume, 1701, by Hyacinthe François Rigaud [1659–1743] [oil on canvas)]/Musée du Louvre, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images)
5 Growth of the French Army.
Time Period Size of Army
Middle Ages 10,000 men
1635 (Louis XIII and Richelieu enter Thirty Years’ War) 125,000 men
1670s (Louis XIV wages Dutch War) 280,000 men
1690s (Louis XIV wages Nine Years’ War) 340,000 men

ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE

  1. What elements of royal authority does the portrait of Louis XIV in Source 4 present to viewers? How would you compare this depiction of political power with images from modern-day politicians? How would you explain the differences?
  2. What justification do the sources offer for Louis’s claim to exercise “absolute” political authority? Based on his own words in Source 3, how do you think Louis would have viewed the constitutional governments of England and the Dutch Republic?
  3. Compare and contrast the evidence for Louis’s power given in these sources with evidence for limitations on it. What resources would a king have to muster to enlarge his army drastically (Source 5)? What insight do the negotiations over taxation (Source 2) give you into the ways the royal government acquired those resources?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Using the sources above, along with what you have learned in class and in this chapter, what was “absolutism”? Write a brief essay explaining what contemporaries thought absolute power entailed and the extent to which Louis XIV achieved such power.

Sources: (1) J. H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, vol. 2 (Boston: Ginn, 1906), p. 274; (2) William Beik, ed., Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000), pp. 127–128; (3) Memoirs of Lewis the Fourteenth, Written by Himself, and Addressed to His Son, vol. 1 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1806), pp. 13–14; (5) Based on information from John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667–1714 (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 5–51.