coincided with one of the traditionally most disaffected rural zones: the Ormée of Bordeaux and the extreme South-West were the last centres to hold out against Mazarin’s armies. But the popular seizures of power in Bordeaux and Paris occurred too late to affect the outcome of the criss-crossed conflicts of the Fronde; local Huguenotism in general remained studiously neutral in the South; and no coherent political programme emerged from the Ormée, beyond its instinctual hostility to the local Bordelais bourgeoisie.20 By 1653, Mazarin and Turenne had stamped out the last refuges of revolt. The progress of administrative centralization and class reorganization achieved within the mixed structures of the French monarchy in the 17th century had revealed its efficacy. Although the social pressure from below was probably more urgent, the Fronde was actually less dangerous to the monarchical State than the Religious Wars, because the propertied classes were by now more united. For all the contradictions between the officier and intendant systems, both groups were predominantly recruited from the noblesse de robe, while the bankers and tax-farmers against whom the Parlements protested were in fact closely connected in personnel to them. The annealing process permitted by the coexistence of the two systems within a single State thus ended by ensuring much prompter solidarity against the masses. The very depth of the plebeian unrest revealed by the Fronde shortened the last emotional breakaway of the dissident aristocracy from the monarchy: although there were to be further peasant risings in the 17th century, no conflux of rebellion from above and below ever occurred again. The Fronde cost Mazarin his projected gains in the Mediterranean. But when the Spanish War ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees, Roussillon and Artois had been added to France; and a picked bureaucratic elite was practised and ready for the imposing administrative order of the next reign. The aristocracy was henceforward to settle down under the consummated, solar Absolutism of Louis XIV.
The new sovereign assumed personal command of the whole state apparatus in. 1661. Once royal authority and executive capacity were reunited in a single ruler, the full political potential of French Absolutism was rapidly realized. The Parlements were silenced, their claim to present remonstrances before registering royal edicts annulled (1673). The other sovereign courts were reduced to obedience. The provincial Estates could no longer dispute and bargain over taxes: precise fiscal demands were dictated by the monarchy, which they were compelled to accept. The municipal autonomy of the bonnes villes was bridled, as mayoralties were domesticated and military garrisons were installed in them. Governorships were granted for three years only, and their holders frequently obliged to reside with the court, rendering them merely honorific. Command of fortified towns in frontier regions was carefully rotated. The higher nobility was forced to reside at Versailles once the new palace complex was completed (1682), and divorced from effective lordship over its territorial domains. These measures against the refractory particularism of traditional institutions and groups provoked, of course, resentment both among the princes and peers, and the provincial gentry. But they did not alter the objective bond between the aristocracy and the State, henceforward more efficacious than ever in protecting the basic interests of the noble class. The degree of economic exploitation guaranteed by French Absolutism can be judged by the recent calculation that throughout the 17th century, the nobility – 2 per cent of the population – appropriated 20–30 per cent of the total national income.21 The central machinery of royal power was thus now concentrated, rationalized and enlarged without serious aristocratic resistance.
Louis XIV inherited his key ministers from Mazarin: Le Tellier, in charge of military affairs, Colbert who came to combine management of the royal finances, household and navy, Lionne who directed foreign policy, and Séguier who as Chancellor handled internal security. These disciplined and competent administrators formed the apex of the bureaucratic order now at the disposal of the monarchy. The king presided in person over the deliberations of the small Conseil d’en Haut, comprising his most trusted political servants and excluding all princes and grandees. This became the supreme executive body of the State, while the Conseil des Dépêches dealt with provincial and domestic matters, and the newly created Conseil des Finances supervised the economic organization of the monarchy. The departmental efficacy of this relatively taut system, linked by the tireless activity of Louis XIV himself, was much greater than that of the cumbersome conciliar paraphernalia of Habsburg Absolutism in Spain, with its semi-territorial lay-out and interminable collective ruminations. Below it, the intendant network now covered the whole of France – Brittany was the last province to receive a commissioner in 1689.22 The country was divided into 32 généralités, in each of which the royal intendant now ruled supreme, assisted by sub-délégués, and vested with new powers over the assessment and supervision of the taille – vital duties that were transferred from the old officier ‘treasurers’ formerly in control of them. The total personnel of the civilian sector of the central state apparatus of French Absolutism in the reign of Louis XIV was still very modest: perhaps 1,000 responsible functionaries in all, both at court and in the provinces.23 But these were backed by a massively augmented coercive machinery. A permanent police force was created to keep order and repress riots in Paris (1667), which was ultimately extended throughout France (1698–9). The Army was enormously increased in size during the reign, rising from some 30–50,000 to 300,000 by its end.24 Regular pay, drill and uniforms were introduced by Le Tellier and Louvois; military weaponry and fortifications were modernized by Vauban. The growth of this military apparatus meant the final disarming of the provincial nobility, and the capacity to strike down popular rebellions with dispatch and efficacy.25 The Swiss mercenaries who provided Bourbon Absolutism with its household troops helped to make short work of the Boulonnais and Camisard peasantry; the new dragoons operated the mass ejection of Huguenots from France. The ideological incense surrounding the monarchy, lavishly dispensed by the salaried writers and clerics of the regime, swathed the armed repression on which it relied, but could not conceal it.
French Absolutism achieved its institutional apotheosis in the last decades of the 17th century. The State structure and concordant ruling culture perfected in the reign of Louis XIV was to become the model for much of the rest of the nobility in Europe: Spain, Portugal, Piedmont and Prussia were only the most direct later examples of its influence. But the political rayonnement of Versailles was not an end in itself: the organizational accomplishments of Bourbon Absolutism were designed in the conception of Louis XIV to serve a specific purpose – the superior goal of military expansion. The first decade of the reign, from 1661 to 1672, was essentially one of internal preparation for external adventures ahead. Administratively, economically and culturally these were the most effulgent years of Louis XIV’s rule; nearly all its most lasting work dated from them. Under the able superintendancy of the early Colbert, fiscal pressure was stabilized and trade promoted. State expenses were cut by the wholesale suppression of new offices created since 1630; the depredations of tax-farmers were drastically reduced, although collection was not itself resumed by the State; royal demesne lands were systematically recovered. The taille personnelle was lowered from 42 to 34 million livres; while the taille réelle in the more lightly burdened pays d’états was raised by some 50 per cent; the yield of indirect taxes was increased some 60 per cent by vigilant control of the farming system. The net revenues of the monarchy doubled from 1661 to 1671, and a budgetary surplus was regularly achieved.26 Meanwhile, an ambitious mercantilist programme to accelerate manufacturing and commercial growth in France, and colonial expansion overseas, was launched: royal subventions founded new industries (cloth, glass, tapestry, iron-ware), chartered companies were created to exploit the trade of the East and West Indies, shipyards were heavily subsidised, and finally an extremely protectionist tariff system imposed. It was this very mercantilism, however, which led directly to the decision to invade Holland in 1672, with the intention of suppressing the competition of its trade – which had proved easily superior to French commerce – by incorporating the United Provinces into the French domains. The Dutch war was initially successful: French troops crossed the Rhine, lay within striking distance of Amsterdam, and took Utrecht. An international coalition, however, rapidly rallied to the defense of the status quo – above all, Spain and Austria; while the Orange dynasty regained power within Holland, forging a marital alliance with England. Seven years of fighting ended with France in possession of the Franche-Comté and an improved frontier in Artois and Flanders, but with the United Provinces intact and