Fronde, Wars of the

French explorers, such as Jacques Cartier or Samuel de Champlain, claim lands in the Americas for France, paving the way for the expansion of the First French colonial empire.

The rise of Protestantism in Europe leads France to a civil war known as the French Wars of Religion, where, in the most notorious incident, thousands of Huguenots are murdered in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572.

The Wars of Religion are ended by Henry IV's Edict of Nantes, which grants some freedom of religion to the Huguenots.

Under Louis XIII, the energetic Cardinal Richelieu promotes the centralization of the state and reinforces the royal power by disarming domestic power holders in the 1620s.

He systematically destroys castles of defiant lords and denounces the use of private violence (dueling, carrying weapons, and maintaining private army).

By the end of 1620s, Richelieu has established "the royal monopoly of force" as the doctrine.

During Louis XIV's minority and the regency of Queen Anne and Cardinal Mazarin, a period of trouble known as the Fronde occurs in France, which is at this time at war with Spain.

This rebellion is driven by the great feudal lords and sovereign courts as a reaction to the rise of royal absolute power in France.

The monarchy reaches its peak during the seventeenth century and the reign of Louis XIV.

By turning powerful feudal lords into courtiers at the Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV's personal power becomes unchallenged.

Remembered for his numerous wars, he makes France the leading European power.

France becomes the most populous country in Europe and has tremendous influence over European politics, economy, and culture.

French becomes the most-used language in diplomacy, science, literature and international affairs, and remains so until the twentieth century.

France obtains many overseas possessions in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Louis XIV also revokes the Edict of Nantes, forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile.

The Fronde, a civil war in France, had erupted as the Thirty Years' War ended in May 1648 when a tax levied by Cardinal Mazarin on judicial officers of the Parlement of Paris had been met not merely with a refusal to pay but with a condemnation of earlier financial edicts and a demand for the acceptance of a scheme of constitutional reforms framed by a united committee of the parlement (the Chambre Saint-Louis), composed of members of all the sovereign courts of Paris.

The military record of the first Fronde (the Fronde Parlementaire) is almost blank.

Mazarin, strengthened in August 1648 by the news of the victory of Louis, duc d’Enghien (later le Grand Condé) at Lens, had suddenly arrested the leaders of the parlement, whereupon Parisians, in an ironic twist, had broken into insurrection and barricaded the streets.

The word fronde means sling, which Parisian mobs use to smash the windows of Mazarin’s supporters.

The noble faction had demanded the calling of an États-généraux, which has not been convoked since 1615.

The nobles are certain that in an États-général they can continue to control the bourgeois element as they had in the past.

A mob of angry Parisians breaks into the royal palace and demands to see their king.

Led into the royal bedchamber, they gaze upon the ten-year-old Louis, who is feigning sleep, are appeased and quietly depart.

The threat to the royal family and Monarchy, which has no army at its immediate disposal, prompts Louis’s mother, the regent Anne of Austria, to release the prisoners, promise reforms, and on the night of October 22 flee Paris with the King and his courtiers.

The signing of the Peace of Westphalia has allowed Condé's army to return to aid Louis and his court, and by January 1649, Paris is under siege.

The peace of Rueil is signed on March 11, 1649, after little blood has been shed.

The Parisians, though still and always anti-cardinalist, refuse to ask for Spanish aid, as proposed by their princely and noble adherents, and having no prospect of military success without such aid, the noble party submits and receives concessions.

Henceforward, the Fronde is to become a story of intrigues, halfhearted warfare in a scramble for power and control of patronage, losing all trace of its first constitutional phase.

The leaders are discontented princes and nobles: Gaston of Orleans (the king's uncle); the great Louis II, Prince de Condé and his brother Armand, Prince of Conti; Frédéric, the Duke of Bouillon, and his brother Henri, Viscount of Turenne.

To these must be added Gaston's daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier (La grande Mademoiselle); Condé's sister, Madame de Longueville; Madame de Chevreuse; and the astute intriguer Paul de Gondi, the future Cardinal de Retz.

The military operations will fall into the hands of war-experienced mercenaries, led by two great, and many lesser, generals.

The peace of Rueil lasts until the end of 1649 when the princes, received at court once more, renew their intrigues against Cardinal Mazarin.

Mazarin, having come to an understanding with Monsieur Gondi and Madame de Chevreuse, on January 14, 1650, suddenly arrests Condé, Conti, and Longueville.

The war that follows this coup, called the "Princes' Fronde", effectively checks France's ability to exploit the Peace of Westphalia.

Unlike the Fronde parlementaire which preceded it, tales of sordid intrigue and halfhearted warfare characterize this second phase of upper-class insurrection.

This rebellion represents to the aristocracy a protest against and a reversal of their political demotion from vassals to courtiers.

It is headed by the highest-ranking French nobles, from Louis's uncle, Gaston, duc d'Orléans, and first cousin, la Grande Mademoiselle; to more distantly related Princes of the Blood, like Condé, his brother, Conti, and their sister, Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon, duchesse de Longueville; to dukes of legitimized royal descent, like Henri, duc de Longueville, and François, duc de Beaufort; and to princes étrangers, such as Frédéric Maurice, duc de Bouillon, and his brother, the famous Marshal of France, Turenne, as well as Marie de Rohan, duchesse de Chevreuse; and scions of France's oldest families, like François, duc de La Rochefoucauld.

Mazarin had largely pursued the policies of his predecessor, Cardinal Richelieu, augmenting the Crown's power at the expense of the nobility and the Parlements.

The Frondeurs, political heirs of the turbulent feudal aristocracy, had originally sought to protect their traditional feudal privileges from an increasingly centralized and centralizing royal government.

Furthermore, they believe their traditional influence and authority is being usurped by the recently ennobled (the Noblesse de Robe) who administers the Kingdom and on whom the Monarchy increasingly begins to rely.

This belief intensifies their resentment.

This time it is Turenne, before and afterwards the most loyal soldier of his day, who heads the armed rebellion.

Listening to the promptings of Madame de Longueville, he resolves to rescue her brother Condé, his old comrade in the Freiburg and the Nördlingen.

He hopes to do this with Spanish assistance; a powerful Spanish army assembles in Artois under the archduke Leopold Wilhelm, governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands.

But peasants of the countryside rise against the invaders; the royal army in Champagne is in the capable hands of Caesar de Choiseul, comte du Plessis-Praslin, who counts fifty-two years of age and thirty-six of war experience; and the little fortress of Guise successfully resists the archduke's attack.

Mazarin at this point draws upon Plessis-Praslin's army for reinforcements to be sent to subdue the rebellion in the south, forcing the royal general to retire.

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm now decides that he has spent enough of the king of Spain's money and men in the French quarrel.

His regular army withdraws into winter quarters, and leaves Turenne to deliver the princes with a motley host of Frondeurs and Lorrainers.

Plessis-Praslin by force and bribery on December 13, 1650, secures the surrender of Rethel, and Turenne, who has advanced to relieve the place, falls back hurriedly, but he is a terrible opponent, and Plessis-Praslin and Mazarin himself, who accompanies the army, have many misgivings as to the result of a lost battle.

The marshal chooses nevertheless to force Turenne to a decision, and the Battle of Blanc-Champ (near Somme-Py) or Rethel is the consequence.

Both sides are at a standstill in strong positions, Plessis-Praslin doubtful of the trustworthiness of his cavalry, Turenne too weak to attack, when a dispute for precedence arises between the Gardes Françaises and the Picardie regiment.

The royal infantry has to be rearranged in order of regimental seniority, and Turenne, seeing and desiring to profit by the attendant disorder, comes out of his stronghold and attacked with the greatest vigor.

The battle waged on December 15, 1650, is severe and for a time doubtful, but Turenne's Frondeurs give way in the end, and his army, as an army, ceases to exist.

Turenne himself, undeceived as to the part he is playing in the drama, asks and receives the young king's pardon, and meantime the court, with the maison du roi and other loyal troops, had subdued the minor risings of March–April 1651 without difficulty.

Condé, Conti, and Longueville have been released, and by April 1651 the rebellion has everywhere collapsed.

The court returns to Paris after a few months of hollow peace.

Louis’s coming-of-age and subsequent coronation in June has deprived the Frondeurs, claiming to act on his behalf and in his real interest against his mother and Mazarin, of their pretext for revolt.

Mazarin, an object of hatred to all the princes, has already retired into exile.

His absence leaves the field free for mutual jealousies, and for the remainder of the year anarchy will reign in France.

Anne’s regency legally ends, but she retains much power and influence over her son.

Mazarin returns to France with a small army in December 1651.

The war begins anew, and this time Turenne and Condé are pitted against one another.