Fronde
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Fronde
(frôNd), 1648–53, series of outbreaks during the minority of King Louis XIV, caused by the efforts of the Parlement of Paris (the chief judiciary body) to limit the growing authority of the crown; by the personal ambitions of discontented nobles; and by the grievances of the people against the financial burdens suffered under cardinals RichelieuRichelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de(Cardinal Richelieu) , 1585–1642, French prelate and statesman, chief minister of King Louis XIII, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
..... Click the link for more information. and MazarinMazarin, Jules
, 1602–61, French statesman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, b. Italy. His original name was Giulio Mazarini. After serving in the papal army and diplomatic service and as nuncio at the French court (1634–36), he entered the service of France
..... Click the link for more information. .
The Fronde of the Parlement
This period (1648–49) began when the parlement rejected a new plan for raising money, proposed by Anne of AustriaAnne of Austria,
1601–66, queen of France, daughter of King Philip III of Spain. Married to the French king Louis XIII (1615), she was neglected by her husband and sought the society of the court intriguer, Mme de Chevreuse.
..... Click the link for more information. , mother of and regent for Louis XIV, and her adviser, Cardinal Mazarin. The scheme would have required that the magistrates of the high courts (except the parlement) give up four years' salary. The high courts, including the parlement, opposed the proposal and drafted a reform document limiting the royal prerogative. The government, in retaliation, arrested several members of the parlement, notably Pierre BrousselBroussel, Pierre
, c.1575–1654, councillor of the Parlement of Paris under Louis XIII and Louis XIV. His opposition to the tax program proposed by Cardinal Mazarin made him popular.
..... Click the link for more information. , but the Parisian populace rose in protest and barricaded the streets (Aug., 1648). Anne and Mazarin were forced to yield and Broussel was released.
Meanwhile, the Peace of Westphalia (Oct., 1648), which ended the Thirty Years War, freed the royal army to take action against the Fronde. Anne, the king, and Mazarin secretly left Paris (Jan., 1649), and the city was blockaded by royal troops under Louis II, prince de Condé (see Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince deCondé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de,
1621–86, French general, called the Great Condé; son of Henri II de Condé. Among his early victories in the Thirty Years War were those of Rocroi (1643), Freiburg (1644), Nördlingen (1645), and Lens (1648).
..... Click the link for more information. ). Louis's brother, Armand de Conti (see under ContiConti
, cadet branch of the French royal house of Bourbon. Although the title of prince of Conti was created in the 16th cent., the founder of the continuous line was Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti,
..... Click the link for more information. , family) and his sister Mme de LonguevilleLongueville, Anne Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, duchesse de
, 1619–79, daughter of Henry II de Condé and sister of the Great Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé.
..... Click the link for more information. were among the leaders of the Fronde. Other leaders were Frédéric Maurice de BouillonBouillon, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de
, c.1605–1652, French general; son of Henri de Bouillon. Brought up a Protestant, he campaigned in Holland under his uncle Maurice of Nassau. In 1635 he entered the service of France.
..... Click the link for more information. and Paul de Gondi (later Cardinal de RetzRetz, Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de
, 1613–79, French prelate and political leader. He was made (1643) coadjutor to his uncle, the archbishop of Paris.
..... Click the link for more information. ). A compromise peace was arranged between the parlement and the regent at Rueil in Mar., 1649.
The Fronde of the Princes
The prince de Condé, having aided Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XIV's regent Anne, expected to control them. His overbearing attitude and intrigues caused his arrest in Jan., 1650, and precipitated a second outbreak, the Fronde of the Princes, or the New Fronde. Mme de Longueville called on Marshal TurenneTurenne, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de
, 1611–75, marshal of France, one of the greatest of French commanders. The son of the duc de Bouillon, he was brought up as a Protestant. He began his military career in the Dutch army but soon entered French service.
..... Click the link for more information. for aid in releasing her brother. Government troops defeated Turenne and his Spanish allies at Rethel (1650), but Mazarin was forced to yield when Retz, Mme de ChevreuseChevreuse, Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, duchesse de
, 1600–1679, French beauty and politician, an intimate of the French queen, Anne of Austria. Her continuous intrigues in opposition to King Louis XIII's minister, Cardinal Richelieu, caused her to be banished repeatedly from
..... Click the link for more information. , Gaston d'OrléansOrléans, Gaston, duc d'
, 1608–60, son of King Henry IV and Marie de' Medici, younger brother of Louis XIII. He took part in many of the conspiracies of the great nobles against Louis XIII's minister, Cardinal Richelieu, and several times fled from France.
..... Click the link for more information. , and François de BeaufortBeaufort, François de Vendôme, duc de
, 1616–69, French courtier and politician; grandson of King Henry IV of France and his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées.
..... Click the link for more information. all united in demanding Condé's release.
Mazarin fled to Germany in Feb., 1651, but the victorious nobles soon quarreled among themselves, and Condé left Paris to take up open warfare against the government. Although joined by Gaston d'Orléans, Beaufort, Conti, and the provincial parlements of S France, Condé lost the principal support of Turenne, who went over to the government's side after Louis XIV reached his majority. In Dec., 1651, Mazarin was recalled. Condé concluded an alliance with Spain, but was defeated by Turenne at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine beneath the walls of Paris; he was saved by Mlle de MontpensierMontpensier, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de
, 1627–93, French princess, called Mademoiselle and La Grande Mademoiselle; daughter of Gaston d'Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII.
..... Click the link for more information. , who admitted him and his army into Paris. His arrogant conduct there alienated the people.
As the Fronde disintegrated, Mazarin once more left France to clear the air for a reconciliation. In October the king returned to Paris; Mazarin followed in Feb., 1653. The princes soon made peace with the government, except for Condé, who commanded the Spanish forces against France until the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659; see Pyrenees, Peace of thePyrenees, Peace of the,
1659, treaty ending the warfare between France and Spain that, continuing after the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War, had been complicated by French intervention in the revolt of the Catalans (1640–52) and by Spanish
..... Click the link for more information. ). The Fronde was the last attempt of the nobility to resist the king by arms. It resulted in the humiliation of the nobles, the strengthening of royal authority, and the further disruption of the French economy.
Bibliography
See A. L. Moote, The Revolt of the Judges: The Parlement of Paris and the Fronde, 1643–1652 (1972).
Fronde
a series of antiabsolutist uprisings in France that lasted from 1648 to 1653. The Frondeurs came from various social strata and at times pursued divergent goals.
Oppressive taxes and the hardships brought by the Thirty Years’ War of 1618–48 led to many uprisings by the peasants and the urban lower classes. The tax policy of Cardinal Mazarin’s government aroused the opposition of the parlement of Paris and the bourgeois circles associated with that body. The parlement formed a temporary bloc with popular antifeudal forces and demanded several reforms, some of which were bourgeois in nature.
Mazarin’s attempt to arrest opposition leaders, such as P. Broussel, provoked a mass armed uprising, which broke out in Paris on Aug. 26–27, 1648. Mazarin took the young Louis XIV out of the insurgent capital, and royal troops blockaded the city in January and February 1649. The Parisians were supported by a number of provinces, but the Parisian bourgeoisie and the parle-ment’s noblesse de robe (hereditary nobles who acquired their rank by holding a high state office), frightened by the upsurge of the popular movement and the radical character of pamphlets and leaflets that were being printed, entered into negotiations with the royal court.
In 1649 the Fronde of the parlement came to an end, but popular disturbances continued. At the beginning of 1650 leadership of the opposition was assumed by reactionary court circles, who merely wanted to pressure the government into granting them such benefits as pensions and lucrative posts; this phase of the Fronde was known as the Fronde of the princes. The insurgent noblemen and princes, supported by retinues of gentry and by foreign (Spanish) troops, made use of the peasant uprisings and the democratic movement in the cities. During the Fronde of the princes the most revolutionary elements of the French bourgeoisie attempted to continue the struggle against absolutism; thus, in Bordeaux the Fronde assumed in this period the character of a bourgeois-democratic republican movement.
In 1651 the aristocratic Frondeurs succeeded in forcing the resignation and exile of Mazarin, who soon returned to France with hired troops. A prolonged civil war ensued. By the end of 1652, Mazarin, by means of bribes and concessions, had persuaded most of the aristocratic Frondeurs to effect a reconciliation. Their leader, the prince de Conde, who in 1651 had gone over to the service of the Spanish king, was forced to leave Paris, despite the military support of Spanish detachments. By mid-1653 the resistance in the most stubborn and radical center of the Fronde— Bordeaux—had been suppressed.
The defeat of the Fronde led to a feudal reaction in the French countryside from the 1650’s to the 1670’s and facilitated the establishment of Louis XIV’s autocracy.
REFERENCES
Porshnev, B. F. Narodnye vosstaniia vo Frantsii pered Frondoi (1623–1648). Moscow-Leningrad, 1948.Capefigue, J. Richelieu, Mazarin, la Fronde et le règne de Louis XIV, vols. 1–8. Paris, 1835–36.
Courteault, H. La Fronde à Paris. Paris, 1930.
Kossmann, E. H. La Fronde. Leiden, 1954.
Lorris, P. G. La Fronde. Paris, 1961.
B. F. PORSHNEV