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Thirty Years' War

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kingdom of France
Reaume de France (Old French)
Royaulme de France (Middle French)
Royaume de France (French)
Regnum Franciæ (Latin)

987–1792
1814–1815
1815–1848

Royal Standard
Top (1643–1790)
Bottom (1589–1792; 1815–1848)

Grand Royal Coat of Arms

Motto:

 "Montjoie Saint Denis!" (French)

 "Mountjoy Saint Denis!"

Anthem:

 Marche Henri IV
("March of Henry IV")
 (1590–1792, 1814–1830)
Duration: 2 minutes and 1 second.2:01

 La Parisienne
("The Parisian")
(1830–1848)
Duration: 1 minute and 16 seconds.1:16
Royal anthem:
Domine salvum fac regem (unofficial)
("Lord save the King")
(1515)
Duration: 2 minutes and 7 seconds.2:07

The Kingdom of France in 1000

The Kingdom of France in 1789

Capital  Paris (987–1792; 1814–1848)

 Versailles (unofficially, 1682–1789)
Largest Paris
city

Commo  Latin, French (official)

n langua  Breton, Franco-Provençal, Occitan, N
 ges orman, Picard, Champenois, Angevin
, Gallo, Burgundian, Poitevin, Basque
, Alsatian

Religion  Roman Catholicism

Demony French
m(s)

Govern  Feudal absolute monarchy (987–

ment 1791)
 parliamentary constitutional
monarchy (1791–1792; 1814–1815;
1815–1848)[1]
Monarc
h
• 987–996 Hugh Capet (first)
• 1848 Louis Philippe II (last) (disputed)
Prime
Minister
• 1815 Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand
• 1847– François Guizot
1848

Legislat  None (rule by decree)

ure (987–1302)
 Estates General
(1302–1789)
 National Assembly
(1789–1791)
 Legislative Assembly
(1791–1792)
 National Convention
(20 September 1792)
 Parliament
(1814–1848)
• Upper  Conservative Senate
house (1814)
 Chamber of Peers
(1814–1848)
• Lower  Legislature
house (until 4 June 1814)
 Chamber of Deputies
(4 June 1814–1848)

Historic Medieval/Early modern

al era
• Treaty of c. 10 August 843
Verdun
• Capetian 3 July 987
dynasty
establish
ed
• Hundred 1337–1453
Years'
War
• French 1562–1598
Wars of
Religion
• French 5 May 1789
Revoluti
on
• Abolition 21 September 1792
of the
monarch
y
• Bourbon 6 April 1814
Restorati
on
• July 2 August 1830
Revoluti
on
• July 24 February 1848
Monarch
y
deposed

Currenc Livre, Livre parisis, Livre

y tournois, Denier, Sol/Sou, Franc, Écu, Louis
d'or

ISO FR
3166
code

Map of the first (light blue) and second (dark blue) French
colonial empires.
 Preceded by Succeeded by
West 1792:
Francia French First
Republic
1804:
First French Empire
1815:
First French
Empire (Hundred
Days)
1848:
French Second
Republic

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The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to

various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was
one of the most powerful states in Europe from the High Middle Ages to 1848 during
its dissolution. It was also an early colonial power, with colonies in Asia and Africa,
and the largest being New France in North America centred around the Great Lakes.

The Kingdom of France was descended directly from the western Frankish realm of
the Carolingian Empire, which was ceded to Charles the Bald with the Treaty of
Verdun (843). A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987,
when Hugh Capet was elected king and founded the Capetian dynasty. The territory
remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum ("king of the Franks") well
into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself rex Francie ("King of
France") was Philip II, in 1190, and officially from 1204. From then, France was
continuously ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines under
the Valois and Bourbon until the monarchy was abolished in 1792 during the French
Revolution. The Kingdom of France was also ruled in personal union with
the Kingdom of Navarre over two time periods, 1284–1328 and 1572–1620, after
which the institutions of Navarre were abolished and it was fully annexed by France
(though the King of France continued to use the title "King of Navarre" through the
end of the monarchy).

France in the Middle Ages was a decentralised, feudal monarchy.

In Brittany and Catalonia (the latter now a part of Spain), as well as Aquitaine, the
authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine and Burgundy were states of
the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France. West Frankish kings were
initially elected by the secular and ecclesiastical magnates, but the regular
coronation of the eldest son of the reigning king during his father's lifetime
established the principle of male primogeniture, which became codified in the Salic
law. During the Late Middle Ages, rivalry between the Capetian dynasty, rulers of the
Kingdom of France and their vassals the House of Plantagenet, who also ruled
the Kingdom of England as part of their so-called competing Angevin Empire,
resulted in many armed struggles. The most notorious of them all are the series of
conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) in which the kings of
England laid claim to the French throne. Emerging victorious from said conflicts,
France subsequently sought to extend its influence into Italy, but after initial gains
was defeated by Spain and the Holy Roman Empire in the ensuing Italian
Wars (1494–1559).

France in the early modern era was increasingly centralised; the French language
began to displace other languages from official use, and the monarch expanded
his absolute power in an administrative system, known as the Ancien Régime,
complicated by historic and regional irregularities in taxation, legal, judicial, and
ecclesiastic divisions, and local prerogatives. Religiously, France became divided
between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to
a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion (1562–1598). The Wars of Religion
crippled France, but triumph over Spain and the Habsburg monarchy in the Thirty
Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. The
kingdom became Europe's dominant cultural, political and military power in the 17th
century under Louis XIV. Throughout the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, France
was Europe's richest, largest, most populous, powerful and influential country. [2] In
parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the
Americas.

In the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a
total area at its peak in 1680 to over 10,000,000 square kilometres (3,900,000 sq
mi), the second-largest empire in the world at the time behind the Spanish Empire.
Colonial conflicts with Great Britain led to the loss of much of its North American
holdings by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped
the United States secure independence from King George III and the Kingdom of
Great Britain, but was costly and achieved little for France.

France through its French colonial empire, became a superpower from 1643 until
1815;[3][4] from the reign of King Louis XIV until the defeat of Napoleon in
the Napoleonic Wars.[5] The Spanish Empire lost its superpower status to France
after the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (but maintained the status of Great
Power until the Napoleonic Wars and the Independence of Spanish
America). France lost its superpower status after Napoleon's defeat against
the British, Prussians and Russians in 1815.[6]

Following the French Revolution, which began in 1789, the Kingdom of

France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year
later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the
other great powers in 1814 and, with the exception of the Hundred Days in 1815,
lasted until the French Revolution of 1848.

Political history[edit]
West Francia[edit]
Main article: West Francia
Further information: Carolingian Empire
During the later years of Charlemagne's rule, the Vikings made advances along the
northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks. After Charlemagne's
death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire
began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into
three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what
would develop into the kingdom of France.[7] Charles the Bald was also crowned King
of Lotharingia after the death of Lothair II in 869, but in the Treaty of Meerssen (870)
was forced to cede much of Lotharingia to his brothers, retaining
the Rhône and Meuse basins (including Verdun, Vienne and Besançon) but leaving
the Rhineland with Aachen, Metz, and Trier in East Francia.

Viking incursions up the Loire, the Seine, and other inland waterways increased.
During the reign of Charles the Simple (898–922), Vikings
under Rollo from Scandinavia settled along the Seine, downstream from Paris, in a
region that came to be known as Normandy.[8]

High Middle Ages[edit]

Main articles: France in the Middle Ages and Capetian dynasty
The Carolingians were to share the fate of their predecessors: after an intermittent
power struggle between the two dynasties, the accession in 987 of Hugh Capet,
Duke of France and Count of Paris, established the Capetian dynasty on the throne.
With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more
than 800 years.[9]

The old order left the new dynasty in immediate control of little beyond the middle
Seine and adjacent territories, while powerful territorial lords such as the 10th- and
11th-century counts of Blois accumulated large domains of their own through
marriage and through private arrangements with lesser nobles for protection and
support.

The area around the lower Seine became a source of particular concern when
Duke William of Normandy took possession of the Kingdom of England by
the Norman Conquest of 1066, making himself and his heirs the king's equal outside
France (where he was still nominally subject to the Crown).

Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married
France's newly single ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who ruled much of southwest
France, in 1152. After defeating a revolt led by Eleanor and three of their four sons,
Henry had Eleanor imprisoned, made the Duke of Brittany his vassal, and in effect
ruled the western half of France as a greater power than the French throne.
However, disputes among Henry's descendants over the division of his French
territories, coupled with John of England's lengthy quarrel with Philip II, allowed
Philip to recover influence over most of this territory. After the French victory at
the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in
southwestern Duchy of Aquitaine.[10]

Late Middle Ages and the Hundred Years' War[edit]

Main articles: France in the Middle Ages and Hundred Years' War
The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main
Capetian line. Under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman (Philip
IV's daughter was Isabella, whose son was Edward III of England), so the throne
passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois. This, in addition to a long-standing
dispute over the rights to Gascony in the south of France, and the relationship
between England and the Flemish cloth towns, led to the Hundred Years' War of
1337–1453. The following century was to see devastating warfare, the Armagnac–
Burgundian Civil War, peasant revolts (the English peasants' revolt of 1381 and
the Jacquerie of 1358 in France) and the growth of nationalism in both countries.[11]

The losses of the century of war were enormous, particularly owing to the plague
(the Black Death, usually considered an outbreak of bubonic plague), which arrived
from Italy in 1348, spreading rapidly up the Rhône valley and thence across most of
the country: it is estimated that a population of some 18–20 million in modern-day
France at the time of the 1328 hearth tax returns had been reduced 150 years later
by 50 percent or more.[12]

Renaissance and Reformation[edit]

The Renaissance era was noted for the emergence of powerful centralized
institutions, as well as a flourishing culture (much of it imported from Italy). [13] The
kings built a strong fiscal system, which heightened the power of the king to raise
armies that overawed the local nobility.[14] In Paris especially there emerged strong
traditions in literature, art and music. The prevailing style was classical.[15]

The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts was signed into law by Francis I in 1539. Largely
the work of Chancellor Guillaume Poyet, it dealt with a number of government,
judicial and ecclesiastical matters. Articles 110 and 111, the most famous, called for
the use of the French language in all legal acts, notarised contracts and official
legislation.

Italian Wars[edit]
Main article: Italian Wars
After the Hundred Years' War, Charles VIII of France signed three additional treaties
with Henry VII of England, Emperor Maximilian I, and Ferdinand II of
Aragon respectively at Étaples (1492), Senlis (1493) and Barcelona (1493). These
three treaties cleared the way for France to undertake the long Italian Wars (1494–
1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. French efforts to gain
dominance resulted only in the increased power of the House of Habsburg.

Wars of Religion[edit]
Main article: French Wars of Religion
Barely were the Italian Wars over, when France was plunged into a domestic crisis
with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a Concordat between
France and the Papacy (1516), granting the crown unrivalled power in senior
ecclesiastical appointments, France was deeply affected by the Protestant
Reformation's attempt to break the hegemony of Catholic Europe. A growing urban-
based Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots) faced ever harsher repression
under the rule of Francis I's son King Henry II. After Henry II's death in a joust, the
country was ruled by his widow Catherine de' Medici and her sons Francis
II, Charles IX and Henry III. Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the
powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1572), starting the
first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, German, and Spanish
forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces. Opposed to
absolute monarchy, the Huguenot Monarchomachs theorized during this time
the right of rebellion and the legitimacy of tyrannicide.[16]

The Wars of Religion culminated in the War of the Three Henrys in which Henry III
assassinated Henry de Guise, leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic League, and
the king was murdered in return. After the assassination of both Henry of Guise
(1588) and Henry III (1589), the conflict was ended by the accession of the
Protestant king of Navarre as Henry IV (first king of the Bourbon dynasty) and his
subsequent abandonment of Protestantism (Expedient of 1592) effective in 1593, his
acceptance by most of the Catholic establishment (1594) and by the Pope (1595),
and his issue of the toleration decree known as the Edict of Nantes (1598), which
guaranteed freedom of private worship and civil equality.[17]

Early modern period[edit]

Main article: France in the early modern period
Henry IV (left), by Frans Pourbus the younger (1610), Louis XIII (right), by Philippe de
Champaigne (1647)

Colonial France[edit]
Main article: New France
France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of
France's rise to European hegemony. France was expansive during all but the end of
the seventeenth century: the French began trading in India and Madagascar,
founded Quebec and penetrated the North American Great Lakes and Mississippi,
established plantation economies in the West Indies and extended their trade
contacts in the Levant and enlarged their merchant marine.

Thirty Years' War[edit]

Main article: Thirty Years' War
Henry IV's son Louis XIII and his minister (1624–1642) Cardinal Richelieu,
elaborated a policy against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty
Years' War (1618–1648) which had broken out in Germany. After the death of both
king and cardinal, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) secured universal acceptance of
Germany's political and religious fragmentation, but the Regency of Anne of
Austria and her minister Cardinal Mazarin experienced a civil uprising known as
the Fronde (1648–1653) which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659).
The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) formalised France's seizure (1642) of the Spanish
territory of Roussillon after the crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and
ushered a short period of peace.[18]

Administrative structures[edit]
Main article: Ancien Régime
The Ancien Régime, a French term rendered in English as "Old Rule", or simply
"Former Regime", refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system of
early modern France under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The
administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of
state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal
conflicts and civil wars, but they remained a confusing patchwork of
local privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution brought about a
radical suppression of administrative incoherence.

Louis XIV, the Sun King[edit]

Main article: Louis XIV

Louis XIV, a 1701 portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud

For most of the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), ("The Sun King"), France was the
dominant power in Europe, aided by the diplomacy of Cardinal Richelieu's successor
as the King's chief minister, (1642–61) Cardinal Jules Mazarin, (1602–1661).
Cardinal Mazarin oversaw the creation of a French Royal Navy that
rivalled England's, expanding it from 25 ships to almost 200. The size of the French
Royal Army was also considerably increased. Renewed wars (the War of Devolution,
1667–1668 and the Franco-Dutch War, 1672–1678) brought further territorial gains
(Artois and western Flanders and the free County of Burgundy, previously left to the
Empire in 1482), but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival royal
powers, and a legacy of an increasingly enormous national debt. An adherent of the
theory of the "Divine Right of Kings", which advocates the divine origin of temporal
power and any lack of earthly restraint of monarchical rule, Louis XIV continued his
predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital of Paris.
He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism still persisting in parts of France
and, by compelling the noble elite to regularly inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles,
built on the outskirts of Paris, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members
of which had participated in the earlier "Fronde" rebellion during Louis' minority. By
these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured
150 years until the French Revolution.[19] McCabe says critics used fiction to portray
the degraded Turkish court, using "the harem, the Sultan court, oriental despotism,
luxury, gems and spices, carpets, and silk cushions" as an unfavorable analogy to
the corruption of the French royal court.[20]

The king sought to impose total religious uniformity on the country, repealing
the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It is estimated that anywhere between 150,000 and
300,000 Protestants fled France during the wave of persecution that followed the
repeal,[21] (following "Huguenots" beginning a hundred and fifty years earlier until the
end of the 18th century) costing the country a great many intellectuals, artisans, and
other valuable people. Persecution extended to unorthodox Roman Catholics like
the Jansenists, a group that denied free will and had already been condemned by
the popes. In this, he garnered the friendship of the papacy, which had previously
been hostile to France because of its policy of putting all church property in the
country under the jurisdiction of the state rather than that of Rome.[22]

In November 1700, King Charles II of Spain died, ending the Habsburg line in that
country. Louis had long planned for this moment, but these plans were thrown into
disarray by the will of King Charles, which left the entire Spanish Empire to Louis's
grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, (1683–1746). Essentially, Spain was to become a
perpetual ally and even obedient satellite of France, ruled by a king who would carry
out orders from Versailles. Realizing how this would upset the balance of power, the
other European rulers were outraged. However, most of the alternatives were
equally undesirable. For example, putting another Habsburg on the throne would end
up recreating the grand multi-national Empire of Charles V; of the Holy Roman
Empire, Spain, and the Spanish territories in Italy, which would also grossly upset
the power balance. After nine years of exhausting war, the last thing Louis wanted
was another conflict. However, the rest of Europe would not stand for his ambitions
in Spain, and so the long War of the Spanish Succession began (1701–1714), a
mere three years after the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697, a.k.a. "War of the
League of Augsburg") had just concluded.[23]

Dissent and revolution[edit]

Main article: French Revolution

The provinces of the Kingdom of France in 1789

The reign (1715–1774) of Louis XV saw an initial return to peace and prosperity
under the regency (1715–1723) of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, whose policies were
largely continued (1726–1743) by Cardinal Fleury, prime minister in all but name.
The exhaustion of Europe after two major wars resulted in a long period of peace,
only interrupted by minor conflicts like the War of the Polish Succession from 1733 to
1735. Large-scale warfare resumed with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–
1748). But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy (the "Diplomatic Revolution"
of 1756) against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in
the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and the loss of France's North American colonies.
[24]
Louis XV (left), by Louis-Michel van Loo (1763); Louis XVI (right), by Antoine-François
Callet (1775)

On the whole, the 18th century saw growing discontent with the monarchy and the
established order. Louis XV was a highly unpopular king for his sexual excesses,
overall weakness, and for losing New France to the British. A strong ruler like Louis
XIV could enhance the position of the monarchy, while Louis XV weakened it. The
writings of the philosophes such as Voltaire were a clear sign of discontent, but the
king chose to ignore them. He died of smallpox in 1774, and the French people shed
few tears at his death. While France had not yet experienced the Industrial
Revolution that was beginning in Britain, the rising middle class of the cities felt
increasingly frustrated with a system and rulers that seemed silly, frivolous, aloof,
and antiquated, even if true feudalism no longer existed in France.

Upon Louis XV's death, his grandson Louis XVI became king. Initially popular, he too
came to be widely detested by the 1780s. He was married to an Austrian
archduchess, Marie Antoinette. French intervention in the American War of
Independence was also very expensive.[25]

With the country deeply in debt, Louis XVI permitted the radical reforms
of Turgot and Malesherbes, but noble disaffection led to Turgot's dismissal and
Malesherbes' resignation in 1776. They were replaced by Jacques Necker. Necker
had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by Calonne and Brienne, before being restored
in 1788. A harsh winter that year led to widespread food shortages, and by then
France was a powder keg ready to explode.[26] On the eve of the French
Revolution of July 1789, France was in a profound institutional and financial crisis,
but the ideas of the Enlightenment had begun to permeate the educated classes of
society.[23]
Limited monarchy[edit]
Main article: Kingdom of France (1791–92)
On September 3, 1791, the absolute monarchy which had governed France for 948
years was forced to limit its power and become a provisional constitutional
monarchy. However, this too would not last very long and on September 21, 1792,
the French monarchy was effectively abolished by the proclamation of the French
First Republic. The role of the King in France was finally ended with the Execution of
Louis XVI by guillotine on Monday, January 21, 1793, followed by the "Reign of
Terror", mass executions and the provisional "Directory" form of republican
government, and the eventual beginnings of twenty-five years of reform, upheaval,
dictatorship, wars and renewal, with the various Napoleonic Wars.

Restoration[edit]
Main article: Bourbon Restoration in France

The two kings of the Restoration: Louis XVIII (left) by François Gérard (1820s), Charles X (right)
by François Gérard (1825)

Following the French Revolution (1789–99) and the First French

Empire under Napoleon (1804–1814), the monarchy was restored when a coalition
of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the House of Bourbon in
1814. However the deposed Emperor Napoleon I returned triumphantly to Paris from
his exile in Elba and ruled France for a short period known as the Hundred Days.

When a Seventh European Coalition again deposed Napoleon after the Battle of
Waterloo in 1815, the Bourbon monarchy was once again restored. The Count of
Provence - brother of Louis XVI, who was guillotined in 1793 - was crowned as Louis
XVIII, nicknamed "The Desired". Louis XVIII tried to conciliate the legacies of the
Revolution and the Ancien Régime, by permitting the formation of a Parliament and
a constitutional Charter, usually known as the "Charte octroyée" ("Granted Charter").
His reign was characterized by disagreements between the Doctrinaires, liberal
thinkers who supported the Charter and the rising bourgeoisie, and the Ultra-
royalists, aristocrats and clergymen who totally refused the Revolution's heritage.
Peace was maintained by statesmen like Talleyrand and the Duke of Richelieu, as
well as the King's moderation and prudent intervention.[27] In 1823, the Trienio
Liberal revolt in Spain led to a French intervention on the royalists' side, which
permitted King Ferdinand VII of Spain to abolish the Constitution of 1812.

However, the work of Louis XVIII was frustrated when, after his death on 16
September 1824, his brother the Count of Artois became king under the name
of Charles X. Charles X was a strong reactionary who supported the ultra-royalists
and the Catholic Church. Under his reign, the censorship of newspapers was
reinforced, the Anti-Sacrilege Act passed, and compensations to Émigrés were
increased. However, the reign also witnessed the French intervention in the Greek
Revolution in favour of the Greek rebels, and the first phase of the conquest of
Algeria.

The absolutist tendencies of the King were disliked by the Doctrinaire majority in
the Chamber of Deputies, that on 18 March 1830 sent an address to the King,
upholding the rights of the Chamber and in effect supporting a transition to a full
parliamentary system. Charles X received this address as a veiled threat, and in 25
July of the same year, he issued the St. Cloud Ordinances, in an attempt to reduce
Parliament's powers and re-establish absolute rule.[28] The opposition reacted with
riots in Parliament and barricades in Paris, that resulted in the July Revolution.[29] The
King abdicated, as did his son the Dauphin Louis Antoine, in favour of his
grandson Henri, Count of Chambord, nominating his cousin the Duke of Orléans as
regent.[30] However, it was too late, and the liberal opposition won out over the
monarchy.

Aftermath and July Monarchy[edit]

Main article: July Monarchy
 An 1841 portrait of Louis Philippe I by Franz Xaver
Winterhalter
On 9 August 1830, the Chamber of Deputies elected Louis Philippe, Duke of
Orléans as "King of the French": for the first time since French Revolution, the King
was designated as the ruler of the French people and not the country. The
Bourbon white flag was substituted with the French tricolour,[31] and a new
Charter was introduced in August 1830.[32]

The conquest of Algeria continued, and new settlements were established in the Gulf
of Guinea, Gabon, Madagascar, and Mayotte, while Tahiti was placed
under protectorate.[33]

However, despite the initial reforms, Louis Philippe was little different from his
predecessors. The old nobility was replaced by urban bourgeoisie, and the working
class was excluded from voting.[34] Louis Philippe appointed notable bourgeois
as Prime Minister, like banker Casimir Périer, academic François Guizot,
general Jean-de-Dieu Soult, and thus obtained the nickname of "Citizen King" (Roi-
Citoyen). The July Monarchy was beset by corruption scandals and financial crisis.
The opposition of the King was composed of Legitimists, supporting the Count of
Chambord, Bourbon claimant to the throne, and of Bonapartists and Republicans,
who fought against royalty and supported the principles of democracy.

The King tried to suppress the opposition with censorship, but when the Campagne
des banquets ("Banquets' Campaign") was repressed in February 1848,[35] riots and
seditions erupted in Paris and later all France, resulting in the February Revolution.
The National Guard refused to repress the rebellion, resulting in Louis Philippe
abdicating and fleeing to England. On 24 February 1848, the monarchy was
abolished and the Second Republic was proclaimed.[36] Despite later attempts to re-
establish the Kingdom in the 1870s, during the Third Republic, the French monarchy
has not restored.

Territories and provinces[edit]

Main article: Provinces of France
Further information: Territorial evolution of France

West Francia during the reign of Hugh

Capet between 987 and 996 AD with the royal domain is shown in blue

The Kingdom of France in 1030 with the kingdom's

royal domain in light blue Territorial development

under King Philip II between 1180 and 1223
Before the 13th century, only a small part of what is now France was under control of
the Frankish king; in the north there were Viking incursions leading to the formation
of the Duchy of Normandy; in the west, the counts of Anjou established themselves
as powerful rivals of the king, by the late 11th century ruling over the "Angevin
Empire", which included the kingdom of England. It was only with Philip II of
France that the bulk of the territory of Western Francia came under the rule of the
Frankish kings, and Philip was consequently the first king to call himself "king of
France" (1190). The division of France between the Angevin (Plantagenet) kings of
England and the Capetian kings of France would lead to the Hundred Years' War,
and France would regain control over these territories only by the mid 15th century.
What is now eastern France (Lorraine, Arelat) was not part of Western Francia to
begin with and was only incorporated into the kingdom during the early modern
period.

Territories inherited from Western Francia:

Domain of the Frankish king (royal domain or demesne, see crown lands of
France)

 Ile de France
 Reims
 Bourges
 Orléans
Direct vassals of the French king in the 10th to 12th centuries:

 County of Champagne (to the royal domain in 1316)

 County of Blois (to the royal domain in 1391)
 Duchy of Burgundy (until 1477, then divided between France and
the Habsburgs)
 County of Flanders (to Burgundy in 1369)
 Duchy of Bourbon (1327–1523)
Acquisitions during the 13th to 14th centuries:

 Duchy of Normandy (1204)

 County of Tourain (1204)
 County of Anjou (1225)
 County of Maine (1225)
 County of Auvergne (1271)
 County of Toulouse (1271), including:
 County of Quercy
 County of Rouergue
 County of Rodez
 County of Gevaudan
 Viscounty of Albi
 Marquisat of Gothia
 County of Champagne (to the royal domain in 1316)
 Dauphiné (1349), hereditary possession of the kings of France, to
be held by the heir apparent, but technically not part of the
kingdom of France because it remained nominally part of the Holy
Roman Empire.
 County of Blois (to the royal domain in 1391)
Acquisitions from the Plantagenet kings of England with the French victory in
the Hundred Years' War 1453

 Duchy of Aquitaine (Guyenne), including:

 County of Poitou
 County of La Marche
  County of Angoulême
 County of Périgord
 County of Velay
 County of Saintonge
 Viscounty of Limousin
 Lordship of Issoudun
 Lordship of Déols
 Duchy of Gascogne (Gascony)
 County of Agenais
 Duchy of Bretagne (disputed since the War of the Breton
Succession, to France in 1453, to the royal demesne in 1547)
Acquisitions after the end of the Hundred Years' War:

 Duchy of Burgundy (1477)

 Pale of Calais (1558)
 Kingdom of Navarre (1620)
 Alsace: Peace of Westphalia (1648), Treaty of Nijmegen, Truce of
Ratisbon (1684)
 County of Artois (1659)
 Roussillon and Perpignan, Montmédy and other parts
of Luxembourg, parts of Flanders,
including Arras, Béthune, Gravelines and Thionville (Treaty of the
Pyrenees 1659)
 Free County of Burgundy (1668, 1679)
 French Hainaut (1679)
 Principality of Orange (1713)
 Duchy of Lorraine (1766)
 French conquest of Corsica (1769)
 Comtat Venaissin (1791)
Religion[edit]

The Reims Cathedral, built where Clovis I was

baptised by Remigius, functioned as the site for the coronations of the kings
of France in the kingdom
Prior to the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was the official state
religion of the Kingdom of France.[37] France was traditionally considered the
Church's eldest daughter (French: Fille aînée de l'Église), and the King of
France always maintained close links to the Pope,[38] receiving the title Most
Christian Majesty from the Pope in 1464.[39] However, the French monarchy
maintained a significant degree of autonomy, namely through its policy of
"Gallicanism", whereby the king selected bishops rather than the papacy.[40]

During the Protestant Reformation of the mid 16th century, France developed
a large and influential Protestant population, primarily
of Reformed confession; after French theologian and pastor John
Calvin introduced the Reformation in France, the number of French
Protestants (Huguenots) steadily swelled to 10 percent of the population, or
roughly 1.8 million people. The ensuring French Wars of Religion, and
particularly the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, decimated the Huguenot
community;[41] Protestants declined to seven to eight percent of the kingdom's
population by the end of the 16th century. The Edict of Nantes brought
decades of respite until its revocation in the late 17th century by Louis XIV.
The resulting exodus of Huguenots from the Kingdom of France created
a brain drain, as many of them had occupied important places in society.[42]

Jews have a documented presence in France since at least the early Middle
Ages.[43] The Kingdom of France was a center of Jewish learning in the Middle
Ages, producing influential Jewish scholars such as Rashi and even
hosting theological debates between Jews and Christians. Widespread
persecution began in the 11th century and increased intermittently throughout
the Middle Ages, with multiple expulsions and returns.[44]

Fundamental laws[edit]
Main article: Fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France
The fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France were a set of unwritten
principles which dealt with determining the question of royal succession, and
placed limits on the otherwise absolute power of the king from the Middle
Ages until the French Revolution in 1789. They were based on customary
usage and religious beliefs about the roles of God, monarch, and subjects.
The absolute monarchy in the kingdom was not the same as totalitarian
dictatorship, and there were limits on the king's power. These arose chiefly
from religious constraints: because the monarchy was considered to be
established by divine right, that is, that the king was chosen by God to carry
out his will, this implied that the king's subjects should obey and respect him.
The king is accountable only to God, however he doesn't have despotic
power. There are limits imposed by the Gospels, and the king does not have
the right of life and death over his subjects, and has a duty to be virtuous. [45]
See also[edit]
 France portal

 History portal

 Economic history of France

 Family tree of French monarchs
 Family tree of French monarchs (simplified)
 Fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France
  Integration of Normandy into the royal domain of the Kingdom of
France
Notes[edit]
References[edit]
1. ^ Gallie, Duncan (January 26, 1984). Social Inequality and Class
Radicalism in France and Britain. CUP
Archive. ISBN 9780521257640 – via Google Books.
2. ^ R.R. Palmer; Joel Colton (1978). A History of the Modern
World (5th ed.). p. 161.
3. ^ Aldrich, Robert (1996). Greater France: A History of French
Overseas Expansion. p. 304.
4. ^ Page, Melvin E., ed. (2003). Colonialism: An International Social,
Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO.
p. 218. ISBN 9781576073353 – via Google Books.
5. ^ Englund, Steven (2005). Napoleon: A Political Life. Harvard
University Press. p. 254.
6. ^ Englund, Steven (2005). Napoleon: A Political Life. Harvard
University Press. p. 254.
7. ^ Price, Roger (2005). A Concise History of France. Cambridge
University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780521844802.
8. ^ Bradbury, Jim (2007). The Capetians: Kings of France, 987–1328.
Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781852855284.; Airlie, Stuart (1993).
"Review article: After Empire-recent work on the emergence of post-
Carolingian kingdoms". Early Medieval Europe. 2 (2): 153–
161. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0254.1993.tb00015.x.
9. ^ William W. Kibler (1995). Medieval France: An Encyclopedia.
Taylor & Francis. p. 879. ISBN 9780824044442.
10. ^ Peter Shervey Lewis, Later medieval France: the polity (1968).
11. ^ Alice Minerva Atkinson, A Brief History of the Hundred Years'
War (2012)
12. ^ Joseph P. Byrne (2006). Daily life during the Black Death.
Greenwood. ISBN 9780313332975.
13. ^ James Russell Major, Representative Institutions in Renaissance
France, 1421–1559 (1983).
14. ^ Martin Wolfe, The fiscal system of renaissance France (1972).
15. ^ Yarrow, Philip John (1974). A literary history of France:
Renaissance France 1470–1589.; Zerner, Henri
(2003). Renaissance art in France: the invention of classicism.
Flammarion.
16. ^ Holt, Mack P. (2005). The French wars of religion, 1562–1629.
17. ^ Buisseret, David (1990). Henry IV: King of France.
Routledge. ISBN 9780044456353.
18. ^ Peter H. Wilson, Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years'
War (2009).
19. ^ Beik, William (2000). Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with
Documents.
20. ^ McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz (2008). Orientalism in Early Modern
France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime. Berg.
p. 134. ISBN 9781847884633.
 21. ^ "La Rome protestante face aux exilés de la foi". Le Temps (in
French). 13 July 2010.; Le Refuge protestant urbain au temps de la
révocation de l'Édit de Nantes. Histoire (in French). Presses
universitaires de Rennes. 5 February 2015. pp. 199–
215. ISBN 9782753531307.
22. ^ Wolf, John B. (1972). Louis XIV. Springer. ISBN 9781349014705.
23. ^ Jump up to:a b Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (1998)
24. ^ Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to
Napoleon (2003)
25. ^ William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short
Introduction (2001)
26. ^ Sylvia Neely, A Concise History of the French Revolution (2008)
27. ^ Actes du congrès – vol. 3, 1961, p. 441.; Emmanuel de Waresquiel,
2003, pp. 460–461.
28. ^ Duc de Dolberg, Castellan, II, 176 (letter 30 April 1827)
29. ^ Mansel, Philip, Paris Between Empires (St. Martin Press, New York
2001) p. 245.
30. ^ Bulletin des lois de la République franc̜ aise, Vol. 9. Imprimerie
nationale. 1831.
31. ^ Michel Pastoureau (2001). Les emblèmes de la France. Bonneton.
p. 223.
32. ^ Barjot, Dominique; Chaline, Jean-Pierre; Encrevé, André
(2014). La France au xixe siècle. Presses Universitaires de France.
p. 656.
33. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), pp. 232, 233.
34. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), p. 202.
35. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), pp. 211, 2012.
36. ^ Barjot, Chaline & Encrevé (2014), pp. 298, 299.
37. ^ Wolf, John Baptiste Wolf (1962). The Emergence of European
Civilization: From the Middle Ages to the Opening of the Nineteenth
Century. University of Virginia Press. p. 419. ISBN 9789733203162.
38. ^ Parisse, Michael (2005). "Lotharingia". In Reuter, T. (ed.). The
New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 900–c. 1024. Vol. III.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 313–315.
39. ^ "Christian Majesty, His Most".
40. ^ Wolfe, M. (2005). Jotham Parsons. The Church in the Republic:
Gallicanism and Political Ideology in Renaissance France.
Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 2004. pp. ix,
322. The American Historical Review, 110(4), 1254–1255.
41. ^ Hans J. Hillerbrand, Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set,
paragraphs "France" and "Huguenots"; The Huguenot Population of
France, 1600–1685: The Demographic Fate and Customs of a
Religious Minority by Philip Benedict; American Philosophical
Society, 1991, 164
42. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed, Frank Puaux, "Huguenot"
43. ^ Henri Pirenne (2001). Mahomet et Charlemagne (reprint of 1937
classic) (in French). Dover Publications. pp. 123–128. ISBN 0-486-
42011-6.
44. ^ Miller, Chaim (2013). "Rashi's Method of Biblical Commentary".
chabad.org.
45. ^ Dignat 2021.

Works cited[edit]
  Dignat, Alban (27 May 2021). Grégor, Isabelle (ed.). "XVIIe siècle :
Absolutisme et monarchie en France" [17th century: Absolutism
and Monarchy in France]. Herodote.net (in French). Herodote.net
SAS. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
Further reading[edit]
 Beik, William. A Social and Cultural History of Early Modern
France (2009) excerpt and text search
 Caron, François. An Economic History of Modern France (1979) online
edition
 Doyle, William. Old Regime France: 1648–1788 (2001) excerpt and text
search
 Duby, Georges. France in the Middle Ages 987–1460: From Hugh Capet
to Joan of Arc (1993), survey by a leader of the Annales School excerpt
and text search
 Fierro, Alfred. Historical Dictionary of Paris (1998) 392pp, an abridged
translation of his Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris (1996), 1580pp
 Goubert, Pierre. The Course of French History (1991), standard French
textbook excerpt and text search; also complete text online
 Goubert, Pierre. Louis XIV and Twenty Million Frenchmen (1972), social
history from Annales School
 Haine, W. Scott. The History of France (2000), 280 pp. textbook. and text
search; also online edition
 Lucien Edward Henry (1882). "Signs of Times". The Royal Family of
France: 17–38. Wikidata Q107258901.
 Holt, Mack P. Renaissance and Reformation France: 1500–
1648 (2002) excerpt and text search
 Jones, Colin, and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. The Cambridge Illustrated
History of France (1999) excerpt and text search
 Jones, Colin. The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to
Napoleon (2002) excerpt and text search
 Jones, Colin. Paris: Biography of a City (2004), 592pp; comprehensive
history by a leading British scholar excerpt and text search
 Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The Ancien Régime: A History of France
1610–1774 (1999), survey by leader of the Annales School excerpt and
text search
 Potter, David. France in the Later Middle Ages 1200–
1500, (2003) excerpt and text search
 Potter, David. A History of France, 1460–1560: The Emergence of a
Nation-State (1995)
 Price, Roger. A Concise History of France (1993) excerpt and text search
 Raymond, Gino. Historical Dictionary of France (2nd ed. 2008) 528pp
 Roche, Daniel. France in the Enlightenment (1998), wide-ranging history
1700–1789 excerpt and text search
 Wolf, John B. Louis XIV (1968), the standard scholarly biography online
edition

Historiography[edit]
 Gildea, Robert. The Past in French History (1996)
  Nora, Pierre, ed. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past (3 vol,
1996), essays by scholars; excerpt and text search; vol 2 excerpts; vol 3
excerpts
 Pinkney, David H. "Two Thousand Years of Paris", Journal of Modern
History (1951) 23#3 pp. 262–264 in JSTOR
 Revel, Jacques, and Lynn Hunt, eds. Histories: French Constructions of
the Past (1995). 654pp, 64 essays; emphasis on Annales School
 Symes, Carol. "The Middle Ages between Nationalism and
Colonialism", French Historical Studies (Winter 2011) 34#1 pp 37–46
 Thébaud, Françoise. "Writing Women's and Gender History in France: A
National Narrative?" Journal of Women's History (2007) 19#1 pp. 167–
172 in Project MUSE

External links[edit]
 Media related to Kingdom of France at Wikimedia Commons
 Quotations related to Kingdom of France at Wikiquote
 Kingdom of France travel guide from Wikivoyage
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