11.1.17 to 11.1.19

According to that doctrine, the French king possessed the right of temporal and spiritual regale—that is, the right to nominate new bishops and to administer and draw the revenue from bishoprics while they remained vacant. In 1673 Louis extended this right to the whole of the French kingdom, which had been enlarged in the recent War of Devolution (see below), despite papal opposition. Eventually, in 1682, the Gallican Articles were published as a law of the French state, asserting that the king was in no way subject to the pope in temporal matters and could not be excommunicated and reaffirming the independence of the French church from Rome. The mutual animosity of king and pope only ended in 1693, when, following William of Orange's successful attempt to secure the English throne, Louis agreed to suspend the edict of 1682; but it was a suspension only, not a recantation. The tradition of Gallican independence remained. Absolutism of Louis Thus, in religious matters (except where Jansenism was concerned), in his dealings with the nobility and the Parlement, in his attitude to the economy, and in his manner of governing the country, Louis revealed a desire to exercise a paternal control of affairs that might suggest a modern dictator rather than a 17th-century king. Though such a comparison has been made, it is most misleading; neither in theoretical nor in practical terms could Louis XIV be thought of as all-powerful. First of all, the legitimacy of his position under the law—the ancient fundamental law of succession—made him the interpreter of the law and the fount of justice in the state, not a capricious autocrat. Similarly, his kingship bestowed upon him a quasi-spiritual role, symbolized by his consecration with holy oil at his coronation, which obliged him to govern justly in accordance with the laws of God and Christian morality. He was also bound by the need to take counsel; and though he always made up his own mind, he insisted on receiving advice on all important matters of state, which further restricted any arbitrary instincts. Next, there was the essentially federal nature of the country with its collection of such peripheral provinces as Brittany, Normandy, and Provence, all retaining their own Estates and customs. Within both these pays d'état and pays d'élection (where the Estates no longer met) there was a variety of groups and corporations, not to mention individuals, with their own legally held rights, privileges, and exemptions, such as the nobility, the clergy, the towns, and the king's officers. To impose rigid uniformity in such a situation was both impossible and undreamed of by contemporaries. On the contrary, one of the king's prime obligations was to uphold and respect the myriad different rights to which his subjects laid claim.