Last July, I mentioned the stopover of young King Louis XIV to Toulouse in 1659 on his way to marry his cousin, Maria-Theresa of Spain. I wanted to finish the story because it foreshadows the confident Louis XIV who would emerge after Mazarin's death, the Louis who took power into his own hands and crushed the nobility.
Louis enjoyed his time in Toulouse. Housed in the Archbishop's palace--his "petite Louvre"--he received ordinary people and included them in entertainments. He went out, visiting churches, monasteries and socializing. He attended comedies and ballets at the Logis de l'Ecu--the rough theatre on the site of today's Theatre du Capitole--including a comedy presented by the students of the Jesuits, "A Century of God is released by the Peace that the King has given France." (A real knee-slapper, that one!)
Meanwhile, the kings bodyguards--a small army of musketeers, Swiss Guards and Scots Guards--were quartered in homes and makeshift accommodations near the King, in the futile hope that proximity would produce better behavior. Unfortunately, the Annales tell us that "The soldiers ravaged families, ruined homes, cost individuals dear and caused harm to people.” It is even said that it was necessary to shoot some for violence committed while drunk, including the last straw, the murder of the executioner. Louis's stay in Toulouse also illustrates the consequences of an undisciplined military. The practice of forcing civilians to quarter soldiers was also perpetrated in neighboring Britain, and so hated that it inspired a Constitutional Amendment in the US Constitution 124 years later. The Constitution safeguarded the following liberties of citizens: freedom of speech, right to bear arms, and freedom from quartering soldiers.
However, where the finances of the kingdom were concerned, the King proved to be ruthless. While Louis was in Toulouse, the provincial estates of Languedoc--church, nobility, everyone else--had been trying to hammer out the tax owed by the province to the royal treasury. Languedoc was one of the few estates that was given the privilege to negotiate taxes; this right had been suppressed in most other estates. However, the gathered assembly was left speechless when the representatives of the king threatened to suppress their privilege of negotiating tax increases. After further and long deliberation, they obediently voted to give the crown three million livres, double the amount of the preceding year.
On 16 October, the king received the deputies of the Estates of Langudoc, during which audience the President of the Estates of Languedoc fulsomely praised the king's warriors, “the brilliance of your name fills Escurial (a monastery associated with the King of Spain) with horror." On 18 October, the king received the Capitouls who praised him with the happy message that “The peace that your kindness has given us is all the more agreeable because she will last forever, the first fruits of this happy marriage that your majesty contacts.”
Opening their purses, submission and obsequiousness, however, did not purchase the King's favor. The Toulousains were dumbstruck first, when it came time to elect the Capitouls for 1660, and the Vigurie, the official representative of the King Louis, announced that the king had decided to choose the eight capitouls for next year himself,without consultation.
Then, several days later, the Capitouls received two decrees from the King’s Council; the first revoked a wartime tax break, the second prohibited the exercise of certain rights without the prior authorization of the king. The Capitouls, shocked, sent a delegation to complain to Mazarin about this poor treatment--"Will we be unfortunate enough to lose in peacetime the advantages that we had preserved during the war?”--but they were given no satisfaction.
So, King Louis XVI, aged 21, though still under the thumb of Cardinal Mazarin, was already willing to flex his royal power and nibble away at the privileges of provincial nobles. This was just six years after the end of the Fronde, the dangerous civil war which taught young Louis the dangers of a too powerful nobility.
Images:
1) Young Louis XIV, c 1661
2) & 3) Entertainments--a ball, theatre
4) Those disruptive Musketeers
5) The Capitouls selected by Louis XIV. I haven't found anything more about them, yet, but I have to believe it was awkward.