HENRY IV, 1589-1610, (2), m. Mary, daughter of Francis, Grand Duke of Tuscany | +—LOUIS XIII, 1610-1643, m. | Anne, daughter of Philip III of Spain. | | | +—LOUIS XIV, 1643-1715, m. Maria Theresa, | | daughter of Philip IV of Spain. | | | | | +—Louis, Dauphin, d. 1711, m. Maria Anna, | | | daughter of Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria. | | | | | | | +—Louis, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1712, m. | | | Mary Adelaide, daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. | | | | | | | +—LOUIS XV, 1715-1774, m. | | | Mary, daughter of Stanislas Leczinsky, King of Poland. | | | | | | | +—Louis, Dauphin, d. 1765, m | | | Maria Josepha, daughter of Frederick Augustus II | | | of Poland and Saxony. | | | | | | | +—LOUIS XVI, 1774-1792 (deposed, executed 1793), | | | | m. Marie Antoinette, daughter of | | | | Emperor Francis I. | | | | | | | +—Louis, Count of Provence (LOUIS XVIII), | | | | 1814-1824. | | | | | | | +—Charles, Count of Artois (CHARLES X), 1824-1830 | | | (deposed),m Maria Theresa, daughter | | | of Victor Amadeus III of Savoy. | | | | | +—Francoise (Mademoiselle de Blois), | | m. | | +—Philip, regent, _d._1723. | | | | | | | +—Louis, d. 1752. | | | | | | | +—Louis Philippe, d. 1785. | | | | | | | +—Louis Philippe (Egalite), executed 1793. | | | | | | | +—LOUIS PHILIPPE, 1830-1848 (deposed), m. | | | Maria Amelia, daughter of | | | Ferdinand I of Two Sicilies. | | | | | (2), Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine. | | (1), Henrietta Maria. | +—Philip, m. | +—Henrietta Maria m. Charles I of England.
THIRD STAGE IN THE WAR (1632-1648).
FRANCE AFTER HENRY IV.—After the death of Gustavus, in the new phase of the war, the influence of Richelieu, the great minister of France, becomes more and more dominant. Germany was in the end doomed to eat the bitter fruits of civil war, such as spring from foreign interference, even when it comes in the form of help. Henry IV. had died when he was on the point of directing the power of France, as of old, against the house of Hapsburg. The country now fell back for a series of years to a state akin to that under the kings who preceded him, although it was saved from a long civil war. Louis XIII. (1610-1643) was a child; and the queen, Mary de Medici, who was the regent, an Italian woman, with no earnest principles, deprived of the counsels of Sully, lavished the resources of the crown upon nobles, who were greedy of place and pelf. At the assembly of the States-general in 1614, nobles, clergy, and the third estate were loud in reciprocal accusations. The queen fell under the influence of the Concinis, an Italian waiting-maid and her husband, the latter of whom she made a marquis and a marshal of France. She leagued herself in various ways with Spain. As the king grew older, a party rallied about him, and the marshal was assassinated (1617). From that time Louis was under the influence of a favorite, the Duke de Luynes, a native Frenchman, with whom the nobles were in sympathy. The duke died in 1621. Then Richelieu, Bishop of Lucon (made a cardinal in 1622), a statesman of extraordinary genius, began his active career in politics, and after 1624 guided the policy of France, as a sort of Mayor of the Palace. Louis XIII. was not personally fond of him, but felt the need of him. Richelieu's aim, as regards the government of France, was to consolidate the monarchy by bringing the aristocracy into subjection to the king. Under him began the process of centralization, the system of officers appointed and paid by the government, which was fully developed after the great revolution. He accomplished the overthrow of the Huguenots as a political organization, a state within the state. In 1628 Rochelle, the last of their towns, fell into his hands. He was determined to make the civil authority supreme. He resisted interference with its rights on the part of the Church. The nobles were reduced to obedience by the infliction of severe punishments. The common people were kept under. But the domestic government of Richelieu made it possible for the selfish and ruinous policy of Louis XIV. to arise. The key of his foreign policy was hostility to Austria and Spain, to both branches of the Hapsburgs. Before he took active measures against them, he had to procure quiet in France, and to provide himself with money and troops.
INTERVENTION OF RICHELIEU.—The pretext of Richelieu for taking part in the German war was the alleged ambitious aim of the Hapsburgs to destroy the independence of other nations. He helped Gustavus with money; but the Swedish king would neither allow him to take territory, nor to dictate the method of prosecuting the contest. It was agreed that the Catholic religion as such should not be attacked. Oxenstiern, the Swedish chancelor, in the Heilbronn Treaty (1633) adhered to the same policy.
DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN.—Wallenstein had now become dangerous to the emperor. He negotiated with the Protestants, the Swedes, and the French, possibly to confront the emperor with the accomplished fact of peace and to claim as a reward the Palatinate or the Kingdom of Bohemia. Deprived of his command and declared a traitor, he was assassinated by some of his officers (1634).
END OF THE WAR.—The imperial victory of Nordlingen (1634) made the active assistance of France necessary. But it was not until the death of Bernard of Weimar, the foremost general of the Germans (1639), that Richelieu found himself at the goal of his efforts. The armies opposed to the emperor were now under the control of the French. The character of the war had changed. Protestant states were fighting on the imperial side: the old theological issues were largely forgotten. Yet the Court of Vienna still clung to the Edict of Restitution (p. 424) for eight long years, during which the confused, frightful warfare was kept up. At last the military reverses of the emperor, Ferdinand III. (1637-1657), who, unlike his father, was not indisposed to peace, wrung from him a consent to the necessary conditions.
EFFECTS OF THE WAR.—The barbarities of this long war are indescribable. The unarmed people were treated with brutal ferocity. The population of Germany is said to have diminished in thirty years from twenty to fifty per cent. The population of one city, Augsburg, fell from eighty to eighteen thousand. There were four hundred thousand people in Würtemberg: in 1641 only forty-eight thousand were left. In fertile districts, the destruction of the crops had caused great numbers to perish by famine. It is only in recent years that the number of horned cattle in Germany has come to equal what it was in 1618. Cities, villages, castles, and dwellings innumerable, had been burned to the ground.
THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA.—The Peace of Westphalia, concluded in 1648, was a great European settlement. It was agreed, that in Germany, whatever might be the faith of the prince, the religion of each state was to be Catholic or Protestant, according to its position in 1624, which was fixed upon as the "normal year." In the imperial administration, the two religions were to be substantially equal. Religious freedom and civil equality were extended to the Calvinists. The empire was reduced to a shadow by giving to the Diet the power to decide in all important matters, and by the permission given to its members to make alliances with one another and with foreign powers, with the futile proviso that no prejudice should come thereby to the empire or the emperor. The independence of Holland and Switzerland was acknowledged. Sweden obtained the territory about the Baltic, in addition to other important places, and became a member of the German Diet. Among the acquisitions of France were the three bishoprics, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the landgraviate of Upper and Lower Alsace. Thus France gained access to the Rhine. Sweden and France, by becoming guarantors of the peace, obtained the right to interfere in the internal affairs of Germany.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY.—By this treaty, what was left of central authority in Germany was destroyed: the empire existed only in name; the mediæval union of empire and papacy was at an end. Valuable German territories were given up to ambitious neighbors. France had extended her bounds, and disciplined her troops. Sweden had gained what Gustavus had coveted, and, for the time, was a power of the first class. Spain and Austria were both disabled, and reduced in rank.