The practice of absolutism: Franche-Comte in the Kingdom of France, 1674--1715

This dissertation examines the relationship between the absolutist monarchy of Louis XIV and the ruling elites of the province of Franche-Comte. Although French in language and culture, Franche-Comte had been a possession of the Habsburgs since the early sixteenth century. Under their distant hegemony, the Comtois elites ruled an essentially autonomous territory.;This situation changed drastically after the conquest of the province by the French armies in 1674. Louis XIV was determined to integrate Franche-Comte fully into his monarchy. To accomplish this goal, the king pursued a number of strategies. He first placed sovereign authority in the hands of a network of royal agents directly appointed by the Paris government. The king also carried out a crucial restructuring of the Comtois ruling elites. He promoted a rising group of pro-French client-collaborators to the pinnacle of the provincial political hierarchy and empowered them with important shares of royal authority. He simultaneously drastically curtailed the autonomy of a number of key institutions. The result was the creation of a more concentrated and better disciplined ruling elite. The entire system was then made to function more effectively through the close coordination of its activities by the king's ministers. Finally, Louis XIV introduced new bureaucratic structures that imposed closer royal control over such key administrative areas as the collection of taxation and the regulation of royal troops.;This new regime faced a severe test during the two decades of warfare that closed the reign. With the war draining the royal fisc, Louis XIV converted the privileged Comtois elites into financial intermediaries of the crown and then coerced them into shouldering an ever greater share of the royal military burden. Furthermore, many of the new bureaucratic institutions introduced by the French proved unable to withstand the strain of prolonged conflict; their collapse led to a demodernization of the provincial government. But the political system created by Louis XIV proved durable enough to weather the crisis.;In sum, the experience of Franche-Comte demonstrates that Louis XIV, far from creating an embryonic modern state, brought a distinctively early modern sociopolitical model to the apogee of its development.