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LOUIS XIII (FRANCE) (1601–1643; ruled 1610–1643)

LOUIS XIII (FRANCE) (1601–1643; ruled 1610–1643), king of France. The historical reputation of Louis XIII has been overshadowed by two figures close to him—his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), and his son and successor, Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715). Cardinal Richelieu stands as the personification of seventeenth-century statecraft, and his steely brilliance is generally credited for bringing France from its sorry state following the Wars of Religion to the verge of greatness. And history has enshrined Louis XIV as the French king par excellence, the very embodiment of royalty in all its grandeur and power. In comparison, the stammering Louis XIII—sickly, dependent on a series of favorites, beleaguered by a quarrelsome family and a factious court—seems a ruler of diminished stature indeed. This second of the Bourbon kings, however, deserves a more exalted place in history, if only because his reign witnessed the decisive consolidation of monarchical power and France's rise to European prominence.

RISE TO POWER

Louis's reign formally began upon the assassination of his father Henry IV (ruled 1589–1610) in 1610, but the government remained in the hands of his mother, Marie de Médicis (1573–1642), who ruled as regent until 1617. The regency was a turbulent time, marred by noble conspiracies and revolts, the ascendancy of Concino Concini, Marie's Italian favorite, over the court, and the calling of the Estates-General in 1614. In 1617 Louis took power in a veritable coup d'état that ended with the ignominious execution of Concini and his wife. Historians looking to credit Louis with more initiative and political savvy than he is usually accorded have pointed to this decisive act by a fifteen-year-old. And in general it should be noted that Louis faced a series of daunting challenges, both at home and abroad, including near-permanent opposition, often rebellion, from his mother and brother and the growing crisis of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), while still a teenager and a young man in his twenties.

LOUIS AND RICHELIEU

The coup d'état of 1617 was the first in a series of acts that served as turning points in Louis's reign, demonstrating his deep and precocious appreciation of the craft of kingship. In fact, despite his sometime obsessive predilection for the hunt, Louis was, like his son, a dutiful ruler, fully cognizant of the demands of his position. His initiative was next displayed in 1624, when he appointed Richelieu to the royal council. This was a move fraught with potential difficulties, for Richelieu was his mother's man, a figure of formidable and widely recognized talents yet still identified with the dévot ('devout') position that saw alliance with the Habsburgs as France's proper course. The choice, however, turned out to be a brilliant stroke of talent spotting. Richelieu brought discipline, intellectual rigor, and an enormous capacity for work to the royal cabinet. He also made himself a student of Louis's personality, taking pains to learn how to balance the delicate task of both coaxing and respecting his king's will. Together they managed to concentrate royal power in a partnership that many great noblemen and especially the queen mother and the king's brother Gaston (duc d'Orléans; 1608–1660) deeply resented. But it was a partnership that soon bore fruit in the successful siege of the Huguenot stronghold La Rochelle in 1627–1628, which not only demonstrated the royal resolve in the face of a Calvinist threat but also freed France to pursue an anti-Habsburg policy in Europe.

Despite the success of La Rochelle, the partnership of Louis and Richelieu and the foreign policy course they had set upon nearly foundered the following year. The so-called Day of Dupes was another crisis that illustrated Louis's ability to act on his own. On the night of 10–11 November 1630 the queen mother demanded that Louis dismiss his minister, a move that would have altered both the king's authority and France's European alignments. To everyone's surprise, including Marie's, the king chose to keep Richelieu as his chief minister. Soon Marie de Médicis was in exile in Brussels, not to return to the realm for the rest of her life. Louis and Richelieu were free to pursue their anti-Habsburg foreign policy. In 1635 France formally entered the Thirty Years' War.

Even before that, Louis was preoccupied with martial matters. He had to face down a series of revolts, rebellions, and conspiracies—from his mother, brother, great noblemen like Henry II de Montmorency, Huguenots, peasants, and even court favorites. Backed by Richelieu, he responded in most cases with what many considered as shocking severity: his reign was the most costly in terms of noble heads lost to the executioner's axe. The notorious duelist François-Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville ended up on the block in 1627, as did his rebellious cousin Henri II de Montmorency in 1632, despite their family's long history of royal service, their personal popularity and charm, and the pleas for clemency from the highest ranks of society. Louis's last favorite, Henri Coeffier-Ruzé d'Effiat, marquis de Cinq-Mars, along with his supposed coconspirator François-Auguste de Thou, also died on the scaffold in 1642 for plotting with the Spanish. In war Louis displayed the same resolve. Well before France's formal entry into the Thirty Years' War, he engaged the Spanish and Habsburgs on several fronts, especially in northern Italy. He saw himself as a warrior-king, frequently exposing himself to great danger by personally leading his armies into battle.

Louis's martial bent contrasted with other aspects of his personality. He was constantly ill and several times at death's door. He abhorred ceremony and indeed cut a poor figure in public. He suffered from neglect, even abuse, as a child and received a poor education at court. (His childhood and youth were documented in extraordinary detail in a journal kept by his personal physician Jean Héroard, providing a remarkable, unequaled view of the upbringing of an early modern ruler.) Unlike his mother and Richelieu, Louis displayed little interest in the arts outside of the dance. He was a sincere Catholic, modeling himself on his saintly predecessor Louis IX (ruled 1226–1270), and in 1638 he placed himself under the personal protection of the Virgin. His marriage to Anne of Austria in 1615 took four years to consummate, and their married life was marked by long periods of estrangement. Louis, however, seems to have remained faithful to his wife, despite a series of attachments to male and female courtiers alike. The birth of the dauphin in 1638, after years of inactivity in the marriage bed, was considered a minor miracle. Only five years later—and a year after the death of his cardinal-minister—Louis died at the age of forty-two. His legacy was a mixed one: on the one hand, a stronger France and a refurbished monarchy; on the other, deepening involvement in a costly European war that only fueled discontent at home.

See also Absolutism; Anne of Austria; France; La Rochelle; Louis XIV (France); Marie de Médicis; Richelieu, Armand-Jean Du Plessis, cardinal; Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chevallier, Pierre. Louis XIII, roi cornélien. Paris, 1979.

Marvick, Elizabeth Wirth. Louis XIII: The Making of a King. New Haven, 1986.

Moote, A. Lloyd. Louis XIII, the Just. Berkeley, 1989.

ROBERT A. SCHNEIDER