The Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, and France in the Thirty Year War, 1618-1648 by Af Jochnick

Author:Af Jochnick [Jochnick, Af]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, European General
ISBN: 9781643501994
Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2019-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

Louis XIII- King of France

Louis was born in 1601, the oldest son of Henry IV and his wife Marie de Medici. When Henry was assassinated in 1610, Marie was appointed as regent. At age fifteen, Louis took charge of the government by ousting his mother and her first minister, Richelieu. After readmitting Marie, Louis appointed Richelieu to his government and in 1624 made him first minister. For the next eighteen years, Louis relied almost entirely on Richelieu’s advice in conducting domestic as well as foreign policy. He was exposed to much pressure, primarily from within his own family, to fire Richelieu and terminate his controversial policies. Louis’s relations with various young favorites, male as well as female, caused serious problems. However, he showed commendable strength in his continued support of Richelieu. This was crucial to France’s future, in particular to its emergence as the strongest power in Europe. Louis died in 1643.

In 1631, things took a dramatic turn for the worse. Marie, frustrated by the king’s refusal to heed her demands to dispose of Richelieu, went into exile in Brussels, the capital of Spanish Netherlands. She persuaded her younger son, Gaston, to join her. The Spanish government financed their extravagant living. Marie convinced Gaston, who was intensely jealous of his brother and had a strong dislike of Richelieu, to start an insurrection in France. Marie and the first minister of Spain, Olivares, financed a force of second-rate Spanish soldiers for Gaston’s use. Marie knew that the governor of the southern French province, Languedoc, Duke de Montmorency, might cooperate. His wife, a relative of Marie, was as fiercely opposed to Richelieu as Marie herself. The duke had been head of the French admiralty and had served well in many critical situations. Lately, he had had disagreements with Richelieu about taxes and a few other issues, but those matters would hardly seem sufficient to explain the extreme action he took in joining Gaston’s insurrection. He was apparently quite aware of the risks to himself.60

Gaston had arrived in Languedoc with a thousand Spanish troops and joined Montmorency and his local forces to oppose the approaching French army. With his well-connected sources, Richelieu had been aware of the brewing insurrection for some time. Together with the king, he proceeded toward Languedoc with a substantial army detachment. Montmorency met the advancing army in a fierce battle on September 1, 1632, which caused the death of several French soldiers. The duke was taken prisoner, badly injured. Gaston did not even get his troops into the action and simply watched his partner’s disaster from a safe distance. Montmorency was convicted of treason and executed a few days later, but Gaston was merely required to sign an agreement of pardon. This effort at insurrection, executed with such exceptional incompetence, spelled the end of effective opposition to Richelieu within France. As a result, he was able to devote serious time to foreign policy.

However, on in his way back to Paris, Richelieu got ill while in the city of La Rochelle.

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