Historical data to characterize the image of Henry IV in Shakespeare's chronicles. Biography of Henry IV

Introduction

Chapter II. Henry IV as a "hero of his time"

Chapter III. Domestic policy of Henry IV

Conclusion

References

Introduction

According to polls among the French, Henry IV is the most popular king, noticeably ahead of all his other colleagues, despite the fact that both before and after him there were outstanding personalities on the throne of France. Thanks to his charisma and government reforms, which undoubtedly benefited the country, he was firmly entrenched in first place in the people's memory. But he is interesting not so much for his popularity among the French, but for his actions and policies, thanks to which he actually became so popular.

The relevance of the chosen topic is explained by the fact that history has always paid much attention to the role of the individual in history and the historical process. Trying to reduce or exaggerate the significance of an individual in history, researchers compiled a complete historical portrait, combining both an analysis of biography and government reforms, resulting in a comprehensive historical portrait of the figure. Moreover, interest in the personality of Henry IV is fueled by the fact that in addition to significant changes in the economic life of France, he was able to achieve an improvement in the social situation in the country, effectively ending religious wars and beginning the unification of the country under a strong absolute monarch.

The purpose of the study is a historical portrait of Henry IV as a person and as a ruler. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are set:

· Consideration of the development of France in the 16th century

· Analysis of Henry's biography

· Study of his “ruling” activities

The object of study is France in the 16th - early 17th centuries. The subject is the social and economic processes occurring in the country during the specified period.

A comprehensive study of the socio-economic processes that took place in France before Henry’s accession to the throne; analysis of his biography, identification of factors that influenced the formation of his personality as the future king, drawing up a psychological portrait of Henry of Navarre; A study of the government changes that took place during his reign will make it possible to draw up a detailed historical portrait of Henry, both a ruler and a person.

Despite such strong popularity among the French, very little has been written in Russian historiography about the biography and personality of Henry; historians were increasingly interested in religious wars and the actions of the League of Guise. The interest in the emergence of the popular movement and the participation of ordinary masses in the struggle for power in the country, largely imposed by ideology, actually pushed aside the study of Henry’s biography, especially since no one tried to show Henry IV not only as a king, but also as a man of his era.

As a result, domestic historians have fairly fully covered the urban movement, the League movement and religious wars, depriving one of the key figures of that time of their attention. If we take the Soviet historiography of the issue during the first half of the 20th century, then it is worth mentioning the work of O.L. Weinstein, in which he says that “in Russian, in essence, there is not a single general work on Western European historiography.” Unfortunately, in relation to the person of Henry IV, this statement is still valid.

The methodological basis of the work is formed by the general scientific principles of historical research, such as historicism and objectivity. The principle of objectivity is inextricably linked with the principle of systematicity, which requires the discovery of various aspects of an object, their unity, the disclosure of form and content, elements and structure, the connection of the object in question with the objects and processes surrounding it. The principle of historicism is the desire to consider material systems in their dynamics, development and change. The principle of historicism is complemented by a problematic approach, which allows us to identify the most important objects in the object under consideration and identify subjective factors in their development. A comparative approach is used, which requires a comparison of processes occurring in similar elements of the system. A socio-psychological approach is used to help detect the influence on political processes of the socio-psychological qualities of individuals participating in power relations.

To work on a given topic, the author used the memoirs of his contemporaries: Margaret of Valois, Duke of Sully; the collection of letters “Documents on the History of the Civil Wars in France (1561-1563)” was also used to work on the characteristics of the period preceding Henry IV’s rise to power. In addition to the above sources, materials from the special course “Little History of France” and the text of the Edict of Nantes were used.

The memoirs of Marguerite Valois appeared in response to the work of Pierre Brantôme dedicated to Marguerite - Margaret - Queen of France and Navarre, the only current heiress of a noble French house . General concept Brantôme's creation was the idea that Margaret was worthy of more than a castle in Auvergne, abundantly flattering the latter and leading to the idea that she fully deserves the throne of France. All this forced her to write a response memoir, in which Valois outlined her largely subjective vision of events: “Without skimping on paint, Margarita paints portraits of her loved ones: the powerful and cruel Queen Mother Catherine de Medici, the weak-willed and kind Charles IX and the cynical Henry III, who used the services of wicked advisers. Of the last Valois, only Duke Francis of Alençon receives praise. She considered her younger brother, like herself, to be one of the victims of court intrigue.” At that time, the relationship between the former spouses was developing well, so Henry in Margarita’s memoirs appears in an extremely positive light, at the same time, the author tries in every possible way to highlight her role in his fate: “Margarita seeks to emphasize her role in his happy fate: was it patronage to a prisoner of the Louvre on the Massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s Night, or assistance at a time of aggravation of relations between the King of Navarre and the French monarch.”

The notes of Duke Sully Maximilien de Bethune make it possible to broadly study both the economic situation in France of that period and the economic policy of Henry IV, since Sully was a minister at his court for a long time and was in charge of treasury issues, “being essentially the first minister of the state.” Studying the text, it is clearly visible how subjectively the author treated the king, constantly emphasizing his merits for any reason. On the other hand, Sully gives an extremely negative assessment of the royal court and Henry's inner circle, pointing out their shortcomings, be it incompetence or a banal thirst for profit through positions or privileges.

Being a scrupulous and meticulous person, Sully in his diaries described in great detail all the financial reforms in the country, not forgetting to talk about their preparation and the reasons that caused the need for changes. In addition to the above, Maximelien de Bethune gives a very detailed portrait of Henry of Navarre, talking about his character and manner of communication, paying, or, more precisely, focusing on the personality of his king.

The Edict of Nantes was published on April 13, 1598 and was the government's program in the religious field. The document is notable for the fact that, under pressure from the Huguenots, some articles were added to it. On May 9, Henry added new articles, but, fearing anger from the Catholics, he did so in secret.

Chapter I. Features of social development of France in the 16th century

henry of navarre france king

By the beginning of the 16th century. France was one of the largest and most developed European countries. It had a population of about 15 million. Paris was the largest European city with a population of over 300 thousand people, with a rich and varied industry. Along with other large centers - Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Marseille, Orleans - there were many medium-sized cities and small towns and burgs (villages). But still, the bulk of the population lived in villages, and the country as a whole still remained agrarian.

Territory of the country in the 16th century. was slightly smaller than the area of ​​modern France. Beyond its borders lay (passed to the Habsburgs in 1493 and then included in the Spanish territories) Artois and the small northeastern provinces, as well as Franche-Comté. Three bishoprics - Toul, Maine and Verdun, as well as Lorraine and Alsace, were then part of the “Holy Roman Empire”. Savoy, Corsica, the Pyrenees regions - Navarre, Béarn and Roussillon - were also not part of the French state at that time.

The division of the country into North and South also had an effect. The south, annexed in the mid-15th century. and did not merge economically with the northern part of the country, did not lose its desire for separatism, which was clearly manifested in the second half of the 16th century. , during the civil wars. The annexation of Brittany to France remained purely formal. The process of genuine internal unity of the country, economic, linguistic and cultural, and the formation of the French nation on the basis of the development of capitalism was just beginning.

Development of capitalist relations in France in the 16th century. was temporarily delayed by a long economic decline and political crisis, which resulted in the civil wars of 1559-1594. Thus, the history of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. falls into three periods: 1) 1500 - late 50s - the emergence of elements of capitalism, the formation of an absolute monarchy, long external wars (the so-called Italian wars), 2) the beginning of the 60s - 1594 - civil wars, economic decline , crisis of absolutism, 3) 1595-1648 - the final triumph of the absolute monarchy in France, the further development of capitalist relations, France's participation in the Thirty Years' War.

In the 16th century In France, the feudal mode of production still dominated, but the country had already entered the period of primitive accumulation. In the depths of French feudal society, the prerequisites for the development of capitalist relations began to be created, and capitalist production began to emerge, which undermined and destroyed the foundations of the feudal economy. During the 16th century. France has become economically one of the leading countries in Western Europe. While changes in world trade routes as a result of geographical discoveries undermined the capitalist development of Italy that had just begun, played an important role in the decline of Germany, and in Spain and Portugal the economic upswing of the early 16th century. gave way to a long and deep decline, capitalist relations continued to develop in France. True, this process took place more slowly than in England and the Netherlands.

From the beginning of the 16th century. Manufacturing production developed in France, making the greatest progress in those industries that worked not only for the domestic but also for the foreign market. These industries included clothmaking in Normandy, Picardy, Poitou, Berry, and Languedoc. Here, as a rule, the role of capitalist-entrepreneur was played by the merchant, who reduced small craftsmen and apprentices of the city or village handicraftsmen - spinners and weavers - to the position of hired workers. At the same time, he concentrated in his hands expensive means of production: fulling water mills and dyeing workshops, where felting, dyeing and finishing of cloth were carried out. Thus, dispersed manufacturing was combined with elements of centralized manufacturing. Sometimes rich masters economically subjugated bankrupt masters, turned apprentices and apprentices into hired workers, denying them access to the title of master. However, the development of cloth manufacture within a guild organization was impossible, since medieval regulation hampered the development of capitalist production.

In the same forms of combining dispersed and centralized manufacture, capitalist relations developed in the leather and especially in the silk industry, which were increasingly concentrated in the “city of silk” - Lyon. The linen and lace industry existed in Northern France during this period, mainly in the form of scattered manufactories. Glass production, cannon casting, ore mining, etc., by the very nature of production, required centralized manufactory. Royal workshops producing cannons and gunpowder existed already in the 16th century. quite large. Centralized manufactory found its greatest distribution in France in printing. In Lyon and Paris, in addition to medium and small ones, there were also large printing houses for that time with expensive and complex equipment, with 15-20 hired workers, producing books not only for France, but also for other European countries.

However, no matter how successfully capitalist production relations developed in these most advanced branches of French industry, not one of them, including clothmaking, won the special position in the country’s economy that it occupied in the 16th century. cloth production in England.

There was still little of our own raw silk, and it was brought from Italy and from the countries of the East. The limited area of ​​pastures necessary for breeding high-grade sheep breeds limited the development of cloth making. French metallurgy at that time was forced to be content with the relatively small ore reserves of the Lyon region.

As for industries designed for the local market - and these industries accounted for in the 16th century. most of the industry - then in them small handicraft production still retained a dominant position.

The expansion of French foreign trade was of great importance for the development of manufacturing. In the 16th century For the country's economy, trade with Spain, and through it with America, where France sold a large number of various goods and from where it extracted a large amount of precious metals, became of paramount importance. In addition, Portugal, England, Germany and the Scandinavian states were of significant importance as markets for French goods, including industrial products (fine cloth, lace, linen fabrics, silk fabrics, books). On the contrary, the trade exchange between France and Italy came in the 16th century. into decline, as French industry itself began to produce such goods (silk and brocade fabrics, expensive glass products, etc.), with which Italy supplied almost all of Europe even during this period.

Trade with countries located along the eastern and southern (African) shores of the Mediterranean Sea played a major role in the economic development of France during this period. Here France managed to achieve a leading position in the first half of the 16th century. Thanks to the large privileges received by Francis I from Turkey (the so-called capitulations), it pushed into the background the northern Italian cities, in particular Venice, which until then had been the main intermediary in trade between Western Europe and the Middle East. Trade with the Levant was primarily of an intermediary nature, but to a certain extent it also expanded the sales market for French manufactures (especially southern cities). It provided French merchants with substantial profits and thereby contributed to the growth of large capitals and the prosperity of such commercial and industrial centers as Marseille and Lyon.

However, the dependence of French foreign trade on foreign merchant capital during this period was not completely eliminated. A certain part of France's trade with Italy and some other Mediterranean countries was still in the hands of Italian merchants.

In France in the 16th century. Only the first steps were taken in the field of colonial expansion. Merchants of large northern ports (Rouen, Nantes, Dieppe) undertook during the 16th century. repeated attempts to penetrate the New World (Brazil and Canada) and lay the foundation of French colonial possessions there, but these attempts invariably failed.

France achieved in the 16th century. noticeable successes in expanding foreign markets, in conquering trade routes and accumulating merchant capital, but these successes were very modest compared to the successes of Spain, England and Holland.

A feature of the process of primitive accumulation in France was the early emergence and rapid development of a system of public debts. In 1522, government loans (rents) were issued with interest paid through the Paris municipality, and in 1536 through the Lyon municipality. Subsequently, the issuance of government annuities occurred quite frequently. In France, a layer of rentiers began to form - people who lent money to the state and lived on the interest on the loan. In the first half of the 16th century. Another form of public debt became widespread - the practice of the state selling judicial and financial positions. Before this, a similar practice existed among the officials themselves, who bought honorary and lucrative places in the state apparatus from each other. In the 16th century The treasury not only legalized this practice and began to levy certain taxes on the purchase and sale of positions, but also began to sell new ones (sometimes at a very high price), thus creating a huge number of unnecessary positions. Salaries and all sorts of levies from the population were a kind of interest on the capital invested in the position. Some higher positions gave the title of nobility. The pursuit of lucrative and honorable positions in France assumed proportions that amazed foreigners. Excess positions were redeemable (some of them, indeed, were periodically purchased by the state, that is, destroyed), but new ones were soon created to replace them, so that their total number increased. The extremely swollen bureaucratic apparatus with bribery reigning in it was a monstrous growth that sucked significant funds from the people.

Farming out the collection of indirect taxes has become no less widespread in France. The management of the treasury by tax farmers (“financiers”) led to their scandalously rapid enrichment (by paying the entire amount of tax in advance, the tax farmer received the right to collect taxes from the population and actually collected a significantly larger amount) and fell heavily on the shoulders of taxpayers, i.e., mainly on working people.

Payment of interest on rents and “salaries” on sold positions, loss of part of the income when taxes were farmed out - all this burdened the state budget. Since the main revenue item of the budget was tax revenues from the population (direct tax - tag, paid by the peasantry, and a lot of indirect taxes), the increase in public debt inevitably caused an increase in taxes.

A significant increase in public debt accelerated the expropriation of the masses and the development of the process of primitive accumulation. Trade credit developed much more weakly. At first, the largest bankers in France were the Italians, who reigned in the main monetary center of the country - the Lyon Monetary Exchange. But already at the end of the 16th century. The position of foreign capital weakened, and the “financiers” - the French - took first place.

Along with the development of manufacturing production, a further division of labor took place, the national domestic market expanded and strengthened. On this basis, from the feudal class of townspeople, a class began to emerge as the bearer of the capitalist mode of production, united by a community of economic interests on a national scale. But in the 16th century. Only the first steps have been taken in this direction. Numerous remnants of economic and political fragmentation, the unequal degree of development of capitalist relations in individual provinces, the general lack of rights of the bourgeoisie, exploitation by the royal treasury, class privileges of the nobility and clergy - all this hindered the rapid capitalist development of the country, created obstacles and delayed the accumulation of capital. The growing discrepancy between the enrichment of the nascent bourgeoisie and its degraded social position was a characteristic feature of France that was striking to foreigners. “Now the merchants have become the lords of money. Therefore, they are caressed and looked after,” the Venetian ambassador wrote from France in 1591. “But they do not enjoy any advantages in social position, because any trade is considered an activity incompatible with nobility.” Because of this, they are included in the third estate and pay taxes along with all non-nobles, including peasants, who represent the class most oppressed by both the king and the privileged.” The result was the inevitable growing discontent of manufacturers and merchants.

Opposition to the existing order in a number of cases prompted the bourgeoisie to draw closer to the popular masses and to provide some support for the revolutionary protest of the masses against feudalism. However, the French bourgeoisie of the 16th century. was still too economically weak and politically immature in order to oppose itself as a class to the privileged classes, in order to lead the people's struggle against feudalism and seek to gain political power. Bourgeoisie of the 16th century in France could not yet achieve the destruction of the feudal system. She sought only to create favorable conditions for the development of capitalist relations under the feudal system. She was interested in supporting royal power insofar as the latter satisfied her demands such as strengthening economic unity, ensuring security and police order within the country, limiting tax exploitation, and pursuing protectionist policies in relation to trade and industry. This is precisely what the petitions addressed to the royal throne by representatives of the third estate in the provincial and General States of the 16th century amounted to.

In cases where the bourgeoisie had conflicts with the ruling circles, especially in connection with the excessive claims of the royal fiscal, a certain part of the bourgeoisie, even in the North, sought a way out in municipal separatism and opposed local liberties to the royal power. The traditions of separatism were especially strong in the South, since the southern trading bourgeoisie was relatively weakly connected with the domestic market of France.

The reasons for the lag of the French bourgeoisie as a whole behind the bourgeoisie of such advanced countries as England and Holland must be sought, first of all, in the weaker development of manufacturing production and overseas trade in France. It should also be taken into account that in France, unlike England, the urban bourgeoisie did not find economic and political support in the rural bourgeoisie. As will be shown below, a layer of farmers of the capitalist type did not form in France, although individual shifts in agriculture in the direction of its capitalist transformation took place. The purchase of noble lands by the rich bourgeois who turned into nobles (most of all around such large industrial or trading cities as Paris, Rouen, Amiens, Lyon, Tours, Poitiers, Nantes, Dieppe, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, etc.) diverted capital from industry and trade. At the same time, the new landowners turned out to be, to one degree or another, interested in preserving the feudal order. Finally, a great influence on the economic situation and political role of the emerging French bourgeoisie was exerted by its desire to finance the state in one form or another (loans, purchasing positions).

Factory workers and apprentices were in a difficult situation, which continued to worsen throughout the 16th century. due to the depreciation of money, rising costs and falling real wages (as a result of the “price revolution”). Wages were set on the basis of regulations issued by workshops, municipalities or the government, which always guarded the interests of entrepreneurs. The very work of apprentices and factory workers was then to a certain extent of a forced nature. The Ordinance of 1534 (for Languedoc) and subsequent numerous decrees classified all unemployed as “tramps” and for refusing to work for entrepreneurs they were threatened with prison and hard labor in the galleys. Long working hours, significant intensification of labor in factories compared to workshops, fines for the slightest violation of the rules, hard labor in many factories, heavy tax oppression - all this created sometimes downright unbearable living conditions for hired workers. It is not surprising that these most disadvantaged sections of the working people were also the most active participants in the class struggle.

Even in the previous period, independent unions of apprentices arose - companionships, or brotherhoods. In the 16th century they were also formed by manufacturing workers. These were organizations imbued with a fighting spirit. They invariably led the protests of workers and apprentices, the struggle of labor against capital. The struggle often took the form of mass strikes; in 1539-1542 In Paris and Lyon, large strikes of printing workers organized in partnerships broke out, accompanied by clashes between armed workers and city authorities. Going towards the owners of printing houses, the king issued an edict in Villers-Cotterets in 1539, in which workers were prohibited from organizing unions, organizing strikes and carrying weapons.

Feudal property continued to be the dominant form of land ownership, and feudal rent continued to be paid by the peasantry. The development of commodity-money relations led already in the XIV-XV centuries. to the fact that noble lands (fiefs) were alienated and sold; Thus, the conditional and hierarchical character of feudal property almost disappeared, and vassalage and military service to the crown virtually ceased to exist. The price (or chinsh), which was the main form of feudal rent and was levied in cash, was fixed, that is, nominally unchanged.

However, in reality it steadily decreased, especially in the 16th century. due to the “price revolution”. The latter circumstance was the main reason for the progressive economic impoverishment of the descendants of the French knighthood in the 15th century. called the “people of the sword” (gens d’epee) or the “nobility of the sword.”

Already in the 15th century. There was almost no domainal land left on the noble estates, since the lordly plowing was gradually eliminated. All fief land was usually used by the peasants, and the income extracted from it by the feudal lords consisted mainly of cash rent. The overwhelming majority of French land was in the possession of feudal dependent peasants, and even church lands were no exception.

Most of the peasants by this time had become independent, personally free commodity producers, who were in land dependence on the position of censitaries (censiers), i.e. Chinsheviks, holders of land (such a holding was called tsenzivoy (Tsenziva is a hereditary feudal peasant holding, for which the landowner was paid a monetary amount fixed by custom rent - qualification), because the main payment that lay on the peasant was the qualification). They had the right to use the land and transfer it by inheritance, subject to payment of qualifications and fulfillment of other duties in favor of the lord. Like domain land, peasant property also managed to turn into a commodity. Peasants sold, rented, and mortgaged land, thereby somewhat approaching the position of land owners. However, the peasant census was a hold on feudal duties, although with very broad rights to dispose of them. In the 16th century the overwhelming majority of peasants were not only free from personal serfdom, enjoyed the right of free movement and inheritance, but also acted as eligible persons when concluding all kinds of civil acts (trade transactions, contracts, etc.), and could be tried in royal courts. The peasants paid state taxes independently, without the help of lords. Remnants of “servage” (serfdom) in the form of the so-called right of the dead hand were preserved only in a few backward provinces in the center (Berry, Auvergne, Bourbonneau, Nivernais), as well as in the east of the country (Burgundy). At the same time, despite the development of royal justice and administration, the lords still retained some judicial and police rights over personally free peasants.

The result of the development of commodity-money relations was an ever-increasing stratification in the countryside. The minority grew rich by adding usury, trade, the farming of seignorial duties and the profession of a miller or innkeeper to farming. This small layer of the peasantry somewhat rounded out its land holdings at the expense of fellow villagers and, in order to cultivate the surplus land, either rented it out or hired farm laborers. On the contrary, the material level of the bulk of the peasants decreased, and layers of land-poor poor people and farm laborers emerged from it. The development of commodity-money relations in agriculture enriched only the top of the peasantry, while the masses fell under the double yoke of high rents, on the one hand, and debt bondage and exploitation by merchant buyers, on the other. To all this were added ever-increasing state taxes.

In the 16th century The French countryside has already entered the period of primitive accumulation. As elsewhere, primitive accumulation in France was based on the expropriation of the peasantry, which supplied the manufactures with the bulk of hired workers. But this process took on unique forms in France. It did not develop here in the form of enclosures and driving peasants off the land, as in England. In France, the peasantry remained the main class of direct producers. However, the ongoing process of differentiation of the peasantry constantly led to the release of a certain number of landless peasants. Often, land dispossession began with debt enslavement of peasants, ruined as a result of the ever-increasing burden of state taxes, and ended with the auction of the land of insolvent debtors. As a rule, landowners from among the nobility did not act as buyers of securities, since most nobles were not only unable to take part in the mobilization of peasant holdings, but were often forced to mortgage or sell their lands to the urban rich. It was the latter, in the person of merchants, moneylenders, wealthy craftsmen, and especially in the person of the so-called people of the robe (gens de robe), i.e., judicial and financial officials, who were the main expropriators of the peasants in France. They had sufficient material resources to take over peasant holdings. In the 16th century Such mobilization of peasant land promised significant benefits, since in connection with the “price revolution” the value of land and rural products grew rapidly. Sometimes rich peasants also purchased censivs.

The purchase of land by townspeople led to the formation of new land holdings. At the same time, new landowners of bourgeois origin quite quickly (in the second or third generation) acquired nobility. They rented out the purchased lands, either from a share of the harvest (sharecropping - metaire), or for a fixed rent in kind or in cash. Sometimes, when renting out land, they combined peasant plots into one or several fairly large farms. In such very rare cases, a wealthy peasant with sufficient agricultural equipment acted as a tenant, sometimes hiring farm laborers. Often, new landowners leased land to peasants for short-term leases in small plots. The peasants became simple tenants and no longer had any ownership rights to the rented land. As a rule, in addition to rent, they also paid a qualification and bore other feudal duties on the rented land.

Large-scale farming on domain land using hired workers was a very rare occurrence. Cattle breeding, particularly sheep farming, played a small role for commercial purposes. These circumstances prevented the formation of capitalist farming and hampered the creation of a wide layer of agricultural workers. The small peasant economy of censitaries and short-term tenants retained a dominant position. All this testifies to the significant originality of the agricultural development of France in the 16th - 17th centuries. - the period of initial accumulation. Feudal relations in the countryside, as well as the associated predominance of small peasant farming, survived until the bourgeois revolution of the late 18th century.

However, in French agriculture in the 16th-17th centuries. Some progress should be noted. There was an increasingly defined agricultural specialization of areas (vineyards, grain, cattle breeding, silkworm growing, flax growing, fruit growing, etc.). Significant areas of more intensive agriculture developed around large cities, especially around Paris. The best varieties of cereals (wheat) became more widespread, and methods of grain grinding improved. The areas occupied by mulberry trees and coloring plants (woad, etc.) expanded. New varieties of vegetables and fruits were grown, adopted mainly from the East (via Italy).

Of all the feudal strata, the richest and most politically influential in the center and locally was in the first half of the 16th century. the highest titled nobility, consisting of the scions of the ruling houses and relatives of the reigning dynasty. Princes and dukes dominated the royal council, held governorships in the provinces, and commanded the army and navy. They no longer thought about dismembering France into parts and becoming independent rulers, like the German princes. Their ideal was the omnipotence of the nobility in a state with a moderate degree of centralization. Therefore, they supported the political unity of France to the extent that this unity met their interests, that is, it allowed them to use the centralized fiscal apparatus to receive huge salaries, pensions and monetary gifts from the king. However, to know the 16th century. she was not like her descendants, the court nobles of the times of Louis XIV, who had already lost any opportunity to oppose the royal power with their local influence. The Bourbons, Guises, Montmorency, Chatillons and other noble persons who surrounded the throne of the French kings in the 16th century still had this opportunity to a large extent. This was explained by their connections with the bankrupt provincial small and middle nobility (“nobility of the sword”), which, in search of money and patronage, grouped around one or another representative of the local nobility and, in case of war, constituted his armed detachment. Relying on the middle and petty nobility dependent on them, the nobles acquired significant influence and independence locally; Using this, they could put pressure on the royal power. Receiving and sharing “royal favors” - this was the main material basis for the close ties between the grandees and their noble clientele.

The economic situation of the impoverished “sword nobility” especially worsened in connection with the “price revolution,” which devalued the monetary qualifications paid by the peasantry. Many nobles had to sell part or all of their family estates. Profitable and influential positions in the state apparatus were inaccessible to them due to their high cost. Only in the army did the “nobility of the sword” play an important role. For many impoverished nobles who served as officers and even soldiers (in guard regiments), salaries were almost the only source of livelihood.

The political position of the old nobility was not consistent. Unlike the feudal nobility - the political enemy of absolutism - the “nobility of the sword” supported the strengthening of royal power. To strengthen the latter, a strong connection with the nobility and the army was necessary. However, the “nobility of the sword” was ready to serve the king only under certain conditions. It wanted the king to provide him with various positions and other opportunities for a broad life at the expense of the state treasury, so that he would make land ownership a monopoly of the nobles, and also take them on campaigns more often, generously rewarding them from military spoils. At the same time, they sought the right to enjoy the original noble “liberties”: firstly, exemption from state taxes and, secondly, the right to collect feudal duties from their subjects, carry out justice and reprisals against the inhabitants of their lordships, and, on occasion, engage in large-scale robbery road. As the economic impoverishment of the nobility intensified, the demand for feeding at the expense of the treasury became its main harassment.

While in the 16th century. The “nobility of the sword” was in decline, and the process of formation of a new service-landowning noble layer (this time not military, but bureaucratic) - “people of the mantle” - was taking place, representing the top of the bureaucracy, bourgeois in origin. This new layer, which joined the nobility, quickly went uphill, taking advantage of the changes in the economic and social system of France, and began to squeeze economically and politically not only the old nobility, but also the feudal nobility, at the expense of which it never ceased to expand its land holdings. possessions. Dominating through ownership of tradable public positions in parliament and the courts, as well as in the highest financial administration, the “men of the robe” gradually pushed into the background or completely eliminated the old class institutions and positions that served as an instrument of political influence of the nobility and the “nobility of the sword.”

By the middle of the 16th century. The influence of the “people of the mantle” also increased noticeably in the royal council (chancellor, keeper of the seal, secretaries of state), where until now secular and spiritual aristocrats had almost completely dominated. The source of the political influence of the “people of the mantle” lay not only in the fact that they had large funds and extensive land holdings, and not only in the fact that they were the owners of positions and creditors of the royal treasury, but also in the fact that in the 16th century. they could still, on occasion, rely on the support of the unprivileged layers of the third estate and, above all, the bourgeoisie, from whose midst they had recently emerged. Continuing the traditions of their predecessors - the legalists of the 14th-15th centuries, they fought against the particularistic tendencies of the feudal nobility, with its penchant for violence and lawlessness. They supported, like the nobility in general, stricter centralization and a more solid police order within the country.

Thus, the entire nobility as a whole, with the exception of the nobility, was the support of the absolute monarchy. In practice, the most reliable support was the new noble layer of “people of the mantle” that was emerging in the ruling class, increasingly numerous, rich and influential. The ruined “nobility of the sword,” while serving the throne, nevertheless had, as already indicated, considerable claims against the royal power. It was at odds with its rivals - the “people of the mantle”. Therefore, ordinary nobles were sometimes inclined to listen to the demands of the nobility, who feared a further strengthening of absolutism. In the French nobility of the 16th century. there was no unity, which was clearly manifested during the civil wars.

There was no unity among the clergy either. The bishops and abbots of the largest monasteries were the younger sons of noble persons. But in the middle of the 16th century. and “people of the mantle” began to penetrate these profitable places. The rich city canons at that time already came from the same layer. Only low-income bishoprics and abbeys remained for the younger sons of the old noble houses. The poor urban and rural lower clergy, in their financial situation and social aspirations, often approached the urban lower classes and the peasantry.

Among the reform movements in France, it became most widespread by the middle of the 16th century. Calvinism, mainly in cities - among wage workers and artisans and partly in bourgeois circles. Part of the nobility also joined him, striving for the secularization of church property. The success of the reformation in the South and South-West (with the exception of Toulouse) was significant. The predominantly trading bourgeoisie of the South, the richest part of the then French bourgeoisie, perceived Calvinism as the most suitable religious ideology for itself. The still tenacious separatist tendencies of the southern bourgeoisie greatly intensified at this time due to the increase in taxation of the South after the government suppressed the uprising of 1548 and forced loans in the last years of the Italian wars. The failures of the Italian wars also contributed to the development of opposition sentiments of the bourgeoisie of the South towards royal power. The especially numerous southern petty nobility saw the seizure of the lands of the Catholic Church as the only way out of their difficult financial situation. The masses of the cities, and partly also the villages, invested their class aspirations in the reformation, as elsewhere. But objectively, they found themselves in the South at the first stage of the “religious wars” in the same political camp with the bourgeoisie and the nobility, and with their anti-tax speeches they supported the separatism of the propertied classes.

In the North, Calvinism became much less widespread - only in some large cities and among part of the nobility (it was especially widespread in industrialized Normandy), but in general the North remained predominantly Catholic.

A few words should also be said about the features of the French Reformation:

· Lutheranism, which was less suitable for the early bourgeoisie, although it was brought to France, did not take root; since “the social demarcation of forces did not correspond even to the early forms of this religion.”

· The long stage of preparation of Calvinist doctrine.

At the same time, without denying the connection between the Renaissance and the Reformation, researchers agree that for France in the 16th century, the Reformation “was much more important than the Renaissance, although humanism gave rise to reformation ideas, which in the form of Calvinism received powerful social support.”

The feudal nobility split into two large groups. The powerful house of the Dukes of Guise, which had vast estates in Lorraine, Burgundy, Champagne and Lyon, became the head of the Catholic nobility. The Calvinist noble party, called the Huguenot in France, was led by princes from the house of Bourbon (King Antoine of Navarre, then his son Henry - later the French king Henry IV, the princes of Condé), as well as representatives of the noble family of Chatillon (Admiral Coligny, etc.). Calvinism was attractive to the nobles because it gave them greater personal power over the Huguenot community, which they did not have under the Catholic religion, “being indifferent to the very teachings of Calvin, they greedily grabbed the opportunity to strengthen their social prestige with its help.”

Diverging on ecclesiastical issues, these two camps of aristocratic opposition, partially supported by the nobility, differed little from each other in resolving basic political issues. Both put forward demands such as the revival of the General and Provincial States as a body limiting royal power, the cessation of the sale of government positions and the provision of these positions to persons of “noble” origin, and the expansion of local noble liberties at the expense of the central government.

At this time, in the thinned camp of defenders of absolutism, the most stable force was the “people of the robe” and partly the “nobility of the sword” of Northern France, to which, for the time being, a significant part of the northern bourgeoisie was attached. From the “people of the robe” and the bourgeoisie, at the beginning of the civil wars, a Catholic party of so-called politicians emerged, which was also supported by some layers of the ordinary nobility. Despite the rather significant differences between the noble and bourgeois elements of this party, all “politicians” generally put the interests of the French state above the interests of religion (hence the name of this party); They defended against both aristocratic camps the political achievements of France associated with the development of the absolute monarchy: the political unity of the country, the centralization of power and the liberties of the Gallican Church, formalized by the Bologna Concordat of 1516 and providing France with significant independence from the papal throne.

The “politicians” and that part of the “nobility of the sword”, which was a supporter of royal power, were joined by one or another (mostly Catholic) nobles who found it beneficial for themselves at the moment to maintain strong royal power. However, these aristocratic elements showed political instability and often went over to the opposition camp.

In 1559-1560 the whole country was in motion, especially the South. In many southern cities, popular uprisings, usually led by Huguenots, broke out against fiscal officials and representatives of the central government. The bourgeoisie initially assisted these movements. Without speaking out openly against the government at that time, she hoped to use the discontent of the people to put pressure on the king in order to protect her interests (lowering taxes, strengthening her power in the cities to the detriment of the influence of royal officials). Ferment also gripped the northern cities, but there, in most cases, the bourgeoisie, associated with the court, as well as with farming, loans and the tax system of the state, still supported the king. The nobility of Southern France behaved decisively: seizures of church lands began in the South. In 1560, the Huguenot nobility, led by the Prince of Condé, even tried to seize power at court (the "Amboise Conspiracy"), but failed.

French throne in 1559-1589. was successively occupied by three weak and incapable kings, the sons of Henry II: Francis II (1559-1560), Charles IX (1560-1574) and Henry III (1574-1589), who were strongly influenced by their mother Catherine de Medici (1519 -1589), half-French, half-Italian (on her mother’s side she came from the French nobility). She became involved in the management of state affairs during the reign of her husband Henry II. In the difficult situation that arose after his death, Catherine de Medici, with the help of advisers from the “people of the mantle,” sought to defend the main positions of absolutism and prevent nobles from governing the state. Until the 80s this was mostly successful. In foreign policy, she managed, without breaking off the peaceful relations with Spain established after the end of the Italian wars, to defend the interests of France from the encroachments of Philip II.

In 1559-1560 The government's position was very difficult. The long and ruinous Italian wars had just ended. There were no material means to combat both popular uprisings and the willfulness of the nobles and nobility. At the States General convened in Orleans at the end of 1560 and the beginning of 1561, the representative of the party of “politicians”, Chancellor L'Hopital, was unable to achieve reconciliation between the Huguenot and Catholic feudal camps. The states didn’t give any money either. The government's only success was to force the clergy to sell some of the church lands in 1561, and this partial secularization provided money to suppress rebellions in the South and pacify disaffected elements in the North.

The struggle between Catholics and Huguenots began with the so-called Vassy massacres. In the spring of 1562, François Guise, traveling with his retinue through the town of Vassy, ​​attacked the Huguenots who had gathered for worship. Several dozen people were killed and about 200 injured. This event led to open war between the Huguenots and Catholics. Over the next 30 years, there were ten wars, with breaks between them lasting from several months to several years. Both Catholic and Huguenot nobles took advantage of the military situation to rob citizens and peasants.

Until 1572, Catherine de Medici skillfully maneuvered between the Catholic and Protestant noble camps, which weakened each other through mutual struggle. During this time, war broke out three times between the Huguenots and Catholics; both of them sought support abroad and, for the sake of this, went to direct betrayal of the vital interests of their homeland. The Catholic nobility hastened to get closer to the recent open enemy of France - Spain. For the help provided to the Guise party, Philip II demanded his “Burgundian inheritance,” that is, Burgundy, as well as Provence or some other southern province, for example Dauphine.

The Huguenot aristocracy was hostile to Spain, but it sought the protection of the English Queen Elizabeth, who presented herself as the unselfish protector of all Protestants in continental Europe. She was promised Calais and sovereignty over Guienne, which would mean providing England with the most important strategic and economic positions in France.

This stage ended with the bloodiest episode of the civil wars, the famous St. Bartholomew's Night - the massacre of Huguenots in Paris on the night of August 24 (the feast of St. Bartholomew) 1572 by a fanatical crowd of Catholics. The massacre was a political act conceived by Catherine de' Medici. The queen hoped to take advantage of the massive gathering of the Huguenot nobility in the capital on the occasion of the wedding of their leader, Henry of Navarre, with the king's sister Margaret, in order to kill the leaders and most prominent representatives of the Huguenot party, which by this time had become very strong in the South. The queen's right hand during the preparation of St. Bartholomew's Night was Heinrich Guise, who personally supervised the extermination of his political opponents. Similar bloody events took place in other cities - Orleans, Troyes, Rouen, Toulouse, Bordeaux. Thousands of Huguenots fell victims to the massacre, including such prominent leaders of this party as Admiral Coligny.

But the consequences of St. Bartholomew's Night turned out to be different than Catherine de Medici expected. Soon a new war broke out between both camps. The entire South, including its Catholic minority, formed by 1576 the so-called Huguenot Confederation: a republic of cities and nobles with its own representative body, its own finances and army. The fortified cities of La Rochelle, Montpellier, Montauban and others provided funds and served as strongholds; the numerous petty nobility constituted a military force. This meant the actual separation of the South from the northern part of the country, where the central government was located.

At the same time, in the North (in the city of Perronne) the Catholic League of the Northern French Nobility was formed under the leadership of the Guises. The social composition of the League was motley. It included the nobility and bourgeoisie of Northern France, but the leading role was played by the aristocracy, which sought to weaken the central government and restore the former liberties of the provinces and states. After the actual secession of the South, the territory subject to the government was reduced by about half.

Meanwhile, the rise in prices continued, the poverty of the peasantry was so great that taxes from the villages were extremely difficult to collect. The government increased tax pressure on cities, especially on large centers, which still had a certain degree of independence in managing city finances. As a result, the loyalty of the northern bourgeoisie, its commitment to the Valois dynasty began to disappear. Without changing her religion, she sought a way out in the fight for her liberties, with which she hoped to protect herself from the extortions of the fiscus.

Since the mid-70s, the anti-feudal movement of the masses has intensified. Almost simultaneously, peasant unrest broke out in Auvergne, Lower Normandy, Dauphine and other provinces. The protest of the plebeian masses took a decisive form, and the broad middle strata of the townspeople took part in the city movements - craftsmen, shopkeepers, lawyers, petty officials, as well as a significant part of the city parish clergy. In these layers of townspeople, who were indignant at the demands of the royal fiscus, their attachment to urban liberties was awakened, and their inclination towards municipal particularism became all the more lively. All this was used by the big bourgeoisie of the North, including the capital.

A widespread movement in the cities directed against the Vapua dynasty also breathed life into the Catholic League, which had been eking out a miserable existence until the mid-80s. It turned in 1585 into a broad confederation of northern cities and northern nobility, the military head of which was Duke Henry of Guise, who laid claim to the French throne (as the successor of the childless Henry III). The Guiz party made its main bet on the middle circles of the population of Paris and other cities of the North, who were in ideological captivity of fanatical representatives of the Catholic clergy.

France not only fell into two parts (this happened back in 1576), but the North of the country also broke with royal power. The government has suffered a complete collapse. The constant unrest among the masses of Paris, crushed by the burden of taxes, was demagogically used by the Guise party to fight Henry III. Giza managed to raise Parisian artisans, shopkeepers, sailors and day laborers, who had been joining the League en masse since 1585, against the king. The frightened king dissolved the League. Then, on May 12 and 13, 1588, an uprising broke out in Paris, barricades began to be built on the streets of the city, which gradually approached the palace and threatened the king with complete encirclement. The king, who had only mercenaries left, fled to Chartres and began to seek help from his enemy Henry of Navarre. In other large cities - Orleans, Amiens, Lyon, Rouen, Poitiers, Le Havre, etc. - royal officials were expelled, and power everywhere, including Paris, passed into the hands of the rich bourgeoisie.

In its internal structure, the League was in many ways reminiscent of the Huguenot Confederation. And here the cities supplied funds, and the nobility formed the army. But the rich bourgeoisie that seized power did not want to be an obedient instrument in the hands of the Guises. She sought to play an independent role in the League. Its goals only partially coincided with the program of the nobility and nobles, and therefore there could be no lasting unity between the allies.

The main source of strength of the Ligerian bourgeoisie lay in the support of its popular masses, carried away by the prospect of liberation from under the heavy yoke of fiscal exploitation. The Ligerian bourgeoisie received the most extensive and direct assistance from the urban plebeians. But part of the peasantry also did not remain indifferent to the League. There are known cases when suburban peasants helped the bourgeois Liger militia in the siege of enemy fortifications. Without the support of broad sections of the population, the bourgeois ligers would not have been able to achieve a dominant position in a number of other cities. They won this position through battle, through violent coups in which the masses played the role of the main striking force. The nobles and nobility did not and could not have such support.

The transformation of cities into independent republics, which took place in a climate of political anarchy and economic ruin, contributed to the aggravation of internal struggle in them. Class contradictions soon came to the fore. In every city, the struggle of the plebeians began against the bourgeois oligarchy, which replaced the royal officials. In Paris, this led to the victory of the popularly supported petty-bourgeois strata, which created the Council of Sixteen, a representative body of sixteen Parisian quarters. In other cities, the elite only barely retained power in their hands. The indignation of the masses against it was intensified by the fact that the League in the end turned out to be no less ruthless a tax collector than the royal fiscal. The “city fathers” squeezed huge amounts of money out of the people to fortify cities and maintain military noble detachments. At the same time, the economic decline deepened even more; robberies of the unbridled nobility, unemployment, hunger, and epidemics tormented the population of villages and cities.

In the late 1980s, political anarchy reached its climax. King Henry III, suspecting Henry of Guise of wanting to seize the throne, ordered in December 1588 to kill him and his brother, the cardinal. In Paris, which was in the hands of the League, the head of which was Heinrich Guise, unrest began. Ligerian fanatics organized solemn processions in the streets with lit torches, which they extinguished on command, exclaiming: “So may God extinguish the Valois dynasty.” Catholic preachers made incendiary speeches in churches and asked if there really could be a person who would take revenge on the king for the death of Guise. On August 1, 1589, Henry III actually fell at the hands of an assassin sent by the League. The Huguenot leader Henry of Navarre (Henry IV), a representative of a side branch of the royal house and the founder of the Bourbon dynasty, became the king. But Northern France did not recognize him. The League nominated its candidate for the throne, the brother of the Duke of Guise. Philip II did not fail to take advantage of the favorable situation of unrest: Spanish intervention began from the Southern Netherlands, and a Spanish garrison was introduced into Paris, which was at that time in the hands of the League, with the consent of the League in 1591. To all the disasters of the civil wars was added the war with the interventionists, which took place on French territory, devastated and depopulated many areas of the North.

All this has filled the cup of people's patience. In the early 90s, massive peasant uprisings broke out throughout almost the entire country. In 1592, a large uprising of peasants began, known as the uprising of the "crocans". In 1594-1596. it had already covered a vast territory in the southwest - Quercy, Périgord, Seschonge, Poitou, Marche, etc. The peasants united in armed detachments of many thousands, elected leaders and officials from among themselves, and established relations with the poor of the cities. They besieged the houses and estates of the nobles and severely punished the nobles, declaring that they no longer intended to tolerate their extortions, as well as tax farmers and tax collectors, to whom they gave the contemptuous nickname “crocans” (rodents). Their slogan was: “On the rodents!”; it is possible that for this reason the rebels later began to be called “krokans”. Thus, the peasants opposed both the feudal oppression of their lords and the tax burden of the state.

The nobility soon became convinced that the League, torn by internal contradictions, was unable to suppress the formidable outbursts of anger of the peasantry. Only a strong royal power would be able to do this. But the latter could not regain its former power while the civil war was raging in the country. The rise of the popular movement played a decisive role in a sharp change in the political position of both broad circles of the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie. The scale of popular unrest in the countryside, the tense situation in the cities, and the general economic ruin of the country threatened their fundamental class interests. This explains their turn to absolutism already in the early 90s. The forces of the rebellious nobility weakened. In Paris, the Council of Sixteen lost its support among the popular masses, for whom its rule did not bring significant relief. His prestige was especially undermined by the alliance of the Ligers with Spain and the entry of a Spanish garrison into Paris. The French people this time, as at the beginning of the 16th century, during the invasion of the troops of Charles V, proved themselves to be an irreconcilable enemy of the interventionists and a fighter for the political independence of the country.

The struggle in the 90s weakened not only the Catholic League, but also the Huguenot party, although to a lesser extent, since the Calvinist bourgeoisie still had influence on the masses of the southern cities. The complete capitulation of the Catholic League was somewhat delayed due to the Protestantism of Henry IV. But this obstacle was easily overcome. In 1593, Henry IV converted to Catholicism, and in March 1594, Paris opened its gates to him. The end of civil wars came, and in 1598 peace was concluded with Spain.

Henry IV hastened to justify the hopes that the nobles and bourgeoisie placed in a strong royal power, sending troops to deal with the “crocans”. In 1595-1596 The government's mercenary troops and noble detachments opposed the peasants, who, despite stubborn resistance, suffered defeats. In 1596, the uprising of the “crocans” was suppressed, but in 1597-1598. there was a final outbreak of this movement, partly suppressed by force, partly stopped with the help of some concessions. The “religious wars” ended with the triumph of absolutism. True, this celebration was not complete. The power of resistance of the Catholic nobility had not yet been completely broken, as evidenced by the political concessions at the price of which Henry IV bought its obedience: huge sums of money, governorships, fortresses and arsenals.

The Huguenot party to a certain extent continued to maintain unity, since the bourgeoisie maintained its position in the cities, and the nobility tenaciously clung to the lands seized from the church; Henry IV had to conclude a real peace treaty with her. The Edict of Nantes in 1598 declared Catholicism the dominant religion in France, but the Huguenots received the right to practice Calvinism in cities (with the exception of Paris and some other cities). They were allowed to hold government positions. The Edict transformed the Huguenot South from an independent republic into a “state within a state.” The Huguenots retained an army of 25 thousand people, about 200 fortresses with garrisons, funds, etc. In addition, large tax and political privileges were left to the Huguenot cities and provinces as a whole. Consequently, the political unity of France was not fully restored. Nevertheless, the victory of royal power significantly strengthened the absolute monarchy, which again found its support in the nobility, and contributed to the establishment of closer ties between absolutism and the bourgeoisie. This outcome was favorable for the development of capitalist relations within the feudal state.

Economically, France had already begun to embark on the path of accumulation of initial capital, and the first manufactories began to appear. During the 16th century, France became one of the leading countries in Western Europe, although many processes were slowed down due to civil wars, bringing with them inevitable downturns in the country's economy. The development of foreign trade with the countries of the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea played a huge role in economic growth, due to which port cities such as Lyon and Marseille developed.

A feature of the country's economy at that time was the late appearance and very rapid subsequent development of public debt, which Sully would unsuccessfully fight. Since 1522, government loans began to be published, and from the second half of the 16th century, the practice of selling positions became widespread. This led to an increase in bureaucracy and salary costs. A completely natural consequence of the processes described above was an increase in direct and indirect taxes on the population.

Socially, the growth of the bourgeoisie as a class became noticeable, but without any privileges and standing hierarchically on a par with the peasants. All this caused dissatisfaction among the latter, but since the formation of the class as a whole had not yet been completed, they could not pose as a force dictating conditions to the government. Therefore, the main speeches were limited to submitting petitions to the government, or appealing to the traditions of separatism, in the case of a conflict with local authorities.

Southern separatism was reflected in the widespread dissemination of Calvinist ideas, while in the North it was not so successful.

Chapter II. Henry IV as a "hero of his time"

Even almost 4 centuries after his death, Henry IV remains the most popular king in France. The man who strengthened the power of absolutism, actually ended the civil war, raised the economy destroyed by the war and is still ahead of all other kings for the French. This popularity is largely due to the fact that Henry was not only not an outstanding ruler, but also a bright personality.

Popularity among the opposite sex, unfeigned simplicity in communicating with ordinary people, success on the battlefield, undoubtedly, strong charisma - all this made Henry of Navarre popular during his lifetime. One phrase about chicken for every Frenchman on Sunday can be considered an excellent example for today's political PR people. To Henry's credit, it is worth noting that the phrase was uttered at a time when he had already become king and was not an election promise, which is so often forgotten.

To compile a detailed historical portrait of Henry IV, one should study his biography (the formation of the worldview of the King of France), the attitude of his contemporaries and the common people towards Henry. Indeed, in many ways, upbringing played a huge role in the attitude of the King of France to religion, having such a vivid example in the person of his father, who changed religion, following fashion and circumstances, and his mother, who remained an ardent Protestant until her death, young Henry was already drawing conclusions that will greatly help him in solving religious issues in the country.

Having studied the memoirs of his closest supporters and those close to him (Marguerite Valois and Sully), it is possible to characterize both the personality of Henry IV and the reaction of the population to his reforms and actions. The work also provides an excerpt from French folklore, thanks to which you can see the trace in the memory of the French people that Henry of Navarre left.

A comprehensive study of the memoirs of his contemporaries and other sources will make it possible to draw up a comprehensive portrait of Henry IV as a person, to understand the peculiarities of his views and character, to identify the reasons for such strong popularity among the French, which has remained since his reign until now, to find out the role of his origin and upbringing, as well as

Henry himself was from Béarn, where he was called “our Henry,” despite the fact that the pronoun “our” denotes not only a familiar attitude, but also respect for him as a defender of customs, freedoms, and national identity from Capetian centralism: “The Reformation gave a powerful impetus Navarrese separatism. The dissemination of the new teaching could not have been more suitable for preserving the country’s identity.” Gascony (the home province of Henry IV) will always support the King of France, who will not forget about it either: even after he became the King of France and accepted the Catholic faith, the craving for his native places and regret for his abandoned comrades will pull him to his “small homeland” ", as clearly evidenced by his desire to take a honeymoon to his native land with Maria de Medici. It is worth noting that having already ascended the throne, Henry of Navarre tried in every possible way to suppress the separatism of the provinces, knowing full well from his own experience how dangerous it was for the centralized government.

The countdown in the biography of Henry of Navarre should begin on October 20, 1548, when Antoine de Bourbon married the only daughter of the King of Navarre, Jeanne d. Albre. Antoine himself at that time became the head of the House of Bourbon after the betrayal and death of Constable de Bourbon. The possessions of the king of Navarre were modest at that time, since most of Greater Navarre fell into the hands of Spain. At the same time, Heinrich d Albret (the grandfather of Henry IV) was the sole heir to the eminent families of Foix, Albret and Armagnac, thanks to which he owned large lands on both sides of the Garonne. Antoine, although poor, was a prince of the blood, and, in the event of the death of Henry II and his sons, could inherit the throne.

The royal court pursued this marriage with its desire to bring Albret closer to Paris, which at that time was dangerously flirting with Spain, wanting to reunite Navarre under its rule. Heinrich himself Albret at that time compared himself to a louse, for which two monkeys are fighting - the king of Spain and the king of France. We can say that “playing for two camps” was in Henry’s blood, because he would have to do something similar when he united both Catholics and Protestants under his banners. Zhanna d Albret was the daughter of his marriage to Margaret of Angoulême, widow of the Duke of Angoulême, and, most importantly, Jeanne's mother was the favorite sister of King Francis I.

The first years of marriage were quite happy, as evidenced by the rather passionate correspondence of the newlyweds. On September 21, 1551, their first child, the Duke de Beaumont, was born, named after his grandfather by Henry. Unfortunately, when Jeanne was already pregnant with Henry IV, the little Duke died on August 12, 1553 from asphyxia. According to Bablon, the child’s nanny, who constantly wrapped the child warmly and kept him in an overheated room, could be to blame for this. Perhaps this also influenced the fact that the second son (Henry of Navarre) was brought up in the conditions of a simple child and was not spoiled by the attentions of overly diligent nannies.

Henry of Navarre, the second son and the only heir at that time, was born on the night of December 12-13, 1553 in Pau, in the domain of his grandfather (Jeanne was concerned that her father would marry a second time and his son, not his grandson, would become the heir) . There is a whole legend about how, after giving birth, Henry D. Albret gave his daughter the box, however, without giving her the key, which contained his will and a large gold chain, and he took his grandson to his bedroom, where he rubbed the baby’s lips with a clove of garlic and brought a cup of wine to his nose. Subsequently, the legend grew to the point that the newborn even sipped wine from his grandfather’s hands. In fact, this was simply a precaution against infectious diseases, since garlic, like wine vapors, was believed to prevent illness. But the myth has firmly entered the consciousness of the French and to this day the birth of the little king is associated with garlic and wine.

After 3 months, the little prince was baptized, and Henry D himself became godfathers. Albret and Cardinal Charles of Vendôme, Antoine's brother. It's funny that it was Charles who, 35 years later during the League, would try to deprive his godson of the crown. At baptism, the prince received the name of his late brother - Henry, the titles Prince of Vian and Duke de Beaumont.

The personalities of his parents and their many years of stay at the French court left their mark on Henry's youth. Zhanna d Albret, a strong supporter of Calvinism since 1555, did everything to make her son a Protestant, which did not exclude a humanistic upbringing in the spirit of her mother Margaret. The father, a Calvinist from the mid-50s, more influenced by Coligny than by his wife, did not remain a supporter of the Genevan cause for long and returned to the old religion as soon as, at the initiative of Catherine de Medici, he entered the service of the French king as a lieutenant general. For this reason, Henry had a remarkable and controversial experience. The parents' relationship went wrong, as the mother sharply condemned the father and resolutely rejected the court world. However, his father turned from a Protestant commander into a courtier, which, coupled with his great military leadership abilities, could not fail to impress the young man. At the same time, the court quickly became disillusioned with Antoine, since he was only interested in the idea of ​​restoring Navarre to its former size, for which he undertook risky and unsuccessful military campaigns. Although Henry’s father renounced the Protestant faith, as Bablon states, “before sailing he received a Catholic priest who confessed and gave him communion, but on board he asked his Calvinist doctor to read the Holy Scriptures. Before his death, he promised that if he survived, he would profess Protestantism...” The tossing between faiths was later passed on to his son, but, to Henry’s credit, he received much more benefit from it.

At the court in Paris and during the famous “grand voyage” of the court staff in France (1564 - 1566), the young, intelligent, lively and practical royal son from the Pyrenees became intensively and in detail acquainted with the court life of the Valois. Following the example of his father, he again became a Catholic, but immediately after his death he returned to the religion of his mother, who managed to influence her son with the friendly connivance of the then very pliable Catherine de Medici. At court he also met his cousins ​​and Margaret of Valois. The fact that his relations with the young Duke of Anjou, the future King Henry III, were already friendly then paid off in 1589.

Only as a member of the court retinue did Henry correctly assess the significance of the religious problem for modern politics. In the 50s and 60s. It had not yet been decided at all that the Huguenots would be closed to royal power in France for a long time. From time to time, individual leaders of the Calvinist party were close to palace politics, such as Gaspard de Coligny, Prince of Condé, Henry of Bourbon, Coligny's brother Odet de Chatillon and others; This is especially true of Coligny, admiral of France, a prominent military and political figure of Protestantism until 1572. Catherine de' Medici, as well as her sons Francis II and Charles IX, sometimes distrusted the Catholic court party because of its intensive contacts with Spain, much more than the Huguenots . Their course regarding parties, which between 1560 and 1568 was significantly determined by Chancellor Michel de l The Opital was nothing more than an attempt not to make a final choice between two radical positions. Therefore, it is understandable that Catherine in 1567, shortly before the outbreak of hostility between the two parties, granted “leave” to the young king and his mother, who had recently been at court. This decision brought Henry IV his first acquaintance with religious warfare “on the spot,” in the Huguenot army in the southwest, and above all in the future Calvinist fortress of La Rochelle.

Meanwhile, Catherine advanced her marriage plans and, after the peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1570), went so far as to have Margaret's wedding to Henry of Navarre planned for 1572. Bablon mentions that the wedding was planned during the lifetime of Henry's father . It happened like this: young Henry was sitting on the lap of the King of France when he asked if Henry would like to become his son? The Little Prince of Navarre answered. That he already has a father, but if the king so desires to become related to him, then he can give him his daughter as his wife.

The fact that this event went down in history not as a great and solemn celebration of the royal lines of the Valois and Bourbons, but as a Parisian “blood wedding”, happened primarily due to two very personal reasons: due to the too straightforward tactics of Coligny, who time tried to alienate King Charles IX from his mother and drag him to the opposite camp, and because of the sharp reaction of the regent, who now saw in the admiral a greater danger to herself and her sons than to the Spaniards. The decision to eliminate the admiral, the unsuccessful assassination attempt and the murder of a huge number of Calvinists in Paris and throughout the country show that behind personal tactics, especially on the part of the Catholic majority, lurked more powerful forces that increasingly determined what happened.

After St. Bartholomew's Night, Henry found himself in a difficult position: being a Protestant aristocrat, he was personally in danger, as was his cousin and comrade Condé, who was with him at court. In the end, they, captives of the king, which they now were, moved into the bosom of the old church. The action against the Calvinists was a political failure. Despite all the losses, St. Bartholomew's Night did not weaken the Huguenots. From now on, the politically scientific system of French Protestantism was strengthened, from now on religion received a political foundation, now it has become a “party.” At the same time, there were noteworthy voices of people who took a moderate, conciliatory, non-partisan position, talking about religious tolerance. They were not a party, but the public perceived them as “politicians.” Jean Bodin, an erudite lawyer and specialist in state law, known for his research on historical methodology, in 1576, in his fundamental work “On the Republic,” combined the idea of ​​politically based tolerance with the idea of ​​​​strengthening the sovereign monarchy and thereby developed a political-theoretical concept.

Henry's undeniably tolerable personal "captivity" at court lasted until 1576. By this time, Catherine had long since resumed her negotiating course, and the young Béarnian was enjoying court life, especially hunting, and had not yet demonstrated a strong, focused political will. Presumably, the Huguenot advisers who lived with him eventually took advantage of the opportunity to escape and returned the young king to the Huguenot army in the southwest of France and thereby to his future tasks.

In subsequent years, Henry of Navarre did not easily master the role of Protestant party leader. He was opposed by his cousin Condé, who was more ready to fight for the Protestant cause. At this time, Henry had not yet realized his own destiny. And although he changed his religion again, consistently "staunch" Protestants, like Theodore de Bez, were skeptical of a lifestyle that, in their views, did not correspond to God's chosen Protestant leader. The decisive moment in the life of Henry IV was the fact that in subsequent years he did not succumb to the pressure of the Protestants from his circle and was not exclusively the head of the Protestant party, but reserved the rights to a course of reconciliation with the court. There are signs that he followed a conscious political line. An example is the intra-Protestant peace debate in Phlay (1580). This peace treaty, one of the few during the religious wars, did not bring any benefit to the Protestants, and practically Henry concluded it with the king’s brother alone. For the first time, having developed the ability to negotiate and the art of persuasion to absolute mastery, clearly emphasizing the idea of ​​reconciling the warring parties for the benefit of France, Henry, at a representative meeting of the Huguenots (Montauban, 1581), insisted on recognizing peace. Thereafter, as Jean-Pierre Babelon said in his excellent biography of Henry IV, he became "something like a Protestant viceroy of France."

And he became even more so when Henry III's last brother, the Duke of Anjou, died in 1584. The king, from whom no one expected an heir, was left without a contender for the throne from his home. Some were afraid of this, others were looking forward to it: the younger line of the Bourbons gives an heir, and it could only be the head of the house, Henry of Navarre. The consequences of this event within the country were enormous. Since 1576, the Catholic high aristocracy under the leadership of the Guises supported the union, the League, which mixed religious motives and a class-separatist understanding of freedom. Now the Guises restored this alliance and entered into close relations with the Parisian petty bourgeoisie. The Protestants, for their part, especially their leaders, who since 1572 had taken an extremely critical tone towards the monarchy in general and the Valois in particular, changed their strategy. They now became ardent champions of the monarchical principle in France and, naturally, of legitimate succession to the throne.

Under such conditions there was no point in thinking about stability. After the events of the summer of 1584, the religious war entered its last, fiercest phase, determined on the Catholic side by the League in Paris, and on the Huguenot side by its undisputed leader, Henry of Navarre. The Catholic side not only obtained a bull from the pope, which declared all claims to the throne of Navarre untenable, but it managed to win over the king to its side and force him to cancel all religious edicts. Henry tried to gain the support of European Protestants, but in Germany he found a response only from the Calvinist Johann Casimir von Palatinate, and Elizabeth of England agreed to a few minor subsidies.

Fortunately for Navarre, the enemy front was not united. There were serious ideological contradictions between the nobility and the popular base of the League, and the developments in Paris from 1586 to 1589 became increasingly radical, similar to what happened during the Revolution two hundred years later, which did not contribute to the unity of the League. The Parisian members of the League did not like the alliance with the king very much, because they did not see in him a consistent adherent of Catholicism. When Henry III increased the military forces around Paris in 1588, it came to a real popular uprising, from which the court fled to the better fortified Blois. From then until 1594, Paris was “without a king.” After Henry III of Blois once again made an unsuccessful attempt to become the head of the League himself, he decided to seize the initiative and ordered the murder of the leaders of the League - Duke Henry of Guise and his brother Cardinal of Lorraine, who were in Blois on the occasion of the meeting of the Estates General.

This murder did not achieve its goal. Henry III did not regain the initiative; on the contrary, he lost it. The Parisian League radicalized again and formed, along with a magistrate loyal to the League, a new revolutionary city administration. The Sorbonne also did not lag behind and, in an illegal university act, freed all subjects from the oath of allegiance to the king. In March 1589, the Parliament of Paris, which had been cleared of advisers loyal to the king, appointed the Duke of Mayenne, the younger brother of the Guises, lieutenant general of the state and crown of France, as if there was no longer a legitimate king. Henry III had no choice but to get closer to his cousin, former comrade Henry of Navarre. The king and the Protestants united the remaining military forces and marched on Paris to bring the city and institutions loyal to the League into submission. When approaching Paris on August 1, 1589, Henry III was killed by the Dominican monk Jacques Clement. On his deathbed, he found the strength to ask those present to recognize Henry of Navarre as king. At the same time, he once again called on his successor to return to the bosom of the old church.

The Huguenots, who were besieging Paris, proclaimed Henry of Navarre king of France on the same day. But the leaders of the Catholic part of the besieging army did not dare to unconditionally recognize him. They declared the King of Navarre the legal heir of Henry III, but with the condition of accepting Catholicism. The Parisians elected Henry IV's uncle, the old Cardinal Charles of Bourbon, as king, but in fact the Duke of Mayenne continued to rule the rebels. Henry did not have his own forces to siege Paris. Therefore, he retreated to Normandy and fought a war between the banks of the Seine and Loire for four years. He approached Daapp first. The Duke of Mayenne pursued him at the head of a larger army. Henry took a strong position between three rivers near the Arc Castle. For two weeks there were continuous skirmishes, and on September 21 a hot battle broke out, in which the king showed himself to be a brave warrior and forced the duke to retreat, although he had three times as many forces. Henry marched on Paris. On October 21, the Huguenots captured five suburbs on the left bank of the Seine and plundered them. Henry's successes were limited to this so far. He retreated to Tours, which became his temporary residence. The following months were very important for the king. Even earlier, he announced that the Huguenots would not receive from him any new rights, except those that were determined by agreement with the former king, and that he was ready to submit all religious disputes to the court of the church council. These were acceptable conditions for both Huguenots and Catholics. The new king had an attractive appearance and a pleasant character. On the battlefield he captivated with his courage, and in peacetime he attracted with his wit and his good nature, sometimes feigned, but always amiable. Statesmen of both parties became increasingly convinced from his correspondence and from his mode of action that Henry was gifted with foresight and a clear mind, hated party intrigues and knew how to “deal blows with one hand, while the other gave alms,” and was distinguished by nobility of ideas and strength of character .

To the French people, tired of long decades of civil strife, he seemed to be precisely the person who would be able to restore inner peace.

In the spring of 1590, Henry approached Dreux. The Duke of Mayenne, wanting to free this fortress from the siege, entered into battle with the king near Ivry. According to Martin, Henry rushed into battle with the courage of a medieval knight. In a short time, the duke's army was scattered, and the royal troops pursued it until nightfall. Henry destroyed all the Catholic infantry, up to 1000 cavalry, and captured most of their artillery. The head of the League himself fled without an entourage to Mantes. This battle determined the outcome of the war. The Duke did not dare to return to Paris. The old Cardinal Bourbon soon died, and the Catholics had no one left to take his place. However, hostilities continued for several more years. Henry approached Paris and began a new siege. Soon famine began to rage in the city. If not for outside help, the townspeople would have had to surrender this time. But the Spanish king Philip II, who closely monitored the progress of affairs in France, moved the entire Dutch army to help the Catholics. In August, the Duke of Parma delivered food to Paris and forced the king to lift the siege. In 1591, Henry received significant financial assistance from the English Queen Elizabeth, recruited mercenaries and began to press out Catholics everywhere. Mant, Shatr and Noyon were taken.

In Mantes, the king first saw Gabrielle d'Etreux, who became his new lover for several years. However, they write that Henry did not immediately achieve reciprocity from her. Noticing the king's courtship, Gabrielle left Mantes for Picardy, to the castle of Kevre. Despite the military time and while the forest surrounding Kevre was filled with enemy pickets, the loving Henry with five comrades galloped after her, disguised as a peasant, with an armful of straw on his head, he again appeared before his beloved, but she drove him away with contempt. Then Henry changed his tactics and arranged Gabriel’s marriage to the elderly widower de Liancourt, whom he later removed under a plausible pretext. Gabriel finally gave in, but was not a very faithful friend to the king. At the same time, Bablon in his book “Henry IV” talks about. the fact that all of Gabrielle’s inaccessibility was suggested to her by the latter’s parents in order to further inflame the king’s passion and get as much benefit from it as possible.

Meanwhile, the war continued. In 1592, Henry besieged Rouen, considered one of the strongholds of the Catholic League. To save the capital of Normandy, the Duke of Parma invaded France for the second time from the Netherlands. However, it again did not come to a decisive battle with the Spaniards. Henry retreated from Rouen, but maintained strong positions elsewhere. It was obvious that neither party could achieve victory by military means. In 1593, the Duke of Mayenne convened the Estates General in Paris to elect a new Catholic king. From the very beginning, the deputies were in great difficulty: Henry remained the only legitimate contender for the throne.

The only person who could oppose him was the daughter of Philip II, Isabella (on her mother’s side, she was the granddaughter of Henry II). The Infanta had many supporters among the deputies, but even the most zealous of them were aware that putting a woman, and a Spaniard at that, at the head of France would not be an easy task. Meanwhile, Henry hastened to cut the ground from under his enemies, announcing on July 23 his conversion to Catholicism.

Presumably, he decided to take this step not without hesitation, although it was hardly of a religious nature. He was a sufficiently sober politician and a sufficiently inveterate freethinker that, when choosing between matters of faith and political benefits, he preferred the former to the latter. To the reproaches of his followers, the king, apparently jokingly, but in fact quite seriously, replied that “the crown of France is worth the Catholic liturgy” (or in another translation: “Paris is worth the mass”). And this was his sincere opinion. Doubts were raised by other considerations: whether he would become stronger from a change of religion, whether his former Huguenot supporters would remain faithful to him, and whether his old enemies, the Ligists, would be ready to reconcile with him. He didn't have to wait long for answers to these questions. On July 25, the king attended a Catholic service for the first time in the church in Saint-Denis, after which the Bishop of Bourges solemnly announced his return to the bosom of the Roman Church. As soon as this became known in the capital, many Parisians, despite the prohibition of the Duke of Mayenne, hastened to Saint-Denis to greet their king. The Huguenots, although they condemned Henry for his change of religion, continued to side with him, realizing that this king would never begin religious persecution against them. The Duke of Mayenne called his followers to arms in vain and urged them not to believe the king's "feigned conversion." Nobody wanted to listen to him. Cities and nobles gradually stopped fighting, some voluntarily, others selling their allegiance on more or less favorable terms.

Thus, Henry took possession of his kingdom “piece by piece and piece by piece,” as Sully put it. He entered Meaux in January 1594, which was surrendered to him by the commandant of this city, Vitry. Then he received Orleans and Bourges from La Chatre and Aix in Provence from the local parliament. In February, Lyon politicians surrendered their city. At Chartres, Henry was solemnly anointed according to the old custom of French kings and on March 22 entered Paris without a fight. At the same time, negotiations on the surrender of Rouen were completed. Laon, Amiens and other cities of Picardy, considered the cradle of the League, opened their gates one after another. Charles of Guise, nephew of the Duke of Mayenne, gave Champagne to Henry. Each of these treaties cost the king numerous concessions in the form of the distribution of honorary distinctions, political rights, and especially sums of money. Henry generously distributed titles, awarded pensions, paid other people's debts, preferring material costs to bloodshed. But where negotiations did not give the expected result, the king used weapons. In July 1595, at the Battle of Fontaine-Française, he defeated his old enemy, the Duke of Mayenne, and took Burgundy from him. But then he concluded a very tolerable agreement with him, trying in every possible way to spare his political and religious feelings: wherever possible, the king tried to be above personal enmity. In September, Pope Clement VIII, fearing that the French church might escape his influence, lifted Henry's excommunication and concluded a formal peace with him. But the war continued with the Spanish king, who stubbornly did not recognize Henry’s rights to the French crown. In 1595 the Spaniards took Cambrai, in 1596 Calais and finally in 1597 Amiens. But despite these successes, Philip still had no hope of deposing Henry. He did not have money to continue the war, and in May 1598 the Spanish king agreed to peace. All the provinces he conquered were returned to France. The last stronghold of the Ligists remained Brittany, captured by Duke Merker. Henry himself opposed him and forced him to submit.

The outcome of the religious wars in France was summed up by the Edict of Nantes, signed by the king in April 1598. This was an important act that approved the foundations of the state policy of religious tolerance. Although the Huguenots did not have free teaching and worship, they were fully equal in civil rights with Catholics and had access to all state public positions. Reformed worship was still prohibited in Paris. However, it was allowed everywhere where it had been introduced earlier, namely: in every administrative district, in the castles of nobles and even in the houses of ordinary nobles. All edicts and court sentences directed against the Huguenots during religious persecution were declared invalid. In La Rochelle, Montauban and Nîmes, the Huguenots were allowed to maintain their garrisons. They could hold congresses on political and religious issues, and also have their representatives at the court and in the State Council. As might be expected, both Catholics and Protestants were initially unhappy with the edict, believing that the other side had received too many concessions. The king had to spend a lot of effort before the edict became the basis of the religious world.

All these turbulent years, Gabrielle was the king's main favorite. During the second siege of Paris, she occupied a small pavilion on the heights of Montmartre, and in June 1594, at the castle of Coucy near Lyon, she gave birth to Henry's son Caesar. Having entered Paris, the king legitimized this child and announced that he was beginning a divorce from Margarita Valois. Obviously, he was going to marry Gabrieli later. In March 1595, the favorite was granted the title of Marquise of Monceau, and in 1597 - Duchess of Beaufort. According to Matthieu, the king informed Gabrieli about all the strife and tricks, revealed to her all his emotional wounds, and she always knew how to console the cause of his suffering. During the years of favor, she gave birth to Henry another daughter, Katerina Henrietta, and a son, Alexander. But Gabrielle never lived to see the king’s divorce. She died suddenly in April 1599 (as they thought then, from poison). When the unfortunate Henry learned about this tragedy, he had a nervous attack and went to bed.

However, the king could not indulge in sadness for long. Seven months after Gabrieli’s death, he received a formal divorce from Margarita and was soon preoccupied with two matters of the heart at once: matchmaking with Maria de’ Medici and courting Henrietta d’Antragues. Of all the king’s favorites, this turned out to be the most calculating. Before reciprocating Henry’s feelings, Henrietta demanded a formal written agreement from him: the king promised to enter into a legal marriage with her as soon as she gave birth to his son. In addition, Henrietta received one hundred thousand francs from him for the first night. Soon the favorite became pregnant with Henry, who had already agreed on a marriage with him. Marie de Medici, found himself in a difficult situation. He granted Henrietta the Marquise of Verneuil, promised to marry her to the prince of the Duke of Nevers, but she stubbornly refused to return the document given to her and threatened with scandal. In July 1600, Henrietta gave birth to a stillborn girl, and this was a misfortune. relieved the king of the need to fulfill his promise. The favorite lowered her tone and became more accommodating. The king continued to have tender feelings for her.

Meanwhile, in December 1600, Henry's wedding to Maria de Medici was celebrated. In January, Henry was already bored with his wife, and he returned to Henrietta’s arms. In 1601, both ladies gave birth to sons for the king: the queen was the Dauphine of Louis (later Louis XIII), the favorite was Gaston Henry (later the Duke of Verneuil). The following year the picture repeated itself: Maria de Medici gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, and Henrietta, Angelique. This idyllic connection was not destroyed even by a conspiracy against the king, discovered in 1604, in which the most active role was played by the favorite’s father, the old man d’Antragues. The conspirators planned to lure Henry to the Marquise Verneuil, kill him, and proclaim her son Gaston king. The court sentenced d “Antraga led to death, and his daughter to lifelong imprisonment in a monastery, but the king allowed the old man to retire to his estate, and declared Henrietta innocent. He again became friends with his favorite, although he already knew well her evil and scandalous character. The Marquise shamelessly exploited the royal generosity, asking for money and estates for every kindness. She constantly tried to humiliate the queen and completely quarreled Mary with her husband.

Only Henry's new hobby saved him from this shameful connection. In January 1609, at a ballet given by Marie de Medici, Henry became infatuated with the fourteen-year-old daughter of Constable Montmorency, Marguerite. As usual, the king tried to marry off his new lover first and chose the Prince of Condé as her wife. But as soon as the prince assumed the rights of a husband, he began to protect Margarita from the king with all his might. In November 1609, he decided to flee to Flanders. The angry king began to seek the dissolution of their marriage. At this time he was energetically preparing for war with Austria. But both enterprises remained unfinished due to the tragic death of Henry. On May 14, 1610, the king went to the arsenal in a carriage to inspect new guns. It was a hot day and the window skins were down. On the narrow and winding street of the Iron Rows, the royal carriage had to stop to let a cart of hay pass. At that moment, a man quickly jumped on the wheel, stuck his head out the window and plunged a dagger into Heinrich’s chest: “... he attacked him with fury, holding a knife in his hand. And he delivered two blows successively to His Majesty’s chest; the last blow struck straight to the heart, cutting the cardiac artery and thus depriving this good king of breath and life.” Death was instantaneous, and Heinrich did not have time to utter a single groan. Those sitting with him in the carriage did not even notice his death at first. The killer, the Catholic fanatic Ravaillac, however, did not have time to escape, was captured by the guards and executed two weeks later.

There is no doubt that even Henry’s contemporaries were not clear in their judgments about the king of France. Thus, Sully in her memoirs practically “idolizes” the King of France, attributing to him a lot of merits, and blaming all his mistakes on his inner circle. For Sully, as a devoted servant, Henry of Navarre was the ideal of both a ruler and a man. Margarita Valois, in her “Memoirs of Margarita de Valois,” tries to highlight her influence on the king, paying more attention to her significance in Henry’s life: “Driven by the desire to talk not only about the long history, but also about the strength of the friendly ties connecting her with her former husband, Margarita seeks to emphasize his role in his happy fate: whether it was patronage of the prisoner of the Louvre on the St. Bartholomew’s Night of the massacre of the Huguenots or assistance at the time of aggravation of relations between the King of Navarre and the French monarch.” Some criticism in the description of Henry IV is found only in Jean-Pierre Bablon’s monograph “Henry IV”, in which the author tried to be more critical than the king’s contemporaries, but still often seeks justification for certain negative actions of Henry: “Of course, ingratitude was one from his character traits, but it should also be noted that he was sometimes forced to show it for political reasons.”

And at the same time, everyone agrees in describing some of the character traits characteristic of Henry IV:

Simplicity in communication: “his majestic appearance, so befitting his royal rank, never prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of free circulation, the resulting state of equality.” Bablon in his monograph repeatedly emphasized that Henry of Navarre was very easy to communicate with and cited numerous cases when the king of France communicated almost equally with ordinary peasants. Having studied his biography, we can conclude that this was due to his upbringing in childhood, when the young prince of Navarre played and was brought up with his fellow commoners.

A certain “trust” in people: “Due to his innate morality, he could not consider people as vicious as they could really be; lower, according to your good heart, choosing severity for their own correction as a means, without having tried all the others first.” Here, however, we should not forget that for Sully, Henry was always the ideal ruler, and the latter, despite all the insults inflicted on him, always remained faithful to him. But, studying the memoirs of Sully, one can find many examples when it was extremely difficult for Henry to make any “severe” gesture towards his courtiers, choosing the method of repeated “carrot” instead of the “stick”.

A certain devotion both in personal relationships and in the choice of one’s environment. You should not understand that Henry IV was always faithful to his wife, which there are many refutations of. It’s just that, even despite the rather peculiar life together with Margaret of Valois, Henry tried to maintain normal, friendly relations with his wife: “Nevertheless, I remained with Henry of Navarre, as required by my duty, and also because of the friendship and trust that he showed to me." This became especially clear after the divorce, when Margarita and Henry communicated quite calmly, and the former (at that time) queen received quite a good allowance. Speaking about his personal environment, it is worth giving an example when Henry, who had already converted to Catholicism, still continued to support his old comrades - the Huguenots, although secretly: “... provided small royal personal expenses, consisting mostly of rewarding secretly from the Catholics, the old his military leaders and Protestant soldiers who served him with great success.”

Henry showed the ability to charm his interlocutor, manipulate him, and attract him to his side in early childhood, when the entire royal court was simply fascinated by him: “During this visit, little Henry demonstrated a style of behavior that would be characteristic of him throughout his life. He tended to win over his interlocutor or tire him, enrage him or push him away, but within reasonable limits, so as not to bring the matter to a final break. He often got what he wanted from his opponent through flattery or ridicule. At the age of three years and two months, one could already foresee his career as a seducer.”

Henry remained in people's memory as the most popular king of all time, not only due to his state activities, but also for his love of the fair sex and drinking. This is especially noticeable in the folk song dedicated to him:

Vive Henri quatre, Vive ce roi vaillant! (bis)

Ce diable à quatre le triple talentboire et de battre

Et d'être un vert galant.

Chantons l"antienne Qu"on chant"ra dans mille ans. (bis)Dieu maintiennepaix ses descendants,

Jusqu"à ce qu"on prenne Lune avec les dents."aimons les filles, Et j"aimons le bon vin (bis)nos bons drilles

Voilà tout le refrain: "aimons les filles,j"aimons le bon vin

Briefly translated, the song glorifies King Henry IV, a lover of women (J aimons les filles) and good wine (Et j aimons le bon vin). In addition, the king's talent in battle is praised. This song is the clearest example of the fact that Henry remained in the memory of the people as a people's king, who was not alien to anything earthly. It is also worth noting the mentality of the French, for whom adultery is not a mortal sin, but if the ruler is noticed in this, then this only adds to his popularity and people's love.

As a man of his era, Henry was quite calm about religion, using the latter as a tool to achieve his goals, be it preserving life on St. Bartholomew's Night or the desire to take Paris peacefully. Having a clear example in the person of his father, who himself changed both religion and allies more than once, Henry learned from childhood to play on the feelings of people and their attitude towards religion. We can say that this was an innovation at that time: the king did not follow the lead of his religion, but adjusted the religion to himself. His attitude towards the institution of marriage was quite typical for that period, and, even more so, for the morals of the royal court. As mentioned above, a large number of mistresses and children only added to the king’s popularity among the people. At the same time, his first wife Margarita Valois remained his ally even after his death (although, naturally, the latter also pursued her own goals): “The death of the king forced Margarita to fight to preserve peace in France - a guarantee of the prosperity she had acquired. To this end, she participated in the last assembly of the Estates General in 1614, trying to bring the irreconcilable deputies of the estates to agreement with a reminder of the military threat to France. Confident in her ability to achieve what she wanted, Margarita made every effort to strengthen a new dynasty on the throne in the person of young Louis XIII.”

Chapter III. Domestic policy of Henry IV

By the time he ascended the throne, Henry IV received the country in an extremely deplorable state: the lack of a clear economic policy of the government, many years of civil wars and urban riots had undermined the country's well-being. It is not for nothing that Henry’s phrase “La poule au pot du dimanche” addressed to the peasants was considered fantastic and hardly feasible at that time. For, as in previous times, the main burden of military operations fell on the peasants, who at that time could not even dream of eating a chicken at least once a week.

Added to all this was the turbulent religious situation in the country: the problem of confrontation between Huguenots and Catholics still had not been resolved. Plus the movement of the League in the provinces and aggressive actions on the part of Spain, which repeatedly opposed Henry of Navarre.

It is quite natural that the initial problem for Henry IV was to restore order and peace in the country, and only then to raise the economy, and for this it was necessary to solve three big problems: defeat the nobility of the League, which took command positions in numerous governorates; end the war with Spain and issue a new decree on religious tolerance. Henry IV set about solving these three problems with great enthusiasm and showed for the first time what his political skill consisted of. In dealings with the League, he relied exclusively on negotiations and money. Recklessly emptying the already meager state treasury and using every conceivable source of loans, between 1595 and 1598. bought the devotion of all opponents and one by one brought them to his side, among them also Giza Mayenne. And with Spain, the king tried to quickly come to peace to the displeasure of his English and Dutch allies. When the Spaniards took Amiens in 1597 and began to threaten Paris, the king accepted the mediation services of Pope Clement VIII. On May 2, 1598, peace was signed in Vervain. Philip II of this world could not obtain any political or territorial benefit. When he died a few months later, the era of Spanish dominance in Europe came to an end.

Without a doubt, the publication of the Edict of Nantes (04/13/1598) was the largest action of Henry IV to establish peace in the country. Neither die-hard Protestants nor orthodox Catholics became his supporters after the king's change of religion. The king was reproached for religious hypocrisy and continued to more or less openly wage journalistic battles against him, the echoes of which were heard in France for more than thirty years. The Protestants, having lost their leader, did everything to preserve their political, military and synodal organizational structure. Although there were those who perfectly understood both Henry’s transition to Catholicism and the Edict of Nantes: “This is a blow that destroyed the parties and the hopes of the lords for the opportunity to continue their rebellions and uprisings.” This was precisely the point of view held by the “politicians” - a movement that, unlike the Huguenots and the Catholic League, did not constitute a party in the proper sense of the word. It was rather a social movement, which had supporters mainly among senior officials, writers and scientists, representing the interests of the wealthy bourgeoisie of northern French cities. The “politicians” were sympathized with the moderate Huguenots (Lanoux, La Poplainiere, Jacques Bodin). So it cannot be said that Henry was alone in his desire to bring peace to the country through religious changes. Gradually, a layer of people appears that judges a person not by his religious affiliation, but by his human qualities. At the same time, Henry of Navarre began to notice (and this was not hidden) that many of his fellow Huguenots did not agree with his course aimed at peace and were looking for ways to continue the armed conflict.

Thus, Henry IV, soon after changing religion - now from the position of the king - learned to appreciate the danger that Protestantism posed to the unity of the kingdom with its tendency to develop into a "state within a state." Nevertheless, the king decided on an honest, not only tactically understood, policy towards his former co-religionists. He was deeply convinced that only the peaceful coexistence of both faiths could provide France with the peace that so many people dreamed of. His life experience helped him understand that it was not only Protestants who had a tendency towards class separation. Between 1589 and 1598 there were many “states within a state” in France, and the most stubborn was, of course, Paris, with a Spanish garrison within its walls and the ideas of the League at its heart. And even with him in 1594 the king treated him with royal mercy.

Under such conditions, he calmly met the expected resistance and quickly issued an edict. This text, signed in Nantes on the occasion of reconciliation with Merker, did not essentially go beyond what Protestants had previously been entitled to: freedom of conscience throughout the country; freedom of worship in all places where services took place between 1596 and 1597, and also, depending on the circumstances, in official places and in the castles of the nobility; no religious services in Paris or within a radius of five miles; but unlimited legal capacity, unhindered access to all positions and the creation of an investigative chamber with mixed religious representation in some parliaments. Otherwise, the king, by special decree, provided the Huguenots with more than a hundred safe places for eight years and explained in a way that was sharply criticized by the Catholic side how seriously he took the safety of his former co-religionists and military comrades-in-arms. True, as the Protestant side later noted, this was a temporary concession. However, it clearly went beyond all previous concessions in this area, and in the following decades it turned out to be very valuable for French Protestantism. Moreover, after the expiration of the term, the king allowed negotiations to extend this concession.

The real innovation of Henry IV’s religious policy was not even this edict, but his attitude towards what he issued: for the first time during the religious wars, the French king kept his promise to take care in the following years about the implementation of the edict. Again and again, Henry IV sought direct explanations with members of the Paris and other parliaments who stubbornly resisted the ratification of the edict. To prove to them the unjustification of their resistance and narrow-mindedness, he referred to his own past and, from his rich life experience in religious matters, concluded that it was necessary to use a better political concept than the narrow-minded dogmatists of both parties: “For 20 years I have been leading the party of Religion (i.e. .e. Huguenots), this gives me information about everyone. I know who there wants war, who wants peace. I know those who wage war for the Catholic faith out of ambition or for the Spanish party, and I know those who want only to steal. Among the Protestants there were people of all kinds, just as among the Catholics...” (excerpt from a speech before members of the Paris Parliament, 02/16/1599). And if necessary, the king showed the parliamentarians the way to the future, offered an alternative to a long, fruitless, destructive civil war: “We should not make any difference between Catholics and Huguenots, we should all be good Frenchmen” (from the same place).

During such disputes, he consistently formed his image as a monarch independent of party quarrels and private interests, standing above momentary conflicts, whose life experience allowed him to know almost everything better than his subjects. This was not yet the argument of Louis XIV, who alone knew more than all his subjects simply because he was king. But even after 1598, Henry IV clearly showed a trait of authoritarian arrogance towards politicians of all stripes. Prominent representatives of the parties of past decades, both Catholics and Huguenots, and among them du Plessis-Mornay, were constantly forced to humbly endure the king’s arrogance, which on occasion was expressed in a joke: “I thank you,” the king reprimanded the delegation of the Paris Parliament, which sharply objected against the return of the Jesuits, - for the care that you show towards my person and my state. All your comments are stored in my memory, but mine are not in yours. You pointed out to me difficulties that seem great to you and worthy of attention, and you did not think that everything you told me I thought about and weighed eight or nine years ago; the best decisions for the future come from thinking about past events, and here I have more knowledge than anyone else.” This was already said by the absolute monarch of the 17th century, and Henry IV not only gave enough arguments, but also showed that he was not joking.

Henry IV in new studies is rightly called the founder of the absolute monarchy in France. This does not mean that the system and technology of management under him looked the same as under Louis XIV. Nor does this mean that he did not in many ways refer to predecessors such as Louis XI, Francis I or Henry III. It is the comparison with them that shows what his originality was. He did not invent new means and ways to strengthen monarchical power; the past gave him enough examples and initiatives, especially the reign of Henry III. However, he reworked them and, in the form of intensive “personal rule,” ensured that supervision and control were exercised by the king.

The essence of this personal government was the effective organization of the process of giving advice. Henry IV did not change the royal council in principle. However, he took away from this large traditional advisory body the competence on all issues of “big politics”, both domestic and foreign, and transferred them to a small circle of trusted persons. This was also not the king’s invention, but according to contemporaries, he used this instrument so unconventionally and effectively that it was striking and seemed like an innovation. For appointments to this small body, which was also divided into departments, Henry mainly used Valois personnel, and this was also a remarkable feature of the political actions of this sensible politician. Undoubtedly, he found in them the best and most experienced people who mastered the technique of power: Cheverny, Bellievre, chancellor of Henry IV, Villeroy, one of the four secretaries of state and the “best man” of the king, except Sully; along with them Sillery, Jeannin, de Thou, Arley and others who came from the judicial class. Henry IV did not particularly favor these people and liked to sneer at their clerical manners; however, he knew well that he could not do without them, and gave no reason to doubt that their loyalty would be rewarded, as Sully repeatedly testifies, describing in detail how Henry rewarded him each time after a successfully completed task. Moreover, they represented only half of his political wisdom in the selection of personnel; the second half was represented by one single person - Maximilien de Bethune, Duke de Sully, who bore this high title only from 1607, but even during the Night of St. Bartholomew, as a Huguenot warrior-nobleman, he sided with Henry of Navarre and has since faithfully served the king .

Sully's career was one of a kind compared to all others in the 16th century. Sully held many resounding and lucrative titles, among them, from 1598, the title of "superintendent of finances", which he turned into a dominant function in the entire royal financial administration; but throughout his life he did not master the role of first minister, as Richelieu did under Louis XIII. He was and remained a devoted and close ally of the king, and there was never any danger that Sully would act differently than the king wanted. For we can assume that the reorganization of the financial administration, and with it the entire public administration, towards the creation of a centralized bureaucratic system, which took place under Sully, was in accordance with the wishes of the king and was a manifestation and result of his personal rule.

With the help of the financial council, a division of the royal council, Sully was able to gain an understanding of the kingdom's financial resources over several years. He did this completely independently of local and provincial officials, whom he immediately began to replace, in which, however, he succeeded as little as all other regimes of the 17th and 18th centuries. There were also reasons to be dissatisfied with the Parisian high officials: “During my time in Paris, the most difficult thing for me was to bring in the heads of state treasury collections, and especially the main State Collector, a harmful custom according to which it was stolen from temporary workers.” At the same time, wherever he could, he squeezed out the provincial class assemblies, since they had the right to participate in the financial administration of the provinces, and there were also reasons to doubt the competence of provincial officials: “False naming of things, cancellation of what was due, counterfeiting, extortion: and, so to speak, subscriptions to the truth , double definitions and positions, without mentioning this deliberately maintained disorder in the flow of all written affairs, with the help of which the hiding villain has a very clear vision for himself; at a time when to others he assumes impenetrable darkness. It’s enough that, having collected into the treasury only two due salaries, both now and three years in a row before them, I easily collected more than five hundred thousand thalers, which had already been completely lost for His Majesty.” Sully also questioned the Parisian and provincial chambers of accounts responsible for the control and controversial affairs of the financial administration; four times he created the so-called judicial chambers, extraordinary tribunals, where positions were occupied by loyal officials who, at least for a limited period, deprived the accounting chambers of significant powers. Naturally, Sully’s active work in controlling the treasury (from which many nobles fed) did not please the royal court, and he himself more than once recalls how they complained to Henry IV about him, trying to denigrate the king in the eyes. Henry IV and Sully sent crown officials to the provinces for a certain period of time and thereby abolished the powers of the corresponding authorities. Such “commissions” were the predecessors of intendants, and in certain provinces, especially in Lyon, where there was no parliament and provincial states, we see in the time of Henry IV (and his predecessor) such an intendant, although he was not yet called that.

Neither Sully nor his master had much respect for the rights of the remaining higher judicial chambers and tried to limit or neutralize them, and the same fate befell the collectors. Whatever we are talking about, the following picture emerges: behind the open, friendly, cheerful face of the first Bourbon hides another, stern face of an absolute monarch who is aware of his power: “Great must be the strength of spirit and there are few people who could have it so much in themselves, so that they dare to face the hatred of an entire society, which is so much of the nobility and power, such as in France the society of collectors of state revenues is, in order to resist the gifts, seduction, tricks and swindles of all these exactions, for the most part having support and agreement among themselves, no matter what without turning them around, as to blind them, bribe them to their side, or deceive those in power over them.”

It was in its last phase that the religious wars caused severe economic damage to the country. From the account books of large landowners and church tithe acts, we know how much grain production, the core of the French economy, declined during these years. The area of ​​uncultivated land increased everywhere. Production of linen and silk was reduced by half. Marauding armies, local and foreign, brought famine and epidemics—by the end of the century, once again plague was rampant in France. There was not only a religious war between large parties, but also a small war between peasant communities and wandering soldiers and bandits. In the South, in Limousin and Périgord, in 1594 and 1595. Major peasant uprisings occurred. The peasants fought against the triple tax burden imposed on them by landowners, the church and the king.

The way Henry IV responded to this situation was typical of his reign and his manner of behavior. With the help of his inventive superintendent Sully, between 1599 and 1602 he raised the already high direct taxes on land, while significantly reducing the talue, mainly a “peasant tax”. This brought tangible relief, but the other side of the coin was revealed - indirect taxes increased significantly, especially the tax on salt (gabel). This is how Sully in 1597 described the project of writing a future tax reform, rejecting the idea of ​​​​increasing tax oppression on peasants: “These methods could be divided into two different types, the easiest and simplest, in order to increase duties and distributions for the people; and other difficult ones consisted in inventing new sources from which money would flow. To the first, the refuge did not correspond, in my opinion, to prudent policy: after the great misadventures that befell the poor villagers. It would be a new burden for them alone, at a time when they had just begun to gather strength and learn what peace is. This would complete their ruin; henceforth deprived the Sovereign of the most abundant, or better to say, the only true refuges.”

Of course, many French peasants felt better simply because the time of war and internal unrest had passed. However, the peasants had new enemies: on the one hand, the recovered church put its tithe administration in order, on the other, the old and new local nobility, which greedily coveted the property of indebted or ruined peasants. It was during these years of restoration that in almost all provinces the ownership share of the independent peasantry fell below 50%. But, despite this, Henry managed to achieve stability in the state, something that France had lacked for so long: “The king, having calmed, as he said, thanks to his courage and prudence, all the storms that had troubled the state for so long, lived in his kingdom... Carefully trying to find suitable means to quell all anger, enmity and private strife, to provide justice to everyone without partiality, to improve their incomes and alleviate the situation of the people.”

The achievements of Henry IV in the development of crafts and trade policy were very important. He encouraged initiatives in this area and showed himself to be the first “mercantilist” of France, to whom Richelieu and Colbert owed much. The mass-produced and luxury clothing industry was greatly strengthened, and silk production was supported by incentives for the cultivation of mulberry trees and the breeding of silkworms. Consulted by competent business leaders (Olivier de Serres, Barthelemy de Laffema, etc.), the king aimed at a policy of trade surplus and encouraged French merchants to move into the North American colonies.

At least briefly, something should be said about Henry IV, the patron of the arts. Henry IV went down in the history of the French kingdom as one of the great architects. In the Louvre, on his personal initiative, a “grand gallery” was built, in Fontainebleau - an “oval courtyard”. In both cases, the king was more of a continuator. However, in Paris he acted completely independently, where he was a city planner: the Place Royale in the Marais, known since the early days of the Revolution as the Place des Vosges, is his creation, as is the Place Dauphine on the western tip of the Ile de la Cité.

It follows from them that he represented the social distribution of roles in his state in accordance with custom, and his statements about the military duty of the nobility and the productive work of peasants, artisans and everyone who was engaged in crafts, as well as about the clergy, are very informative. Henry IV was a practical man, he was far from theoretical speculation and from intensive reading of modern political-theoretical literature. He was a man of conversation, direct contact, he sought to compare interesting points of view, listen carefully to his interlocutor and comprehend what was said.

There is no indication that he questioned the traditional role and functions of the nobility. He did not want the decisive influence of dukes and peers on state affairs, which were the exclusive prerogative of the king and his entourage. In general, he saw in the nobility, to which he felt belonging all his life, the leading, inalienable, from a military point of view, strength of his state. Since these nobility needed to be protected from themselves, Henry IV took appropriate measures, for example, issued an edict prohibiting duels, and insisted on its implementation without much success. In this sense, Richelieu was his student.

True, there were differences between the king and the nobility, the reasons for which lay in the long-noticeable crisis of the French (and indeed the entire European) nobility at the end of the 16th and in the first half of the 17th century. The king was deeply convinced of the social significance of the nobility, but he did not want to see them in important positions in the Council, and in the cities and provinces of France he assigned controlling and supervisory persons to the noble governors. This caused discontent among the nobles and supported their readiness for riots, from which the reign of Henry IV was not spared.

And one more thing hit the ancient nobility hard: the sale and inheritance of positions. Henry IV and Sully encouraged both. Between 1602 and 1604 They intensified the method intensively practiced since the time of Francis I and, for fiscal reasons, in 1604 (Edict of Poulet), thanks to the annual resignation of officials (annual law), they made possible hereditary transfer, that is, the sale of offices. In addition, they leased the entire system to one financier (Pule).

The ancient nobility criticized the sale of positions. It saw the danger in the fact that many “new people” from the lower classes would gradually advance into the nobility, and the ancient class boundaries would be blurred. Even prominent members of the Royal Council, led by Bellière, fought the system and supported the traditional state and legal values ​​of the French monarchy. Every office, they said, came from the king as the supreme legislator of the country, it could be granted on the basis of honor and qualifications, and not for money through trade.

The resistance of both groups was unsuccessful. The decision of Henry and Sully significantly contributed to the spread of trade in positions in absolutist France and, in essence, introduced the inheritance of positions. This was an inevitable and irreversible process in the monarchy, which had long ago decided to follow the path of bureaucratization, that is, to increase the number of officials not by representatives of the upper classes working on a voluntary basis, but by attracting completely new personnel. How else was this state supposed to pay its officials, that is, feed them, if not through the widespread privatization of their income?

The trade and sale of offices generated significant profits for the crown in the following decades, and it was forced for fiscal reasons to create new offices and sell them. From the officials (employees) recruited in this way, a strong social support for the monarchy grew; True, these employees, due to the fact that the position was their property, had a large degree of independence, but they were fundamentally committed to a loyal attitude towards the crown, as the guarantor of their position (and its material value).

Thus, French Renaissance society under Henry IV gradually changed its face. The nobility, especially the high aristocracy, the dominant force in the age of religious wars, finally succumbed to the appointment of state administration. “New people” began to take over and occupy key positions in the center, regions, cities and communities. These people were bourgeois by origin. The contours of a new class, the judicial nobility, emerged, which for a long time became the social basis of the Bourbon monarchy.

Naturally, the initial task for Henry when he came to power was to reduce social tensions in the country: whether it was a change of religion or bribing the Ligists, the goal was to stop armed actions on French territory. Successfully playing on popular dislike for the Spanish troops who helped the League, Henry managed to suppress the opposition movement, using both methods of brute physical force and economic (bribery). If we solved this problem, we could make peace with Spain, which was soon done.

Having solved problems with internal and external threats, Henry had to deal with socio-economic problems, reforming state policy in terms of religion, and in terms of state structure and tax policy.

A distinctive feature of his reforms is that for the first time the state expressed its policy towards religions (Edict of Nantes), while showing a fair amount of tolerance. On the other hand, each side, whether Catholics or Huguenots, considered the concessions too strong or weak, and complete peace did not come to the country, but the first and very important step was taken.

Carrying out economic reforms, Henry IV largely obeyed his faithful Sully, who, as noted above, believed that the state should not increase the tax burden on peasants and it was worth finding alternative and new (at that time) sources of financing the treasury. The ongoing policy of protectionism allowed the trading elite to strengthen their positions

Conclusion

Summarizing all of the above, it can be noted that throughout the 16th century, France was in a state of constant socio-economic changes and conflicts. During the 16th century, France gradually became the economic leader of Western Europe, which, in addition to economic growth, also required certain changes in government policy in the field of finance. Under Henry IV, new sources of replenishment of the treasury were found, such as trade in positions. Henry's policy of mercantilism was innovative in many ways and allowed the country's trade to increase both in turnover and gave impetus to the growth of industry in the country.

The country needed a leader of a new generation who understood the processes taking place in it, plus someone who could stop civil strife in France itself. It was this role that Henry IV fulfilled, carrying out the necessary reforms and bringing peace to the country.

Being a man of “modern times,” he was more skeptical about the problem of religion, which allowed him to change his religion in favor of necessity in the right situations. At the same time, he realized that the country needed a clear course in terms of religions, which led to the creation of the Edict of Nantes.

A study of Henry’s biography and the memoirs of his contemporaries allows us to say that he was a “truly people’s” ruler:

· He calmly communicated with people lower than him in the class hierarchy, which gave him popularity among the common people

· Its popularity is largely due to its exploits on the love front, which is very “valued” among the French, and love affairs only added to its rating

· Being brought up in a fairly simple environment, Henry was not “spoiled” by his court upbringing, which made him very different from his fellow princes.

· Success in military operations also added to the rating of Henry of Navarre in the country.

But, even as a “people’s” ruler, Henry of Navarre brutally suppressed any peasant revolts, remaining a monarch of absolutism, but not democracy.

The formation of Henry's personality was greatly influenced by his upbringing and his parents, giving him a clear example of how strongly religion can influence relationships, and, at the same time, how one can calmly change religion to suit circumstances. The ability to charm, which Henry had distinguished since childhood, allowed him to form around himself a circle of loyal people (the same Sully), who were fanatically devoted to their king.

As a man of his era, Henry was quite calm about religion, using the latter as a tool to achieve his goals, be it preserving life on St. Bartholomew's Night or the desire to take Paris peacefully. Having a clear example in the person of his father, who himself changed both religion and allies more than once, Henry learned from childhood to play on the feelings of people and their attitude towards religion. We can say that this was an innovation at that time: the king did not follow the lead of his religion, but adjusted the religion to himself.

Being a “politician” in the full sense of the word, Henry IV, even after converting to Catholicism and despite all the grievances of his Huguenot supporters, did not forget about their help and helped them, although hiding this from the Catholic part of his circle. His actions as a politician made it possible to improve the economic condition of the country and calm the social situation in the country.

The success and necessity of his actions in terms of reforms is perfectly evidenced by the fact that he is still considered the most popular king of France among the French. As a person and as a ruler, he fit perfectly into the situation in which France was at that time and was truly a “people's king,” responding to both the economic and social needs of the country.

Thanks to the strength of his character

In many ways, his policy was continued by Richelieu and Mazarin, and the fact that the course in management was correct is evidenced by the memoirs of Henri de Rohan, in which the author of the memoirs says that, in fact, the policy of the state after the death of Henry did not change, and his death itself did not caused any unrest in the state.

List of used literature:

Sources:

1.Rohan, Henri de (1579-1638), “Memoires du duc de Rohan, sur les choses advenues en France depuis la mort de Henri le Grand”, 1646

2.Documents on the history of civil wars in France (1561-163), M.-L., 1962

3.Marguerite de Valois, “Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois”,<#"justify">Monographs:

1.Bablon, Jean Pierre, “Henry IV”, Rostov-on-Don, 199.

2.Vainshtein O.L., “Western European medieval historiography”, M., 1964

.St. Bartholomew's Night: event and controversy (collection of articles), M., 2001

.Luchitsky I.V., “History of feudal reaction in France in the 16th and 17th centuries”, T.1, 1871

.Lyublinskaya A.D., “Features of the culture of the Renaissance and Reformation in France” // Culture of the Renaissance and Reformation, Leningrad, 1981

.Malinin Y.P., “A.D. Lyublinskaya on some problems of the Renaissance and Reformation,” // Culture of the Renaissance and Reformation, Leningrad, 1981

.Nemilov A.N. “The significance of the Reformation for the cultural community of the Northern Renaissance” // Culture of the Renaissance and Reformation, Leningrad, 1981

.Essays on the socio-economic and political history of England and France of the XIII-XVIII centuries, M, 1960

.Pleshkova L.S. "A Word about Queen Margot", #"justify">. Pleshkova S.L., “The French monarchy and the church (XV-mid-XVI centuries)”, M., 1992

.Raitses V.I., “On some radical trends in the French reform movement of the mid-16th century” // Culture of the Renaissance and Reformation, Leningrad, 1981

.Tokareva T.N., “Political views of Sully”, M., 1999

.Trofimova O.V. “Cities in the Huguenot movement in France of the 16th century”, Yaroslavl, 1983

.Uvarov P.Yu., “French society of the 16th century. Experience of reconstruction based on notarial acts”, M., 2003

.Shishkin V.V. “The French royal court and the political struggle at the end of the 16th - first third of the 17th century”, St. Petersburg, 1996

.Elfond I.Ya., “Political teachings of the Renaissance and Reformation (France)”, Saratov, 1991

.Erlanger Philippe “Massacre on the night of St. Bartholomew August 24, 1572”, St. Petersburg, 2002

Even almost 4 centuries after his death, Henry IV remains the most popular king in France. The man who strengthened the power of absolutism, actually ended the civil war, raised the economy destroyed by the war and is still ahead of all other kings for the French. This popularity is largely due to the fact that Henry was not only not an outstanding ruler, but also a bright personality.

Popularity among the opposite sex, unfeigned simplicity in communicating with ordinary people, success on the battlefield, undoubtedly, strong charisma - all this made Henry of Navarre popular during his lifetime. One phrase about chicken for every Frenchman on Sunday can be considered an excellent example for today's political PR people. To Henry's credit, it is worth noting that the phrase was uttered at a time when he had already become king and was not an election promise, which is so often forgotten.

To compile a detailed historical portrait of Henry IV, one should study his biography (the formation of the worldview of the King of France), the attitude of his contemporaries and the common people towards Henry. Indeed, in many ways, upbringing played a huge role in the attitude of the King of France to religion, having such a vivid example in the person of his father, who changed religion, following fashion and circumstances, and his mother, who remained an ardent Protestant until her death, young Henry was already drawing conclusions that will greatly help him in solving religious issues in the country.

Having studied the memoirs of his closest supporters and those close to him (Marguerite Valois and Sully), it is possible to characterize both the personality of Henry IV and the reaction of the population to his reforms and actions. The work also provides an excerpt from French folklore, thanks to which you can see the trace in the memory of the French people that Henry of Navarre left.

A comprehensive study of the memoirs of his contemporaries and other sources will make it possible to draw up a comprehensive portrait of Henry IV as a person, to understand the peculiarities of his views and character, to identify the reasons for such strong popularity among the French, which has remained since his reign until now, to find out the role of his origin and upbringing, as well as

Henry himself was from Béarn, where he was called “our Henry,” despite the fact that the pronoun “our” denotes not only a familiar attitude, but also respect for him as a defender of customs, freedoms, and national identity from Capetian centralism: “The Reformation gave a powerful impetus Navarrese separatism. The dissemination of the new teaching could not have been more suitable for preserving the country’s identity.” Gascony (the home province of Henry IV) will always support the King of France, who will not forget about it either: even after he became the King of France and accepted the Catholic faith, the craving for his native places and regret for his abandoned comrades will pull him to his “small homeland” ", as clearly evidenced by his desire to take a honeymoon to his native land with Maria de Medici. It is worth noting that having already ascended the throne, Henry of Navarre tried in every possible way to suppress the separatism of the provinces, knowing full well from his own experience how dangerous it was for the centralized government.

The countdown in the biography of Henry of Navarre should begin on October 20, 1548, when Antoine de Bourbon married the only daughter of the King of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret. Antoine himself at that time became the head of the House of Bourbon after the betrayal and death of Constable de Bourbon. The possessions of the king of Navarre were modest at that time, since most of Greater Navarre fell into the hands of Spain. At the same time, Henry d'Albret (the grandfather of Henry IV) was the only heir to the eminent families of Foix, Albret and Armagnac, thanks to which he owned large lands on both sides of the Garonne. Antoine, although poor, was a prince of the blood, and, in the event of the death of Henry II and his sons, could inherit the throne.

The royal court pursued this marriage with its desire to bring Albret closer to Paris, which at that time was dangerously flirting with Spain, wanting to reunite Navarre under its rule. Henry d'Albret himself at that time compared himself to a louse, for which two monkeys are fighting - the king of Spain and the king of France. We can say that “playing for two camps” was in Henry’s blood, because he would have to do something similar when he united both Catholics and Protestants under his banners. Jeanne d'Albret was the daughter of his marriage to Margaret of Angoulême, widow of the Duke of Angoulême, and, most importantly, Jeanne's mother was the beloved sister of King Francis I.

The first years of marriage were quite happy, as evidenced by the rather passionate correspondence of the newlyweds. On September 21, 1551, their first child, the Duke de Beaumont, was born, named after his grandfather by Henry. Unfortunately, when Jeanne was already pregnant with Henry IV, the little Duke died on August 12, 1553 from asphyxia. According to Bablon, the child’s nanny, who constantly wrapped the child warmly and kept him in an overheated room, could be to blame for this. Perhaps this also influenced the fact that the second son (Henry of Navarre) was brought up in the conditions of a simple child and was not spoiled by the attentions of overly diligent nannies.

Henry of Navarre, the second son and the only heir at that time, was born on the night of December 12-13, 1553 in Pau, in the domain of his grandfather (Jeanne was concerned that her father would marry a second time and his son, not his grandson, would become the heir) . There is a whole legend about how, after giving birth, Henry d'Albret gave his daughter a box, however, without giving her the key, which contained his will and a large gold chain, and he took his grandson to his bedroom, where he rubbed the baby's lips with a clove of garlic and brought it to him. a cup of wine to his nose. Subsequently, the legend grew to the point that the newborn even sipped wine from his grandfather’s hands. In fact, this was simply a precaution against infectious diseases, since garlic, like wine vapors, was believed to prevent illness. But the myth has firmly entered the consciousness of the French and to this day the birth of the little king is associated with garlic and wine.

The personalities of his parents and their many years of stay at the French court left their mark on Henry's youth. Jeanne d'Albret, a strong supporter of Calvinism since 1555, did everything to make her son a Protestant, which did not exclude a humanistic upbringing in the spirit of her mother Margaret. The father, a Calvinist from the mid-50s, more influenced by Coligny than by his wife, did not remain a supporter of the Genevan cause for long and returned to the old religion as soon as, at the initiative of Catherine de Medici, he entered the service of the French king as a lieutenant general. For this reason, Henry had a remarkable and controversial experience. The parents' relationship went wrong, as the mother sharply condemned the father and resolutely rejected the court world. However, his father turned from a Protestant commander into a courtier, which, coupled with his great military leadership abilities, could not fail to impress the young man. At the same time, the court quickly became disillusioned with Antoine, since he was only interested in the idea of ​​restoring Navarre to its former size, for which he undertook risky and unsuccessful military campaigns. Although Henry’s father renounced the Protestant faith, as Bablon states, “before sailing he received a Catholic priest who confessed and gave him communion, but on board he asked his Calvinist doctor to read the Holy Scriptures. Before his death, he promised that if he survived, he would profess Protestantism...” The tossing between faiths was later passed on to his son, but, to Henry’s credit, he received much more benefit from it.

At the court in Paris and during the famous “grand voyage” of the court staff in France (1564 - 1566), the young, intelligent, lively and practical royal son from the Pyrenees became intensively and in detail acquainted with the court life of the Valois. Following the example of his father, he again became a Catholic, but immediately after his death he returned to the religion of his mother, who managed to influence her son with the friendly connivance of the then very pliable Catherine de Medici. At court he also met his cousins ​​and Margaret of Valois. The fact that his relations with the young Duke of Anjou, the future King Henry III, were already friendly then paid off in 1589.

Only as a member of the court retinue did Henry correctly assess the significance of the religious problem for modern politics. In the 50s and 60s. It had not yet been decided at all that the Huguenots would be closed to royal power in France for a long time. From time to time, individual leaders of the Calvinist party were close to palace politics, such as Gaspard de Coligny, Prince of Condé, Henry of Bourbon, Coligny's brother Odet de Chatillon and others; This is especially true of Coligny, admiral of France, a prominent military and political figure of Protestantism until 1572. Catherine de' Medici, as well as her sons Francis II and Charles IX, sometimes distrusted the Catholic court party because of its intensive contacts with Spain, much more than the Huguenots . Their course regarding parties, which between 1560 and 1568 essentially determined by Chancellor Michel de l'Hôpital, was nothing more than an attempt not to make a final choice between two radical positions. Therefore, it is understandable that Catherine in 1567, shortly before the outbreak of hostility between the two parties, granted “leave” to the young king and his mother, who had recently been at court. This decision brought Henry IV his first acquaintance with religious warfare “on the spot,” in the Huguenot army in the southwest, and above all in the future Calvinist fortress of La Rochelle.

Meanwhile, Catherine advanced her marriage plans and, after the peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1570), went so far as to have Margaret's wedding to Henry of Navarre planned for 1572. Bablon mentions that the wedding was planned during the lifetime of Henry's father . It happened like this: young Henry was sitting on the lap of the King of France when he asked if Henry would like to become his son? The Little Prince of Navarre answered. That he already has a father, but if the king so desires to become related to him, then he can give him his daughter as his wife.

The fact that this event went down in history not as a great and solemn celebration of the royal lines of the Valois and Bourbons, but as a Parisian “blood wedding”, happened primarily due to two very personal reasons: due to the too straightforward tactics of Coligny, who time tried to alienate King Charles IX from his mother and drag him to the opposite camp, and because of the sharp reaction of the regent, who now saw in the admiral a greater danger to herself and her sons than to the Spaniards. The decision to eliminate the admiral, the unsuccessful assassination attempt and the murder of a huge number of Calvinists in Paris and throughout the country show that behind personal tactics, especially on the part of the Catholic majority, lurked more powerful forces that increasingly determined what happened.

After St. Bartholomew's Night, Henry found himself in a difficult position: being a Protestant aristocrat, he was personally in danger, as was his cousin and comrade Condé, who was with him at court. In the end, they, captives of the king, which they now were, moved into the bosom of the old church. The action against the Calvinists was a political failure. Despite all the losses, St. Bartholomew's Night did not weaken the Huguenots. From now on, the politically scientific system of French Protestantism was strengthened, from now on religion received a political foundation, now it has become a “party.” At the same time, there were noteworthy voices of people who took a moderate, conciliatory, non-partisan position, talking about religious tolerance. They were not a party, but the public perceived them as “politicians.” Jean Bodin, an erudite lawyer and specialist in state law, known for his research on historical methodology, in 1576, in his fundamental work “On the Republic,” combined the idea of ​​politically based tolerance with the idea of ​​​​strengthening the sovereign monarchy and thereby developed a political-theoretical concept.

Henry's undeniably tolerable personal "captivity" at court lasted until 1576. By this time, Catherine had long since resumed her negotiating course, and the young Béarnian was enjoying court life, especially hunting, and had not yet demonstrated a strong, focused political will. Presumably, the Huguenot advisers who lived with him eventually took advantage of the opportunity to escape and returned the young king to the Huguenot army in the southwest of France and thereby to his future tasks.

In subsequent years, Henry of Navarre did not easily master the role of Protestant party leader. He was opposed by his cousin Condé, who was more ready to fight for the Protestant cause. At this time, Henry had not yet realized his own destiny. And although he changed his religion again, consistently "staunch" Protestants, like Theodore de Bez, were skeptical of a lifestyle that, in their views, did not correspond to God's chosen Protestant leader. The decisive moment in the life of Henry IV was the fact that in subsequent years he did not succumb to the pressure of the Protestants from his circle and was not exclusively the head of the Protestant party, but reserved the rights to a course of reconciliation with the court. There are signs that he followed a conscious political line. An example is the intra-Protestant peace debate in Phlay (1580). This peace treaty, one of the few during the religious wars, did not bring any benefit to the Protestants, and practically Henry concluded it with the king’s brother alone. For the first time, having developed the ability to negotiate and the art of persuasion to absolute mastery, clearly emphasizing the idea of ​​reconciling the warring parties for the benefit of France, Henry, at a representative meeting of the Huguenots (Montauban, 1581), insisted on recognizing peace. Thereafter, as Jean-Pierre Babelon said in his excellent biography of Henry IV, he became "something like a Protestant viceroy of France."

And he became even more so when Henry III's last brother, the Duke of Anjou, died in 1584. The king, from whom no one expected an heir, was left without a contender for the throne from his home. Some were afraid of this, others were looking forward to it: the younger line of the Bourbons gives an heir, and it could only be the head of the house, Henry of Navarre. The consequences of this event within the country were enormous. Since 1576, the Catholic high aristocracy under the leadership of the Guises supported the union, the League, which mixed religious motives and a class-separatist understanding of freedom. Now the Guises restored this alliance and entered into close relations with the Parisian petty bourgeoisie. The Protestants, for their part, especially their leaders, who since 1572 had taken an extremely critical tone towards the monarchy in general and the Valois in particular, changed their strategy. They now became ardent champions of the monarchical principle in France and, naturally, of legitimate succession to the throne.

Under such conditions there was no point in thinking about stability. After the events of the summer of 1584, the religious war entered its last, fiercest phase, determined on the Catholic side by the League in Paris, and on the Huguenot side by its undisputed leader, Henry of Navarre. The Catholic side not only obtained a bull from the pope, which declared all claims to the throne of Navarre untenable, but it managed to win over the king to its side and force him to cancel all religious edicts. Henry tried to gain the support of European Protestants, but in Germany he found a response only from the Calvinist Johann Casimir von Palatinate, and Elizabeth of England agreed to a few minor subsidies.

Fortunately for Navarre, the enemy front was not united. There were serious ideological contradictions between the nobility and the popular base of the League, and the developments in Paris from 1586 to 1589 became increasingly radical, similar to what happened during the Revolution two hundred years later, which did not contribute to the unity of the League. The Parisian members of the League did not like the alliance with the king very much, because they did not see in him a consistent adherent of Catholicism. When Henry III increased the military forces around Paris in 1588, it came to a real popular uprising, from which the court fled to the better fortified Blois. From then until 1594, Paris was “without a king.” After Henry III of Blois once again made an unsuccessful attempt to become the head of the League himself, he decided to seize the initiative and ordered the murder of the leaders of the League - Duke Henry of Guise and his brother Cardinal of Lorraine, who were in Blois on the occasion of the meeting of the Estates General.

This murder did not achieve its goal. Henry III did not regain the initiative; on the contrary, he lost it. The Parisian League radicalized again and formed, along with a magistrate loyal to the League, a new revolutionary city administration. The Sorbonne also did not lag behind and, in an illegal university act, freed all subjects from the oath of allegiance to the king. In March 1589, the Parliament of Paris, which had been cleared of advisers loyal to the king, appointed the Duke of Mayenne, the younger brother of the Guises, lieutenant general of the state and crown of France, as if there was no longer a legitimate king. Henry III had no choice but to get closer to his cousin, former comrade Henry of Navarre. The king and the Protestants united the remaining military forces and marched on Paris to bring the city and institutions loyal to the League into submission. When approaching Paris on August 1, 1589, Henry III was killed by the Dominican monk Jacques Clement. On his deathbed, he found the strength to ask those present to recognize Henry of Navarre as king. At the same time, he once again called on his successor to return to the bosom of the old church.

The Huguenots, who were besieging Paris, proclaimed Henry of Navarre king of France on the same day. But the leaders of the Catholic part of the besieging army did not dare to unconditionally recognize him. They declared the King of Navarre the legal heir of Henry III, but with the condition of accepting Catholicism. The Parisians elected Henry IV's uncle, the old Cardinal Charles of Bourbon, as king, but in fact the Duke of Mayenne continued to rule the rebels. Henry did not have his own forces to siege Paris. Therefore, he retreated to Normandy and fought a war between the banks of the Seine and Loire for four years. He approached Daapp first. The Duke of Mayenne pursued him at the head of a larger army. Henry took a strong position between three rivers near the Arc Castle. For two weeks there were continuous skirmishes, and on September 21 a hot battle broke out, in which the king showed himself to be a brave warrior and forced the duke to retreat, although he had three times as many forces. Henry marched on Paris. On October 21, the Huguenots captured five suburbs on the left bank of the Seine and plundered them. Henry's successes were limited to this so far. He retreated to Tours, which became his temporary residence. The following months were very important for the king. Even earlier, he announced that the Huguenots would not receive from him any new rights, except those that were determined by agreement with the former king, and that he was ready to submit all religious disputes to the court of the church council. These were acceptable conditions for both Huguenots and Catholics. The new king had an attractive appearance and a pleasant character. On the battlefield he captivated with his courage, and in peacetime he attracted with his wit and his good nature, sometimes feigned, but always amiable. Statesmen of both parties became increasingly convinced from his correspondence and from his mode of action that Henry was gifted with foresight and a clear mind, hated party intrigues and knew how to “deal blows with one hand, while the other gave alms,” and was distinguished by nobility of ideas and strength of character .

To the French people, tired of long decades of civil strife, he seemed to be precisely the person who would be able to restore inner peace.

In the spring of 1590, Henry approached Dreux. The Duke of Mayenne, wanting to free this fortress from the siege, entered into battle with the king near Ivry. According to Martin, Henry rushed into battle with the courage of a medieval knight. In a short time, the duke's army was scattered, and the royal troops pursued it until nightfall. Henry destroyed all the Catholic infantry, up to 1000 cavalry, and captured most of their artillery. The head of the League himself fled without an entourage to Mantes. This battle determined the outcome of the war. The Duke did not dare to return to Paris. The old Cardinal Bourbon soon died, and the Catholics had no one left to take his place. However, hostilities continued for several more years. Henry approached Paris and began a new siege. Soon famine began to rage in the city. If not for outside help, the townspeople would have had to surrender this time. But the Spanish king Philip II, who closely monitored the progress of affairs in France, moved the entire Dutch army to help the Catholics. In August, the Duke of Parma delivered food to Paris and forced the king to lift the siege. In 1591, Henry received significant financial assistance from the English Queen Elizabeth, recruited mercenaries and began to press out Catholics everywhere. Mant, Shatr and Noyon were taken.

In Mantes, the king first saw Gabrielle d'Etreux, who became his new lover for several years. However, they write that Henry did not immediately achieve reciprocity from her. Noticing the king's courtship, Gabrielle left Mantes for Picardy, to the castle of Kevre. Despite the military time and while the forest surrounding Kevre was filled with enemy pickets, the loving Henry with five comrades galloped after her, disguised as a peasant, with an armful of straw on his head, he again appeared before his beloved, but she drove him away with contempt. Then Henry changed his tactics and arranged Gabriel’s marriage to the elderly widower de Liancourt, whom he later removed under a plausible pretext. Gabriel finally gave in, but was not a very faithful friend to the king. At the same time, Bablon in his book “Henry IV” talks about. the fact that all of Gabrielle’s inaccessibility was suggested to her by the latter’s parents in order to further inflame the king’s passion and get as much benefit from it as possible.

Meanwhile, the war continued. In 1592, Henry besieged Rouen, considered one of the strongholds of the Catholic League. To save the capital of Normandy, the Duke of Parma invaded France for the second time from the Netherlands. However, it again did not come to a decisive battle with the Spaniards. Henry retreated from Rouen, but maintained strong positions elsewhere. It was obvious that neither party could achieve victory by military means. In 1593, the Duke of Mayenne convened the Estates General in Paris to elect a new Catholic king. From the very beginning, the deputies were in great difficulty: Henry remained the only legitimate contender for the throne.

The only person who could oppose him was the daughter of Philip II, Isabella (on her mother’s side, she was the granddaughter of Henry II). The Infanta had many supporters among the deputies, but even the most zealous of them were aware that putting a woman, and a Spaniard at that, at the head of France would not be an easy task. Meanwhile, Henry hastened to cut the ground from under his enemies, announcing on July 23 his conversion to Catholicism.

Presumably, he decided to take this step not without hesitation, although it was hardly of a religious nature. He was a sufficiently sober politician and a sufficiently inveterate freethinker that, when choosing between matters of faith and political benefits, he preferred the former to the latter. To the reproaches of his followers, the king, apparently jokingly, but in fact quite seriously, replied that “the crown of France is worth the Catholic liturgy” (or in another translation: “Paris is worth the mass”). And this was his sincere opinion. Doubts were raised by other considerations: whether he would become stronger from a change of religion, whether his former Huguenot supporters would remain faithful to him, and whether his old enemies, the Ligists, would be ready to reconcile with him. He didn't have to wait long for answers to these questions. On July 25, the king attended a Catholic service for the first time in the church in Saint-Denis, after which the Bishop of Bourges solemnly announced his return to the bosom of the Roman Church. As soon as this became known in the capital, many Parisians, despite the prohibition of the Duke of Mayenne, hastened to Saint-Denis to greet their king. The Huguenots, although they condemned Henry for his change of religion, continued to side with him, realizing that this king would never begin religious persecution against them. The Duke of Mayenne called his followers to arms in vain and urged them not to believe the king's "feigned conversion." Nobody wanted to listen to him. Cities and nobles gradually stopped fighting, some voluntarily, others selling their allegiance on more or less favorable terms.

Thus, Henry took possession of his kingdom “piece by piece and piece by piece,” as Sully put it. He entered Meaux in January 1594, which was surrendered to him by the commandant of this city, Vitry. Then he received Orleans and Bourges from La Chatre and Aix in Provence from the local parliament. In February, Lyon politicians surrendered their city. At Chartres, Henry was solemnly anointed according to the old custom of French kings and on March 22 entered Paris without a fight. At the same time, negotiations on the surrender of Rouen were completed. Laon, Amiens and other cities of Picardy, considered the cradle of the League, opened their gates one after another. Charles of Guise, nephew of the Duke of Mayenne, gave Champagne to Henry. Each of these treaties cost the king numerous concessions in the form of the distribution of honorary distinctions, political rights, and especially sums of money. Henry generously distributed titles, awarded pensions, paid other people's debts, preferring material costs to bloodshed. But where negotiations did not give the expected result, the king used weapons. In July 1595, at the Battle of Fontaine-Française, he defeated his old enemy, the Duke of Mayenne, and took Burgundy from him. But then he concluded a very tolerable agreement with him, trying in every possible way to spare his political and religious feelings: wherever possible, the king tried to be above personal enmity. In September, Pope Clement VIII, fearing that the French church might escape his influence, lifted Henry's excommunication and concluded a formal peace with him. But the war continued with the Spanish king, who stubbornly did not recognize Henry’s rights to the French crown. In 1595 the Spaniards took Cambrai, in 1596 Calais and finally in 1597 Amiens. But despite these successes, Philip still had no hope of deposing Henry. He did not have money to continue the war, and in May 1598 the Spanish king agreed to peace. All the provinces he conquered were returned to France. The last stronghold of the Ligists remained Brittany, captured by Duke Merker. Henry himself opposed him and forced him to submit.

The outcome of the religious wars in France was summed up by the Edict of Nantes, signed by the king in April 1598. This was an important act that approved the foundations of the state policy of religious tolerance. Although the Huguenots did not have free teaching and worship, they were fully equal in civil rights with Catholics and had access to all state public positions. Reformed worship was still prohibited in Paris. However, it was allowed everywhere where it had been introduced earlier, namely: in every administrative district, in the castles of nobles and even in the houses of ordinary nobles. All edicts and court sentences directed against the Huguenots during religious persecution were declared invalid. In La Rochelle, Montauban and Nîmes, the Huguenots were allowed to maintain their garrisons. They could hold congresses on political and religious issues, and also have their representatives at the court and in the State Council. As might be expected, both Catholics and Protestants were initially unhappy with the edict, believing that the other side had received too many concessions. The king had to spend a lot of effort before the edict became the basis of the religious world.

All these turbulent years, Gabrielle was the king's main favorite. During the second siege of Paris, she occupied a small pavilion on the heights of Montmartre, and in June 1594, at the castle of Coucy near Lyon, she gave birth to Henry's son Caesar. Having entered Paris, the king legitimized this child and announced that he was beginning a divorce from Margarita Valois. Obviously, he was going to marry Gabrieli later. In March 1595, the favorite was granted the title of Marquise of Monceau, and in 1597 - Duchess of Beaufort. According to Matthieu, the king informed Gabrieli about all the strife and tricks, revealed to her all his emotional wounds, and she always knew how to console the cause of his suffering. During the years of favor, she gave birth to Henry another daughter, Katerina Henrietta, and a son, Alexander. But Gabrielle never lived to see the king’s divorce. She died suddenly in April 1599 (as they thought then, from poison). When the unfortunate Henry learned about this tragedy, he had a nervous attack and went to bed.

However, the king could not indulge in sadness for long. Seven months after Gabrieli’s death, he received a formal divorce from Margarita and was soon preoccupied with two matters of the heart at once: matchmaking with Maria de’ Medici and courting Henrietta d’Antragues. Of all the king’s favorites, this turned out to be the most calculating. Before reciprocating Henry’s feelings, Henrietta demanded a formal written agreement from him: the king promised to enter into a legal marriage with her as soon as she gave birth to his son. In addition, Henrietta received one hundred thousand francs from him for the first night. Soon the favorite became pregnant with Henry, who had already agreed on a marriage with him. Marie de Medici, found himself in a difficult situation. He granted Henrietta the Marquise of Verneuil, promised to marry her to the prince of the Duke of Nevers, but she stubbornly refused to return the document given to her and threatened with scandal. In July 1600, Henrietta gave birth to a stillborn girl, and this was a misfortune. relieved the king of the need to fulfill his promise. The favorite lowered her tone and became more accommodating. The king continued to have tender feelings for her.

Meanwhile, in December 1600, Henry's wedding to Maria de Medici was celebrated. In January, Henry was already bored with his wife, and he returned to Henrietta’s arms. In 1601, both ladies gave birth to sons for the king: the queen was the Dauphine of Louis (later Louis XIII), the favorite was Gaston Henry (later the Duke of Verneuil). The following year the picture repeated itself: Maria de Medici gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, and Henrietta, Angelique. This idyllic connection was not destroyed even by a conspiracy against the king, discovered in 1604, in which the most active role was played by the favorite’s father, the old man d’Antragues. The conspirators planned to lure Henry to the Marquise Verneuil, kill him, and proclaim her son Gaston king. The court sentenced d “Antraga led to death, and his daughter to lifelong imprisonment in a monastery, but the king allowed the old man to retire to his estate, and declared Henrietta innocent. He again became friends with his favorite, although he already knew well her evil and scandalous character. The Marquise shamelessly exploited the royal generosity, asking for money and estates for every kindness. She constantly tried to humiliate the queen and completely quarreled Mary with her husband.

Only Henry's new hobby saved him from this shameful connection. In January 1609, at a ballet given by Marie de Medici, Henry became infatuated with the fourteen-year-old daughter of Constable Montmorency, Marguerite. As usual, the king tried to marry off his new lover first and chose the Prince of Condé as her wife. But as soon as the prince assumed the rights of a husband, he began to protect Margarita from the king with all his might. In November 1609, he decided to flee to Flanders. The angry king began to seek the dissolution of their marriage. At this time he was energetically preparing for war with Austria. But both enterprises remained unfinished due to the tragic death of Henry. On May 14, 1610, the king went to the arsenal in a carriage to inspect new guns. It was a hot day and the window skins were down. On the narrow and winding street of the Iron Rows, the royal carriage had to stop to let a cart of hay pass. At that moment, a man quickly jumped on the wheel, stuck his head out the window and plunged a dagger into Heinrich’s chest: “... he attacked him with fury, holding a knife in his hand. And he delivered two blows successively to His Majesty’s chest; the last blow struck straight to the heart, cutting the cardiac artery and thus depriving this good king of breath and life.” Death was instantaneous, and Heinrich did not have time to utter a single groan. Those sitting with him in the carriage did not even notice his death at first. The killer, the Catholic fanatic Ravaillac, however, did not have time to escape, was captured by the guards and executed two weeks later.

Summing up some results, we can safely say that Henry IV was completely the son of his era, having absorbed both its best and negative features. At the same time, when trying to make any personal assessment, one should not forget about the French mentality. For example, the French still believe that it is not shameful for the leader of the country to have a mistress, and in some ways even honorable. Well, the love and fertility (at least 14 children, 11 of whom were illegitimate, although they were all raised together) of Henry of Navarre only adds to his popularity among the current population of France.

There is no doubt that even Henry’s contemporaries were not clear in their judgments about the king of France. Thus, Sully in her memoirs practically “idolizes” the King of France, attributing to him a lot of merits, and blaming all his mistakes on his inner circle. For Sully, as a devoted servant, Henry of Navarre was the ideal of both a ruler and a man. Margarita Valois, in her “Memoirs of Margarita de Valois,” tries to highlight her influence on the king, paying more attention to her significance in Henry’s life: “Driven by the desire to talk not only about the long history, but also about the strength of the friendly ties connecting her with her former husband, Margarita seeks to emphasize his role in his happy fate: whether it was patronage of the prisoner of the Louvre on the St. Bartholomew’s Night of the massacre of the Huguenots or assistance at the time of aggravation of relations between the King of Navarre and the French monarch.” Some criticism in the description of Henry IV is found only in Jean-Pierre Bablon’s monograph “Henry IV”, in which the author tried to be more critical than the king’s contemporaries, but still often seeks justification for certain negative actions of Henry: “Of course, ingratitude was one from his character traits, but it should also be noted that he was sometimes forced to show it for political reasons.”

And at the same time, everyone agrees in describing some of the character traits characteristic of Henry IV:

Simplicity in communication: “his majestic appearance, so befitting his royal rank, never prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of free circulation, the resulting state of equality.” Bablon in his monograph repeatedly emphasized that Henry of Navarre was very easy to communicate with and cited numerous cases when the king of France communicated almost equally with ordinary peasants. Having studied his biography, we can conclude that this was due to his upbringing in childhood, when the young prince of Navarre played and was brought up with his fellow commoners.

A certain “trust” in people: “Due to his innate morality, he could not consider people as vicious as they could really be; lower, according to your good heart, choosing severity for their own correction as a means, without having tried all the others first.” Here, however, we should not forget that for Sully, Henry was always the ideal ruler, and the latter, despite all the insults inflicted on him, always remained faithful to him. But, studying the memoirs of Sully, one can find many examples when it was extremely difficult for Henry to make any “severe” gesture towards his courtiers, choosing the method of repeated “carrot” instead of the “stick”.

A certain devotion both in personal relationships and in the choice of one’s environment. You should not understand that Henry IV was always faithful to his wife, which there are many refutations of. It’s just that, even despite the rather peculiar life together with Margaret of Valois, Henry tried to maintain normal, friendly relations with his wife: “Nevertheless, I remained with Henry of Navarre, as required by my duty, and also because of the friendship and trust that he showed to me." This became especially clear after the divorce, when Margarita and Henry communicated quite calmly, and the former (at that time) queen received quite a good allowance. Speaking about his personal environment, it is worth giving an example when Henry, who had already converted to Catholicism, still continued to support his old comrades - the Huguenots, although secretly: “... provided small royal personal expenses, consisting mostly of rewarding secretly from the Catholics, the old his military leaders and Protestant soldiers who served him with great success.”

Henry showed the ability to charm his interlocutor, manipulate him, and attract him to his side in early childhood, when the entire royal court was simply fascinated by him: “During this visit, little Henry demonstrated a style of behavior that would be characteristic of him throughout his life. He tended to win over his interlocutor or tire him, enrage him or push him away, but within reasonable limits, so as not to bring the matter to a final break. He often got what he wanted from his opponent through flattery or ridicule. At the age of three years and two months, one could already foresee his career as a seducer.”

Henry remained in people's memory as the most popular king of all time, not only due to his state activities, but also for his love of the fair sex and drinking.

As a man of his era, Henry was quite calm about religion, using the latter as a tool to achieve his goals, be it preserving life on St. Bartholomew's Night or the desire to take Paris peacefully. Having a clear example in the person of his father, who himself changed both religion and allies more than once, Henry learned from childhood to play on the feelings of people and their attitude towards religion. We can say that this was an innovation at that time: the king did not follow the lead of his religion, but adjusted the religion to himself. His attitude towards the institution of marriage was quite typical for that period, and, even more so, for the morals of the royal court. As mentioned above, a large number of mistresses and children only added to the king’s popularity among the people. At the same time, his first wife Margarita Valois remained his ally even after his death (although, naturally, the latter also pursued her own goals): “The death of the king forced Margarita to fight to preserve peace in France - a guarantee of the prosperity she had acquired. To this end, she participated in the last assembly of the Estates General in 1614, trying to bring the irreconcilable deputies of the estates to agreement with a reminder of the military threat to France. Confident in her ability to achieve what she wanted, Margarita made every effort to strengthen the new dynasty on the throne in the person of young Louis XIII.”



Introduction

Henry IV Bourbon ( Henry of Navarre, Henry the Great, fr. Henri IV, Henri le Grand, Henri de Navarre; December 13, 1553 (15531213), Pau, Béarn - killed May 14, 1610, Paris) - leader of the Huguenots at the end of the Wars of Religion in France, king of Navarre from 1572 (as Henry III), king of France from 1589 (actually from 1594) , founder of the French royal Bourbon dynasty.

Henry IV's rights to the throne were confirmed by Henry III, who, being mortally wounded, ordered his supporters to swear allegiance to the Navarrese monarch, but he was able to become king of France only after a long struggle. In order to neutralize his rivals, on July 25, 1593, Henry of Navarre converted to Catholicism and already on March 22, 1594, entered Paris (on this occasion, Henry IV is credited with the saying “Paris is worth a mass”). In 1595, the Pope granted Henry absolution, lifting his excommunication from the church and the declaration of a heretic. To end interfaith hostility, Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes on April 13, 1598, which granted freedom of religion to Protestants, and soon after this the Huguenot Wars ended.

In foreign policy, Henry, inspired by Minister Sully, pursued far-reaching plans for a pan-European union of Christian sovereigns.

Killed in Paris on May 14, 1610 by Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac. He was buried on July 1, 1610 in the royal abbey of Saint-Denis. The widow, Marie de Medici, who ruled until 1617, was declared regent until the heir (9-year-old Louis XIII) came of age.

1. Biography

1.1. Childhood and youth

Henry IV was born in Pau, in the castle of his maternal grandfather, Henry d'Albret. According to legend, immediately after birth, the grandfather took his grandson in his arms, ran a clove of garlic over his lips and dripped wine on them. This custom was widespread in those days to prevent disease.

Henry spent his childhood in Coarraz (a small town and castle in Béarn). Although Henry was baptized according to the rites of the Catholic Church, true to the principles of Calvinism, his mother Jeanne d'Albret raised him in the spirit of Protestantism.

With the accession of Charles IX in 1561, Henry's father Antoine de Bourbon took him to France to court, where Henry lived next to the princes of the royal house, with whom he was about the same age. The issue of choosing a religion was a conflict for his parents. Mother insisted on Protestantism, father on Catholicism.

During the first of the religious wars, Henry lived in Montargis under the patronage of the Duchess of Chartres, Renee of France. A Protestant by religion, Renee, however, managed to turn her castle into an island of religious neutrality. After the war and the death of his father, Henry remained at court as guarantor of peace between France and Navarre. Jeanne d'Albret obtained from Catherine de' Medici a guarantee of his education and appointment as governor of Guienne in 1563.

From 1564 to 1566, Henry accompanied the French royal family on the Great Tour of France, a journey undertaken by Charles IX (King of France) at the insistence of Catherine de' Medici. The trip was intended to familiarize the royal court with the state of affairs in France, devastated by the first religious war. During this journey, Henry met his mother. In 1567, Jeanne d'Albret insisted on his return to Béarn.

In 1568, Henry took part in his first military campaign - the Third War of Religion. Under the leadership of the Protestant Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, he took part in the battles of Jarnac, La Roche l'Abaye and Moncontour.

1.2. King of Navarre

At the French court

In 1572, after the death of his mother Jeanne d'Albret, Henry became king of Navarre under the name Henry III. On August 18, 1572, he married Margaret of Valois in Paris, the sister of King Charles IX, also known as “Queen Margot.” This political marriage, which Jeanne d'Albret opposed, was intended to reconcile Catholics and Protestants. Since the newlyweds belonged to different faiths, the wedding took place not inside Notre Dame Cathedral, but on its porch. Several holidays followed.

However, due to the extremely tense situation in Paris, a few days later, on August 24, the massacre of the Huguenots by Catholics began, known as St. Bartholomew's Night. Henry escaped death due to his high position and timely conversion to Catholicism. Forced to stay at the French court, Henry became close to the king's brother Francis of Alençon and participated in the siege of La Rochelle in 1573. In April 1574, after the so-called “conspiracies of the dissatisfied,” he and Alençon were imprisoned in the Castle of Vincennes. Subsequently, Charles IX pardoned him and left him at court. With the accession of Henry III, he received a new royal pardon in Lyon and was present at the coronation in Reims.

Courtyard in Neraka

Henry IV of Navarre

After spending three years at court, Henry fled on February 5, 1576. Reunited with his supporters, he again converted to Protestantism (June 13 of the same year). He supported the “disaffected” (the association of Catholics and Protestants against the government), but leaning more toward moderate views, he did not find a common language with the Prince of Condé, who desperately fought for the triumph of Protestantism. Henry of Navarre tried not to quarrel with the French court and even continued to serve as governor (the king's military representative) in Guienne. In 1577 he took part in the sixth religious war.

From this time on, Henry faced distrust from Protestants, who reproached him for religious hypocrisy. He avoided Béarn, the stronghold of Calvinism. However, Catholics were also hostile to him. In December 1576, he almost died in an ambush in Oz, and Bordeaux, the capital of Guienne, which he ruled, closed its doors to him. Henry settled on the banks of the Garonne at Lectoure and Agen, next to which was his own castle at Nérac. The royal court consisted of nobles belonging to both religions.

From October 1578 to May 1579, Catherine de Medici stayed with him and tried to reconcile the kingdom. Hoping to gain leverage over Henry, she brought with her his wife, Margarita.

For several months the Navarre couple lived in grand style in the Neraka castle. The court amused itself with hunting, games and dancing, to the great displeasure of the Calvinists. The court also attracted educated people (for example, Montaigne and Du Bart).

Henry then took part in the seventh religious war, initiated by his fellow believers. The capture of Cahors in May 1580, where he escaped massacre and plunder despite three days of street fighting, helped to increase his popularity.

The gallant adventures of the king led to conflicts in the still childless family and forced Margarita to return to Paris. A quarrel in Agen in 1585 marked their final break.

Heir to the French throne

King Henry III of France Valois

In 1584, Francis of Alençon, brother of King Henry III and heir to the throne, dies without leaving an heir. Henry of Navarre, one of the leaders of the Protestant party, becomes the heir to the throne by law. The childless King Henry III sends Duke Nogaret d'Epernon to Henry to convince him to convert to Catholicism and return to court. However, a few months later, under pressure from the Guises, the leaders of the Catholic party, he was forced to sign the Treaty of Nemours, outlaw Protestants and start a war against Henry.

A conflict begins in which Henry of Navarre clashes several times with the Duke of Mayenne. The Pope again excommunicates him from the church, and in 1587 Henry defeats the royal army at the Battle of Cutra.

Significant changes in the political situation occur in 1588. The death of the Prince of Condé puts Henry at the head of the Protestants. The murder of the Duke of Guise reconciles Henry III and Henry of Navarre. At the castle at Plessis-les-Tours, both kings sign a treaty on April 30, 1589. Jointly fighting against the League, which controls Paris and most of France, they besiege the capital in July of that year. On August 1, 1589, Henry III dies from wounds inflicted on him by the fanatical monk Jacques Clement (being a pious man, the king ordered church leaders to be allowed to see him without hindrance). On his deathbed, Henry III officially recognizes Henry of Navarre as his heir, who henceforth becomes King Henry IV of France. True, this is still rather a formality, since three quarters of the king’s subjects do not recognize him as such. The Catholic League refuses to recognize the legality of such succession to the throne.

King of France (beginning of reign - conquest of the kingdom)

Fight against the League

Henry IV - winner of the League in the form of Mars, by Jacob Bunel (National Museum of the Castle of Pau)

Realizing his weaknesses, Henry IV begins to fight on the ideological front. Royalist Catholics demand that he convert to Catholicism, but over the previous nine years, Henry has already committed three apostasies. He refuses, although he states in a hastily drafted declaration that he will honor the Catholic faith. This causes confusion and vacillation in the camp of his Protestant supporters. Some even leave the army (for example, Claude de la Tremouille), and Catholic supporters of Henry III (but not Henry IV) follow their example, not wanting to serve a Protestant. The army is halved overnight (from 40,000 to 20,000 people).

The weakened Henry IV is forced to abandon the siege of Paris. With the support of Spain, the League goes on the offensive and pushes him back all the way to Dieppe, where he retreats in the hope of an alliance with Elizabeth I of England, while his troops scatter.

However, Henry IV defeats Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne on September 29, 1589 at the Battle of Arc. Attracted by Henry's charisma, the following joined the ranks of his supporters: Francois de Bourbon-Conti and Francois de Montpensier (princes of the blood), Longueville, Luxembourg and Rohan-Montbazon (dukes and peers of France); Marshals Biron and d'Aumont as well as numerous nobles of Champagne, Picardy and Ile-de-France. Henry again fails to take Paris, but he takes Vendôme from the raid. There he especially makes sure that the churches remain intact and the residents do not suffer from the raids of his army. Calmed by this precedent, all the cities between Tours and Le Mans surrender without a fight. At the Battle of Ivry on March 14, 1590, Henry managed to turn the tide of the battle with his heroism. He led the soldiers into the attack, wearing a helmet with a white plume, visible from afar. When his army began to retreat, Henry stopped the fleeing, exclaiming: “If you don’t want to fight, then at least watch me die!” After the victory at Ivry, he besieged Paris. As soon as Paris and other cities of the League came over to his side, he did not persecute the leaders of the League, but bribed and thus received their support.

Meanwhile, Protestants accuse Henry of infringing on their religious freedoms. Indeed, in July 1591, with the Edict of Mantes (not to be confused with the Edict of Nantes of 1598), Henry restored the provisions of the Edict of Poitiers of 1577, which greatly limited the freedom of religion of Protestants.

The Duke of Mayenne, during the war with Henry, convenes the Estates General of 1593 with the aim of electing a new king. For the Duke, this idea turned out to be more than unsuccessful, since the States began active negotiations with the king’s party, achieving first a truce, and then the king’s conversion to Catholicism. Having carefully considered the current state of affairs: the depletion of available military forces, low morale and insufficient funding, Henry acts in accordance with political expediency - he renounces Calvinism. The ground for this, however, was prepared in advance - on April 4, 1592, in a special declaration (referred to as “expedian,” which can be loosely translated as “desire for an amicable agreement”), Henry expresses his intention to be acquainted with the doctrines of Catholicism.

The king solemnly renounces Protestantism on July 25, 1593 in the Basilica of Saint-Denis. A historical anecdote, not confirmed by reliable sources, attributes to him on this occasion the phrase: “Paris is worth a mass.” In order to speed up the annexation of cities and provinces (in particular their governors), he pours in promises and gifts amounting to a total of 2,500,000 livres. To pay for this attraction of unprecedented generosity, it was necessary to subsequently increase taxes by 2.7 times, which caused popular unrest in the provinces most loyal to the king: Poitou, Saintonge, Limousin and Périgord.

Henry IV was crowned on February 27, 1594 in Chartres Cathedral (contrary to ancient tradition - not in Reims Cathedral, like all other French monarchs). His entry into Paris on March 22, 1594, and finally the absolution granted by Pope Clement VIII on September 17, 1595, ensured the gradual inclusion of the remainder of the aristocracy and the common people, except for the most extreme individuals. For example, Jean Chatel, who makes an attempt on the king's life near the Louvre on December 27, 1594.

War with Spain

In 1595 Henry IV officially declares war on Spain. During the campaign, the king faces great difficulties when fending off Spanish attacks in Picardy. The capture of Amiens by the Spaniards, as well as the Spanish landing in Brittany, where the governor (Duke de Mercoeur), the relatives of the Guises and the son-in-law of the late Henry III do not recognize him as king, only worsen Henry’s already dangerous position.

On top of everything else, the king loses the support of the Protestant nobility. Following the example of La Tremoye and Bouillon, they refrain from participating in hostilities. Shocked by his apostasy, as well as the wave of conversions to Catholicism he caused, they accuse the king of treason. Protestants often hold assemblies in the hope of resuscitating their political organization. Some even go so far as to intercept royal taxes.

Having conquered Brittany, Henry signed the Edict of Nantes on April 30, 1598. And on May 2, 1598, the Peace of Vervins was concluded between France and Spain. After decades of civil war, peace has finally descended on France.

King of France (reconciliation of the kingdom)

Second marriage

Maria Medici

Henry is already approaching fifty, but there is still no legal heir. For several years now, Gabrielle d'Estrée has shared his fate, but she is not noble enough to claim the crown. The de facto queen, however, evokes both the adulation of the courtesans and the discontent of the royal entourage. Her sudden death in 1599 opens up broad prospects for Henry to enter into a marriage beneficial to the country.

In December 1599, for considerable compensation, he sought the annulment of his marriage to the childless Margot. In April 1600, the king, in exchange for a huge sum of 600 thousand gold ecus from the house of Medici, agreed, through his representative in Florence, to sign a marriage contract with Maria de' Medici, the youngest daughter of the richest man in Europe - the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco de' Medici and Joanna of Austria, who never saw. In October, in the grand Palazzo Pitti, a wedding was held in the absence of the groom - by proxy. On December 17, 1600, the wedding of 47-year-old Henry IV with 27-year-old Florentine Maria de Medici took place in Lyon. The birth next year of the Dauphin, the future Louis XIII, stabilizes the king's authority.

Henry compromises himself by continuing an extramarital affair with Henriette d'Entragues - an ambitious young lady who does not hesitate to blackmail the king in order to legitimize her children from him, and even participates in conspiracies against the king.

Revival and reconciliation of the kingdom

In his reign, Henry IV relied on gifted advisers and ministers, such as Baron de Rosny - the future Duke of Sully, the Catholic Nicolas de Villeroy and the economist Barthelemy de Laffema. Years of peace allow the treasury to be filled. Henry IV orders the construction of the Grand Gallery in the Louvre, which connected the palace with the Tuileries. He establishes a blueprint for modern urbanism. Continues the construction of the New Bridge, begun under his predecessor. He organizes the construction of two new squares in Paris: Place Royale (now Place des Vosges) and Place Dauphine.

During his reign, there was a peasant uprising in the center of the country, which the king had to suppress with the help of the army. In 1601, the Treaty of Lyon determined the exchange of territories between Henry IV and the Duke of Savoy. The Duke cedes to France the lands of Bresse, Bugey, Gex and Valromet in exchange for the Marquisate of Salus, located beyond the Alps.

After signing the treaty, Henry has to deal with numerous conspiracies inspired by Spain and Savoy. He has to execute Duke Biron and imprison the Duke of Angoulême, the last of the Valois, in the Bastille.

To appease former supporters of the League, Henry IV favors the return to France of the Jesuits, who during the war had called for the assassination of the king. He also makes peace with the Duke of Lorraine and marries his sister Catherine to his son. Henry tries to show himself as an exemplary Catholic and persuades his sister, as well as his minister Sully, to convert to Catholicism. However, both of them showed integrity in this matter.

Expansion of the royal domain

At the time of his accession to the French throne, Henry was the largest feudal lord in France. His various fiefs were scattered throughout the country. In addition, he was the ruler of territories that were not formally part of the French kingdom - such as the Kingdom of Navarre and the adjacent county of Béarn, Henry's homeland.

One of the constitutional laws of the old French monarchy stated that all apanages returned to the state when the prince who owned them acquired the crown. However, Henry IV long resisted the annexation of his personal domains. Letters Patent dated April 1 even declared that they would remain completely separate until he ordered otherwise. The Parisian Parliament protested such a statement and refused to register it, despite two successive demands. But other courts, more obedient or less independent, followed the wishes of the sovereign, and the letters were approved. Henry acted according to these regulations. A few years later (January 31, 1599), giving his sister in marriage to the son of the Duke of Lorraine, he allocated to her the duchy of Albret, the counties of Armagnac and Rodez, and the viscounty of Limoges as a widow's share. But the princess did not live long, and her marriage was childless. She continued to persist in heresy, neither the example nor the calls of her brother could return her to the bosom of the Church; and on her deathbed, in response to persistent admonitions, she answered: No, I will never accept a religion that would make me assume that my mother is condemned to eternal torment.

After her death, the lands transferred to her were returned to her brother. Then the Parisian Parliament renewed its complaints. The Emperor resisted for now; but in 1607, when he already had two sons, he finally gave in, canceled the letters patent and recognized that upon his accession to the throne, all fiefs dependent on the crown were returned to it and annexed to it without the right of revocation . Navarre and Béarn, sovereign countries, retained their special position. Everything else was included in the State. These were the duchies of Alençon, Vendôme, Albret and Beaumont, the counties of Foix, Armagnac, Fezansac, Gore, Bigorre, Rodez, Périgord, La Fère, Marle, Soissons, Limoges and Tarascon, the viscounties of Marsan, Thursan, Gawardan, Lomagne, Fezansage and Tart, four valleys - Or, Barousse, Magnoac and Nest, and so many other lands that it would be simply boring to list them. Thus, this one sovereign increased the royal domain almost as much as all the other branches of the Capetians combined. ...

- "Jean-Justine Monlesi "History of Gascony"

Thus, under Henry IV, the last major expansion of the royal domain took place at the expense of intra-French fiefs. The centuries-long process of overcoming the feudal fragmentation of the French kingdom and its unification into a centralized state was generally completed.

It should also be noted that, along with all other feudal possessions and rights of Henry IV, suzerainty (together with the Spanish bishopric of Urgell) in relation to Andorra passed to the French crown, which formally remains to this day - the President of the French Republic still remains along with the Bishop of Urgell formal co-ruler of this Iberian state.

Period of economic recovery

Little by little France is recovering. In 1610, the level of agricultural production reached the level of 1560. A tapestry manufactory was created. Barthelemy de Laffema and François Troc, inspired by the work of the Protestant agronomist Olivier de Serres, established silk culture, planting millions of mulberry trees in the Cevennes and other regions. The first navigable Briard Canal in the history of France was dug, connecting the Seine and Loire. Other projects that were put on hold after Heinrich's death are also being prepared.

Concerned about the welfare of his subjects, the king often said that he wished that each of his subjects would be able to put a chicken in a pot on Sundays. This “chicken in a pot” subsequently became the reason for numerous witticisms and epigrams addressed to Henry and his descendants, a reason for discussions among politicians, philosophers and economists, as well as a common saying. The agricultural orientation of the economy is formulated by Sully in the phrase: “pâturage et laborage sont les deux mamelles de la France” (pasture (livestock) and plowing are the two breadwinners of France).

Society, however, is still far from complete pacification: the soldiers left idle form organized gangs, which terrify the province and against which they have to fight with the help of the army throughout the 17th century. Nobles die en masse in duels, bride kidnappings cause private conflicts between families, and here again the intervention of the king is required.

French colonization of America

Following the tradition of his predecessors, Henry continues expeditions to South America and supports the project of colonizing Brazil. But things are best unfolding for France in Canada and in Quebec in particular. During Henry's reign, an expedition led by Samuel de Champlain was made, which marked the beginning of the actual colonization of this region, while exploratory expeditions were carried out before.

Murder

The end of Henry's reign was marked by worsening relations with the Habsburgs and a new war with Spain. Henry intervenes in the conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (Catholic) and the Protestant German princes. The flight of Prince Condé to the court of Infanta Isabella in 1609 again strains relations between Paris and Brussels.

Neither the Pope nor civilians like the prospects of a new European war. Both Protestants and Catholics recall their hostility towards Henry, with whom both have old scores to settle. Even within the queen’s inner circle, an opposition party arises.

Assassination of Henry IV

Marie de' Medici was crowned at Saint-Denis on May 13, 1610. The next day, May 14, 1610, Henry was assassinated by the Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac. Jumping into the carriage as he walked, the king's killer dealt him the first blow with a knife. The slightly wounded king turned in the carriage to Montazon, who was sitting next to him, and cried out: “I am wounded,” after which he received a second blow to the chest, which struck the lung and cut the aorta, and then a third. At the request of the queen, his body was transferred to the Basilica of Saint-Denis On July 1, 1610, Henry was succeeded by his eldest son Louis (King Louis XIII) at the age of 9 under his mother's regency.

2. The image of Henry IV for posterity

Statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf in Paris

The activities of Henry IV, who strove for the welfare and peace of his subjects, largely corresponded to the needs of the people, in whose memory Henry of Navarre remained as le bon roi Henri- “Good King Henri.” At the beginning of the 18th century, in Voltaire's epic poem The Henriad, the king appeared as an idealized hero who ruled France “both by right of conquest and by right of birth.” The Bourbons appealed to the popular image of Henry IV during the attempts at the Restoration at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries, and then during the Restoration itself. The famous song attributed to Du Corroy - “Vive Henri Quatre” is dedicated to him: “Long live Henry the Fourth, long live the brave king, this four-times the devil, who had a triple gift: to drink, to fight and to be a gallant gentleman,” which was very popular during the era of the Napoleonic Wars and later.
This song has a Russian-language version - “Once upon a time there was Henri the Fourth. He was a glorious king." - free translation of the French original (the meter has been changed; melody by Tikhon Khrennikov). In the play “A Long Time Ago” by Alexander Gladkov, on which E. Ryazanov’s film “The Hussar Ballad” was based, the cheerful beginning of this song is sung by the French at the beginning of the campaign, and the sad ending is sung by the defeated and retreating.

3. The fate of the body

Henry IV was buried in the Abbey of Saint-Denis. During the French Revolution in 1793, revolutionaries opened up the royal burial site and dumped the remains of the monarchs in a mass grave. One of the revolutionaries cut off the head of Henry IV. Since then, the king's head has been sold at auction more than once, and it has been in various private collections. In 2008, the person who received the head turned to the former custodian of the Palace of Versailles, the most authoritative French expert on Henry IV, historian Jean-Pierre Babelon, with a request to conduct an examination of its authenticity. In December 2010, a group of nineteen scientists led by pathologist Philippe Charlier recognized the head as genuine.

4. Family

1st wife: (18 August 1572, divorced 1599) Margarita French, known as Queen Margot(1553 - 1615), Queen of Navarre. There were no children.

2nd wife: (December 17, 1600) Maria Medici(1572 - 1642), Queen of France. Had 6 children:

1. Louis XIII the Just(1601 - 1643), king of France.

   Elizabeth de Bourbon (Isabelle of France)(1603 - 1644), Queen of Spain; husband: (November 25, 1615, Bordeaux) Philip IV, King of Spain.

   Christina de Bourbon(1606 - 1663), Duchess of Savoy; husband: (from 1619) Victor Amadeus I of Savoy, Duke of Savoy.

   Nicolas de Bourbon(1607 - 1611), Duke of Orleans.

   Gaston d'Orléans(1608 - 1660), Duke of Orleans; 1st wife (1626): Marie de Bourbon-Monpensier (1605 - 1627), Duchess of Montpensier; 2nd wife (1632): Margaret of Lorraine (1615 - 1672), Princess of Lorraine.

   Henrietta Maria de Bourbon(1609 - 1669), Queen of England; husband: (13 June 1625) Charles I Stuart, king of England.

In addition, Henry IV had 11 recognized illegitimate children, of whom the most famous Cesar de Bourbon(1594 - 1665), Duke de Vendôme and de Beaufort, who started a side line.

References:

In fact, this phrase, which very accurately characterizes the situation, is found in the anonymous literary work of 1622 "Les Caquets de l"accouchée" - "Gossip", in which it is pronounced by the Duke of Sully in response to Henry IV when asked why he does not go to mass as often as the king. You can view a fragment of the work here.

Until the Great French Revolution, the Kingdom of France was officially called the "Kingdom of France and Navarre"

Jean-Justin Monlezun History of Gascony, vol. 5, book. 12. http://armagnac.narod.ru/Monlezun/Monl_G.htm.

for example [ON THE PROMISE OF THE NEW KING LOUIS XVI] Well, finally, everywhere we'll have a chicken in a pot for lunch: After all, this bird, as you know, has been plucked for two hundred years. French classical epigram M., Fiction 1979 p. 293 can be found here

Catherine II - Voltaire“ However, in Russia taxes are so moderate that we don’t have a single peasant who, whenever he feels like it, doesn’t eat chicken, and in other Provinces for some time they began to prefer turkeys to chicken.”.you can find it here

The government promises the people a chicken in every pot, and to begin with, they give a tax inspector for every chicken.- Lawrence Peter can be found here

Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal du Richelieu. Memoirs. M. Transitbook. 2006. p. 99

I. Rakuzina. Henry IV found his head

Experts have identified the head of Henry of Navarre

Henry of Navarre - the future king of France Henry IV was born on December 13, 1553. He was brought up under the influence of his mother, Queen Jeanne, an ardent supporter of Calvinism.

After her death, Jeanne's throne was inherited by him, and he became king of Navarre. At this time, France was torn apart by religious wars between Catholics and Protestants.

The wedding between Henry of Navarre and the daughter of the Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, was supposed to put an end to the civil strife.

After the peace treaty concluded in Saint-Germain, the French royal court was preparing for the wedding. But the plan did not come true; just a few days after the solemn wedding of the royal couple, Catholics insidiously attacked the Huguenots, staging a bloody massacre - St. Bartholomew's Night.

Henry IY of Navarre miraculously managed to stay in. His entire retinue was destroyed. In order to save his life, the future Henry IV changed his religion, converting to Catholicism. He continued to live in the royal palace, essentially being a prisoner of the Louvre and the French crown.

Henry never abandoned the thought of breaking free and, having seized a favorable pretext, he broke free in the winter of 1576. As a result of his escape, he ended up in Anjou, where, together with the brother of the French king, he began his struggle against the French crown, which subsequently ended in a truce in Beaulieu.

Throughout all these events, the wife of Henry IY of Navarre, Margaret, continued to live in Paris, surrounded by lovers, whom she often changed. Her relationship with her husband was indifferent; she was indifferent to him and his fate. The future French king Henry, however, did not complain about his wife’s inattention.

He was surrounded on all sides by the most beautiful women. And it has always been like this. One of his most famous favorites was Madame de Sauve. In 1578, a temporary peace was concluded between Catherine de' Medici and Henry of Navarre when she and her daughter, Henry's wife, arrived in Navarre.

The temporary calm broke out again into war. The Catholics, united in the League, decided to overthrow Henry III from the throne. His ardent opponent was Henry de Guise. When the king's associates killed the Duke of Guise in November 1588, his younger brother, the Duke, became the leader of the League. Feeling his weakness and defenselessness, King Henry III decided to join forces with the King of Navarre. Having united their troops, they besieged Paris. But on August 1, tragedy occurred - the king was treacherously stabbed to death by a religious fanatic named Clément.

After the death of Henry III, the Huguenots proclaimed Henry IY of Navarre king of France. Catholics agreed to support them only if Henry accepted Catholicism. Military operations continued. The rebels, led by the Duke of Mayenne, remained in Paris. Henry IY, not having enough strength, retreated from Paris to Tours.

A brave warrior and strong opponent, Henry IV captivated with his courage and bravery. Possessing foresight and a sharp mind, Henry pursued the right policy in relation to the two warring parties. Punishing those who were justly guilty, he knew how to reward the winners. France continued to languish from incessant hostilities. In the spring of 1590, the king of France approached Dreux and besieged the fortress, where the Duke of Mayenne was at that time.

And then there was the blockade of Paris. Soon Paris and other cities of France came over to his side. Several years of struggle and the conoration of Henry IV took place on February 27, 1594. Then there was the war with Spain (1595-1598), years of peace and the revival of France. The economy grew and the treasury was filled, squares and bridges were built.

Give a description of Henry 4 1. When and in what country did the historical figure live and act, what social group did he belong to by origin? What were his goals, plans, and by what means did he strive to realize them? 2. Describe the appearance and character of the historical figure. What personal qualities helped him achieve his goal, and what hindered him? What do you appreciate about his character and what do you disapprove of? 3. List the main results of its activities. What goals were achieved? 4. Establish in the interests of what social forces this historical figure acted.

5. Evaluate the activities of this outstanding person: to whom it was useful, beneficial, whether it contributed to progress or hindered it. 6. Express your attitude towards the historical figure. Please help me, at least part of this, I think the reward is not small. Thanks in advance. URGENTLY

Answers:

Born December 13, 1553 in Pau (Béarn). Son of Antoine Bourbon, King of Navarre, a side branch of the French Capetian ruling house. Henry, who ascended the French throne after the extinction of another branch of the Capetians, the Valois, is considered the founder of the Bourbon royal dynasty. The young king of Navarre, Henry, became the banner of the Protestant (Huguenot) party during the religious war in France.

Having reached adulthood, he led the Huguenots. In order to strengthen his position, he was ready to compromise with the Catholics and especially with the Parisian court. The marriage of Henry IV to Margaret, the sister of the French king Charles IX, turned into a bloody massacre of thousands of Huguenots who came to the wedding (Bartholomew's Night - on August 24, 1572). The king, who at the beginning of the first part is shown as a serious and intelligent figure, gradually takes less and less part in political events. With Henry IV, approximately the same - only more detailed and smoother - evolution occurs as with King John. As the finale approaches, the king's moral character comes to the fore. The illness deprives Heinrich of physical strength, and internal struggle and remorse deprives him of moral strength. But this is precisely why the individual portrait of the king, which very accurately corresponds to the historical prototype, is especially interesting as an example of a combination of political and moral characteristics of the character.

Henry IV (1553-1610), king of Navarre (from 1562), French king (from 1589), first of the Bourbon dynasty.

Pleshkova S.L. Henry IV of France

Son of Antoine Bourbon, King of Navarre, a side branch of the French Capetian ruling house. Henry, who ascended the French throne after the extinction of another branch of the Capetians, the Valois, is considered the founder of the Bourbon royal dynasty.

The young king of Navarre, Henry, became the banner of the Protestant (Huguenot) party during the religious war in France. Having reached adulthood, he led the Huguenots. In order to strengthen his position, he was ready to compromise with the Catholics and especially with the Parisian court. The marriage of Henry IV to Margaret, the sister of the French king Charles IX, turned into a bloody massacre of thousands of Huguenots who came to the wedding (Bartholomew's Night - on August 24, 1572).

The massacre embittered the Huguenot party. Henry Bourbon, returning to his native south, led the resistance that began here. In 1576, the cities and nobility of the South created the Huguenot Confederation, which placed significant forces at the disposal of the Bourbons. In 1588, the French king Henry III, expelled from Paris by the Catholic League, was forced to resort to the help of the Huguenot leader. Both Henrys set out on a joint campaign against the rebellious capital of France. But in 1589, Henry III died at the hands of an assassin. Henry of Bourbon proclaimed himself king.

In the North, however, claims to the throne were put forward by the head of the League, the Duke of Mayenne. In 1593, Henry IV, trying to gain the support of the Parisians, converted to Catholicism. At the same time, he declared: “Paris is worth a mass.”

In 1594, Henry entered the capital. According to the Edict of Nantes in 1598, Catholicism was recognized as the state religion of France, but the Huguenots were granted freedom of religion. The Huguenot regions of the South received broad autonomy, including the right to maintain their own army.

After the end of the civil wars, Henry began to strengthen the absolute monarchy and took a number of measures that revived the French economy. He finally reunited his hereditary kingdom of Navarre with France. For many years, Henry IV fought against the Habsburg dynasty that ruled Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Mutual political intrigues ended with the death of Henry IV on May 14, 1610 in Paris at the hands of Ravaillac, an adherent of the pro-Spanish Catholic party. This prevented the pan-European war he was planning against the Habsburgs.

Henry IV (Henri IV) (1553-1610), nicknamed the Great, also known as Henry of Navarre, French king.

World history

Henry, the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, was born in Pau on December 13, 1553. His mother was a staunch Protestant, and Henry received a corresponding upbringing, but he was never a fanatic in matters of faith.

Back in the late 1560s, Henry was seen as the head of the Protestant party in France. When his mother died in 1572, Henry was proclaimed king of Navarre, and on August 18 of the same year he married Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX. The marriage was purely political and aimed at reconciling the Catholic and Protestant parties.

6 days later, on August 24, Henry managed to survive the massacre of Protestants on St. Bartholomew's Night - only at the cost of converting to Catholicism, after which he remained a virtual prisoner at the French court for almost 4 years. Only in February 1576 did Henry manage to escape to the south, where he returned to his former religion and led military operations against the Catholic League.

In 1584, François of Anjou, brother of King Henry III, died, leaving Henry of Navarre as the only legal contender for the throne in the event of the death of the childless king. In April 1589, the king joined Henry of Navarre in the fight against the League, but on August 1 he was mortally wounded near Paris by a Dominican monk.

Before his death, Henry III once again declared that Henry of Navarre was his heir, but the new king managed to achieve recognition throughout the country only after a long struggle and efforts aimed at reconciliation. The last and decisive step was his adoption of Catholicism on July 25, 1593, which finally disarmed most of his opponents.

On March 22, 1594, Henry entered Paris - in accordance with the famous saying attributed to him: “Paris is worth a mass.” In 1595, the Pope granted him absolution, thereby annulling his previous excommunication. Henry IV, the first French Bourbon king, sought to pacify the kingdom and restore its prosperity after 40 years of almost continuous religious wars. His famous Edict of Nantes on April 13, 1598 guaranteed the Huguenots their rights.

Although Catholicism remained the state religion, the Huguenots could now freely conduct religious services in their places of traditional residence (with the exception of Paris) and hold church councils. The ban on Protestants holding government positions was lifted. Henry's interest in overseas expansion and the acquisition of colonies reveals in him an adherent of the same teachings of mercantilism that were later developed by Cardinal Richelieu and J.B. Colbert.

Foreign policy was directed against the Habsburgs, and on May 2, 1598, after many years of war, Spain was forced to make peace in Vervene. In 1600, Henry obtained papal permission to divorce Margaret and entered into a second marriage - with Maria de Medici, niece of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who bore him four children (he had no children in his first marriage). Henry was assassinated in Paris on May 14, 1610 by the religious fanatic François Ravaillac.

Part I. So, when?

Part II. What did the French kings take the oath on?(lower on the page).

As was said in the first part, on the Reims Bible (Texte du sacre)!

What kind of bible is this and what is it famous for? Historian M. Pogodin writes that “Charles of Lorraine, who enjoyed special respect and the confidence of King Henry II of France, in 1547 was sent by him on Church affairs to Rome, to Pope Paul III. It can be assumed that it was on this trip that he obtained this manuscript. The only certainty is that it appeared in France under the Cardinal of Lorraine, i.e. between 1545 and 1574." Charles, as Archbishop of Reims, donated it to his cathedral on the eve of Easter in 1574. An expensive binding was made for the manuscript with attachments of holy relics and precious decorations. Here the Gospel was kept as a mysterious oriental manuscript, on which the kings of France began to take an oath. Cardinal Charles of Lorraine himself wore this manuscript on his chest during ceremonial processions as a great shrine.

The French kings who took the oath on it since 1552 were the following: in 1559 - Francis II; in 1561 – Charles IX, son of Catherine de Medici; in 1575 - his brother Henry III; in 1589, Henry IV (the first of the Bourbons) for some reason shied away from this tradition; in 1610 - Louis XIII; in 1654 - Louis XIV, subsequently also Louis XV and XVI. The tradition was interrupted by the French Revolution.

In 1717, Emperor Peter I arrived in France on state affairs. Traveling to different cities of this country, on June 27 he visited the ancient city of Reims, the traditional place of coronation of French kings. In the Reims Cathedral, Catholic priests, showing special attention to the distinguished guest, showed him their relic - an old strange book written in mysterious signs that no one understood.

Peter picked up the book and, to the surprise of those present, began to freely read aloud the first part of the manuscript aloud to the shocked clergy. The Emperor explained that this was a Church Slavonic text. As for the second part, neither the royal guest nor his entourage could read it. The French were amazed by what happened, and this story was recorded as one of the most remarkable events during Peter I’s visit to France.

Just a few years later, on June 18, 1726, an envoy of Tsar Peter I, passing through Reims to the Aachen waters, inspected the sacristy of the Reims Cathedral together with his secretary. They were also shown the famous Gospel, which they not only read very easily, but even translated, at the request of one canon of Reims, the first page. The king's envoy could not read the second part. He said that this book contains Gospel readings in Slavic, but in a very ancient script. Only in 1789, the English traveler Ford-Gille, having seen one Glagolitic book in the Vienna library, realized that the second part of the Reims Gospel was written in Glagolitic alphabet.

The further history of the Reims Gospel is as follows: during the Great French Revolution in 1793, by order of the first consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, all manuscripts, including the Reims Gospel, were transferred to the municipal library of the city of Reims. Here it was kept in perfect order, deprived only of all decorations, jewelry and holy relics. Since 1799 in Russia, this manuscript was considered irretrievably lost, until the Russian scientist A.I. Turgenev in 1835, examining foreign archives, discovered its location.

Now this relic is still kept in the Reims City Library. “It is written on parchment and consists of 47 sheets, of which 45 are written on both sides, and the remaining two are empty. It is bound in two oak wood boards and covered with dark red morocco. The jewelry belongs to the genus of Byzantine art of the 9th or 10th century. The manuscript is quite often decorated with decorations. There are flowers, leaves, human images.”

The first part of the manuscript is nothing more than an excerpt from the Bulgarian Gospel, written in semi-character and it consists of 16 leaves. The beginning of the manuscript has been lost.

The second part, consisting of 29 leaves, is written in Glagolitic alphabet and includes Sunday readings from the New Testament (from Color Week to the Annunciation) according to the rite of the Roman Catholic Church.

Henry IV (Holy Roman Emperor)

The Czech scribe introduced Czechisms into the Glagolitic part, so it belongs to the Croatian-Czech translation. The Glagolitic text has an inscription in French: “Summer of the Lord 1395. This Gospel and message are written in Slavic. They must be sung throughout the year when the bishop's service is performed. As for the other part of this book, it corresponds to the Russian rite. It was written by St.'s own hand. Prokop, abbot, and this Russian text was donated by the late Charles IV, Emperor of the Roman Empire, to immortalize St. Jerome and St. Prokop. God grant them eternal rest. Amen".

In France, this manuscript is known as le Texte du Sacre (sacred text) and is still considered a folk shrine.