Philip Mansel is a British historian specializing in France and the Ottoman Empire. He published in particular
Louis XIV, King of the world
(Pastés Composites).
FIGAROVOX.- Philip Mansel, according to you, the reign of Louis XIV is incomprehensible if we do not take into account the king's will to extend his territory even more.
Does this mean that, for you, Louis XIV was a monarch that could be qualified as an imperialist?
Was this period at the origin of a political temperament par excellence French?
Philip MANSEL.-
He was described as
“avidly eager for conquest”.
He wanted to extend French territory to the Rhine and undoubtedly well beyond.
He conquered three beautiful provinces, Flanders, Franche Comte and Alsace.
He also annexed, theoretically at least, the entire Mississippi Valley in North America, one of the largest takeovers in the history of imperialism, to make it a “New France”.
He founded colonies in Africa and India, and dreamed of conquering the Ottoman Empire and Siam.
He was an imperialist, like most of the monarchs of his time, like William III, Peter the Great, Leopold I or Moulay Ismail.
There was nothing abnormal or specifically French there.
To reign was to want to conquer.
It was rather the extent of his ambitions, than his very ambitions, that fell outside the norm.
There were even French people who wanted him to take China,
“in the name of Jesus Christ”.
But later the missionaries and mathematicians he sent to China maintained peaceful and beneficial ties with Emperor Kangxi.
Read also:
Louis XIV, the Fifth Republic and the French exception
You are discussing the king's report in Paris.
The humiliations undergone by the young Louis XIV in his childhood, inflicted by the rebellious Parisians, did they cause mistrust on his part towards his people and his capital and beyond the cities?
Yes, no doubt, but the dates do not correspond completely.
The Fronde ended in 1652. But he often stayed in Paris until 1666, and sometimes continued to sleep there until 1671, so long after.
The magnificent east facade of the Louvre is by Louis XIV.
After 1671, for personal reasons that we do not fully know, he no longer lives there.
Perhaps the memory of his mother's death at the Louvre in 1666, or the desire to be able to live freely in the countryside with his mistresses, in addition to his aversion to Paris and his passion for hunting, made him flee its capital, more than any other monarch.
From 1671 to 1715, he visited it only ten times.
He also doesn't like the rebellious spirit of cities like Bordeaux or Marseille.
He bombed other cities such as Brussels, Genoa, Algiers, hence the
Letter from the Devil to France
of 1696, where the Devil complained that France no longer left him atrocities to commit.
Louis XIV founded the École de Saint-Cyr for the education of young noble girls.
He uses women as diplomatic agents.
You correct a number of misconceptions in a considerable way.
For example, you show that the French court was in fact one of the freest in Europe, in particular by going back on the great freedom enjoyed by women.
Was it in Versailles that feminism was born?
There is already Christine de Pisan who wrote
the Book of the City of Ladies
in 1404
, defending the rights of women, and who was part of the court of France!
Because the houses of queens and princesses must be almost as large and magnificent as those of kings and princes, to better support their rank, many women live by right at court - Louis XIV found many mistresses among the "daughters". of honor ”from his wife or sister-in-law.
He is particularly respectful of women;
in 1672, François Poullain de La Barre published
With the King's Privilege
in Paris a
“Treaty on Equality of the Two Sexes.
Physical and moral discourse where we see the need to get rid of prejudices ”
.
Louis XIV founded the École de Saint-Cyr for the education of young noble girls.
He uses women as diplomatic agents.
The Duchess of Portsmouth, née Louise de Keroualle, principal mistress of Charles II of England, was agent of Louis XIV, who corresponded with her.
Madame de Maintenon's correspondence and protected networks say a lot about the real political mechanism of the monarchy.
He was his most influential advisor.
Often she hid things from him, writing that we must serve the king in spite of himself.
You also correct the caricature which is generally made of a cold and distant Louis XIV by drawing the portrait of an ultimately sensitive king, much closer to his family than were his predecessors.
How did this manifest?
Streams of tears at the time of the death of his mother, of his young children (he lost four), of his brother Monsieur.
It was said of her sadness at the time of the Dauphin's death in 1711 that she would melt a stone: he still had tears in his eyes.
He had a great love for Madame de Maintenon and for the Duchess of Burgundy, wife of his eldest grandson.
He adored the society of women, made them travel with him to distant cities (he knew France better than many subsequent heads of state) such as Luxembourg or Breisach.
He also loved his dogs, hence the portraits he commissioned of his favorite Apple or Nun, which can still be seen in the museums of Marly or Versailles.
He is affectionate with the people of his House: he blames himself, on his deathbed, for not having done more for them.
It is always the European dimension that counts.
At the time of the defeat of the Muslim Ottomans and the reconquest of Hungary by Leopold I after 1683, he wanted to show that he was the most Catholic and the most pious of the monarchs of Europe.
You deliver an unprecedented explanation on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, can you tell us more?
It is always the European dimension that counts.
At the time of the defeat of the Muslim Ottomans and the reconquest of Hungary by his rival Emperor Leopold I after 1683, he wanted to show that he was the most Catholic and the most pious of the monarchs of Europe.
The Emperor tolerated the Protestants in Hungary;
the King of France wanted to show that he could convert all his people.
This does not prevent that it was also an act of personal faith, made to please the Gallican Church which offered him a so-called "free gift" every year, and whose fidelity he wanted to guarantee in future conflicts. with the Pope.
There are multiple reasons;
above all, he wanted to make himself more Catholic than the Emperor and the Pope.
Hence an error which contradicts the policy of his ancestor and model Henry IV, as of his godfather and tutor Cardinal Mazarin, and which strengthens, by the arrival of Huguenots refugees, his rivals: England, Holland and Prussia.
He arms his own enemies with his most loyal subjects, the only group in France that did not participate in the Fronde.
Generals descended from Huguenot refugees will help lead the Prussian invasions of 1815 and 1870.
You are English, Francophile, historian of France.
At a time when Europe is collapsing, when nations are coming back in force, can we say that the Sun King embodied a certain idea of sovereignty?
He demanded the precedence of the king of France over other monarchs.
He remained very national, proud to be FRENCH - a name he capitalized in his appeal to his subjects against the humiliating peace treaty proposed by his enemies in 1709. But at the same time - to use President Macron's phrase - he fights so that his youngest grandson Philippe V remains king of Spain, and at the end of the reign accepts or reinforces the authority of the Pope on the Gallican church.
He has a sense of Europe, of the importance of having Sweden, Poland and the Ottoman Empire as allies, to better guarantee its balance, and to help France compete with the House of Austria.
He has a sense of Europe, of the importance of having Sweden, Poland and the Ottoman Empire as allies, to better guarantee its balance, and to help France compete with the House of Austria.
He is king of France, but through his mother and his wife, he is part of "the family of kings".
After 1688 he also fought for his cousin Stuart, Jacques II, to become king of England again.
And its last secretary, François de Callières, writes after the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 that Europe no longer forms
"one and the same republic".
So, like so many French people today, he is both French and European.