Parliamentary Fronde and Fronde of Princes
This 2th-century illustration shows Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier (the "Grand Mademoiselle", daughter of Gaston d'Orléans and cousin of Louis XIV), ordering the garrison of the Bastille to open fire on the king's troops on 1652 July XNUMX.
В previous article We talked about the events that preceded the beginning of a series of anti-government protests in France, which began in the summer of 1648 and were called Fronde. Today we will continue this story.
Parliamentary Fronde
So, the beginning of the Fronde dates back to the summer of 1648. Let us note, by the way, that in the same year the famous "Salt Riot" took place in Moscow - the first of three great riots during the reign of the Quietest Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (the other two were the Copper and Bread Riots, but there were also the Great Schism and the uprising of S. Razin). However, let us not digress.
The last straw that triggered the Fronde was a change in the conditions of the pôletta, the annual tax that members of the "nobility of the robe" paid for the positions they had purchased (positions in the French kingdom were freely sold from 1604 to 1790). As a result, on June 16, 1648, the Parisian Parliament, the Grand Council, the Chamber of Accounts, and the Chamber of Indirect Taxes came out in a united front against the first minister Mazarin. The Parliament even declared him an enemy of the state. A parliamentary delegation headed to the royal palace, accompanied by a large crowd chanting demands to "pity the poor oppressed people."
At the same time, many of Mazarin's opponents did not consider themselves enemies of royal power. For example, the lawyer of the Parisian Parliament, O. Talon, spoke of the king as the Sun, and compared the Parliament to clouds: the Sun is the giver of all blessings, but clouds are also needed, which sometimes obscure the Earth from it.
In July, about six thousand peasants came to Paris demanding a reduction in the direct tax (taille).
That same summer of 1648, on Mazarin's orders, some influential opponents of the first minister were arrested, including the grandson of Henry IV, Duke François de Beaufort, whom Dumas would "force" Athos and Aramis to release from the Château de Vincennes. In response, the Parisian parliament put forward a demand to ban arrests without charge, as well as to limit the monarch's rights to raise old taxes and appoint new, additional ones. The situation was made even more tense by events in England, where the Long Parliament made similar demands.
The next step in the confrontation was made on August 26, 1648, when before the thanksgiving service in honor of the victory of the French army over the Spaniards at Lens, the presidents of the parliament, Blancmesnil and Charton, and the very popular councilor of the Grand Chamber, Brussels, were arrested. The indignant Parisians took to the streets, building about 1200 barricades. But Anne of Austria haughtily responded to the rebel deputies:
“I know that there is noise in the city, and you will answer me for this. You, gentlemen, members of parliament, your wives and your children."
She promised to strangle Brussels, but not to release him.
K. Steiben. Queen Dowager Anne of Austria
Pierre Brussel in an engraving from 1648.
However, after only 2 days the queen was forced to make concessions. After the release of those arrested, the riots ceased.
On October 22, 1648, Anne signed 27 points of the declaration drawn up in parliament, which limited the arbitrary exercise of power. The taglia was reduced by 20% (which amounted to about 10 million livres), indirect taxes were reduced by 5 million. The secret expenses fund was not to exceed 3 million livres.
On October 24, 1648, the Thirty Years' War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia. For France, its terms were extremely favorable, and Alsace and Lorraine came under its control. However, the country remained in a state of war with Spain, which would only end in 1659. And so the burden on the treasury did not decrease, and given the reduction in tax revenues, the situation became even worse.
On the other hand, the queen, Mazarin and their supporters felt insulted by the forced agreement with the Parliament and hatched plans for revenge. Having waited for the troops of Prince Louis II of Condé to approach Paris, the queen, her son and the entire court left the capital on the night of January 6, 1649, moving to the suburb of Saint-Germain. From there, Anne addressed her opponents with a demand to leave Paris. The Parliament, in turn, issued a decree on the expulsion of Mazarin from France and the seizure of his property. Their own army began to form, and the Parliament appointed the younger brother of Louis Condé, Prince Armand de Bourbon-Conti, as its commander.
The Queen and Mazarin did not expect such decisive action from their opponents. There were not enough troops for the assault, and the blockade of the city was ineffective. In addition, in March of the following year, the Spaniards, who were called to France by the aristocratic Frondeurs, went on the offensive. And from England came news of the execution of King Charles I, which frightened both sides. The leaders of the Parliamentary Fronde did not want such a development of events in their country at all. As a result, on April 1, 1649, an agreement was reached, according to which the Parliament renounced the demand for the expulsion of Mazarin, and its members took on the obligation not to meet for general sessions until the end of the year.
"Fronde of Princes"
Cardinal de Retz (Jean François Paul de Gondi, considered by some to be the prototype of Aramis) and the Fronde insurgents
Neither side achieved a complete victory, and so a new round of confrontation began on January 18, 1650. It was provoked by the arrest of the defiantly behaving Prince Condé, his brother Conti and his son-in-law the Duke of Longueville. Unlike the peasants and townspeople, they had "nothing to complain about". Taking advantage of the people's discontent, they simply wanted to weaken the royal power and return their families to the position of semi-independent rulers of individual French regions. Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount de Turenne, also ended up on the side of the Fronde - in the future, one of the best commanders of Louis XIV and Europe of that time.
Marshal Turenne in a portrait by an unknown artist of the XNUMXth century.
The reason was his love for Condé's older sister, Anne Geneviève, better known as the Duchess of Longueville. But the future Marshal ended up marrying Charlotte de Caumont, the daughter of the Huguenot Marshal Armand-Nompar de Caumont, Duke of La Force.
The arrest of Condé and his comrades was a violation of the declaration signed by the queen, but the Parisian parliament did not even think of filing a protest. After all, it was Condé’s army that had recently besieged Paris, and the townspeople treated the prince with mistrust and even hostility. However, the situation was changing quickly. At the end of May, a detachment of Condé’s supporters broke through to Bordeaux – and the rebellious townspeople opened the city gates. Its siege by the royal army began, which lasted until October 1. The rebels left the city, but refused to lay down weapon and fortified themselves in the castles that belonged to them.
Meanwhile, the Spaniards struck from another direction – they invaded France from the Southern Netherlands, which belonged to them. They were led by high-born Frondeurs, but Mazarin was declared the culprit. His resignation was demanded by the Parisian Parliament, the assembly of representatives of the provincial nobility, the assembly of the French church and the young king’s uncle, the Duke of Orleans.
On the night of February 7, 1651, Mazarin was forced to flee the capital and then leave France altogether. Queen Anne, her son and courtiers also wanted to leave Paris, but the Palais Royal was surrounded by the city militia. The royal family was effectively under house arrest, which lasted almost two months. One night, a crowd of Frondeurs even broke into the bedroom of 8-year-old Louis XIV to make sure that the king had not been taken away from Paris.
Frondeurs in the bedroom of Louis XIV
Under these conditions, Anne of Austria was forced to sign decrees on the expulsion of Mazarin from France and the release of the rebellious princes. At the same time, Condé was also appointed governor of the province of Guyenne, the capital of which was the city of Bordeaux. He immediately concluded a new anti-French treaty with Spain and even with England, which was then headed by Cromwell. In the lands under their control, the rebels brutally suppressed the peasant unrest.
However, the allies soon fell out, as it turned out that the nobles and the townspeople had too different interests and goals, and the hierarchs of the French church were unhappy with the parliament's initiative to exclude cardinals from the royal council. To resolve the disputes, Queen Anne declared her consent to convene the Estates General, but no one was happy with the date - September 8, 1651. The fact is that on September 5, her son turned 13, that is, according to the French laws of that time, he became an adult and could immediately cancel all the decisions of his mother. The Assembly of the Nobility was dispersed with the help of Parliament, which became a temporary ally of the queen. Then the Assembly of the Church was forced to dissolve itself.
In September 1651, hostilities resumed, and on December 23, 1651, at the call of Anne of Austria, Mazarin returned to France - and not alone, but with an army of German mercenaries. This changed the balance of power: the Parisian Parliament, which until then had supported the royal power, now again became its enemy. Mazarin was declared an outlaw, Paris closed its gates to the queen and her son, who were in the province at the time. But the Parliament also found itself in a difficult position, since it did not want an alliance with the rebellious Condé. And therefore, it was decided to form its own army for the war against Mazarin, but its commander, Duke Gaston of Orleans, entered into an alliance with the rebellious princes. He apparently did not consider himself a traitor, since he maintained the army at his own expense.
The war was waged in Normandy and Guyenne, and rebellions engulfed Anjou, Berry, and La Rochelle. Mazarin was successful in the provinces, but in Paris, ordinary citizens held a ceremonial meeting for Condé on April 11, 1652. The prince of the blood who entered the capital encouraged attacks on all those suspected of sympathizing with Mazarin, and the grandson of Henry IV, Duke François de Beaufort, even took the lead of a detachment of urban lumpen and petty criminals, receiving the nickname "King of the Markets" from the Parisians. Let us recall that in the novel "Twenty Years Later", his escape from the Château de Vincennes was organized by Athos and Aramis, who ended up on the side of the Fronde.
Jean Nocret. François de Bourbon Duke of Beaufort
On June 16, the parliamentary deputation was offered an "exchange": Mazarin's departure from France on condition of disarming the Fronde princes. And on July 4, a crowd, which included Condé's soldiers in disguise and Beaufort's "tramps", dispersed the Great City Council that had gathered in the town hall. The new composition of the municipality, headed by Brussel, declared an alliance with the princes. However, the pogroms in Paris frightened the representatives of the bourgeoisie, who were no longer happy that they had let such "allies" into the capital. Mazarin was still forced to leave the country, but he continued to influence the situation through written advice that he sent to the queen from abroad. And his estates at that time were managed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who would later become Mazarin's successor as first minister and would be called the "financial genius of France".
Colbert in an engraving by Robert Nanteuil, 1676.
On September 23, a proclamation began to circulate in Paris, in which, in the name of the king, the citizens were ordered to restore the old municipality dispersed by the rebels - even by force of arms. When the city militia went over to the royalists, Brussel chose to resign (September 24). On October 13, Condé was forced to leave Paris. In alliance with the Spaniards, he fought against France for another 7 years. Later, this prince would be forgiven and would put forward his candidacy in the elections for king in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Meanwhile, on October 21, 1652, the young king arrived in the capital, promising amnesty to everyone. It was then that Turenne returned to his court. However, the most active Frondeurs were still sent into exile. Finally, on February 3, 1653, Mazarin returned to Paris. He rode into the city on a white horse, just as Richelieu had once done in La Rochelle, which he had conquered. At the gates of Saint-Denis, he was met by King Louis XIV himself. Mazarin took power into his own hands again and effectively ruled France until 1661.
The last hotbed of the Fronde smoldered in Bordeaux, where Prince Conti was located. True, this aristocrat was forced to coordinate all his actions with the city organization "Orme". But on August 3, 1653, without waiting for help from either the Spanish or the English, this city capitulated too.
After the Fronde
After the victory over the opposition, the royal power was significantly strengthened and very soon Louis XIV would be able to declare:
"The state is me!"
But until 1661, France was ruled not by him, but by Mazarin. The first minister managed the state quite successfully. He restored peace in the country and even made peace with the rebellious princes of Condé and Conti. He married his niece Anna Maria Martinozzi to the second of them (interestingly, his brother, the Great Condé, was the husband of Richelieu's niece). In order to conclude a peace treaty with Spain, Mazarin persuaded the king to refuse his marriage to his niece Maria Mancini (with whom Louis XIV was seriously in love) and to enter into a political marriage with the Infanta Maria Theresa.
Maria Mancini in a portrait by an unknown artist, 1665
Queen of France Maria Theresa in a portrait by an unknown artist
By the way, Mazarin introduced the French to Italian opera (ballet appeared in France earlier – thanks to another Italian, Catherine de Medici).
Mazarin recommended Colbert to the king as his successor, through whom he transferred funds for the construction of the "College of the Four Nations". Young noblemen from Roussillon, Pignerol, Artois and Alsace were to study there. He bequeathed his collection of books to this educational institution, which became the first public library in France.
Anne of Austria outlived her favorite by 5 years. In 1666, upon learning of his mother's death, Louis XIV fainted and, upon coming to, called her "not only a great queen, but also a great king." It was Louis XIV who became the first absolute monarch of France.
Louis XIV in a portrait by Charles Le Brun
In total, he will occupy the throne for 72 years and 110 days (until September 1, 1715), will receive the nickname "Sun King", will outlive his sons and grandchildren and pass the throne to his great-grandson - Louis XV.
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