The only measure Sully championed that might be described as novel and far-reaching was the introduction in 1604 of a new tax, the paulette, named after the financier Charles Paulet, which enabled officiers (officeholders) to assure the heritability of their offices by paying one-sixtieth of the purchase price each year. The paulette was intended to increase royal revenues, though it had considerable political implications too, in effect making government offices practically hereditary. Politically, the paulette was to increase the independence of a wide range of royal officials; it did, however, give these officiers a stake in the strengthening of the royal government. In addition, Sully did much to reorganize fortifications and to rebuild roads and bridges after the devastation of the religious wars. In transportation his greatest work was the Briare Canal project to join the Seine and Loire rivers—the first such scheme in France—completed under Louis XIII.
Sully, however, favoured a much more cautious domestic policy overall than did his sovereign; because Sully disliked merchants and manufacturers, he opposed many of the king’s economic ventures. Henry IV believed in direct state intervention, and he took steps to fix wages and to prohibit strikes and illegal combinations of workmen. Henry’s policies bore fruit especially in the textile industries, where the production of luxury silk goods and woolen and linen cloth greatly increased. Henry also took the initiative in making commercial treaties with Spain and England, thereby increasing the volume of French trade and stimulating the export of grain, cattle, and wine. Yet his efforts were not entirely successful, not least because merchants remained more concerned with buying land and office (and thereby status) than with plowing back their profits into further industrial development. Though the country did assume a more prosperous air under Henry IV, that change was chiefly because of the domestic and foreign calm that followed the Peace of Vervins.
Even after Spain’s agreement in 1598 to the restoration of the territorial position as it had existed in 1559, Henry was not free of international complications. But he was able to prevent them from once more dividing his kingdom. He did have to counter a conspiracy led by one of his own marshals, Charles de Gontaut, baron et duc de Biron, who plotted with the king of Spain and almost succeeded in raising southwestern France in revolt. Henry, however, had Biron arrested and executed in 1602; this strong action against an old friend and powerful enemy had the effect of subduing the political rising and strengthening Henry’s own authority. In central government Henry gave increasing power to Sully at the expense of the rest of his council, while in the provinces the responsibilities of the intendant, an official first regularly employed during the reign of Henry III, were widened to include the supervision of potentially dissident groups. The intendants also represented the crown at meetings of provincial estates, enforced royal laws, and advised the king on a variety of local problems—fiscal, administrative, and military. When Henry IV was assassinated by François Ravaillac, a Catholic fanatic, in May 1610, he had gone a long way toward restoring the monarchy to a position of authority similar to that held by Francis I and Henry II and had reunified a state greatly threatened at his accession from both within and without. Louis XIII
From 1610 to 1617, Henry’s widow, Marie de Médicis, ruled on behalf of their young son Louis XIII (reigned 1610–43). Once more the security of the country was threatened as factions disputed around the throne. The work of Henry IV seemed likely to be undone. Crown and country, however, were rescued by probably the greatest minister of the whole Bourbon dynasty—Armand-Jean du Plessis, cardinal et duc de Richelieu. Richelieu first came to the attention of the government in 1614, when he was chosen to present the final address of the clergy at the meeting of the Estates-General. His eloquence and political expertise on this occasion won him the notice of Marie de Médicis, who later appointed him her secretary. By 1616 Richelieu was secretary of state for war and foreign affairs. His career, however, received a check in the following year when a palace revolution overthrew the regency of the queen mother, exiling her to Blois. Richelieu was banished first to Luçon and subsequently to Avignon (1618). He began the climb back to power by negotiating the Treaty of Angoulême (1619), which reconciled Louis XIII to his mother. After the death in 1621 of Louis’s favourite, Charles d’Albert, duc de Luynes, Richelieu regained effective power; he became a cardinal in 1622 and in April 1624 gained access to Louis XIII’s council. On the disgrace in 1624 of the superintendent of finance, Charles de La Vieuville, Richelieu became Louis’s principal minister—a position that he maintained until his death some 18 years later.
Richelieu proved an indefatigable servant of the French crown, intent on securing absolute obedience to the monarchy and on raising its international prestige. The first objective required him to crush a number of revolts of the nobles, the first of which, in 1626, involved the king’s younger brother and heir, Gaston, duc d’Orléans. Louis acted ruthlessly, and one of the conspirators, Henri de Talleyrand, comte de Chalais, was executed. Then, in 1630, came the notorious Day of Dupes (November 10), when the queen mother, now allied with Gaston and the keeper of the seals, Michel de Marillac, prepared to move against Richelieu. After initially agreeing to the cardinal’s dismissal, the king recovered and chose to support Richelieu against the wishes of his mother, his wife, and his confessor. Finally, at the very end of his life, the cardinal had to overcome another conspiracy headed by the young royal favourite, Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis de Cinq-Mars, in which Gaston was once more implicated. Through all these crises, Richelieu retained the king’s support, for it was in Louis’s interests, too, that such intrigues be firmly dealt with.
In the course of strengthening royal absolutism, Richelieu also came into conflict with the Huguenots. He believed that their right under the Edict of Nantes to maintain armed fortresses weakened the king’s position at home and abroad. Protestant rebellions in 1625 and 1627 persuaded the cardinal of the need for a direct confrontation. The major Huguenot citadel of La Rochelle was attacked by royal troops in 1627 and, despite attempts by the English to assist the Protestants, fell in the following year. Another royal army marched into Languedoc, where the Huguenot forces were concentrated, and quickly overcame them. The Peace of Alais (1629) left the Huguenots free to enjoy religious and civil liberties, but they lost the military power that had made them a threat to the government. They were never to pose that sort of threat again, and little more would be heard of them until Louis XIV decided to repeal Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes.
Richelieu also took a great interest in economic matters. To promote economic self-sufficiency, he encouraged the manufacture of tapestry, glass, silk, linen, and woolen cloth. He gave privileges to companies that established colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the West Indies. To protect trading and colonial interests, he created a navy, which by 1642 had 63 oceangoing vessels.