Comparison
The motherland of absolutism in Europe of the 17th century is considered to be France. The absolute monarchy spread the idea of the state as a public good, a sovereign legal person. There was no longer a place for patrimonial ideas, the state as the property of the ruler. In the days of Richelieu, the first minister of king Louis XIII,(1585 -1642) and especially Louis XIV (1643-1715), the absolute monarchy attained the bloom.
The views of Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu, who vowed "to make the royal power supreme in France and France supreme in Europe.", prepared the fundament for classical absolute monarchy , which was being already practised in the first half of the 17th century …show more content…
As the highest star, now accepted by science as the centre of the universe, the sun was an obvious choice to symbolise absolutism’s claim to constitute the political centre of earthly life. The sun was both terrifying and inspiring, dazzling through its brightness, yet also warming and beneficent, and without its presence all life would whither away.
While Louis XIV justified his absolute authority by appealing to the divine right of kings, the enlightened absolutists justified their absolute authority by proclaiming themselves servants of the state or the people. The idea of enlightened absolutism came to France with the well-known English filosopher Thomas Hobbes, who moved to Paris in order to hide from royal family the Stuarts. The Enlightened (or benovelent) absolutism, is the form of absolute monarchy, influenced by the Enlightment .
Enlightened monarchs especially embraced an emphasis upon rationality. They tended to allow religious tolerance, freedom of speech and the press, and the right to hold private property. Most fostered the arts, sciences, and …show more content…
He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment to 'despotic' monarchy was on the rise. The French prejudices proved unsustainable. There is little evidence of the practical application of enlightened thought by the late eighteenth century. French monarchy and Louis XVI hardly fits the archetype of an enlightened absolutist.
Enlightened absolute monarchy had prepared the basis for kapitalism, though in France, where fortified despotic system eliminating the idea to compromise with the opposition had periled itself. While the philosophers thought the kings served them, the reverse was true, as monarchs exploited enlightened ideas to stabilise royal rule and increase economic and military influence.
Absolutism came to the end in the political transformations caused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars and by the dramatic reorganisation of eastern Europe through the partitions of Poland and the retreat of Ottoman