At first Richelieu appeared to adopt a policy of outright hostility towards Spain and when trying to damage them with the help of England and the Dutch, encountered his first problem. He was getting a lot of trouble, internally from the Protestants, so he adopted an abnormally pro-protestant policy, which no other minister was wiling to do. This was a brave move, but eventually collapsed in on itself and he had to adopt a more cautious line. This lowered the nation’s royal authority, because it leads the Protestants to believe that if they put some pressure on the king, he would bend to their will, as to avoid conflict.
In his later years, Richelieu’s foreign policy became substantially more aggressive, and gained him a group of loyal supporters who called themselves the creatures. With this clientele solidly planted in the centre of affairs the council became docile and bent to Richelieu’s will. This is a prime example of how he furthered royal authority, with the council unwilling to argue; laws and policies could be passed at will, with only Louis XIV ever having this sort of power, after passing a very aggressive and controversial law.
This did have a downside however; any opponents of his policies would have to express themselves in revolts and appeals to the public. This left the public greatly divided and caused many internal scuffles, which drew troops away from the wars which Richelieu had begun to wage.
There was much anxiety over Richelieu’s foreign policy, mostly over his failure to stop Sweden in their march through France. Sweden was much more successful than anybody could have imagined and it leads German nobles to turn to Spain for help. This weakened French positions, because if Spain could draw upon German armies and vice-versa, France was surrounded by hostile forces.
Richelieu’s foreign policy, in comparison to other ministers’, failed miserably. He lowered the status of France in the eyes of the known world and therefore made them seem weak, lowering royal authority. But, he knew this and therefore turned his head to internal affairs, in an attempt to preserve royal authority among the French people. Many ministers also adopted this policy, but few were as successful as Richelieu in this area.
Richelieu had a very strong social policy, in theory. However, the state that he gained political influence in was poor. Previous ministers had left the country in disarray, giving Richelieu the hardest job out of all the ministers. After the 30 years war, taxes had to be raised to gain back all the money that was lost. This proved unpopular among the general public and lead to many revolts. These were common place in all countries in this period however, and it is how Richelieu dealt with the overlying problem that is important.
Richelieu created a great clientele of créatures and spread the responsibility among them, thus removing himself from most of the responsibility. This did not strengthen France, in fact, it weakened it. However it could be looked upon in a more positive way. With the responsibilities spread out between many people, they could all focus on different areas of the problem which was what eventually happened.
Richelieu, in conclusion, overall, increased the royal authority, but only by a very small margin. He caused many problems and then had to solve them himself. He did assert himself in the political world, creating more power in the parliament for the monarch, but overall he caused more problems for the future than he solved.
Mazarin replaced Richelieu as chief minister and took on many of his problems. He also brought many of his own problems into the country, he was foreign and he was a low ranking nobleman, which caused great anger among many higher ranking nobles.
Mazarin and the Queen mother became absolute rulers of France during Louis XIV’s minority. This caused great civil unrest as they believed in the divine right of kings and Mazarin was not divinely chosen. Mazarin’s main problem was that he had great foreign success, but minimal internal success. He was a great minister who was not given a chance to shine because of his status and nationality.
With Mazarin in power there was little hope of tax cuts and the populous knew this. There was also little hope of the crowns appalling financial condition being sorted out. Many of Richelieu’s political enemies returned from exile or imprisonment to challenge the new administration. With all this it seems surprising that the regency survived at all and was actually successful for a number of years.
One reason for this was that most nobles wanted a stable rule, as long as it didn’t encroach upon their own personal wants, needs and ambitions. Mazarin’s wars meant that nobles gained positions of high social status and thus they were willing to accept that the wars were needed. But this was only temporary. Mazarin’s lack of knowledge regarding internal affairs meant that he had to rely on ministers heavily. These ministers began to get ideas above their station, thinking that they could run the country.
This political unrest eventually led to the Frondés. This was the greatest civil war that France had ever seen. The populous rose up against Mazarin and Anne of Austria in an attempt to remove them from power. Nobles turned against them, getting their own large armies involved. Mazarin was forced to flee and the country was thrown into chaos. Mazarin was Chief Minister for a very short time. He did eventually return to France, when Louis XIV’s majority began, but was responsible for the biggest fall in royal authority out of all the ministers.
When Mazarin finally did return, his input was merely a token gesture by Louis. He caused another lapse in royal authority, because if he had not come back, Louis could have asserted himself as absolute ruler more quickly, thus bring France into a great era earlier. In conclusion, Mazarin had one of the most unsuccessful era’s of all the ministers, he led France down a path of self destruction, but he did make the biggest contribution out of all the ministers, even if it was negative.
The final minister is Colbert. Although he was not a Chief Minister (Louis had adopted that job by this point) he had a great contribution to French internal society. Colbert was the best financial mind of his time; he estimated that the crown was 451 million livres in debt in 1661. Colbert reduced the expenditure of tax farms as his first act, the originally collected in approximately 36 million livre, but 26 million of that was spent on the collection costs. Colbert made them more efficient and took the first step to reducing royal debts. Over the next decade Colbert introduced intendants into French society to collect money. He eventually wiped out French debt, not an easy task!
Colbert increased royal authority because he was able to decrease the debt and put France back in the black. This meant that Louis had money to wage wars with and to follow his main goal of gloire. This increased respect for Louis XIV and therefore increased his royal authority.
In conclusion, Richelieu was the most successful of all ministers as he increased royal authority the most. He did however create a lot of problems for himself, but not to the same extent that Mazarin did. He was not the greatest financial mind of the time, but because he had more power than Colbert he was able to make a bigger contribution, thus allowing us to say that he did the most to preserve and enhance royal authority in France 1610-1715.