Францияның абсолюттік монархиясы: 16-18 ғасырлар тарихы

Period of French history between the 16th and 18th centuries

Absolute monarchy in France slowly emerged in the 16th century and became firmly established during the 17th century. Absolute monarchy is a variation of the governmental form of monarchy in which the monarch holds supreme authority and where that authority is not restricted by any written laws, legislature, or customs. In France, Louis XIV was the most famous exemplar of absolute monarchy, with his court central to French political and cultural life during his reign. It ended in May 1789, when widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. The Assembly passed a series of radical measures, including the abolition of feudalism, state control of the Catholic Church and extending the right to vote.

The 16th century was strongly influenced by religious conflicts that developed out of the Reformation. France's precarious position created ideal conditions for the formation and justification of absolute monarchy. Its disputes between monarchy and community as well as the fatal loss of the House of Valois' authority during the second half of the 16th century prompted theoretical reflections that led to the consolidation of the monarchy's power.

The absolute monarchy was not the same as totalitarian dictatorship, and there were limits to the king's power. Known as the "fundamental laws of the Kingdom", these evolved over time and were a set of unwritten principles which placed limits on the otherwise absolute power of the king from the Middle Ages until the French Revolution in 1789. They were based on customary usage and religious beliefs about the roles of God, monarch, and subjects.

The final outcome of these acts did centralize the authority of France behind the king. The replacement of government ministers, removal of castles, and other financial policies of Colbert did reduce French national debt considerably. In the 18th century, however, the relocation of nobles and the sheer obsolescence of Versailles became an important place for a rising merchant class and an instigative press. Perhaps the most pressing consequence of absolutism in France is the emigration of the Huguenots. Of the merchant class, their emigration effectively led to a brain drain and a loss of tax revenue for France. Moreover, barred from New France, they immigrated to other nations, most notably the Thirteen Colonies, taking their skills of printing, glass making, carpentry, ceramics, a deep belief in the needs for freedom of religion (at least for Protestantism), and the right to bear arms. The other consequence was a large reduction of the dominating influence of the Kingdom of France in Europe, and a rise in the power of other kingdoms to strengthen their empire, notably in Great Britain, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. This caused numerous deadly wars with them (in Europe, America and Africa), some of them won by France or its allies (notably for the independence of the United States), but this caused the loss of most parts of New France (most continental parts in North America, including those that would be sold later to the United States after the end of monarchy in France by the First French Empire, and some islands in the Caribbean), severe degradation of the economic advantage of the first French colonial Empire, accumulation of debts in the kingdom (with a growing influence of the merchants against the French nobility), and a considerable loss of economic, diplomatic, political and cultural influence in Europe, all these being left to the growing British colonial empire (even after its loss of New England) and to its allies all around France in Spain (including the Spanish Netherlands), Austria (including Italy), Nordic countries (and later the United States). Another consequence of the creation of the United States and of the costly wars between France and all its neighbours in Europe, was also that it initiated lot of severe political and social troubles throughout the kingdom, and it paved the way to the French Revolution and finally the end of the absolute monarchy, via a short step of constitutional monarchy (restoring some parliamentary powers to the Estates General) between 1789 and 1791, and then to the First French Republic (during which the eviction of the traditional French clergy and nobility from the new Constitution further strengthened the military alliance of all European neighbours against France). That lost influence of France was never restored in the following centuries, even after the emergence of the First French Empire (which terminated the dictature, reunited a strongly divided France, restored the freedom of religion, and allowed the reemergence of a stable commercial sector, but also initiated new wars against other monarchies in continental Europe), or after the formation of a new French colonial empire by the Third Republic. Even today's Fifth Republic in France mimics some models from other European constitutional monarchies, because of the stability and influence of the head of state (monarch or elected president) to preserve the territorial unity by an enforced balance of powers. Unlike past republics, it even accepts and protects constitutionally the presence of nobility, religions or diverse cultures, as plain components and (non absolute) actors of the republic, even if it promotes its own unified system, freely accessible to all its nationals or applicable directly only to its foreign residents.