The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime resulted from years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts), internal conflicts, and civil wars, but they remained and the Valois Dynasty's attempts at re-establishing control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Huguenot Wars (or Wars of Religion of 1562-1598). Much of the reigns of Henry IV (r. 1589–1610) and Louis XIII (r. 1610–1643) and the early years of Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) focused on administrative centralization. Despite, however, the notion of absolute monarchy (typified by the king's right to issuelettres de cachet) and the efforts by the kings to develop a centralized state, the Kingdom of France retained administrative irregularities: authority regularly overlapped and nobles struggled to retain autonomy.
Burn Baby Burnedit
Lancelot and Guinevere as depicted in their passion in an 19th century painting and a 20th century film still.
Gwenneviere the queen of rose boel.....
The drive for centralization in this period related directly to questions of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and 17th centuries (the Huguenot Wars between Catholics and Protestants and theHabsburg's internal family conflict) and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century demanded great sums which needed to be raised through taxes, such as the land tax (taille) and the tax on salt (gabelle) and by contributions of men and service from the nobility.
The Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, later taken to mark the end of the Ancien Régime; watercolour by Jean-Pierre Houël.....
Thus came the wonderous spring and summer of '2020 grew accustomed to the presence of foreigners and the Effel Tower in their midst.
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