The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Translator’s Preface
• Judgments On History and Historians
• I: Antiquity
• 1.: Ancient History and Its Scope
• 2.: On the Intellectual Indispensability of Studying Ancient History
• 3.: The Limits of Civilization and Barbarism
• 4.: Why Today’s “educated Man” Can No Longer Understand Antiquity
• 5.: The Historical Significance of Egypt
• 6.: The Phoenicians As the Earliest Creators of πóλεις ( Polis )
• 7.: On Carthage
• 8.: Athens
• 9.: Rome and Its Mission In World History
• 10.: On the Roman Empire In Its First Two Centuries
• II: The Middle Ages
• 11.: On the Middle Ages
• 12.: On Early Christianity
• 13.: Christianity As a Martyr Religion
• 14.: On Asceticism and Its Position
• 15.: The Spread of Nicene Christianity
• 16.: The Church
• 17.: Julian and the Prospect For a Restoration of Paganism
• 18.: Western European Arianism and the Jews
• 19.: The Breakup of the Western Empire
• 20.: The Achievement of Clovis I
• 21.: Mohammed As the Founder of a Religion, and Islam
• 22.: The Despotism of Islam
• 23.: Islam and Its Effects
• 24.: The Two Main Realities For the Papacy of the Eighth Century
• 25.: Charlemagne
• 26.: The Normans
• 27.: The Byzantine Empire and Its Mission
• 28.: On the Iconoclastic Controversy
• 29.: On the Crusades
• 30.: The Sorrows and Sacrifices of the Crusades
• 31.: On the Evaluation of the Later Middle Ages
• III: History From 1450 to 1598
• 32.: The Period From 1450 to 1598 and the Nineteenth Century’s View of It
• 33.: England In the Late Middle Ages
• 34.: On Richard Iii
• 35.: On the Wars of the Roses and On Scotland
• 36.: Burgundy
• 37.: Charles the Bold of Burgundy
• 38.: France and the Idea of Unification
• 39.: Louis Xi
• 40.: The German Imperial Power Under Frederick Iii
• 41.: The Ottomans
• 42.: The Republic of Florence
• 43.: On the War of 1494
• 44.: On the Power of the Papacy
• 45.: Italy and the Rest of Europe
• 46.: Spain and Portugal
• 47.: The Beginning of the Reformation: General Considerations
• 48.: On Luther
• 49.: On the German Reformation: Its Causes and Spiritual Consequences
• 50.: On the Reformation: Protestantism and Tradition—the Intolerance of the New Doctrine
• 51.: On the Reformation: the Establishment of So-called Spiritual Freedom
• 52.: On the Reformation: the Masses, Their Motives and Consequences—luther
• 53.: On the Reformation: Governments—confiscation of Property and Dogmatism—church and State
• 54.: The Origin of the Territorial Churches
• 55.: On the Reformation After 1526: The Inevitable Caesaropapism
• 56.: On the Coming of the Reformation: the Reformation and the Fate of Art
• 57.: On the Situation of the Catholic Church: the Direct Effect of the Reformation
• 58.: On Zwingli’s Later Period
• 59.: Charles V and Francis I
• 60.: On Charles V
• 61.: On Henry Viii
• 62.: Gustavus Vasa
• 63.: The Community of the Elect
• 64.: On Calvin
• 65.: On Protestantism In France
• 66.: German Culture Around 1555
• 67.: On Camoëns’ Lusiads
• 68.: On the Counter Reformation
• 69.: St. Ignatius Loyola
• 70.: The Jesuits
• 71.: The Jesuits and the Papacy
• 72.: The Third Council of Trent (1562–1563)
• 73.: The Popes of the Counter Reformation
• 74.: On the German Counter Reformation
• 75.: France In the Year 1562
• 76.: After St. Bartholomew’s Night
• 77.: Murder As an Expedient
• 78.: The Special Character of the French Court
• 79.: On the Conversion of Henry Iv
• 80.: Holland
• 81.: Mary Stuart
• 82.: On Elizabeth of England
• 83.: The Age of Elizabeth
• IV: History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
• 84.: Introduction to the History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1598–1763)
• 85.: The Character of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• 86.: The Huguenots Under Henry Iv
• 87.: Gomarists and Arminians
• 88.: Powers and Society In Europe Before the Thirty Years’ War
• 89.: Italy In the Seventeenth Century
• 90.: Richelieu
• 91.: On Germany’s Situation Before the Thirty Years’ War
• 92.: The Swedes In Germany
• 93.: On Wallenstein’s End
• 94.: The Great Elector
• 95.: England Before the First Revolution
• 96.: English Royalty and Its Task
• 97.: Cromwell
• 98.: The Fronde and the French Aristocracy
• 99.: The Fronde and the Parlement of Paris
• 100.: On Mazarin
• 101.: Styles of Life and Art Around 1650
• 102.: Sweden Under King Charles X Gustavus
• 103.: The Age of Unlimited Princely Power
• 104.: On Louis Xiv
• 105.: Louis Xiv As Lord of the Church
• 106.: The French Spirit of Uniformity and the Huguenots
• 107.: Louis Xiv Prior to the War of the Spanish Succession
• 108.: On the Second English Revolution
• 109.: England’s Defense Against Militarism
• 110.: On the Characteristics of the Seventeenth Century
• 111.: Russia
• 112.: England After George I
• 113.: Frederick the Great
• V: The Age of Revolution
• 114.: Introduction to the History of the Age of Revolution
• 115.: The Period of Reform From Above
• 116.: Absolutism In the North
• 117.: On the North American Revolutionary War
• 118.: England
• 119.: On Small States
• 120.: On the Dissolution of the Jesuit Order
• 121.: The Intellectual Situation Prior to 1789
• 122.: German and French Intellectual Development In the Eighteenth Century
• 123.: On Rousseau and His Utopia
• 124.: The Political Situation In France Before the Revolution
• 125.: The Destiny of the French Revolution
• 126.: On Mirabeau
• 127.: The Clergy
• 128.: The Legislative Assembly and the Clubs
• 129.: On the 10th of August, 1792
• 130.: On the September Massacres
• 131.: Before and After the Dissolution of the Convention
• 132.: On the Trial of Louis Xvi
• 133.: Girondists and Jacobins
• 134.: The Omnipotence of Utterly Unscrupulous Parties
• 135.: How a Government Becomes Exceedingly Strong
• 136.: Socialism? Communism?
• 137.: The Innermost Core of the Revolution
• 138.: Rousseau’s Concept of Music and the Destruction of Churches
• 139.: On Robespierre
• 140.: Before the 9th Thermidor (july 27, 1794)
• 141.: On the Mutual Destruction of the Revolutionary Factions
• 142.: On the 18th Fructidor (september 4, 1797)
• 143.: Bonaparte and the 18th Fructidor
• 144.: How Aristocracies and Princes Succumb
• 145.: On the Invasion of Switzerland By the French
• 146.: Old Bern and Why It Is Hated
• 147.: On the 18th Brumaire (november 9, 1799) and the Consulate
• 148.: On Napoleon
• 149.: Napoleon I and His Russian Campaign

99.

The Fronde and the Parlement of Paris

Any truly legal shaping of public affairs was hardly conceivable in those days. Between ruthless seigneurs and a dangerous city mob there was maintained the highly dubious legality of an authority like the parlement of Paris. Even if it was allied with all provincial parliaments and in all of France the noblesse de robe behaved blamelessly and harmoniously, it nevertheless was only one class against which all the others would have conspired. And it was a curious class to rule, too, what with its filling of offices through purchase and inheritance.

The critical moment is January, 1649, when the parliaments called in the seigneurs, who, after all, were well enough known! With the seigneurs they inevitably opened the door to the old Spanish conspiracy against the French state as such.

From that point on the entire parliamentary system along with the whole question of relief of the people is only an appendage to the struggles of the mighty, in which, oddly enough, the “people,” too, take an interest, for or against. No matter how loudly Condé, e.g., may in all phases of the Fronde voice his naive contempt for parlement and Parisians, the people and the parlement nevertheless help to demand his release.

Although in the 1640’s the mere threatening of parliamentary councilors had caused great outbreaks, afterwards any act of violence could take place with impunity. Especially in 1651 the parlement was egged on to the most extreme and most foolish decisions only in the interest of the seigneurs. It persistently joined in the clamor that Mazarin must never be allowed inside the country again.

Condé had become so blindly set in his arrogance and his contempt of Mazarin that gradually whatever vestiges of royalism were still within Frenchmen had to turn against him.

French royalism of the time is described thus (in Hiob Ludolf, Schaubühne der Welt, Frankfurt, 1713, III, 395): “For this praise must be given to the French: whether their king may do them good or harm, act justly or unjustly, they still stick by him and always speak well of him.”

A very base thing was the last union of Condé, in the spring of 1652, with Gaston, the uncle of Louis XIV, who brought with him the Duke of Lorraine.

In the affairs of the Faubourg St. Antoine, Gaston’s daughter, Princess de Montpensier, helped to save Condé, and the parlement ruined itself for all time by “conferring” upon the two conspirators (who were now openly allied with Spain) the two highest powers of the state—and this in the face of the king who had attained his majority. All this was done only out of rage against “le Mazarin,” the foreigner, the extortionist, the tyrant, without their stopping to realize that they would hardly have acted better toward any possessor of the supreme state power.

And now there ensued what always happens at some time in unpredictable phases of a movement: the peace-loving elements gained strength.

Later, in February, 1653, when Condé was a fugitive, the royal uncle Gaston was semi-pardoned, and Retz was in prison, Mazarin was able to move into Paris again and manage a satiated despotism without any longer having to speak politely to the seigneurs.