FRANCE 



2304 



FRANCE 



was forced to surrender all he had gained in 

 Italy, and narrowly escaped giving up some of 

 his French territories. The struggle against 

 the Hapsburgs continued under Henry II, who 

 also became involved in a war with England, 

 which had allied itself with the German pow- 

 ers. During this conflict England was forced 

 to surrender Calais, its last possession in 

 France. 



Another struggle began during the reign 

 of Henry II the struggle between tho Cath- 

 olics and the Protestants, or Huguenots, as 

 they were called in France; and this developed 

 in the succeeding reigns into a series of reli- 

 gious wars which almost rent the country asun- 

 der. The climax, but by no means the end, 

 came in the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's 

 Day, which failed in its purpose of utterly 

 quelling the Protestants. Not until the acces- 

 sion in 1589 of Henry of Navarre, leader of the 

 Protestants, as Henry IV, did the religious wars 

 terminate, and even then they were brought 

 to an end only by Henry's acceptance of 

 Roman Catholicism. It was this king, the 

 first of the Bourbons, who published the fa- 

 mous Edict of Nantes", giving full religious 

 liberty to the Huguenots, and turning over to 

 them several cities, including La Rochelle. By 

 reason of his wise policies and the progress 

 which the kingdom made under him he well 

 merited the title of "the Great" and his assas- 

 sination in 1610 was regarded as a national 

 calamity. 



The Age of Absolutism. Through the reigns 

 that follow there is plainly visible the growth 

 of that absolutism, that oppression which to- 

 ward the end of the eighteenth century brought 

 on its own punishment in the French Revolu- 

 tion. Richelieu stripped the nobles of all 

 power, and as the general assembly had lost 

 practically all of its constitutional rights and 

 was little more than a court of law, the king, 

 or his chosen minister with him, was an un- 

 controlled despot. Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis 

 XIV these are names which stand in the 

 world's history for absolutism. Never in all 

 its history was France more glorious outwardly 

 than during the early years of Louis's reign. 

 Successful in war, dominant at home, the king 

 surrounded himself with all the elegance and 

 glitter which a subservient people liked to see 

 about their king; he has come down in his- 

 tory as the "Grand Monarch." But matters 

 changed, Louis's armies failed, and the people, 

 oppressed under unendurable burdens of tax- 

 ation, began openly to express their discon- 



tent. The reign of Louis XV was but a period 

 of further depression and decay costly wars, 

 heavy taxes and a king and ministers for 

 whom not the least respect could be felt. 

 Louis XVI, who came to the throne in 1774, 

 found matters in a desperate state. A stronger 

 king might have mended affairs somewhat, but 

 Louis's mild measures had no power to lessen 

 the tyranny which the privileged classes exer- 

 cised over the lower orders, or to cleanse a 

 society rotten to the core. The financial con- 

 dition of the country was hopeless, and the 

 successive ministers attempted in vain to grap- 

 ple with it. 



Finally, in despair, one of them, Necker, 

 counseled an extreme measure no less than 

 the calling together of the States-General, or 

 parliament, which had not been summoned 

 since 1614. In 1789 this body met, and with 

 it began that violent movement, one of the 

 most remarkable the world has ever witnessed, 

 known as the French Revolution. The history 

 of the next ten years is treated under that 

 title (see FRENCH REVOLUTION), while that for 

 the fifteen years following is included in the 

 article on NAPOLEON I. 



Reaction and New Discontent. It was said 

 of the Bourbons that "they never forgot any- 

 thing and never learned anything," and the 

 truth of this was proved by Louis XVIII, who 

 came to the jthrone on the downfall of Napo- 

 leon in 1814 (see BOURBONS), for he promptly 

 turned from the moderate liberals, with whose 

 support he had begun to govern, to the reac- 

 tionaries, and tried to practice the same op- 

 pressive measures which had brought on the 

 Revolution. His brother, Charles X, succeeded 

 him in 1824, and proved even less liberal ; and 

 in 1830, when his ministry published ordinances 

 curtailing the liberty of the press and lessen- 

 ing the elective privileges, an insurrection 

 broke out by which Charles was overthrown 

 and Louis Philippe was placed on the throne, 

 as "king of the French." The bourgeois, or 

 "middle class," king he was called, and for a 

 time his rule was fairly popular, but he proved 

 no more ready than his predecessors to grant 

 liberties to the people, while in international 

 affairs he took a decidedly subordinate place. 

 In 1848, therefore, another revolutionary out- 

 break drove him into exile, and later in the 

 year a republic was proclaimed. The first 

 President elected was Louis Napoleon, nephew 

 of the great Emperor a man whose ambitions 

 were by no means satisfied with being the 

 head of a mere republic. He desired imperial 



