Europe since Waterloo [antikvár]

The French Revolution and Napoleon the old regime %/%/ ˇ v HEN powerful rulers with central administrative systems replaced feudalism at the beginning of the modern age, absolute monarchy became the general mode of government in the larger states of Europe. The foundation on which monarchs reared their absolutism was the theory of divine right, that is, that "legitimate monarchs derive their authority from, and are responsible to, God alone." This theory had been asserted in the Middle Ages against the claims of the papacy; now it was pressed into use again as a buttress for despotic rule. Obedience to the king's commands became a religious duty and disobedience was nothing less than defiance of the law of God. It was James I who carried the dogma to its extreme logical conclusion in England and Louis XIV who insisted upon it most literally in France. "He who has given kings to the world," the Grand Monarque stated, "willed it that they be respected as His lieutenants, reserving for Himself the sole right to examine their conduct. It is His will that whoever is born a subject should obey without question." Through a series of struggles the British Parliament had by 1689 established its supremacy over kings; but in the Continental states the sway of absolute monarchy continued. In France the king ruled arbitrarily, making no distinction between his own income and that of the state. French kings recklessly squandered the money tax collectors squeezed from an overburdened people. The many wars of Louis XIV and his lavish expenditures at Versailles had been followed by the apathetic prodigality of Louis XV. Under the weak but well-meaning new king, Louis XVI, the debt leaped enormously; the interest on the debt had increased until it absorbed three fifths of the annual revenue. The ancien régime or old regime, as the order in prerevolutionary 3