France: history 1515–1815

The execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793. Following the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic on 21 September 1792, Louis was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, along with his queen, Marie Antoinette. He was guillotined in the Place de la Révolution in Paris; his last words on the scaffold were: ‘May my blood cement your happiness!’. (Musée Carnavalet, Paris).

For the earlier history of France, see France: history to 1515.

The struggle with the Habsburgs The reign of Francis I (1515–47) marks the beginning of the struggle between the French and the Habsburgs, the dynasty that ruled Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Francis's reign also saw the establishment of French military prestige, the beginning of close links between France and Turkey, and the growing influence in France of Calvinism, which was eventually to lead to the religious wars later in the century.

Francis won the Battle of Marignano (1515) in northern Italy, which gained him the duchy of Milan. He also forced from the papacy an agreement – the Concordat of Bologne (1516) – that gave him practical control of the church in France. He became a candidate for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire in 1519, but was unsuccessful, and in 1525 was defeated by Charles V at the Battle of Pavia, captured, and taken a prisoner to Spain. Here he signed the Treaty of Madrid, but failed to keep the terms of that treaty, and so the war dragged on. Many attempts were made to end it, for example by the Ladies' Peace (see Cambrai), the terms of which were very similar to those of the Treaty of Crépy (1544), when Francis gave up his Italian claims. Francis had inaugurated the royal policy of being Catholic in his policy at home but supporting Protestant princes abroad in their struggles with the Habsburgs.

Under Francis's successor, Henry II (reigned 1547–59), the Huguenots (French Protestants) were persecuted bitterly in France although Henry's struggles with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V made a continuance of the pro-Protestant policy necessary abroad. Charles V attacked Metz (a former imperial possession that had been ceded to France), but was unsuccessful, and finally he resigned the crown of Spain to his eldest son Philip II. But the war with France dragged on, chiefly owing to the influence in France of the Guises (see Guise, Francis de). Calais – the last English possession in France – was won back in 1558, and in 1559 the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis temporarily ended the struggles of the Habsburgs and the French.

The wars of religion The next decades of French history are dominated by the wars of religion. During the succeeding 30 years the monarchy was weak and real power lay in the hands of the nobility. Chief among the leaders of the Huguenot nobles were the family of Bourbon, represented by Antoine de Bourbon and his brother Condé (see Condé, Henri I de Bourbon, 2nd Prince of Condé); and the family of Chatillon, represented by the statesman and warrior Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. On the Catholic side were Charles and Francis de Guise, who, during the reign of Francis II (1559–60), gained great influence, partly owing to the fact that the queen (Mary Queen of Scots) was their niece. The power of the Guise family declined when Francis II died.

Francis was succeeded by his brother Charles IX (reigned 1560–74), a boy of ten, and the regency was exercised by his mother Catherine de' Medici. In 1562 the Guises precipitated the religious wars by killing a number of Huguenot soldiers, and the fighting thus started dragged on intermittently from 1562 to 1598. Though religious principles were involved and though many sincere Catholics and Protestants fought and died for those principles, the wars were at least partly a struggle for power between the opposing court factions, and the last Valois rulers attempted, with varying success, to maintain the balance between them in order to preserve the monarchy itself.

Between 1562 and 1570 the civil war broke out three times. Each time war was ended by a promise of toleration to the Huguenots, and finally, in 1570, the Huguenots were given good terms in the Treaty of St Germain. This treaty was due largely to the growing feeling in France that the real enemy of French national unity was Spain, and Charles IX planned a united attack of Protestants and Catholics on Spain. Charles IX, between 1570 and 1572, was under the influence of Coligny, and to counter this Catherine de' Medici swung over to the Guises. Her jealousy of Coligny led her to instigate his murder, and this in turn led to the notorious massacre of Protestants on St Bartholomew's Day, 1572 (see St Bartholomew, Massacre of).

The fifth civil war saw the emergence of the body known as the Politiques. This was a loose association of those who desired only the peace of the realm, and who supported the Huguenots with that aim during this war. Henry III (reigned 1574–89) declared at first for toleration, and later against the Huguenots. Finally he acknowledged the Protestant Henry of Navarre (the son of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne, Queen of Navarre) as his heir, and had Henri de Guise assassinated. Further fighting followed. Paris rose in revolt against the king, who joined with Henry of Navarre and besieged it. Henry III was, however, assassinated himself, and the Catholic League, whose avowed object was to prevent Henry of Navarre ascending the throne, was victorious for the time being.

Henry IV Henry of Navarre (Henry IV of France, reigned 1589–1610) defeated the Catholic League at Arques (1589) and at Ivry (1590), and then besieged Paris. Dissensions were already breaking up the League, and in 1593 Henry, who for a long time had refused to change his creed, became a Catholic, and was recognized by the States General (a kind of parliament) as king of France. In 1598 Henry came to terms with Spain at the Treaty of Vervins. With the aid of Spain taken away, the Catholic League collapsed, and order was restored in France.

The reign of Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon kings of France, saw the rehabilitation of the monarchy and the country after the prolonged civil wars. The Edict of Nantes, issued in 1598, granted religious freedom to the Huguenots. Henry's minister Sully reformed the finances and justice, and helped to curb the power of the nobles. In 1610 Henry was assassinated by a Catholic extremist, François Ravaillac.

The age of Richelieu Henry IV was succeeded by his young son Louis XIII (reigned 1610–43). The regency was left in the hands of his mother, Marie de' Medici, and the nobles began to gain power again. Finally, Condé headed a rebellion that in 1614 resulted in the calling of the States General for the last time before 1789. The central figure of interest during the reign of Louis XIII is Cardinal Richelieu, who from 1624 to 1642 dominated the policy of France.

The succeeding age of Louis XIV was the logical conclusion of Richelieu's domestic and foreign policies. The former was aimed at the aggrandisement of the crown, while the latter was directed towards reducing the encircling power of the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs. France initially held back from direct involvement in the Thirty Years' War, which broke out in 1618. However, in order to aim a blow at Austria and Spain, Richelieu in 1629–31 supported Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in his attacks against the Catholics. Richelieu also intervened in Italy and secured Pinerolo.

In his domestic policy Richelieu was equally successful. He crushed the independent power of the Huguenots, humbled the great nobles, and made royal authority effective throughout France. He was also a skilled propagandist.

The age of Mazarin Louis XIII died in 1643 and was succeeded by his son, the very young Louis XIV. During the first 18 years of his reign, Cardinal Mazarin was the chief minister, and followed in the footsteps of Richelieu, but he was unable to exercise quite the same firm control. France entered the Thirty Years' War in 1635, principally to fight Habsburg power, and from this point the war became political rather than religious in nature. The victory of Condé (see Condé, Louis II) at Rocroi in 1643 was a decisive blow against Habsburg power. The result of French military success was that in the treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648 (see Westphalia, Treaty of), France was given Lorraine, the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.

At home, however, matters were more disturbed. Two civil wars broke out, known as the first and second Fronde. In the first, the magistrates of the parlements (sovereign courts) aimed at obtaining various concessions from the crown. This was ended by the Treaty of Rueil. Immediately afterwards the second Fronde broke out. This was led by Condé, was aimed against Mazarin and was, in fact, an attempt to diminish the growing powers of the crown. But eventually the crown and the minister triumphed, and in 1658 the second Fronde was finally put down.

The Treaty of Westphalia had ended the struggle between the Austrian Habsburgs and France, but the war against Spain continued. This war was concluded by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), by which the Spanish ceded some territory in the Pyrenees and in the Low Countries to France. A marriage alliance was arranged between Louis XIV and Maria Theresa, the daughter of the Spanish king. This marriage was celebrated in 1660.

Louis XIV comes to power In 1661 Mazarin died and Louis XIV became his own chief minister. Louis had resolved to be an absolute monarch (see absolutism), and successfully weakened the political power of the nobility, centralizing all power in his own person. He adopted Richelieu's foreign policy of territorial aggrandisement, and the success of Louis's policy in this area in the early years of his reign owed much to the wise domestic administration of Colbert, his chief minister and controller-general (finance minister), who was responsible for a range of financial reforms and an increase in trade and wealth.

But Louis's determination to assert himself in Europe was destined to lead France into a series of wars from which its economy was not to recover until after the Revolution.

Wars in the north The War of Devolution broke out in 1667, just after the death of Philip IV of Spain. The attempt by Louis XIV to annex the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium and Luxembourg) alarmed England and the Dutch Republic, who formed an alliance with Sweden to prevent Louis from carrying out his aim. Louis, who had already agreed with Austria that when Charles II of Spain died the Spanish dominions in the Low Countries should be divided, made peace and withdrew from the Spanish Netherlands (1668). His next war was with the Dutch (1672–78). By the Peace of Nijmegen, which ended it, the French made great gains in the north.

Eastward expansion Louis now turned his attention to pushing the boundary of France eastward to the River Rhine. Some of the territories that Louis already possessed had feudal dependencies in this area, and Louis now claimed sovereignty over these. He proceeded to annex all Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg, and by the Treaty of Ratisbon (1684) he was allowed to keep what he claimed for 20 years. But Louis's policy of blatant aggression had made him enemies all over Europe. The annexations had made the Holy Roman Empire and Spain unfriendly; the Dutch Republic remained hostile; and England after 1688 became, under William III, the centre of opposition to the ambitions of France.

The War of the League of Augsburg In 1685 Louis took a terrible initiative in his domestic policy by revoking the Edict of Nantes, which had offered toleration to the French Huguenots. The ensuing emigration (many to Britain) of tens of thousands of Protestants seriously damaged the economic and social fabric of France.

The War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97) – fought against the Grand Alliance formed by William III – was the direct result of Louis's aggressive policies. It was waged in Germany, where Louis cruelly laid waste to the Palatinate; in Ireland, where he supported the Jacobites (the supporters of the deposed James II of England); on the sea, where, by the Battle of La Hogue (1692), the sea power of England was finally established; and in the Low Countries, where the war rapidly became largely one of sieges. By the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) Louis gave up all conquests, with few exceptions, gained since 1678.

The War of the Spanish Succession But the Treaty of Ryswick was merely a truce. Charles II of Spain was dying, and the still ambitious Louis was determined to establish Bourbon power in the Iberian Peninsula. William III and Louis signed two partition treaties, dividing Spain's still vast European and world empire. Both of these, however, were broken, one by the death of the Electoral Prince Joseph (a descendant of the Habsburgs who had been fixed on as Charles II's heir, to prevent the Spanish empire falling to a descendant of the emperor or Louis XIV); and the second by the acceptance of the will of Charles II (leaving his dominions to Louis's grandson, Philip of Anjou) by the French king. Louis immediately overran the Spanish Netherlands with French troops, and when the exiled James II died Louis recognized his son as James III of England.

England immediately put itself at the head of the alliance against France, and the War of the Spanish Succession broke out. It lasted from 1701 to 1714. French military power was broken by the great victories of the allies at Blenheim (see Blenheim, Battle of), Ramillies, Oudenaarde, and Malplaquet, but the successes of the allies in Spain were only transient, and the English capture of Gibraltar (1704) was the allies' greatest success there. The French rallied towards the end of the war and gained remarkably favourable terms by the peace signed at Utrecht in 1713 (see Utrecht, Treaty of ). Philip of Anjou kept Spain and its overseas empire, and Austria was given the Italian possessions formerly belonging to Spain, together with the Spanish Netherlands, where the Dutch were to retain some of the barrier fortresses. In 1714 the Treaty of Rastatt was signed by Austria and France, supplementing the Treaty of Utrecht. Louis died in 1715.

The War of the Austrian Succession Louis XIV was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV, during the first year of whose reign government was in the hands of a regent, the Duke of Orleans. Subsequently, France's foreign policy was complicated by the War of the Polish Succession (in which Austria and Russia fought France and Spain) and the struggles of Austria and Russia against Turkey. France was still true to its old policy of alliance with Turkey. Louis's chief minister, Cardinal Fleury, had just succeeded in regaining for France a foremost place amongst the powers of Europe when the War of the Austrian Succession broke out.

The war had begun as an attempt on the part of France to injure still further the power of the house of Habsburg in Europe, but after 1743 it became a struggle with Britain over colonial possessions in India and North America. France and Spain declared war against Austria and England. The war was fought in Germany, America, and India. In 1745 the Battle of Fontenoy was won by the French. Frederick (II) the Great of Prussia withdrew from the war in 1746, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748. The peace was in truth but a truce, and simply restored the status quo as far as France was concerned.

The Seven Years' War The period between the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (with the North American arm known as the French and Indian War) was filled with tensions in France itself. The parlements were increasingly in conflict with the king, in support of the Jansenists (a rather puritanical group within the Catholic Church) over taxation and the question of who really ruled France. By the outbreak of the war in 1756 India had already practically been lost following the recall of the French governor general Joseph-François Dupleix in 1754, and there was already fighting in America. In 1756 a diplomatic revolution united the interests of Austria and France against those of Britain and Prussia. Such was the state of affairs when the Seven Years' War broke out.

The French were successful in Europe and America up to 1758, but during 1759 the series of British victories at Lagos, Quiberon Bay, and the Plains of Abraham (by which British supremacy was established in Canada) brought the colonial power of France down to the lowest level it had yet reached. Its power in India was overthrown by the surrender of Pondicherry. In Europe France had been almost equally unsuccessful, and the Battle of Rossbach broke the military power of France until the Revolution. By the Treaty of Paris France ceded Canada and North America to England. Menorca passed into British hands, and France had to compensate Spain with Louisiana (then covering a large area of the American Midwest).

The end of Louis XV's reign Between 1763 and 1774 France, chiefly under the ministry of Etienne François Choiseul, was engaged in internal reform and also in an attempt to revive the strength of the navy for a renewed struggle with Britain. At home, the struggle between king and parlements over Jansenism, taxation, and authority was getting more bitter. In 1770 Louis XV suppressed the parlements and stripped them of their power to counter royal decrees. The Jesuits were banished in 1762. France maintained its alliance with Austria and Spain, and in 1770 Marie Antoinette of Austria married Louis's grandson and heir, the future Louis XVI. Before the end of the reign in 1774 Choiseul had been dismissed. Louis XV's reign had seen a substantial erosion of the achievements of Louis XIV both at home and abroad; but despite the monarchy's loss of prestige and France's many ills, the Revolution of 1789 was not foreseen.

The reign of Louis XVI In 1774 Louis XVI came to the throne, and attempted reforms, even restoring the suppressed parlements. However, the influence of the queen, Marie Antoinette, frustrated the efforts of Louis's reforming ministers Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker. The latter was dismissed in 1781, having attempted to manage the finances of the country for six years.

During the American Revolution France supported the American colonists against the British. The French minister, the comte de Vergennes, directed his country's policy with such effect that France's intervention won the Americans recognition of their independence, and restored to France some of its lost prestige.

After the American war French ministers tried various means of reform to stave off national bankruptcy, but finally the sense of crisis in France became so strong that the king was obliged to summon the States General (a kind of parliament) to meet in May 1789, and to restore Necker as his minister.

The beginnings of the French Revolution During the 18th century, French Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu, the Encyclopédistes, Voltaire, and Rousseau had concentrated public opinion on France's many problems. These thinkers espoused social, political and economic reforms based on reason and natural human rights, in opposition to the despotism of absolute monarchy and what they regarded as the superstitions of the church. In particular, the Social Contract of Jean-Jacques Rousseau had been widely read and was a strong influence on the French intelligentsia, from whom the leaders of the Revolution sprang.

The States General, comprising the three ‘estates’ of nobles, clergy, and commons, met on 5 May 1789 at Versailles. The Third Estate, the commons, immediately demanded that the assembly should meet together and not separately in its three orders. In June they adopted the title of the National Assembly and banded themselves together by an oath to make a new constitution. Mirabeau, the leader of the assembly, demanded the disbandment of the royal troops round Paris, but the king refused and dismissed Necker. In response the National Guard was formed by the people, and the Bastille stormed and taken on 14 July.

The fall of the Bastille led to the recall of Necker, while all over the country it influenced the formation of national guards and attacks on the castles of the feudal nobility. The assembly now proceeded to abolish all feudal and other privileges. In October the assembly moved to Paris, to where the king had already been taken by the mob. In June 1791 the king attempted to escape from the control of the assembly, but was brought back a prisoner from Varennes and forced to accept a new constitution. The assembly then dissolved itself in September 1791. The new assembly met in October. It was dominated by the Girondins and the much more radical Montagnards (‘men of the mountain’). The Girondins wished to establish a bourgeois republic, and to encourage such republics elsewhere in Europe, while the Montagnards placed more emphasis on improving the lot of the workers and peasants, and wanted to restrict the revolution to France. The Montagnards were divided into two factions, the Jacobins, led by Robespierre, and the Cordeliers (named after their original meeting place, the monastery of the Cordeliers, or Franciscans) led by Danton, Marat, and Desmoulins.

The foundation of the First Republic The other European powers became alarmed at developments in France, and relations deteriorated. In 1792 the French declared war on Austria and Prussia. The lack of success of the French armies at the beginning of the war angered the people, who blamed the king and the nobility for betraying the revolution. On 10 August a crowd stormed the royal palace, slaughtered the Swiss guards, and overthrew the monarchy. A new ministry at once came into office, the war was pursued with more vigour, and Charles Dumouriez won the Battle of Valmy (20 September) against an invading Prussian force. The new National Convention declared France a republic, and the Austrians were defeated at Jemappes.

European war was imminent. France was already at war with Austria and Prussia. The September massacres of 1792 – in which the Paris crowd, fearing the forces of reaction, broke into the prisons and killed many aristocrats and clerics – were condemned by the Girondins. However, the Girondins were finally outvoted by their more extreme opponents, who tried and executed Louis XVI in January 1793. Alarmed at the French conquest of the Austrian Netherlands, Britain declared war and formed the First Coalition against France, consisting of most of the European powers and including the Dutch Republic, Spain, and Sardinia.

In July of the same year the Girondins were overthrown, and the Committee of Public Safety was instituted. France was now in the grip of the Jacobin leader Robespierre, and the Reign of Terror followed. (During this period, France adopted a new, Revolutionary calendar.) Gradually Robespierre's policy was successful both at home and abroad. The government crushed the revolts against it (see Vendée, Wars of the), and the foreign powers were defeated, freeing France from threats of invasion. However, the revolutionaries quarrelled amongst themselves, and Robespierre himself was guillotined.

France under the Directory After the death of Robespierre affairs in France still stayed violent. In 1795 the Directory was formed. This was another attempt to set up a constitutional government. The government, opposed by the forces of the right and left, was soon faced with another revolution. After putting down the insurrections of conservatives and royalists by means of Bonaparte's famous ‘whiff of grapeshot’ (see Napoleon I), it established the ‘constitution of the year III’, and set up a republican form of government, which consisted of an executive of five directors and a two-chamber legislature.

The policy of the Directory was at first successful at home and abroad: the reaction of the royalists, who were in the majority in the councils, was put down, the Italian campaign ended in the advantageous Treaty of Campo-Formio (1797), and ‘sister republics’ were established by local revolutionaries in the Dutch Netherlands, Switzerland, and parts of Italy. Only Britain was now still at war with France, and Bonaparte, the Directory's general, left Europe to conquer Egypt with the intention of establishing a French presence between Britain and India. When he returned after his unsuccessful campaign he found that the Second Coalition – consisting of Britain, Russia, Turkey, Portugal, and Naples – had been formed against France, and the French had been driven out of Italy.

Napoleon comes to power France was on the verge of civil war when Bonaparte – aided by Talleyrand and the Directory member Emmanuel-Joseph Sièyes – carried out the coup of 19 Brumaire (1799), destroyed the Directory, and set up the government known as the Consulate. Bonaparte established himself as first consul and was soon virtual dictator of France. His Italian campaign and victory at Marengo, together with Gen Jean Victor Moreau's victory in Germany at Hohenlinden, forced Austria to accept the Treaty of Lunéville (1801). The so-called ‘armed neutrality of the north’ was formed by those countries – Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Prussia – that resented Britain's attempt to end their trade with France, but this failed, and after the accession of Alexander I the Russians withdrew from their French alliance. Britain and France came to terms and signed a peace treaty in 1802, ending the Revolutionary Wars (see Amiens, peace of).

During the short interval of peace Bonaparte reorganized the central government, established a sound system of education, and healed the breach with the church by his concordat with the papacy. He also reorganized French law by means of the Code Napoléon. In 1804 Napoleon was declared emperor by the Senate, and crowned himself at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The Napoleonic Wars In 1803 war broke out again, and the life of Napoleon for the next 12 years is the history of Europe. Although British naval supremacy was confirmed at the Battle of Trafalgar (October 1805), the French victory at Austerlitz in December of that year ended the coalition of Russia and Austria against France, and Austria was forced to sign the Treaty of Pressburg. In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was abolished, Germany was split up and divided into French-sponsored states such as the Confederacy of the Rhine, and Prussia was comprehensively defeated at Jena (see Jena, Battle of). In 1807 Russia was forced to accept French terms at the Treaty of Tilsit following its defeats at Eylau and Friedland. Napoleon's invasion of Spain and Portugal in 1808 initiated the Peninsular War.

Napoleon, by means of the economic blockade of the Continental System, tried to overthrow the power of Britain, but eventually failed because of British naval superiority and because France itself could not ultimately do without supplies. Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, in an attempt to enforce the Continental System, led to the disastrous retreat from Moscow. When Napoleon emerged from the Russian campaign he was plunged into the War of Liberation (1813). The Battle of the Nations (16–18 October 1813) saw Napoleon's forces decisively defeated by a combination of Germans, Austrians, and Russians. Still Napoleon refused to make peace, and the allies entered France from the north, while the British under Wellington routed the French in the south, proclaiming Louis XVIII as the French king. Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba, while the first Treaty of Paris was signed (1814).

The settlement of Europe was still under discussion when Napoleon escaped from Elba, landed in France, and rallied the French around him. The campaign known as the ‘hundred days’ took place, and Napoleon, finally defeated at Waterloo (18 June 1815), abdicated, surrendered to the British, and was exiled to St Helena, where he died in 1821.

For subsequent events see France: history 1815–1945, and for history since 1945 see France.