Kingdom of France

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Kingdom of France

Royaume de France  (French)
Flag of France
Royal Standard of the King of France.svg
Above: Royal Banner during the reign of the Valois dynasty
Below: Flag of France during the reign of the Bourbon Dynasty
Anthem: Marche Henri IV
(1590–1792, 1814–1830)
"March of Henry IV"

La Parisienne
"The Parisian"
The Kingdom of France in 1000
The Kingdom of France in 1000
The Kingdom of France in 1839
The Kingdom of France in 1839
Common languages
Roman Catholicism
• 987–996
Hugh Capet
• 1180–1223
Philip II
• 1364–1380
Charles V
• 1422–1461
Charles VII
• 1589–1610
Henry IV
• 1643–1715
Louis XIV
• 1774–1792
Louis XVI
• 1814–1824
• 1824–1830
Charles X
• 1830–1848
Louis Philippe I
Prime Minister 
• 1815
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand
• 1847–1848
François Guizot
Chamber of Peers
Chamber of Deputies
Historical eraMedieval / Early Modern
• Begin of Capetian dynasty
3 July 987
5 May 1789
6 April 1814
2 August 1830
24 February 1848
CurrencyLivre, Franc, Écu, Louis d'or
ISO 3166 codeFR
Preceded by
Succeeded by
West Francia
First French Empire
French First Republic
French Second Republic
Part of a series on the
History of France
National Emblem National Emblem National Emblem
Flag of France.svg France portal

The Kingdom of France (French: Royaume de France) was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was among the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and the Hundred Years' War. It was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world.



France in the early modern era was increasingly centralised; the French language began to displace other languages from official use, and the monarch expanded his absolute power, albeit in an administrative system (the Ancien Régime) complicated by historic and regional irregularities in taxation, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions, and local prerogatives. Religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion (1562–1598). France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France. Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America but was costly and achieved little for France.

The Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the other great powers in 1814 and lasted (except for the Hundred Days in 1815) until the French Revolution of 1848.

Political history[edit]

West Francia[edit]

During the later years of the elderly Charlemagne's rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks. After Charlemagne's death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France.[2] Charles the Bald was also crowned King of Lotharingia after the death of Lothair II in 869, but in the Treaty of Meerssen (870) was forced to cede much of Lotharingia to his brothers, retaining the Rhone and Meuse basins (including Verdun, Vienne and Besançon) but leaving the Rhineland with Aachen, Metz and Trier in East Francia.

Viking advances were allowed to increase, and their dreaded longships were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other inland waterways, wreaking havoc and spreading terror. During the reign of Charles the Simple (898–922), Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, that was to become Normandy.[3][4]

High Middle Ages[edit]

The Carolingians were to share the fate of their predecessors: after an intermittent power struggle between the two dynasties, the accession in 987 of Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, established the Capetian dynasty on the throne. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years.[5]


The area around the lower Seine became a source of particular concern when Duke William took possession of the kingdom of England by the Norman Conquest of 1066, making himself and his heirs the King's equal outside France (where he was still nominally subject to the Crown).

Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married France's newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who ruled much of southwest France, in 1152. After defeating a revolt led by Eleanor and three of their four sons, Henry had Eleanor imprisoned, made the Duke of Brittany his vassal, and in effect ruled the western half of France as a greater power than the French throne. However, disputes among Henry's descendants over the division of his French territories, coupled with John of England's lengthy quarrel with Philip II, allowed Philip II to recover influence over most of this territory. After the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne.[6]

Late Middle Ages and the Hundred Years' War[edit]

The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line. Under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman (Philip IV's daughter was Isabella, whose son was Edward III of England), so the throne passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois. This, in addition to a long-standing dispute over the rights to Gascony in the south of France, and the relationship between England and the Flemish cloth towns, led to the Hundred Years' War of 1337–1453. The following century was to see devastating warfare, peasant revolts (the English peasants' revolt of 1381 and the Jacquerie of 1358 in France) and the growth of nationalism in both countries.[7]


Renaissance and Reformation[edit]

The Renaissance era was noted for the emergence of powerful centralized institutions, as well as a flourishing culture (much of it imported from Italy).[9] The kings built a strong fiscal system, which heightened the power of the king to raise armies that overawed the local nobility.[10] In Paris especially there emerged strong traditions in literature, art and music. The prevailing style was classical.[11][12]

The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts was signed into law by Francis I in 1539. Largely the work of Chancellor Guillaume Poyet, it dealt with a number of government, judicial and ecclesiastical matters. Articles 110 and 111, the most famous, called for the use of the French language in all legal acts, notarised contracts and official legislation.

Italian Wars[edit]

After the Hundred Years' War, Charles VIII of France signed three additional treaties with Henry VII of England, Maximilian I of Habsburg, and Ferdinand II of Aragon respectively at Étaples (1492), Senlis (1493) and in Barcelona (1493). These three treaties cleared the way for France to undertake the long Italian Wars (1494–1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. French efforts to gain dominance resulted only in the increased power of the Habsburg house.

Wars of Religion[edit]

Barely were the Italian Wars over, when France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a Concordat between France and the Papacy (1516), granting the crown unrivalled power in senior ecclesiastical appointments, France was deeply affected by the Protestant Reformation's attempt to break the hegemony of Catholic Europe. A growing urban-based Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots) faced ever harsher repression under the rule of Francis I's son King Henry II. After Henry II's death in a joust, the country was ruled by his widow Catherine de' Medici and her sons Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1562), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces. Opposed to absolute monarchy, the Huguenot Monarchomachs theorized during this time the right of rebellion and the legitimacy of tyrannicide.[13]


Early Modern period[edit]

Colonial France[edit]


Thirty Years' War[edit]

Henry IV's son Louis XIII and his minister (1624–1642) Cardinal Richelieu, elaborated a policy against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48) which had broken out in Germany. After the death of both king and cardinal, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) secured universal acceptance of Germany's political and religious fragmentation, but the Regency of Anne of Austria and her minister Cardinal Mazarin experienced a civil uprising known as the Fronde (1648–1653) which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War (1653–59). The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) formalised France's seizure (1642) of the Spanish territory of Roussillon after the crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and ushered a short period of peace.[15]

Administrative structures[edit]

The Ancien Régime, a French term rendered in English as "Old Rule", or simply "Former Regime", refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system of early modern France under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal conflicts and civil wars, but they remained a confusing patchwork of local privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution brought about a radical suppression of administrative incoherence.

Louis XIV, the Sun King[edit]

For most of the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), ("The Sun King"), France was the dominant power in Europe, aided by the diplomacy of Cardinal Richelieu's successor as the King's chief minister, (1642–61) Cardinal Jules Mazarin, (1602–61). Cardinal Mazarin oversaw the creation of a French Royal Navy that rivalled England's, expanding it from 25 ships to almost 200. The size of the Army was also considerably increased. Renewed wars (the War of Devolution, 1667–68 and the Franco-Dutch War, 1672–78) brought further territorial gains (Artois and western Flanders and the free county of Burgundy, previously left to the Empire in 1482), but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival royal powers, and a legacy of an increasingly enormous national debt. An adherent of the theory of the "Divine Right of Kings", which advocates the divine origin of temporal power and any lack of earthly restraint of monarchical rule, Louis XIV continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital of Paris. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism still persisting in parts of France and, by compelling the noble elite to regularly inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, built on the outskirts of Paris, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the earlier "Fronde" rebellion during Louis' minority youth. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured 150 years until the French Revolution.[16] McCabe says critics used fiction to portray the degraded Turkish Court, using "the harem, the Sultan court, oriental despotism, luxury, gems and spices, carpets, and silk cushions" as an unfavorable analogy to the corruption of the French royal court.[17]

The king sought to impose total religious uniformity on the country, repealing the "Edict of Nantes" in 1685. The infamous practice of "dragonnades" was adopted, whereby intentionally rough soldiers were quartered in the homes of Protestant families and allowed to have their way with them — stealing, raping, torturing and killing adults and infants in their hovels. It is estimated that anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000 Protestants fled France during the wave of persecution that followed the repeal,[18][19] (following "Huguenots" beginning a hundred and fifty years earlier until the end of the 18th century) costing the country a great many intellectuals, artisans, and other valuable people. Persecution extended to unorthodox Roman Catholics like the Jansenists, a group that denied free will and had already been condemned by the popes. Louis was no theologian and understood little of the complex doctrines of Jansenism, satisfying himself with the fact that they threatened the unity of the state. In this, he garnered the friendship of the papacy, which had previously been hostile to France because of its policy of putting all church property in the country under the jurisdiction of the state rather than that of Rome.[20]

In November 1700, the Spanish king Charles II died, ending the Habsburg line in that country. Louis had long waited for this moment, and now planned to put a Bourbon relative, Philip, Duke of Anjou, (1683–1746), on the throne. Essentially, Spain was to become a perpetual ally and even obedient satellite of France, ruled by a king who would carry out orders from Versailles. Realizing how this would upset the balance of power, the other European rulers were outraged. However, most of the alternatives were equally undesirable. For example, putting another Habsburg on the throne would end up recreating the grand multi-national empire of Charles V (1500–58), of the Holy Roman Empire (German First Reich), Spain, and the Two Sicilies which would also grossly upset the power balance. After nine years of exhausting war, the last thing Louis wanted was another conflict. However, the rest of Europe would not stand for his ambitions in Spain, and so the long War of the Spanish Succession began (1701–14), a mere three years after the War of the Grand Alliance, (1688–97, aka "War of the League of Augsburg") had just concluded.[21]

Dissent and revolution[edit]

Provinces in 1789

The reign (1715–74) of Louis XV saw an initial return to peace and prosperity under the regency (1715–23) of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, whose policies were largely continued (1726–1743) by Cardinal Fleury, prime minister in all but name. The exhaustion of Europe after two major wars resulted in a long period of peace, only interrupted by minor conflicts like the War of the Polish Succession from 1733–35. Large-scale warfare resumed with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy (the "Diplomatic Revolution" of 1756) against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and the loss of France's North American colonies.[22]


Upon Louis XV's death, his grandson Louis XVI became king. Initially popular, he too came to be widely detested by the 1780s. He was married to an Austrian archduchess, Marie Antoinette. French intervention in the American War of Independence was also very expensive.[23]

With the country deeply in debt, Louis XVI permitted the radical reforms of Turgot and Malesherbes, but noble disaffection led to Turgot's dismissal and Malesherbes' resignation in 1776. They were replaced by Jacques Necker. Necker had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by Calonne and Brienne, before being restored in 1788. A harsh winter that year led to widespread food shortages, and by then France was a powder keg ready to explode.[24] On the eve of the French Revolution of July 1789, France was in a profound institutional and financial crisis, but the ideas of the Enlightenment had begun to permeate the educated classes of society.[25]

Limited monarchy[edit]

On September 3, 1791, the absolute monarchy which had governed France for 948 years was forced to limit its power and become a provisional constitutional monarchy. However, this too would not last very long and on September 21, 1792 the French monarchy was effectively abolished by the proclamation of the French First Republic. The role of the King in France was finally ended with the execution of Louis XVI by guillotine on Monday, January 21, 1793, followed by the "Reign of Terror", mass executions and the provisional "Directory" form of republican government, and the eventual beginnings of twenty-five years of reform, upheaval, dictatorship, wars and renewal, with the various Napoleonic Wars.


The two kings of the Restoration: Louis XVIII (left) by François Gérard (1820s), Charles X (right) by François Gérard (1825)

The monarchy was briefly restored following the successive events of the French Revolution (1789–99), and the First French Empire under Napoleon (1804–1814/15) – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the heirs of the House of Bourbon in 1814. However the deposed Emperor Napoleon I returned triumphantly to Paris from his exile in Elba and ruled France for a short period known as the Hundred Days.

When a Seventh European Coalition deposed Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the Bourbon monarchy was once again restored. The Count of Provence, brother of Louis XVI, who was guillotined in 1793, was crowned as Louis XVIII, nicknamed "The Desired". Louis XVIII tried to conciliate the legacies of the Revolution and Ancien Régime both, also permitting the formation of a Parliament and constitutional Charter, usually "Charte octroyée" ("Granted Charter"). His reign was characterized by disagreements between the Doctrinaires, liberal thinkers who supported the Charter and rising bourgeoisie, and the Ultra-royalists, aristocrats and clergymen who totally refused the Revolution's heritage. However, peace was maintained by statesmen like Talleyrand and the Duke of Richelieu, as well as the King's moderation and prudent intervention.[26][27] In 1823, the liberal agitations in Spain led to a French intervention on the royalist's side, who permitted to King Ferdinand VII to reject the Constitution.[clarification needed]

However, the work of Louis XVIII was frustrated when, after his death in 16 September 1824, his brother the Count of Artois became King under the name of Charles X. Charles X was a strong reactionary who supported ultra-royalists and Catholic Church. Under his reign, the censorship of newspapers was reinforced, the Anti-Sacrilege Act passed and compensations to French Émigré were increased. However, there were also the intervention in the Greek Revolution and the first phase of the conquest of Algeria.

The absolutist tendencies of the King were disliked by Doctrinaire majority in the Chamber of Deputies, that in 18 March 1830 sent and cordial address to the King, remembering to him his vote on the Charter. However, Charles X received this address as a veiled threat, and in 25 July of the same year, he emanated the St. Cloud Ordinances, a plot to reduce Parliament powers and re-establish absolute rule.[28] The opposition reacted with riots in Parliament and barricades in Paris, that erupteds in the July Revolution.[29] The King abdicated, such as his son the Prince Louis Antoine, in favour to his grandson Count of Chambord, nominating his cousin the Duke of Orléans as regent.[30] However, it was too late, and the liberal opposition won over the monarchy.

Aftermath and July Monarchy[edit]

Louis Philippe I by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1841)

On 9 August 1830, the Chamber of Deputies elected Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans as "King of the French": for the first time since French Revolution, the King reigned on a people and not on a country. The Bourbon white flag was substituted with the French tricolour,[31] and a new Charter was introduced in August 1830.[32] The conquest of Algeria continued, and new settlements were established in the Gulf of Guinea, Gabon, Madagascar, and Mayotte and also put Tahite under protectorate.[33]

However, despite the initial reforms, Louis Philippe was little different from his predecessors. The old nobility was replaced by urban bourgeoisie, and the working class was excluded from voting.[34] Louis Philippe appointed notable bourgeois as Prime Minister, like banker Casimir Périer, academic François Guizot, general Jean-de-Dieu Soult, and thus obtained the nickname of "Citizen King" (Roi Bourgeois). The July Monarchy was beset by corruption scandals and financial crisis. The opposition of the King was composed of Legitimists, supporting the Count of Chambord, Bourbon claimant to the Throne, and of Bonapartists and Republicans who fought against royalty and supported the principles of democracy. The King tried to suppress the opposition with censorship, but when the Campagne des banquets ("Banquets' Campaign") was repressed in February 1848,[35] riots and seditions erupted in Paris and later all France, resulting in the February Revolution. The National Guard refused to repress the rebellion, resulting in Louis Philippe abdicating and fleeing to England. On 24 February 1848, the monarchy was abolished and the Second Republic was proclaimed.[36] Despite later attempts to re-establish the Kingdom in the 1870s, during the Third Republic, the French monarchy has not returned.

Territories and provinces[edit]

Western Francia during the time of Hugh Capet. The royal domain is shown in blue
The kingdom of France in 1030 (royal domain in light blue)
Territorial development under Philip August (Philip II), 1180–1223

Before the 13th century, only a small part of what is now France was under control of the Frankish king; in the north there were Viking incursions leading to the formation of the Duchy of Normandy; in the west, the counts of Anjou established themselves as powerful rivals of the king, by the late 11th century ruling over the "Angevin Empire", which included the kingdom of England. It was only with Philip II of France that the bulk of the territory of Western Francia came under the rule of the Frankish kings, and Philip was consequently the first king to call himself "king of France" (1190). The division of France between the Angevin (Plantagenet) kings of England and the Capetian kings of France would lead to the Hundred Years' War, and France would regain control over these territories only by the mid 15th century. What is now eastern France (Lorraine, Arelat) was not part of Western Francia to begin with and was only incorporated into the kingdom during the early modern period.

Territories inherited from Western Francia:

Blason France moderne.svg Domain of the Frankish king (royal domain or demesne, see Crown lands of France)
Direct vassals of the French king in the 10th to 12th centuries:

Acquisitions during the 13th to 14th centuries:

Acquisitions from the Plantagenet kings of England with the French victory in the Hundred Years' War 1453

Acquisitions after the end of the Hundred Years' War:

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Social Inequality and Class Radicalism in France and Britain By Duncan Gallie
  2. ^ Roger Price (2005). A Concise History of France. Cambridge University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780521844802.
  3. ^ Jim Bradbury. The Capetians: Kings of France, 987–1328 (2007).
  4. ^ Stuart Airlie, "Review article: After Empire‐recent work on the emergence of post‐Carolingian kingdoms." Early Medieval Europe (1993) 2#2 pp: 153–161.
  5. ^ William W. Kibler (1995). Medieval France: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 879. ISBN 9780824044442.
  6. ^ Peter Shervey Lewis, Later medieval France: the polity (1968).
  7. ^ Alice Minerva Atkinson, A Brief History of the Hundred Years' War (2012)
  8. ^ Joseph P. Byrne (2006). Daily life during the Black Death. Greenwood. ISBN 9780313332975.
  9. ^ James Russell Major, Representative Institutions in Renaissance France, 1421–1559 (1983).
  10. ^ Martin Wolfe, The fiscal system of renaissance France (1972).
  11. ^ Philip John Yarrow, A literary history of France: Renaissance France 1470–1589 (1974)
  12. ^ Henri Zerner, Renaissance art in France: the invention of classicism (Flammarion, 2003)
  13. ^ Mack P. Holt, The French wars of religion, 1562–1629 (2005).
  14. ^ David Buisseret, Henry IV, King of France (1990).
  15. ^ Peter H. Wilson, Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years' War (2009).
  16. ^ William Beik, Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents (2000)
  17. ^ Ina Baghdiantz McCabe (2008). Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime. Berg. p. 134. ISBN 9781847884633.
  18. ^ La Rome protestante face aux exilés de la foi
  19. ^ Le Refuge protestant urbain au temps de la révocation de l’Édit de Nantes
  20. ^ John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (1974)
  21. ^ Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (1998)
  22. ^ Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon (2003)
  23. ^ William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (2001)
  24. ^ Sylvia Neely, A Concise History of the French Revolution (2008)
  25. ^ Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (1998)
  26. ^ Actes du congrès – vol. 3, 1961, p. 441.
  27. ^ Emmanuel de Waresquiel, 2003, pp. 460–461.
  28. ^ Duc de Dolberg, Castellan, II, 176 (letter 30 April 1827)
  29. ^ Mansel, Philip, Paris Between Empires (St. Martin Press, New York 2001) p. 245.
  30. ^ Bulletin des lois de la République franc̜aise, Vol. 9. Imprimerie nationale. 1831.
  31. ^ Michel Pastoureau (2001). Les emblèmes de la France. Bonneton. p. 223.
  32. ^ Dominique Barjot; Jean-Pierre Chaline; André Encrevé (2014). La France au xixe siècle. PUF. p. 656.
  33. ^ La France au xixe siècle, pp. 232 and 233.
  34. ^ La France au xixe siècle, p. 202.
  35. ^ La France au xixe siècle, p. 211 and 2012
  36. ^ La France au xixe siècle, p. 298 and 299

Further reading[edit]


