Asher K. Sisneros
Prof. Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Western Civilization Since 1493
October 22, 2024
It is often said that one generation builds, another maintains, and the third destroys. This cycle vaguely resembles what happened to absolutism in France. At one point, all of Europe’s monarchs envied King Louis XIV’s consolidation of centralized power and absolutist rule. For example, it was a crime for members of the court to not bow down to his food. Yes, his food. But following his successor’s death, France became a crippled empire and absolutism died with it.
King Louis XV is often blamed for the fall of absolutism. Some of this is a fair criticism, but not all of it. His ascension to the throne was completely unexpected. There were three men in line before him to replace his great-grandfather King Louis XIV, but they all perished within a short time because of sickness. In fact, his older brother died because of bloodletting. At the time, doctors believed sicknesses would leave someone by draining their blood. So they did this to remedy his brother, but he died from a loss of blood. Louis XV would have suffered the same fate if his caretaker Madame Ventadour had not hidden him to save his life. Because of these unprecedented deaths in the royal family, Louis XV was crowned at the age of five and assumed power at the age of thirteen, when the regency determined he was old enough to rule by himself. Even so, politics surrounding the young king was morally dubious, to say the least. Everyone vied to influence and control the young man because of the power associated with entering his inner circle. In short, a good student of Machiavelli would enter the King’s inner circle to manipulate and take advantage of the thirteen-year-old monarch. Because of the lack of discretion on Louis’ part and lack of centralized control, local powers capitalized on this weakness. In this sense, absolutism faltered. Yet Louis XV cannot be blamed for this. He was born into difficult circumstances: few people could maintain absolutist power if they ascended the throne at five years old.
Although Louis cannot be blamed for the circumstances he was born into, he can be blamed for the political actions he took while in office. Both Louis and his closest advisor Cardinal Fleury pursued a peaceful foreign policy on paper. And compared to prior monarchies, there was much less warfare. Even so, Louis’ rule was far from perfect, and the policy of warfare during his reign had catastrophic economic consequences. The War of Austrian Succession was a war Louis and Cardinal Fleury desperately wanted to avoid. King Charles VI of Austria feared European powers would reject the reign of his daughter, Maria Theresa. So before his death, he crafted a legally binding treaty between all the Western powers called the Pragmatic Succession. Frederick William I, the king of Prussia, agreed to this succession plan. Yet when his son, Frederick William II became the king of Prussia, he contested Maria’s claim to the Austrian throne, and war broke out. This war did not concern France in the slightest. It was a dispute between Prussia and Austria. King Louis XV deliberately instructed his ambassador to stay out of the war and explain French neutrality. His ambassador did not. This should have been treason, but the French made a treaty with the Prussians shortly thereafter and entered the conflict against the King’s wishes. Despite his leanings towards peace, Louis XV did not move to correct his ambassador’s treasonous act and stay neutral. He willingly participated in the war, like a cog in a machine, and even led troops in battle. The French saw numerous victories in battle, such as the Battle of Fontenoy. After years of fighting, the war came to an end with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. According to the treaty, France returned all the land they conquered during the war. Maria Theresa kept the crown in Austria, Frederick William II conquered Silesia, and France was left with nothing but a tattered people. But the War of Austrian Succession cost the French more than just resources and lives. Shortly thereafter, Maria Theresa would contest Frederick William II’s right to Silesia and drag all of Europe into the Seven Years’ War (i.e., the French–Indian War), which resulted in France losing control of Canada. But even more importantly, France could not afford to bankroll these wars. It was this economic conundrum that was the final straw in sealing the ultimate death of French absolutism for Louis XV’s successor, Louis XVI. Because the government’s debt reached such an insurmountable height—a height so large that half of the entire government’s budget was spent on interest payments—Louis XVI was forced to call the Estates General. On the one hand, this act ended the monarchy’s iron grip on governmental control. Yet even more importantly, the taxes levied by the Estate General to repay this debt caused immense burdens on the lower classes in France, which eventually gave rise to the French Revolution and the end of the monarchy as a whole.
Asher Sisneros 