Six
The Rhetoric of Absolutism

Monarchy, which is by an individual, is manifest in the person of our French kings—monarchs who are sovereign, absolute, loved and revered, feared and obeyed—whose grandeur and power is such that there never was a Monarchy in which the kings were so amply endowed. And so it is that by this sovereignty and supreme grandeur, French kings are rendered entirely absolute, and have always commanded according to their own wishes, along with their piety and zeal for the good of their people—thus the fact that for the good and relief of their State, they have on their own made laws and appointed officials. . . .
—L'ASSEMBLEE DES NOTABLES DE FRANCE, FAITES PAR LE ROY EN SA VILLE DE ROUEN, AVEC LES NOMS DESDICTES ESLEUS ET NOTABLES (ROUEN I LE CARTEL [1617]),4

This Universal Father [the pope] would never undertake any action that would prejudice the absolute authority of your Majesty. . . . They [the French clergy] know that you [Louis XIII] are a sovereign endowed with every kind of temporal sovereignty in your Realm, not being a feudatory either of the Pope or any other Prince. . . .
—LE PRINCE ABSOLU (PARIS, 1617),7

The practical purposes of pamphleteering have been the central focus of this study. But pamphlet authors had ideological purposes too, which they attempted to link to their pragmatic goals. The partisan arguments of 1614-1617 were therefore tied in certain ways to the great ideological struggles of the age. This was especially so with religious doctrine and political theory. For the reasons discussed in earlier chapters, pamphleteers tended to be cautious in these highly charged fields of discourse, especially with respect to religion. Nevertheless, authors were eager to exploit emotionally appealing ideas, even when they were troublesome and controversial.

In this vein, the pamphleteers of 1614-1617 mobilized a public discussion of several issues of political theory. Such discussions were rooted both in "popular" political discourse and in the most advanced political discourse of the age. At both levels, abstract argument had an immediately practical meaning in the context of 1614-1617, even when the language was highly conventional. In fact, the arguments of most pamphlets were constructed of well-worn ideas and themes.^[1] But neither the con-

[1] . An interesting collection of formulaic words and phrases could be assembled to explore how much of the political discourse of the early 1600s had been recycled from the rhetorical battles of the sixteenth-century religious and dynastic wars.

ventionality of the language nor its abstractness conceals the specific (and short-term) persuasive intentions of pamphlet rhetoric.

The way in which the 1614-1617 campaigns exploited (or failed to exploit) certain traditional ideas is particularly noteworthy on three counts. First, the rhetoric used to defend the queen mother's authority against the challenge of the great nobles was surprisingly legalistic—not simply political, religious, moralistic, and pragmatic. Second, a major theme of this legalistic rhetoric was the idea of an "absolute" monarchical sovereignty. Third, the great nobles who were in revolt against the royal government (and presumably, therefore, against some elements of "absolute" royal authority) failed to provide in their pamphlets any alternative political vision.

In some respects it is surprising that a discourse emphasizing the "absoluteness" of royal authority played such an important role in the pamphlet rhetoric of 1614-1617. Political authority in general and sovereignty in particular were ambiguous notions in early seventeenth-century France.^[2] The definition of France as a "monarchical" state was never significantly challenged, nor was the right of the king to exercise the powers of a sovereign. But according to the political theory of the age, monarchical states were often tempered with "aristocratic" and even "democratic" elements.^[3] This meant that the king might be obliged in some circumstances to consult with others, such as the peers of the realm, the parlements, or local authorities. Moreover, the power of the monarch was widely understood to be circumscribed by "fundamental" laws (ancient custom) and moral laws (God's commands), which together constituted a kind of natural law that required the sovereign to act for the good of the kingdom and his subjects.^[4]

More immediately, the minority of Louis XIII, who was just twelve years of age when the revolt against his mother's government broke out in February of 1614, posed a special set of issues. The queen mother's administration was clearly not the instrument of a fully competent adult monarch. Until 2 October 1614, at which time Louis XIII was declared legally sovereign, Marie's authority depended largely on her position as regent. A regent ruled in the name of the king as a kind of legal guardian over the person, the estate, and the authority of the monarch-to-be. The process of a regent's selection and the extent of his or her personal and political authority were surrounded by many unresolved legal questions.^[5]

[2] . Sée, Idées politiques ; and Parker, "Sovereignty," 42-50.

[3] . Mayerne, Monarchie Aristo-democratique (Lyon, 1610).

[4] . Giesey, "Medieval Jurisprudence," 172.

[5] . Cf. Hanley, "Lit de Justice, " 231-295; and Lightman, Sons and Mothers , 55-169.

With this background in mind, the political events of 1614-1617 were sure to stimulate an intense discussion of monarchical authority generally and sovereignty in particular. Condé's revolt raised the old and still very difficult issue of the great nobility's political authority. What was the proper role of "the peers of the realm" in the royal government? To what extent did the authority of the great nobles remain insulated from royal disfavor? Was it a "law of the realm" that princes of the blood had a right to be "admitted into the government and administration of the State?"^[6]

From Condé's first acts of defiance in 1614 to Concini's assassination in 1617, Marie de Médicis's supporters defended her position as the head of state—first as regent, then as "head of the king's council" (chef du conseil ). During the regency, the queen mother's propagandists insisted on her rights to enjoy "absolutely" the prerogatives of the king in whose name she ruled. They accused the rebels of sedition and treason for presuming to challenge her authority and trying to usurp the direction of affairs of state.

In France, as in England, the adjective absolu did not have an exclusively political, much less an anticonstitutional, connotation.^[7] However, arguments about the unique, perfect, and supreme—in other words, the absolute—nature of sovereignty were readily available in the writings of jurists such as Jean Bodin and Charles Loyseau.^[8] The propagandists supporting the queen mother's administration adapted this legalistic vocabulary to their immediate ends. They argued that the absolute supremacy of the royal government was self-evident, and that political opposition was not simply wrong, inappropriate, and contrary to public interest, but was contradictory to the fundamental and expressed laws of monarchical government. Possibly for the first time, a comprehensive rhetoric of absolutism (although not the term itself) was used systematically in the 1614-1617 campaigns to justify the policies of the royal government.^[9] By 1617 the idea that the pouvoir absolu of the monarch was a fundamental legal principle underlying the French state had become a commonplace.

[6] . Such issues are raised, for example, in Declaration et protestation des princes, ducs, pairs (1617), 20-21.

[7] . Cf. Cotgrave, Dictionaire , s.v. absolut ; and Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du siezième siècle , s.v. absolu . The English use of the term absolute in a similar setting helps enormously to clarify French usage in the pamphlet literature from 1614 to 1617. See Daly, "Idea of Absolute Sovereignty," 227-250.

[8] . See especially J. U. Lewis, "Jean Bodin's 'Logic of Sovereignty'," 206-222; Parker, "Thought of Jean Bodin," 253-285; and Lloyd, "Political Thought of Charles Loyseau," 53-82.

[9] . On the invention of the term in the nineteenth century, see Rowen, "Louis XIV and Absolutism," 312.

It is clear from the argumentative strategies of pamphlet authors on both sides that they anticipated widespread acceptance for the queen mother's legal claim to absolute authority—first as regent, and then as head of her son's councils. The rebuttals of Condé and his propagandists were remarkably timid on this score. Condé did not characterize his challenge as a quest to reapportion the distribution of sovereign power within the state. Rarely did his pamphlets attack Marie's legal right to act in the capacity of an absolute ruler. Traditional metaphors of hierarchy, supported by allusions to noble virtues, social preeminence, and royal blood were the main reasons les grands offered to support their claims for a more active role in the king's councils.

From a long-term perspective, the absence of any substantive discourse on resistance to absolutism in the course of the 1614-1617 pamphlet wars may be the most consequential feature of the campaign. The prince de Condé and his associates, especially in their appeals to the delegates of the Estates General or to the members of the Parlement of Paris, had at their disposal several traditions of opposition rhetoric. Regional political authorities naturally objected to the incursions of royal agents in matters such as the collection of taxes, and they frequently used a rhetoric of "representation" and "consultation" to justify their resistance. The meeting of the Estates General in 1614-1615 presented the perfect opportunity for this rhetoric to manifest itself, either in general or in direct opposition to the queen mother's administration. The theory of France as something of a "mixed" monarchy—one incorporating democratic and representative principles into the operations of the royal government—was still current in some intellectual circles. One finds only timid references to these theories, however, in the 1614-1617 propaganda campaigns. A handful of pamphlets gave expression to "extreme" views, attesting to the existence of resistance rhetoric, but these views did not govern any major pamphlet initiatives.

Ironically, when the queen mother eventually lost the political battle for control of Louis XIII's government, it happened in such a way as to reinforce the principle that monarchical rule was necessarily absolute. After the arrest and imprisonment of Condé in the fall of 1616, it was widely alleged in the pamphlet literature that Concini, not the queen mother or the king, had been in control of the king's councils for some years. This claim seriously undermined the central defense of the queen mother's authority since 1614. However, the assassination of Concini in April 1617 was portrayed as having brought the real sovereign, Louis XIII, to power. This turn of events signaled the defeat of both Marie's coalition and what remained of Condé's confederation. The sixteen-year-old king was suddenly heralded as the authentic ruler of France, the "absolute" sovereign who would bring peace and unity to the faction-

torn country. In a paradoxical twist, a coup d'état against the queen mother helped to affirm the very view of sovereignty that Marie and many of her supporters had been promulgating since 1610. A great rhetorical celebration of absolutism's victory over tyranny was launched by pamphleteers and much of the nation when Louis appeared willing to personally assume the direction of affairs of state and to exercise the absolute power that was his alone. The king had killed the monster plaguing his state and had taken power "into his own hands" (see Figure 3).^[10]

Theologians and Jurisconsults vs. Birth, Honor, and Tradition

One of Condé's propaganda tactics was to complain that the great nobles in general and the princes of the blood in particular had not been sufficiently honored by the queen mother. Their voices had not been heeded in the kings's councils, and their traditional role in the government of the kingdom had been undermined. (This claim was largely untrue; the rebels simply belonged to the less-influential faction at court.) The moderates among the queen mother's advisers adopted a tone of conciliation toward this claim. They protested that the princes held their accustomed place in the council, but that, at the same time, it was natural for the queen mother's most experienced ministers and officers of the Crown to handle much of the government's business.^[11] It was emphasized that these ministers were, after all, the same advisers upon whom Henry IV had relied; their ability and integrity ought to have been above reproach.

The queen mother's more militant supporters were much more strident. Very early in the campaign an anonymous apology addressed to Condé in the voice of the queen suggested that the rebels "consult the theologians and jurisconsults" in order to see for themselves "what the divine and positive laws permit to be done to those who are found planning to assemble for the purpose of troubling the peace of their country."^[12] This was an obvious reference to legal concepts of sovereignty and lese majesty, and an only slightly veiled reference to treason. Lese majesty was a capital offense and the charge had been used as recently as the reign of Henry IV against the great nobility. Henry had the duc de Biron executed for lese majesty, based (among other things) on the thin evi-

[10] . B.N. Cabinet des Estampes, Qb1 1617.

[11] . The queen stressed this point in her letters of February 1614 to dignitaries around the kingdom; e.g., her letter to the marquis de Mirabeau, acting governor (lieutenant général ) of Burgundy, 13 February 1614, published in Correspondence de la Mairie de Dijon , 1:126-129.

[12] . Response pour la royne a monsieur le prince (1614), 19.

Figure 3.
A placard celebrating the victory of young Louis XIII over the monster Concini. One of the banners reads,
 "He takes the power in his own arms." Reproduced with the permission of the Bibliothèque Nationale
 de Paris.

dence that the duke's troops may have once fired on Henry's royal entourage.^[13] A quick glance at the relevant passages in Bodin and Loyseau reveals that the monarchy's leading theorists had decisively categorized armed rebellion and political organizing on the part of les grands as lese majesty.^[14]

In practice, however, the opinion of the public was more significant than that of "jurisconsults." The pretensions of the great nobility were persistently tolerated, but how far could the "peers of the realm" and "princes of the blood" go before they violated the political norms in 1614?

The deputies to the Estates General in 1614 appear to have concurred with theorists such as Bodin and Loyseau on lese majesty. In the discussions of the assembly on the comportment of the nobility, the deputies were generally sympathetic to the plight of poor country gentlemen, but were quite unsympathetic toward insolent military officers. This view was particularly prevalent among the members of the Third Estate, most of whom were both judicial officials and members of the urban elite.^[15] Several articles in the cahier of the Third Estate complained that the governors and lieutenant governors of provinces, in addition to military commanders, extorted money and produce from local populations, protected brigands, interfered with the administration of local justice, and the like.^[16] Even more revealing was an article in the cahier of the Second Estate (the nobility), urging the king to curtail the political power of

[13] . The duc de Biron's alleged complicity in a Spanish conspiracy against Henry (which never materialized beyond the planning stages) seems also to have played a part in the duke's execution. The formal charge was "lese majesty," but many saw the punishment as far out of proportion to evidence against the duke. In order to get the Parlement to go along, it was apparently necessary to stress that Biron had not only conspired against the "authority" of the king but had also once tried to have Henry murdered. Biron protested violently against this charge all the way to the scaffold and was still fuming when the charges were read to him publicly just before his execution. See the account in the Bibliothèque de l'Institute de France, Ms. Godefroy 112, ff. 5-24.

[14] . Bodin's rejection of the great nobles' political authority, that is, of "feudal" political authority, is set forth in Six Livres de la République , book 3, chap. 5. He was nonetheless aware that, as a practical matter, the claims of the heads of great noble families to certain "offices" had to be handled respectfully: see book 4, chap. 3. Loyseau was even more hostile to the political pretensions of the great nobility; see Cinq livres du droit des offices , book 4, chaps. 4 and 6. Cf. Harding, Provincial Governors , 11.

[15] . For the occupations of the deputies of the Third Estate, see Hayden, France and the Estates General , app. 3, pp. 266-283. Of the 196 deputies, 111 were royal officers of some kind, mostly judges in bailliage -level jurisdictions; cf. my "Judicial Corruption and Legal Reform."

[16] . Lalourcé and Duval, eds., Recueil des cahiers généraux , 4:305-322 (see second section of the Bibliography). This collection has an account of the Third Estate's grievances in 1614, including those against the nobility.

les grands by suppressing their patronage networks. "Let no pensions, charges, estates, or other benefits be awarded through the intercession of the Princes and Lords of your Kingdom; in this way the obligation of those who receive [such benefits] will be entirely to Your Majesty, and not to [the said princes and lords.]"^[17]

The deputies of the Third Estate were adamant on the issues; they used their cahier to explicitly repudiate the efforts of les grands to usurp the functions of the central government. In particular they repudiated the formation of political factions for the purpose of undermining sovereign authority. At the head of their cahier they placed a series of policy statements on this matter that they hoped the queen mother's government would ratify.

Let it . . . be held as a fundamental law of the State that no subjects of Your Majesty, of any estate or condition whatsoever, be allowed to form leagues or associations among themselves, or with other princes and foreign lords, without written letters of permission [from the king.]

Let all gentlemen and others receiving pensions from foreign princes be held as criminals guilty of lese majesty, and let none of your officers or domestics take any pensions from any princes, lords, or communities.

Let all those who would raise troops and arms, [or convoke] assemblies and councils without Your permission be considered criminals guilty of lese majesty, and let no grace be extended to them. Let it be permitted to all persons to descend upon them, cut them to pieces, and attack them at the sound of the tocsin for this purpose.^[18]

The deputies of the Third Estate were not upset that les grands were being excluded from positions of power, but that such men were already too powerful. They rejected the great nobility's use of organized violence as a political tactic and stated unequivocally that political authority emanated from the king alone and that the nobles could not usurp public functions without his explicit written permission. The determination of the Third Estate on this issue and their attachment to the discourse of sovereignty are underscored by their use of the legal term lese majesty to describe organized resistance against the central government. It would be hard to imagine a more explicit defense of absolutism and unequivocal condemnation of the tactics used by Condé and his confederates to challenge the administration of Marie de Médicis.

The deputies' rejection of the political pretensions of the great nobility was noteworthy in itself, but it was even more so when bound together with the "divine right" issue. The three articles that the Third Estate placed at the head of their cahier were originally to be preceded by an-

[17] . Ibid., 4:192.

[18] . Ibid., 4:273-74.

other article, the famous first article exalting the "divine right" sovereignty of the French king. This article (if it had been adopted) would have required all officials of France to take an oath of allegiance to the king, acknowledging him as the absolute monarch by divine right and explicitly repudiating ultramontanism. Roland Mousnier was certainly correct to emphasize that the first article was not simply about the events of 1614.^[19] The oath was also part of an extended reaction to the assassination of Henry IV and yet another turn in the old quarrel about the French church—that of the Gallicans and politiques on the one hand, and of the militant Catholics (Jesuits and other ultramontanists) on the other; Denis Richet's discovery that the author of this article was Antoine Arnauld—the well-known lawyer with politique and anti-Jesuit views—reinforces this interpretation.^[20]

Paradoxically, the first article was a tremendous embarrassment for the queen mother. Her ultramontane supporters, so crucial in her struggle to defeat Condé, were violently opposed to it. They viewed the article as an essentially Protestant proposal modeled after an oath that James I had drafted for English subjects.^[21] For many militant Catholics, important theological and moral principles were at stake. What of an individual's religious convictions and conscience if he happened to be the subject of an absolute, divine right monarch who was an incompetent, a tyrant, or a heretic? The Gallican position, defended by members of the Parlement of Paris and most of the legally trained royal officials of the realm, exalted royal obedience and favored the adoption of such an article. The deputies of the Third Estate from every province of France, with the exception of Guyenne (whose delegation was under the watchful eyes of Cardinal de Sourdis), voted unanimously to adopt the first article into the general cahier . These local notables of the Third Estate, many of whom were royal officials, were also important members of the queen mother's political coalition.

[19] . Cf. Mousnier, L'Assassinat d'Henri IV . Hayden discusses parts of the confrontation in greater detail, in Estates General , 131-148. Cardinal Du Perron's pamphlet opposing the oath, allegedly a version of his speech delivered to the Estates, is Harangue faicte de la part de la chambre ecclesiastique, en celle du Tiers Estat, sur l'article du serment . . . .

[20] . Richet, "Paris et les Etats de 1614," 73. Cf. Salmon, "Gallicanism and Anglicanism," 166-173, 182-185.

[21] . Ibid., 184. Drawn up following the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605,, King James I's "Oath of Allegiance" was also directed against the militant Catholics—the Jesuits in particular—and thus contained a clause denying the pope the kind of moral influence over political issues that the Catholics believed he should have. James and other English writers took a great interest in the French dimension to the debate. The Cardinal Du Perron's polemic (mentioned in n. 19) was the occasion for James's celebrated tract, "A Remonstrance for the Right of Kings," in Political Works of James I (see sec. II of the Bibliography). Similar responses to Du Perron were published by Frenchmen. Bignon's Grandeur de nos roys (Paris, 1615) was typical.

The queen mother was persuaded by her militant Catholic advisers, however, to request that the article be stricken from the cahier . The Third Estate eventually complied, but not very willingly. The final vote of 20 January 1615, on whether to withdraw the article from the cahier or to protest further to the queen mother, was a narrow victory for Marie. The delegations of two of the twelve provinces were split, and the delegations from four of the provinces voted to protest. Since six of the provinces voted to obey the queen mother, however, the article was withdrawn.^[22] The deputies' attachment to the Gallican interpretation of divine right and royal authority, even in the face of intimidation from the Crown, was obviously powerful.

On the whole, Marie benefited greatly from these ideological confrontations, despite the short-term political awkwardness. The debate over the first article involved two factions of the best educated, most politically sophisticated, and rhetorically skilled people in the kingdom eager to disseminate their versions of absolute divine right in support of the queen mother's administration. The Protestants, politiques , and royal officials supported their interpretations of an absolute divine right for the French monarch. They were willing to associate this defense of divine right with a general defense of the queen mother's administration in part because a stronger royal government would be better able to resist the influence of the militant Catholics. Although the militant Catholics opposed the extreme statement of absolute divine right found in the article, they strongly favored the regent's religious and foreign policies. Thus, they were eager to keep the queen mother in power and were more than willing to emphasize the need for absolute obedience to the sovereign as part of a campaign to keep Condé out of power.

The Rhetoric of Sovereignty and Sedition

Marie de Médicis's most militant supporters thought Condé and his confederates should be confronted as seditious rebels and dealt with accordingly. They argued that if the queen reacted too timidly to their challenge, the authority and power of the royal government would be greatly damaged. For this reason, these supporters wrote and sponsored pamphlet literature stressing the inviolability of sovereignty, the absolute power of the Crown, and the absolute obedience owed by the great nobles to those in control of the government. These supporters frequently

[22] . The information on voting is from Mayer, ed., Estats généraux , vol. 16 (see sec. II of the Bibliography), which reproduces the eyewitness account of Rapin, entitled Recueil très exact et curieux de tout ce qui s'est passé de singulier et mémorable en l'assemblée général des Etats à Paris en l'année 1614 .

emphasized the importance of having one "will" in charge of the state, and they spoke as if the queen mother's administration embodied this principle. An anonymous pamphleteer emphasized that Marie's legitimate selection and confirmation as regent gave her the privilege to run the government as she saw fit. "The Queen, being in her place, must enjoy her rights."^[23] She was in effect the holder of sovereignty, and she alone should manage the affairs of state.

Two facts were very helpful in this rhetorical context—(1) Marie was formally pronounced queen shortly before the assassination of Henry IV, and (2) the government quickly rallied around her after Henry was killed. Apologists in 1614 were quick to recall the events of 1610.

In such a situation as the Queen found herself [following the assassination of Henry IV], there was nothing that could have safeguarded the state from the pernicious divisions that menaced it but the absolute command of some person who would inspire confidence, whether by his or her quality or by public decree, . . . [so that his or her authority] could not be called into question.^[24]

The meaning of this passage was clear. The queen mother had helped to preserve the royal government in a time of need precisely because she took over completely the sovereign authority of Henry IV.

The theoretical difficulty posed by Marie's ambiguous personal claim to royal authority was often sidestepped by treating sovereignty in abstract terms and then associating monarchy generally with the rule of a single individual, or "will." The author of Le vieux Gaulois was a militant Catholic and was therefore an enemy of absolutism in many ways. But he endorsed the principle of "one person" rule, and even argued that the principle was a foundation of political order in all states. "There is no state at all well policed where the sovereign decision does not belong to the monarch, and no republic which, in the anticipation of trouble, does not choose a single leader on which to confer the right of government."^[25]

Arguments stressing the need for an individual person, or "will," to possess an unchallengeable right to command served two main purposes for the pamphleteers. One was to defend the regent's right to act as sovereign, and the other was to undermine any notion that Condé and the other great nobles might have inalienable rights to share in this authority. The author of Remonstrance aux mal contens made these points very clear, using both the "one will" principle and the idea of lese majesty.

[23] . Vieux Gaulois (1614), 11.

[24] . Response pour la royne a monsieur le Prince (1614), 8.

[25] . Vieux Gaulois , 12.

Now, it is very much the case that in any state where the head of it commands fully and absolutely, one usually rejects, even holds as a capital crime, anything which a private individual dare say . . . against the manner of governing it. This sanctuary ought not to be approached except by those whom it pleases the sovereign to call there.^[26]

In addition to the legal concepts lurking behind this kind of argumentation, there was also a complex set of assumptions about how government worked. Some pamphleteers argued explicitly that the maintenance of royal authority depended on a smoothly operating network of loyalties and allegiances to the king personally ; they were surprisingly frank in their explanations of how the system worked. Money and other benefits, they stated, accrued to those who served the king. The judicious dispensing of patronage by the king in person was believed to create bonds of sincere loyalty and allegiance. Loss of personal control over the patronage system was therefore seen as a particularly dangerous threat to the king's power.

There is nothing more prejudicial to a Monarch than to confer his favors through the recommendation of others, except in cases where he recognizes the merits of those who receive these favors. . . . It happens frequently that les grands , who acquire followers at the expense of their master, alienate the loyalty of those who receive these favors. Then, their willfulness makes them misbehave and gives them the boldness to intrigue, as was done against King Henry III, the most liberal Monarch in the world.^[27]

The surest way for the king to prevent such intrigues, the author concluded, was for him to take control of the operations of government "with his own hand" so that those who occupied important positions felt directly dependent on the king for their privileges and power. This line of argumentation obviously implied that if great nobles like Condé were able to exercise the kind of patronage they wanted, then royal government would cease to function properly. Other historical examples besides Henry III were cited.^[28]

The queen mother's supporters were willing to concede that Condé and his confederates had some role to play in advising the councils and even in administering the kingdom. But at the same time, they were quick to refute the notion that this role was a right conferred upon them because they represented the "people," "the king," or any form of public authority. Marie's propagandists argued that the princes had the privilege to advise the king, but they could do so only as simple subjects, not

[26] . Remonstrance aux mal contens (1614), 4.

[27] . Conseiller fidele a son roy (1614), 44.

[28] . Cf. Discours sur les conferences faites (1615), 11.

as public figures. One pamphleteer put it this way: "With regard to those who do not have the government in hand, who are thus without commission or legitimately conferred charge, they are not able to formalize the interests of the people nor the interests of the Monarch."^[29] In other words, not even princes of the blood had any legal claim to public or state authority. Therefore, Condés claim to represent the public good and the king's true interests was not a legitimate basis upon which to challenge the administration of the queen mother.

Before the summer of 1615—at which point Condé publicly proclaimed an armed rebellion against the government—Villeroy's moderation guided much of the official propaganda against Condé. When hostilities broke out in July 1615, Villeroy lost influence over the direction of the Crown's policies. Chancellor Brûlart de Sillery, Concini, and a small circle of advisers that included several militant Catholics now controlled the queen mother's administration. They wanted the royal government to oppose Condé and his supporters more strenously in both rhetoric and military action.

In September 1615 Marie's advisers drew up a "Declaration of the King" against the rebels that charged them with the capital offense of lese majesty. It is unlikely that the chancellor and the queen mother actually intended to prosecute Condé and his confederates further. The language of the declaration and its manner of publication suggest they were most interested in its propaganda value.^[30] In fact, the first versions of the declaration were worded so that Condé and his associates were to be considered guilty of lese majesty only if they did not render their complete obedience to the Crown within thirty days. Failure to fulfill this condition, however, would make the first prince of the blood and all those following him guilty, immediately and without further trial.

The principal charges were that Condé had "begun to conspire and to form factions and conspiracies" among the subjects of the king, addressing himself to both Catholics and Protestants in order to persuade them to join with him in an uprising against the government. He had "openly

[29] . Remonstrance faicte sur les esmotions de ce temps (1614), 7.

[30] . Declaration du roy contre le prince de Condé et ceux qui l'assistent . The author of Mercure françois , who reproduced the text of the declaration, notes that the arrêt was disseminated and displayed in the principal squares of Paris, 4:226-237. Similar publication was apparently a common practice in provincial towns as well. Patte, a bourgeois of Amiens, noted in his journal the publication of several declarations against Condé; that of September 1615 "was proclaimed at the sound of a trumpet" at a great town meeting, Journal , 357. Referring to the similar declaration against the duc de Nevers in 1617, a royal official in La Rochelle noted in his diary for Monday, 6 February, "the declaration of the king in which M. de Nevers is declared guilty of lese majesty was read in an open meeting, as required by the king's attorney." Guillandreau, Diarie , 141.

taken up arms, delivered commissions [to officers in his rebel army,] and seized some of our towns." Although Condé's activities had been excused in the past, the declaration claimed, they could no longer be tolerated since his publication of a "scandalous manifesto" (the pamphlet Manifeste of August 1615) openly declaring his intent to interfere forcibly with the conclusion of the king's marriage. Therefore, the king personally, in his council, with the queen mother present, decided the following:

We declare by this present declaration, signed by our hand . . . [Condé], together with the princes, officers of the crown, and all others who follow him and adhere to his designs, deprived of all honors, estates, offices, powers, governments, charges, pensions, privileges, and prerogatives that they have from us, or preceding Kings. And in revoking these things we declare our said cousin the prince de Condé and all his adherents disobedient subjects, rebels, and criminals guilty of lese majesty. As such, we desire that legal action be taken against them personally and also against their property.^[31]

This was the first in a series of such declarations.^[32] They all followed closely the legal formulas and language used in the 1615 declaration, which was based on the form of an arrêt from the king's councils. Every effort was made to give these declarations the appearance of legal exactness and the force of sovereign judicial decisions, even though the powers of the king's council as a court of law were vague. Following the normal legal procedure, the declarations were also sent to the Parlement of Paris for verification and registration. An obvious source for the exact wording, however, was the articles drafted by the Third Estate at the Estates General.

In the hope of public approval, the same formulas were used to justify Condé's arrest and imprisonment in a declaration that also charged with lese majesty those who had left Paris to protest his arrest.^[33] This declaration of September 1616 was given the added legal authority of being

[31] . Ibid., 15-16.

[32] . The practice of issuing such declarations escalated sharply with the arrest of Condé and the disgrace of Villeroy in the fall of 1616. Included in the arrêt announcing Condé's arrest in 1616 was a pending declaration of lese majesty against all those who had left Paris in protest. Later, in January and February 1617, a charge of lese majesty was issued against the ducs de Vendôme, Mayenne, Bouillon, Nevers, the marquis de Coeuvres, president Le Jay, and all those still protesting the arrest of Condé. The duc de Nevers was also charged separately. These declarations were followed in March by an even more strongly worded declaration, Declaration du roy, pour la reunion a son domain, et confiscation des biens des ducs de Nevers , . . . (1617). All of these declarations were simply rescinded after the assassination of Concini in April.

[33] . Declaration du roy, sur l'arrest fait de la personne de monseigneur le prince de Condé, et sur l'eslongement des autres . . . (1616), and reproduced in the Mercure françois 4/2:217-227 (to which subsequent citations refer).

read and registered by the Parlement of Paris at a lit de justice attended by the king personally, his mother, the principal officers of the Crown, and many of the most prestigious individuals in the kingdom loyal to the queen.^[34]

The declaration announcing Condé's arrest was the most strongly worded of any of the documents accusing the princes of lese majesty. It argued that Condé had not only been conspiring against the administration to capture control of the government but had also been conspiring against the person of the young king. The allegations reveal the advisers' nervousness about public reaction, but they were nevertheless reasonably confident that the "personal" dimension of Condé's alleged treason against Louis XIII would have the desired effect on public opinion.

The declaration made the sensational charge that Condé was conspiring to capture the king and to divide up the kingdom among the great nobles.^[35] To threaten the person of the king or the integrity of his kingdom was, without any question, a capital offense. The very suspicion of such a treasonous intent justified extraordinary measures. The declaration therefore took pains to substantiate the charges, even if it required evidence of questionable value. The document cited the authority of "a princess" very attached to the queen who had overheard certain conversations and repeated them to the queen. The tenor of these conversations was that Condé was planning some sort of coup d'état. Next, the declaration cited the authority of one of the great nobles of France and "another of similar quality," as sources confirming the same information. A third source was alleged to be foreign ambassadors who had "officially requested" in "handwritten documents" that the king "be on guard" for his personal safety.^[36] The personal threat to the king was held to justify the arrest of the first prince of the blood. Anonymous pamphleteers explained that when Condé returned to Paris in August 1616, he began to take over the functions of the king both socially and politically. His house drew more of the court than the Louvre. This was an insult to the dignity and authority of the king. Condé's actions in the Conseil des Finances had given him almost total control over the government's affairs. Thus, according to the declaration, Condé left to the king and the queen mother "only the name and image of sovereignty"—presumably usurping the substance for himself.

In early 1617 the administration's propaganda focused on the new association of nobles who were protesting Condé's arrest and Concini's

[34] . For the constitutional and symbolic significance of these events, see Hanley, "Lit de Justice, " 209-306.

[35] . Mercure françois 4/2:221.

[36] . Ibid., 221-223.

power. Again, the rebels' affront to sovereignty was portrayed as the central offense:

It is unpardonable [of the rebels] to offend royal authority, which depends only upon God and the sword, and to want to control the King's actions in an affair [the detention of Condé] so important to the health of his person and his state . . . . Do you not know that subjects have no other legitimate arms than remonstrances and prayer, and that he who resists superior powers resists God, who established them?^[37]

Another author wrote that the most important thing to keep in mind was that any kind of "resistance" to the king had to be considered "parricide."^[38] The use of the term "parricide" was intended both to evoke general moral revulsion and to associate the rebels with the assassin Ravaillac, whose crime was widely called parricide as well as lese majesty.

The Refusal to Challenge Absolutism

Condé and his allies devised a weak response to this onslaught of legalistic, absolutist rhetoric. From the beginning, the rebels had protested their personal loyalty to the king and queen mother, claiming their political challenge was directed only against a faction of the king's advisers and their evil policies. They also justified their actions according to the public interest, rather than their personal political rights. This strategy failed in part because it lacked a convincing theoretical foundation. The rebels were willing to argue that part of a general reform in the public interest would include restoring the great nobles to their proper places within the king's councils. But at no time during the 1614-1617 conflicts were they willing to challenge openly the prevailing notion of a perfect, undivided, unchallengeable sovereignty exercised by the king. They did not even champion very vigorously a notion of "fundamental laws" or of limitations on the absoluteness of royal sovereignty. Only a handful of pamphlets forwarded the notion of a monarchy in which the king was required to consult with and accept advice from subordinate political entities within the realm, including his council of great nobles.^[39]

Condé and his associates called attention to their "rank," "condition," and "quality"—traditional concepts used in defense of noble privileges.^[40]

[37] . Remonstrances faictes à messieurs les princes . . . (1617), 12-14.

[38] . Coeffeteau, Response au manifeste (1617), 15-16.

[39] . See Union des princes (1617), analyzed by Duccini, "Littérature pamphlétaire," 2:309-310.

[40] . The nobility may have been out of touch with both learned and popular opinion concerning their political role; see Schalk, "Appearance and Reality," 19-31; Chartier, "Noblesse et les États de 1614," 113-125; Clouatre, "Decadence of the Ancient Nobility."

As "princes of the blood," several of the rebels were in an especially strong position to press these claims. Although the princes and their supporters did not argue directly that Condé had a fundamental right to participate in the government of the kingdom, they did their best to imply this. One supporter asserted that the king's ministers ought to know "the rank that the princes of the blood must hold in the state."^[41] Pamphlets supporting Condé frequently claimed that the prince's participation in government affairs was necessary for the health of the state.^[42] But these vague claims were never sharpened into a clear argument that Condé and his confederates had a right to oppose their authority to that of the queen mother or the king.

Indeed, one of Condé's major rhetorical tactics throughout the struggle was to allege that he was working to maintain the authority of the king and his Crown by opposing those who had formed a secret monopoly within his councils. Such arguments were fully consistent with an absolutist position, and the propaganda of the princes was strikingly clear on Louis XIII's personal and absolute sovereignty. One supporter of the rebels claimed their primary goal was "the protection and conservation of the authority of our country, and the establishment and observation of the customary order in the management of affairs, until the king will have acquired the age to deal with these affairs as stipulated by our laws."^[43]

After spring 1615 Condé and his allies complained openly that the queen mother's administration was acting as if it represented the royal will, when in fact her advisers excluded the king from any part in the affairs of state. In October 1615 Condé's party published a pamphlet under the prince's name that emphasized the distinction between the queen mother's administration and the will of the king. The rebels claimed to be in opposition, not to the King, but to those "enemies of the King and state" who had "usurped the sovereign authority and absolute government of the Kingdom."^[44] The main point of the pamphlet was that those acting in the king's name had no sovereign authority; they were simply usurpers who had taken advantage of the king's youth to declare a private war on the great nobility. Condé and his associates were defending themselves against the tyranny of some of the king's advisers, not resisting the authority of the king. This strategy assumed that "absolute monarchy" was the normal state of affairs in France and that the

[41] . Partisan royal (1616), 7. For a somewhat different treatment of these issues in the pamphlet literature, see Duccini, "Littérature pamphlétaire," 2:304-312.

[42] . For example, Justice que monseigneur le Prince (1614).

[43] . Noblesse françoise, au chancelier (1615), 7, one of the pamphlets most hostile toward the regency.

[44] . Declaration de monseigneur, le prince (1615), 3.

authority of the central government was to be equated first and foremost with the personal will of the king.

The princes and their supporters also alluded to the personal, absolute authority of the king to discredit the charges leveled against them. How could the taking up of arms against the administration in power be construed as a challenge to the king? Were Concini, the Chancellor and his brother, Bullion, and Dolé (Marie's protegés) to be equated with the king?^[45] In their propaganda protesting the arrest of Condé and the charge of lese majesty, the 1616-1617 confederation of princes complained, "It is a strange thing, Sire, to allow it to happen in your Kingdom, that we be esteemed criminals guilty of lese majesty for not wanting to submit to an infamous foreigner [Concini], and for not wanting to accept the final blow completing your destruction."^[46]

The closest the princes came to arguing directly against the idea of perfect and undivided sovereignty was in defending their political authority and independence as royal governors. The ducs de Nevers, Vendôme, and Longueville, governors of Champagne, Brittany, and Picardy respectively, tried to stir up indignation against the administration by publishing accounts of the Crown's efforts to undermine their authority and to incite rebellion and sedition against them. Vendôme claimed that "his vassals" and his "own domestics" had been encouraged to rebel against him by misguided partisans of the queen.^[47] Nevers claimed that by arming his own province against him, the queen was depriving him of the right to defend himself against the private armies of his enemies.^[48] Longueville charged Concini with a long list of crimes designed to undermine the duke's authority as governor of the Province of Normandy and City of Amiens.^[49]

In justifying such claims, however, they emphasized that their authority should not be challenged precisely because governors legitimately represented the king within their jurisdictions. They did not base their arguments on the assumption that they held personal rights to public authority based on "natural," customary, or hereditary claims. They argued for the necessity of procedural protection for those holding

[45] . For example, Partisan royal (1616), 5. This distinction was a constant refrain of most antiadministration propaganda beginning in 1615. Interestingly, this argument, rather than any of the more radical resistance theories, was also used by the Protestants to justify their taking up arms in support of Condé and their own political goals, Discours sur les armes (1616).

[46] . Remonstrance envoiee au roy (1616) 7.

[47] . Seconde lettre de monsieur de Vendosme, au roy (1614), one of the first of several such letters by Vendôme in the course of the conflict.

[48] . Lettre envoyee au roy par monsieur le duc de Nevers (1616); and Lettre de monseigneur le due de Nevers au roy, contre les calomnies (1616).

[49] . Lettre de monseigneur le duc de Longueville. Au roy (1615).

royal offices. If other royal officials ordered people to disobey them, or even to rise up against them, these officials encouraged disobedience to the king, whose authority in the provinces was represented by his governors. The crime in the affront to them was the affront to the king. The line of argument assumed the absolutist position—admitting the legitimacy of a perfect, undivided, unchallengeable royal sovereignty. There was no attack here on the prerogatives of the sovereign, only on the usurpation of those prerogatives by those in his council who did not truly represent his will.

The revolt of the princes presented an opportunity for the deputies to the Estates General and the magistrates of the Parlement of Paris to press any claims they might have had against the principle of absolute sovereignty. Neither of them did so, despite their strong sense of participating in the governing of the country. In the spring of 1615 the Parlement of Paris began to press the Crown for some kind of a response to the cahiers drawn up by the Estates General. The magistrates were particularly concerned about what the Crown would do with the droit annuel , and they sent a deputation to the court to obtain information.^[50] A brief political scuffle ensued in which the old issue of the Parlement's rights of remonstrance was raised. Marie and her advisers asked the magistrates not to meddle in "affairs of state." The magistrates responded that they were not meddling, but, rather, had a right to be heard.

One anonymous pamphlet, with no indication of the date or place of publication, mounted a theoretical defense for the Parlement's actions in this affair.^[51] It claimed that the Parlement of Paris was indispensable to the kings of France because it was the "real depository" of the "justice" that God had charged the kings of France to administer. An explicit comparison was made to England's Parliament. The author argued for a "mixed" state because "when the full power rests on the will of a single man," the danger of his will becoming corrupted is too great.^[52] But this

[50] . These events are discussed by Hayden, France and the Estates General , 166-171. A detailed narrative is provided in the Mercure françois 4:24-87. See also Discours veritable de ce qui s'est passé au Parlement, en suite de l'arrest de la Cour du xxviii. Mars dernier, et des remonstrance (1615); and Arrest de la Cour de Parlement du vingt-huictiesme Mars (1615).

[51] . L'authorité royalle en son degré (1615). The reference to "l'ancienne Monarchie d'Angleterre," in which "la puissance absolue des Roys" was "soubmise au judgment des trois Estats du Royaume, qu'ils appelent Parlement" (p. 30) was provocative rhetoric but did not represent a serious political goal. The pamphlet contains typical positions taken by defenders such as de la Roche-Flavin of the Parlement's rights. It acknowledges "authorité absolue" of the king but manages to argue at the same time that certain functions of "justice" exercised by the Parlement could not be suppressed by the king.

[52] . Ibid., 29. This pamphlet is a response to L'authorité royalle (1615), a curious pamphlet that advocates the ultramontane position with arguments referring to Bodin, du Tillet, and Machiavelli, as well as Cardinal Du Perron.

reservoir of constitutional notions was generally not tapped by other pamphleteers, and no larger campaign to press such ideas can be found in 1614-1617.

Nor does one find much constitutionalist rhetoric in the pamphlets devoted to the Estates General, in the cahiers de doléances , or in the fragmentary records of the meetings themselves. The Estates General was portrayed in all three contexts as an opportunity to air grievances and, possibly, to obtain specific legal and administrative reforms. In this respect, the deputies took their missions very seriously. Several times in the course of the sixteenth century, major reform legislation had followed from the recommendations in the cahiers presented to the king by the Estates. Many of the deputies clearly hoped this would happen again and for this reason often cited the previous legislation in the texts of their grievances.^[53] The number of references in the 1614 cahiers to previous royal enactments—the edicts of Orléans (1561), Moulins (1566), and to a lesser extent Blois (1579)—is telling.

Partly because of this tradition of reform legislation, the entire discourse surrounding the Estates, in the pamphlets as well as in the cahiers , was one of supplication, not resistance. The Estates were not seen as a chance to agitate for political liberties, but as an opportunity to ask the king to turn his attention to this or that problem.^[54] In fact, the royal government is portrayed as the major bastion of defense against local tyrannies of all kinds. The power of the sovereign was perceived, not as the problem, but as the solution.

Of course, there were many complaints about the royal government, the courts, nobility, church, and economic and social conditions in France. The king's tax officials were a plague. Local lawyers and judicial officials were corrupt. Local seigneurs exploited their tenants. Priests were absent from their parishes. Noblemen behaved like outlaws, while the wives of bourgeois dressed like queens. But such grievances were not articulated, either in the cahiers or the pamphlets, as fundamental political problems stemming from an oppressive monarchy. They were important but isolated problems, stemming from the immoral or irresponsible behavior of discrete individuals or groups. Some Frenchmen took advantage of their official positions, but this was not equivalent to royal tyranny.

Admittedly, we do not hear much from peasants and artisans. The local cahiers were drawn up by local elites, the vast majority of whom were

[53] . Chénon, Histoire générale du droit français , 2:346-357.

[54] . For analyses of the cahiers , see Hayden, France and the Estates General , 174-218; and the contributions of Chartier, Nagle, Richet, and Grimmer in Chartier and Richet, eds., Représentation et vouloir politiques , 63-174.

themselves royal officials of some kind. The evidence we do have concerning the grievances of the lower classes suggests that they were concerned primarily with basic economic issues, not with more abstract political matters.^[55] It is also noteworthy that the elections of deputies had been heavily supervised by agents loyal to the queen mother's administration, a process that surely weeded out any political radicals—or, to use the language of the time, men suspected of not being "in the service of the king." Taking all of these factors surrounding the Estates into account, two things remain striking about the discourse it generated. First, despite the hundreds of complaints concerning the abuses of royal officials, no general ideology of regionalism or particularism was articulated. Second, the general direction of the recommendations of the deputies was toward strengthening, not weakening, the institutions of the royal government.

Doubling Back: Absolutism and the Coup of 1617

A final irony of absolutist rhetoric in the 1614-1617 campaigns was the way in which the arguments used to defend the queen mother's administration were turned against her in 1616-1617. This happened in large measure because Concini, known to the public at this time as the maréchal d'Ancre (after his most prestigious military office and his recently acquired marquisate of Ancre), began to be perceived as wielding a large share of the king's authority. Once this idea caught hold, it became impossible to effectively defend Marie's administration on the basis of her claim to be legitimately exercising the king's sovereignty. The arrest and imprisonment of Condé, at Concini's instigation, was thus seen as an act of violence perpetrated by Concini so that he could have his own way in the king's councils and thus exercise "absolutely" the powers of the sovereign. The remaining nobles of Condé's faction then went into revolt again, claiming they were constrained to challenge the administration because it was abusing the "name" and "youth" of his majesty. This time though, the charge stuck. Someone other than the king was exercising absolute authority and usurping the sovereign government of the kingdom.

The efforts of the administration to defend the arrest of Condé were weak. The queen mother's pamphleteers tried to revive the legalistic arguments about sovereign authority, but Concini's perceived role in the government appears to have neutralized the notion of lese majesty. Whereas people were willing to accept Marie de Médicis's representing

[55] . Chartier and Nagle, "Doléances rurales," 63-174, using Cahiers de doléances , ed. Durand (see sec. II of the Bibliography).

Louis XIII, no one would seriously place Concini in this role. The rhetoric of Richelieu and others who tried to characterize the arrest of Condé as "self-defense" on the part of the king backfired. Richelieu wrote a pamphlet that dripped with indignation toward those who criticized the arrest:

Everyone knows well enough Condé's guilt . . . .

His majesty is of an age to know right from wrong and desires so passionately to secure the one and to avoid the other that he will affirm without doubt to all the world that justice is the measure of his actions, and that one will never see his actions marked by violence.

Who can say that he used violence in having arrested someone whose freedom placed his person and his state in imminent danger? There is no one in the world with any sense who could have such a thought.^[56]

But the legitimacy of the government was no longer self-evident, and this line of rhetorical appeal avoided too many issues. The opposition argued that Condé had posed no real threat to the king, and that the king had not personally approved of the arrest. Was it not an even more disturbing threat, they demanded, to tolerate the tyranny of Concini over the king s councils?^[57] This line of argument, pursued by the rebels throughout the winter of 1616-1617, eventually prevailed.

Concini was assassinated in April 1617 in a blatant coup d'état engineered by several of the young king's closest companions, including his falconer and friend, Charles d'Albert de Luynes, and the captain of his bodyguard, the sieur de Vitry. The assassination was justified after the fact in a flood of pamphlets celebrating the restoration to the king of his rightful and absolute power. The absolutist arguments reappeared in defense of the new government. The tone was set in the letter sent out to the provinces over the signature of the king announcing the death of Concini.

You have easily observed how the maréchal d'Ancre and his wife, taking advantage of my young age and of the power that they acquired . . . over the mind of the Queen . . . , undertook to usurp all the authority [of the

[56] . As a newly appointed secretary of state, Richelieu responded in the name of the king to the manifesto published by those protesting Condé's arrest in Declaration du roy sur le subject des nouveaux remuements de son royaume (1617). Some evidence concerning Richelieu's authorship, in addition to the text of the pamphlet, is provided in Richelieu, Lettres , 1:301-17 (my translation is based on this text, 306).

[57] . See especially Association of the princes of France, with the protestations and declarations of their allegeance to the King . . . (London, 1617), an English edition based on L'Union des princes (1617). Cf. similar pieces, such as Lettre de Monsieur le Duc de Buillon au roy sur la declaration publiee contre luy (1617); and Lettre de Monsieur le duc de Nevers. Au roy (1617).

Crown], to dispose absolutely of the affairs of my State, and to prohibit me from having cognizance of them: a plan that they were able to push so far that until now nothing was left to me but the name of king.^[58]

The language of this letter is also remarkable because of its emphasis on the king's personal involvement in the coup against Concini, highlighting his decision to arrest the marshal.

God, through his great bounty, made me clearly aware of the eminent peril that threatened my person and my State [because of the unrestrained ambitions of the maréchal d'Ancre. However . . . ] I was constrained to conceal my true sentiments, and wait for Him to provide the means and the opportunity to remedy the situation. . . . I resolved today to secure the person of the said Marshal, and commanded the Sieur de Vitry, Captain of my guard, to arrest him and place him in the Louvre as a prisoner. . . . Then I requested the Queen my Mother to find it agreeable that I take in hand the direction of my State, and try to extricate it from the extremity in which the bad advice that she followed has placed it.^[59]

It is not easy to determine to what extent the public believed this transparently self-serving account. Having learned from Concini's mistakes, the eventual leader of the new political coalition, Luynes, purposely kept a low profile.^[60] Whether people were ignorant of Luynes's role in the coup or simply wanted to believe the young king was now in command, they welcomed Louis as their absolute sovereign. The recall of several ministers (including Villeroy) disgraced by Concini also added to public confidence. In any case, the author of the Mercure françois reports that news of the change in administrations was welcomed by everyone. "The joy that the people experienced from this news cannot be expressed. Everyone shouted together, 'We have one King!' "^[61]

At the level of printed discourse, the 1614-1617 challenge to Marie de Médicis's government did not generate a serious challenge to the principle of absolutism or to the form of the state from any direction. A significant discourse of resistance might have been mobilized by the radical wings of either religious party, by the Parlement of Paris, or by the deputies to the Estates General. None of these political interest groups, however, identified strongly with the revolt of the great nobility. The nobles themselves did not try to marshal any of the sixteenth-century resistance theories to justify their opposition to Marie's administration. Nor was

[58] . My translation is based on the text as reproduced in the Mercure françois , 5/1:201.

[59] . Ibid., 5/1:203.

[60] . Cf. Marvick, Louis XIII , 201-225.

[61] . Ibid., 200.

there even much rhetoric resembling late medieval views of the political rights of barons or peers of the realm. The political propaganda of Condé and his confederates remained fundamentally an attack on the personnel and policies of the ruling coalition.

The reasons for this apparent timidity were ideological as well as strategic. The rebels were overwhelmingly conservative. They initiated their hostilities against the queen mother's administration for essentially partisan political reasons. The prince de Condé and his supporters were not interested in changing the institutional power arrangement, but in gaining a greater share of existing authority. They recognized that power rested primarily on the ability to exercise certain functions of the royal government. Their role was defined more by practical concerns and tradition than by legal principles, and a more representative style of government would weaken this role. In the 1616 negotiations over Condé's entry into the king's councils, for example, the prince insisted that membership be restricted, not expanded, because such an arrangement would give him greater influence.

In short, Condé and his confederates believed a strong central government was in their interest; they simple wanted more influence over its policies. In this sense, les grands believed in absolute sovereignty in a different way, but just as strongly as legally minded magistrates of the robe. The rebels claimed they were interested in serving the king and in upholding his authority, not challenging it. What they were challenging, they said, was the usurpation of the king's authority by the queen mother's favorites.

Marie's propagandists recognized the broad support for the notion of absolute sovereignty, and they confidently characterized the challenge to her political coalition as an attempt to weaken and create disorder in the state. The corps of royal officials that constituted the leadership of the Third Estate seem to have been particularly receptive to the propaganda of absolute sovereignty. Heavily invested in their offices and dependent on normal social and economic activity for their incomes, they were anxious for law and order. They were particularly hostile to renegade military forces and the arbitrary power of military governors. Such people were naturally inclined to prefer "royal" authority to that of a regional tyrant. When the queen mother's propagandists simplified this choice to one between absolute sovereignty on the one hand and anarchy on the other, it was not hard for them to build a consensus around the former.

The success of this campaign was an important force in the conservation of the government's power in 16 1614-1617, but not because "absolutism" had been challenged and then defeated. The rebels based their claims to public authority on the "rank" conferred by their noble birth, the privileges conferred by their associations with royalty (such as the

quasi-legal concept of peerage), and the need for "reforms." The political opposition of 1614-1617 was willing to use pamphlets to criticize the government's policies and to attack particular ministers, but they did not campaign for limitations on the king's authority or for changes in the basic structure of government. Pamphlets were a tactical, not ideological, weapon for the opposition. From the government's point of view, however, pamphlets were nevertheless dangerous because they threatened individual careers, politicized the public, and undermined the ability of king's council to function effectively. Thus, there was still good reason to undermine opposition by suggesting that political dissent of any kind was a challenge to the authority of the king, and by inundating the public with traditional divine right rhetoric and juridical notions of absolute sovereignty.