Military reforms

The fiscal reorganization facilitated equally significant military reforms. The Peace of Arras, rather than pacifying France, had only thrown the people once again to the mercies of disbanded mercenaries and brigands. In 1439 an ordinance made the recruitment of military companies the king’s monopoly and provided for uniform strength in contingents, supervision, and pay. Following the Truce of Tours in 1444, no general demobilization occurred; instead, the best of the larger units were reconstituted as “companies of the king’s ordinance,” which were standing units of cavalry well selected and well equipped; they served as local guardians of peace at local expense. With the creation of the “free archers” (1448), a militia of foot soldiers, the new standing army was complete. Making use of a newly effective artillery, its companies firmly in the king’s control, supported by the people in money and spirit, France rid itself of brigands and Englishmen alike.

Regrowth of the French monarchy

Thus, the monarchy recovered much of the authority it had lost during the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War. Although its influence in Burgundy and Flanders (now united in a formidable dynastic association) had declined, its definitive recovery of Aquitaine consolidated a direct domain, again extensive enough to free the Valois royalty from anxiety about landed resources. It had exploited not only a widespread distaste for the destructive self-interest of barons and warlords but also an incipient nationalism, which, besides reviving the “religion of monarchy,” put new stresses on the foreignness of Englishmen. How renewed power and Gallicanism went together was demonstrated in the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), by which papal benefices and revenues from France were severely curtailed and the royal influence in the French church strengthened. Nevertheless, the survival of powerful dynasts and provincial interests, as a legacy of the war and the fertility of the royal house, represented a counterpoise to the crown that Philip the Fair had never known. And, with the son of Charles VII, the monarchy was to be tested yet again.

Louis XI (reigned 1461–83) was shamelessly impatient for his father’s death. It must be said of this strange man that he had worthy policies to pursue: the securing of the royal domain against Burgundy, Orléans, and Brittany, among others, and the promotion of commerce and industry within national boundaries. His foreign policy was less consistent, ranging from the cautious in Italy to the chimerical in Spain; yet it was at the expense of Aragon that he regained title to Roussillon and Cerdagne. His methods rather than his ends were what made the reign of this ambitious, nervous, and capricious ruler so turbulent. No French king had ever imposed himself so totally and so tyrannically as did Louis XI. Forgetful of past loyalties, he was betrayed as often as he himself betrayed others. Toward the clergy as toward his officials, he could be brutal and vindictive. He antagonized the nobles by revoking the Valois pensions and some ceremonial trappings and by promoting the independence of seigneurial towns. As for the royal towns, Louis respected their constitutions only so far as was consistent with royal supervision and the payment of heavy taxes; he tolerated the resurgence of urban oligarchies. Fiscal pressures in support of the army, government, and diplomacy mounted fearfully.

Louis XI’s determined efforts to strengthen royal authority provoked the princes to establish the formidable League of the Public Weal, which in 1465 appealed to the people against misgovernment and proposed a regency of the princes supported by the three estates. Louis, in turn, as on later occasions, used assemblies and proclamations to divide the princes. But the settlement of October 1465 was a grave setback for the king, whose brother Charles gained title to Normandy while Charles the Bold, soon to inherit Burgundy, acquired strategic counties and towns in Artois. To the undoing of this treaty Louis devoted great energy. Fomenting strife between Brittany and Normandy, he soon recovered the latter and isolated the former. Deaths among his rivals in Gascony enabled him to secure successions that were more divided and less hostile—such as in Armagnac. Increasingly, Louis’s tortuous diplomacy fastened on Burgundy. The king succeeded in reconciling the Swiss cantons with Austria to form a coalition with France and the Rhenish cities; this coalition invaded Burgundy and defeated and killed Charles the Bold at Nancy (January 5, 1477). While the legal reversion of Burgundy to the crown could not be given practical effect, Louis prevented the emergence of a powerful state on France’s northern and eastern borders and did recover Artois. Moreover, even as he enjoyed this decisive triumph over his most dangerous rival, the entire Angevin inheritance (Anjou, Provence, and Mediterranean claims) devolved to the crown upon the death of René I of Anjou in 1480. Through accident and design and the inability of the princes to collaborate effectively, Louis had succeeded in countering the threat of a princely constitution and had considerably extended the royal domain.