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Book Louis XIV s Assault on Privilege

Download or read book Louis XIV s Assault on Privilege written by Gary B. McCollim and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The government of Louis XIV developed two taxes during the last thirty years of the king's reign that forced the privileged to pay. This book is a study of how those taxes developed and what caused them to be adopted. Louis XIV's Assault on Privilege examines Nicolas Desmaretz, one of the most important finance ministers of the Bourbon monarchy. McCollim brings to life the man who was arguably the central figure in the final transformative years of Louis XIV's reign. Controller General Desmaretz was the nephew of famed finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and had extensive experience in the administration prior to 1683 when he suffered disgrace. His expertisewas so renowned in his day that other chief financial officials sought his advice in secret. Desmaretz has been called the ablest man ever to head French finances, and the war financing problems he faced from 1708-14 the greatestchallenge faced by the Bourbon monarchy until the French Revolution. Desmaretz became one of the chief financial officials early in the War of the Spanish Succession and took full charge of French finances from 1708-15.In that time, he introduced one of the two most radical financial measures ever taken by the Bourbon monarchy: the dixième, a tax on income. This tax revolutionized the relationship of French elites to the Crown because iteliminated the issue of status that affected all other forms of taxation: the dixième fell on all income, no matter the recipient. The tax lasted until 1717, appeared again during the Wars of the Polish (1733-35) and Austrian (1743-48) Successions, and became permanent, in a reduced form, as the vingtième, in 1749. The story of the dixième has been oddly ignored by fiscal historians. In his rich analysis, McCollim lays outfor historians precisely how the royal financial council actually made policy. His book establishes once and for all that from the perspective of state finance, and state taxation, the post-1710 French monarchy had left far behindthe institutional framework of the seventeenth century. Gary B. McCollim received his doctoral degree in history from The Ohio State University and is a retired federal employee.

Book Expansion and Crisis in Louis XIV s France

Download or read book Expansion and Crisis in Louis XIV s France written by Darryl Dee and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by a desire for glory and renown, Louis XIV presided over France's last great burst of territorial expansion in Europe. During the first three decades of his rule, his armies conquered numerous territories along France's borders. After 1688, however, the tide of conquest turned as the kingdom was plunged into crisis. For the remainder of his reign, the king and his people endured wars against grand alliances of European powers, ecological disasters, economic depression, state bankruptcy, and demographic stagnation. Expansion and Crisis in Louis XIV's France examines these central yet understudied aspects of the age of the Sun King through the experience of Franche-Comté, a possession of the Spanish empire with a long history of autonomy, conquered by Louis XIV in 1674. Dee's detailed research reconstructs the ensuing dialogue -- sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant -- between the king and the elites who ruled this province. The integration of Franche-Comté into France proved to be a protracted process involving confrontation, negotiation, and compromise. The resulting regime was then severely tested by the challenges of Louis XIV's late reign; its survival demonstrated how the king had brought a distinctly early modern state to the height of its development. This study offers significant new insights on the growth of the territorial state in early modern Europe, the nature of the French absolute monarchy, and the political legacy of the Sun King. Darryl Dee is Assistant Professor of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada.

Book Private Ambition and Political Alliances

Download or read book Private Ambition and Political Alliances written by Sara E. Chapman and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sara Chapman focuses on the Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain family to provide a broad study of institutions & political authority in the early modern French state from 1670 to 1715.

Book The Third Reign of Louis XIV  c 1682   1715

Download or read book The Third Reign of Louis XIV c 1682 1715 written by Julia Prest and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The personal rule of Louis XIV, following on from a long period of royal minority and apprenticeship, lasted 54 years from 1661 to 1715. But the second half of this personal rule has, until recently, received significantly less scholarly attention than the 1660s and 1670s. This has obscured some of the very real changes and developments that occurred between the early 1680s and the mid-1690s, by which time a new generation of younger royals had come to prominence, France was engulfed in international war on a greater scale than ever before, and the king was visibly no longer as vigorous or healthy as he had once been. The essays in this volume take a close look at the way a new set of political, social, cultural and economic dispensations emerged from the mid-1680s to create a different France in the final decades of Louis XIV’s reign, even though the basic ideological, social and economic underpinnings of the country remained very largely the same. The contributions examine such varied matters as the structure and practices of government, naval power, the financial operations of the state, trade and commerce, social pressures, overseas expansion, religious dissent, music, literature and the fine arts.

Book The Attack on Feudalism in Eighteenth Century France

Download or read book The Attack on Feudalism in Eighteenth Century France written by J.Q.C. Mackrell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2006. Feudalism is normally associated with eighteenth-century France only in its more bizarre survivals, as in The Marriage of Figaro, when his seigneur claims the rights to spend the first night with the bride. If feudalism menat no more in the eighteenth century than a few quaint customs that could tickle an audence at the Comedie Francaise, why did French writers attack it so furiously? The author suggests that contemporary writers saw remnants of the feudal regime as important less in themselves, than as symbols of an attitude of mind which the 'enlightened' among them would no longer tolerate. Instead of representing the ideas of the eighteenth century through the eyes of a few outstanding writers, Dr Mackrell has tried to reconstitute the intellectual climate of the ancien regime from the works of largely unknown historians, jurists, economists and others. In this way he illuminates the rich texture of eighteenth-century French thought, without which the ideas of Voltaire, Montesquieu and even Rousseau lose much of their meaning. This study breathes life into the fierce controversies that shook the Age of Reason long before the outbreak of Revolution.

Book King of the World

Download or read book King of the World written by Philip Mansel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Louis XIV was a man in pursuit of glory. Not content to be the ruler of a world power, he wanted the power to rule the world. And, for a time, he came tantalizingly close. Philip Mansel’s King of the World is the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography in English of this hypnotic, flawed figure who continues to captivate our attention. This lively work takes Louis outside Versailles and shows the true extent of his global ambitions, with stops in London, Madrid, Constantinople, Bangkok, and beyond. We witness the importance of his alliance with the Spanish crown and his success in securing Spain for his descendants, his enmity with England, and his relations with the rest of Europe, as well as Asia, Africa, and the Americas. We also see the king’s effect on the two great global diasporas of Huguenots and Jacobites, and their influence on him as he failed in his brutal attempts to stop Protestants from leaving France. Along the way, we are enveloped in the splendor of Louis’s court and the fascinating cast of characters who prostrated and plotted within it. King of the World is exceptionally researched, drawing on international archives and incorporating sources who knew the king intimately, including the newly released correspondence of Louis’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon. Mansel’s narrative flair is a perfect match for this grand figure, and he brings the Sun King’s world to vivid life. This is a global biography of a global king, whose power was extensive but also limited by laws and circumstances, and whose interests and ambitions stretched far beyond his homeland. Through it all, we watch Louis XIV progressively turn from a dazzling, attractive young king to a belligerent reactionary who sets France on the path to 1789. It is a convincing and compelling portrait of a man who, three hundred years after his death, still epitomizes the idea of le grand monarque.

Book The Reign of Louis XIV

Download or read book The Reign of Louis XIV written by Paul Sonnino and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Louis XIV and Absolution

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ragnhild Marie Hatton
  • Publisher : Springer
  • Release : 1976-01-01
  • ISBN : 1349169811
  • Pages : 315 pages

Download or read book Louis XIV and Absolution written by Ragnhild Marie Hatton and published by Springer. This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book A World of Paper

    Book Details:
  • Author : John C. Rule
  • Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
  • Release : 2014-06-01
  • ISBN : 0773592156
  • Pages : 653 pages

Download or read book A World of Paper written by John C. Rule and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians and social scientists have long identified bureaucracy as the modern state's foundation and the reign of France's Louis XIV as a model for its development. A World of Paper offers a fresh interpretation of bureaucracy through a close examination of the department of the Sun King's last foreign secretary, Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy. Torcy, who served as foreign secretary from 1696-1715, is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant foreign ministers of the ancien regime. Building on the work of his predecessors, he fashioned a skilled team of collaborators as he managed the complex issues of war and peace during the turbulent final decades of Louis XIV's reign. John Rule and Ben Trotter examine Torcy's department to depict administrative structures as they emerged through the circulating stream of paper that connected his office with provincial administrators and diplomats abroad. They explore the collection and centralization of information during Torcy's tenure through the creation of a modern state archive, discreet intelligence gathering, and the surveillance and management of the French mails. They also study the postal carriers, couriers, household officers of the royal court, genealogists hired for research, and an informal "brain trust" of experts, and advisors who carried vital information in and out of the department every day. A remarkable reconstruction of the department of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy, A World of Paper demystifies bureaucracy and explores the ways in which the modern information state developed from his labours.

Book Dangerous and Dishonest Men  The International Bankers of Louis XIV s France

Download or read book Dangerous and Dishonest Men The International Bankers of Louis XIV s France written by G. Rowlands and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the start of the eighteenth century Louis XIV needed to remit huge sums of money abroad to support his armies during the War of the Spanish Succession. This book explains how international bankers moved French money across Europe, and how the foreign exchange system was so overloaded by the demands of war that a massive banking crash resulted.

Book Constraint of Race

Download or read book Constraint of Race written by Linda Faye Williams and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Book of the Court  Exhibiting the Origin  Peculiar Duties  and Privileges of the Several Ranks of the Nobility and Gentry More Particularly of the Great Officers of State  and Members of the Royal Household  with an Introductory Essay on Regal State and Ceremonial and a Full Account of the Coronation Ceremony  Etc

Download or read book The Book of the Court Exhibiting the Origin Peculiar Duties and Privileges of the Several Ranks of the Nobility and Gentry More Particularly of the Great Officers of State and Members of the Royal Household with an Introductory Essay on Regal State and Ceremonial and a Full Account of the Coronation Ceremony Etc written by William John Thoms and published by . This book was released on 1838 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Politics of Privilege

Download or read book The Politics of Privilege written by Gail Bossenga and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyzes the political and fiscal origins of the French Revolution by looking at the relationship between the royal government and privileged, corporate bodies at local level. Utilizing a neo-Tocquevillian approach, it argues that the monarchy undermined its own attempts at reform by extending central authority, while at the same time it continued to rely upon corporate structures and monopolies to finance the state. The unresolvable, institutional conflicts had the effect of politicising members of the privileged elite and eventually led many of them to embrace a rhetoric of citizenship, accountability, and civic equality that had far-reaching and unanticipated consequences. When Lille's bourgeoisie consolidated a municipal revolution in 1789, they followed a programme that was politically liberal, but economically conservative. Arranged as a series of case-studies, the book illuminates the structure of political power in the Flemish provincial estates, the growth of royal taxation, the problem of municipal credit, the role of venal officeholders, and the relationship of the revolutionary bourgeoisie to monopolies of the guilds.

Book The Politics of Fiscal Privilege in Provence  1530s 1830s

Download or read book The Politics of Fiscal Privilege in Provence 1530s 1830s written by Rafe Blaufarb and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2012-03-05 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rafe Blaufarb examines the interwoven problems of taxation and social privilege in this treatment of the contention over fiscal privilege between the seigneurial nobility and the tax-payers of Provence

Book Economic Development in Early Modern France

Download or read book Economic Development in Early Modern France written by Jeff Horn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Privilege has long been understood as the constitutional basis of Ancien Régime France, legalizing the provision of a variety of rights, powers and exemptions to some, whilst denying them to others. In this fascinating new study however, Jeff Horn reveals that Bourbon officials utilized privilege as an instrument of economic development, freeing some sectors of the economy from pre-existing privileges and regulations, while protecting others. He explores both government policies and the innovations of entrepreneurs, workers, inventors and customers to uncover the lived experience of economic development from the Fronde to the Restoration. He shows how, influenced by Enlightenment thought, the regime increasingly resorted to concepts of liberty to defend privilege as a policy tool. The book offers important new insights into debates about the impact of privilege on early industrialization, comparative economic development and the outbreak of the French Revolution.

Book Bossuet  Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture

Download or read book Bossuet Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture written by Jacques Bénigne Bossuet and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1991 book was the first ever English rendition of the classic statement of divine right absolutism, published in 1707. Jacques-Benigne Bossuet argues in the Politics that a general society of the entire human race, governed by Christian charity, has given way (after the Fall) to the necessity of politcs, law, and absolute hereditary monarchy. That monarchy - seen as natural, universal and divinely ordained (beginning with David and Solomon) is defended in the first half of the book. The last part, added soon before Bossuet's death, goes on to take up the rights of the Church, the distinction between absolutism and arbitrariness, and causes of just war. Patrick Riley has provided full supporting materials including a chronology, guide to further reading, and a lucid introduction placing Bossuet in his historical and intellectual context.

Book Vauban and the French Military Under Louis XIV

Download or read book Vauban and the French Military Under Louis XIV written by Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A man of inventiveness, versatility and reformist ideas, Marshal Sebastien Le Preste de Vauban built a formidable ring of fortresses to protect France's national frontiers. More than just a fortification designer, Vauban was also a gifted economist, author, and political strategist. This book tells the complete story of Vauban's exceptional career, placing him within the framework of Louis XIV's reign and revealing his lasting influences in France and other nations. With the aid of numerous detailed drawings, 17th century bastioned fortification, artillery, and seige warfare are described in detail. Vauban's fortifications that are still standing today are particularly highlighted.