Chapter 15: Age of Absolutism and Empire
Chapter Summary
Most historians would argue that the years 1660 to 1789 -- that is, the period from the Restoration in England and the personal rule of Louis XIV up to the early days of the French Revolution -- can be summarized as an Age of Absolutism. There is little doubt that the figure of Louis XIV, the Sun King, looms large in such a conception. Building his lavish court just outside Paris at Versailles, Louis was able to keep an eye on his nobility, who were perhaps, the most contentious and quarrelsome men in France. Louis ruled as an absolute monarch meaning that he could levy taxes, declare war, appoint favorites to high position, and make (or break) laws, without consulting the Church, the army, the Estates General, or local authorities. The age of the Sun King was a great age for France, but that greatness was certainly short-lived as Louis overextended himself and could not finance his many wars of aggression. However, Louis set the stage for other self-proclaimed absolute monarchs to follow. In France, both Louis XV and Louis XVI tried to follow in his footsteps. But it was not to be. By June 1789, the first stage of the French Revolution proclaimed what most Frenchmen already knew -- the age of the ancien regime was not an age in which an absolute monarch would rule.
Outside France we can perhaps locate two tendencies -- on the one hand, the English conducted their great experiment in limited or constitutional monarchy, while on the other hand, Prussia, the Hapsburgs, Sweden and the Russia of Catherine the Great, toyed with the notion of enlightened monarchy. Although Louis XIV ruled under the banner of social harmony, what that meant in practice was that in all essentials, the realm was his. In the case of limited monarchies, the practice was to produce social harmony by giving subjects something in return: public education, careers open to talent, the promise of military advancement, and some form of religious toleration. The record of these enlightened monarchs was far from satisfactory. Just the same, the more enterprising individuals -- mostly from the ranks of the rising middling orders -- were able to make some headway throughout the 18th century. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia was able to build up a state with a strong military whose discipline and "style" was carried over into the bureaucracy used to administer the state. Catherine the Great of Russia, autocrat that she was, was devoted to western style governing, but at the same she elevated the nobility far above the ranks of everyone else in Russia. Meanwhile, the English, under the three George's, witnessed the birth of a constitution that limited the prerogative of the king and increased the power and voice of Parliament in the political affairs of the nation. Of course, what transpired in England was nothing less than a new politics of interest and influence.
Perhaps the most we can say about royal absolutism between 1660 and 1789 is that it was more an ideal -- maybe even a state of mind -- rather than anything that easily worked out in reality. Louis XIV remains the "classic" absolute monarch, but his personal style eventually led to the near ruin of France. Unfortunately for the French kings of the 18th century, they lived their lives as absolute monarchs, not really aware that the heyday absolute monarchy, both in theory and in practice, had already come and gone, something the French Revolution and the founding of the First Republic, would make abundantly clear.
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