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Janesism? Shouldn't it be Jansenism? And the natural border is on the Rhine, this is known 
Great AAR as always.
Great AAR as always.
Janesism? Shouldn't it be Jansenism? And the natural border is on the Rhine, this is known
Great AAR as always.
OH good catch
Because I have no sense of fairness, John Churchill was the man who eventually gained the title Duke of Marlborough. So Louis XIII and Henri III's greatest generals are the three greatest enemies of France IOTL
(which is stupid but I'm planning on doing something at least with Eugene of Savoy)
The Rise of Jansenism
From Roads to the Enlightenment by Franceau Robb
Despite its fictitious nature, pre-revolutionary Paris is most strongly remembered in the works of Honore de Balzac, specifically Le Ville de Larmes, which looks at Paris before and after the revolution. Scenes of people scrounging for bread, washing themselves in putrid water, and being in the constant shadow of a world of crime have impressed themselves as the nature of Parisian life under the monarchy all over the world. The only other author who can contest Balzac’s dominance over Enlightenment Paris is the English author Charles Dickens and his work Un Conte de Deux Villes, who is sadly limited to obscurity by his language and is known more for his works on Christmastime.
This image of a downtrodden and crime ridden Paris captured the imagination of the whole of Europe in the 18th century. But this prompts the question: was Paris always like this? Was Paris always the palace of horror that its reputation suggested? The answer is a categorical no. Paris during Henri II was a city with increasingly swift development and (by all measures) rapidly decreasing crime. So what happened to turn it into a cesspool of violence, the setting of so many detective novels in the 19th century, while simultaneously being the center of French revolutionary thought?
A scene from the novel Olivier, where a poor orphan leaves an orphanage and joins a gang of young communards, only to be killed during the revolt of 1832. It was critically panned and considered a mere cash in to the more respected Les Miserables and failed to garner any popularity in the French language market for which it was written. However it has remained the main account of Revolutionary France for the English speaking world, especially after a series of West End musicals (for my non-Anglophone readers, a 'musical' is a pop-culture form of an Opera which for some reason gained popularity in the Anglosphere after the Great War)
In Paris, a massive network of crime and gangs often intersected with and supported the radical political organizations which emerged by the hundreds in the 18th and 19th century. This is because they both emerged from the same traumatic series of events: the withdrawal of social services and the increasing criminalization of those few groups which provided these services.
This process began in the 1650s with the opening up of the land around Paris (specifically on the Right Bank of the Seine) for development. With much of the city’s infrastructure in rubble, allowing for construction outside the city wall started a decades long trend of rich flight to the fauxbourgs. A construction boom led to hundreds of new mansions being built over the 1660s and 1670s, and a massive number of towns popped up to supply them.
While this may have been tremendously helpful to the crown, as owning a Seine valley mansion became a symbol of national prestige, it reaped horrid benefits on Paris itself. The flight of the richest elements of the capitol left a gaping hole in Paris’ deeply needed revenues during a period where massive infrastructure projects were necessary. This meant that key social services and infrastructures were left wanting for decades. For instance, many areas of the Latin quarter did not rebuild the fountains destroyed in the Siege of Paris until the 1680s. Beyond this, many hospitals closed their doors, denying the poor access to desperately needed basic health facilities, and many universities had to downsize their activities. At Paris’ first (of many) points of desperation, the city had to announce that it could not afford to house several key members of the Royal Bureaucracy, leading to the Cabinet following Louis XIII to the new French War College at Saint-Cyr, which became France’s de facto capitol.
Antoine Arnauld, leader of the Jansenist faction, and temporary savior of Paris
Paris’ salvation came at the hands of an unlikely group. Jansenism was a sect within the Catholic Church which emphasized the teachings of Saint Augustine. Born out of an Augustinian monastery in Caux during Henri II’s revival of monastic orders, the sect preached predestination, a focus on divine grace, and the natural state of human depravity, as well as a strong dislike of existing Catholic institutions (such as the Jesuits).
This set of beliefs obviously got the Jansenists in trouble relatively early. A controversy in the 1650s ended with the Pope declaring many of the Jansenists’ sacred texts to be heretical. This was forgotten in the chaos of the Italian War and the Fronde, and when the dust settled the Jansenist Controversy was largely forgotten by a king who needed stability and an Avignard Church which had to accept the French king’s wishes.
And so, in a time of utmost stress and deep municipal deficits, the Jansenists came in to fill both of these gaps. Their place as a spiritual movement for those dissatisfied with Catholicism but unwilling to convert made them deeply popular among the French aristocracy, and their focus on charitable work led to the Jansenists reestablishing much of the social infrastructure lost in the years after 1650. Though this trend can be seen in all of the municipal provinces, from Bordeaux to Lyon, it was felt most strongly in Paris. By 1672 twenty six of the thirty two hospitals as well as fifty two of the seventy nine schools operating in Paris were run by the Jansenists, and beyond that Jansenist charity organizations helped house the poor, rebuild the fountains, and provide for the disabled. And while the Jansenists had a shaky relation at best with the Monarchy, for a time they were the main providers of services in the cities of France.
The Abby of Port Royal, located in Normandy, was the capital of Jansenism and the center of intra-Catholic sectarianism in the 1660s and 1670s
Obviously, this could not last...
Next up, the Test Controversy!
Also yes, in Lords of France French remains the dominant language, so just imagine Roads to the Enlightenment as an English translation of a book written in French
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Thank you! I've really been happy with the increased time this can get now that finals are over, and beyond that I've become close friends with a gal who writes pretty socially aware fanfiction so though we haven't read each other's writings (she isn't that into European history and I'm not that into Attack on Titan), the ability to bounce ideas off each other has helped a lot
Next entry hopefully up before Tuesday?
NOOOOO my Austria! Not even the Poles and Russians with their inexhaustible manpower reserves could help?
Very interesting religious developments, it should be interesting to see where you take the movement and whether or not you'll make Jansenism have more influence in France. I read a religious history of Quebec which basically said Quebec became the Janseinist ideal (I'm not sure since Quebecois Catholics just strike me as being very secular while the Jansenists were deeply pious in their beliefs).
Of course, as a Catholic, I have to support the Church otherwise we might have problems!
On that note, I like that united Sweden/Scandinavia! It looks like Saxony has done well for itself to among the German states?
Of course, as a Catholic, I have to support the Church otherwise we might have problems!
On that note, I like that united Sweden/Scandinavia! It looks like Saxony has done well for itself to among the German states?
Not for now at least, though their move north (and their inheritance of Bavaria) does help them out quite a bit. Plus, they actually won in a war against Prussia which I'm really impressed by.
Very interesting religious developments, it should be interesting to see where you take the movement and whether or not you'll make Jansenism have more influence in France. I read a religious history of Quebec which basically said Quebec became the Janseinist ideal (I'm not sure since Quebecois Catholics just strike me as being very secular while the Jansenists were deeply pious in their beliefs).
Of course, as a Catholic, I have to support the Church otherwise we might have problems!
On that note, I like that united Sweden/Scandinavia! It looks like Saxony has done well for itself to among the German states?
In short, no not really.
Yeah, Saxony-Thuringia is a real surprise. They took something like 6 military ideas and just wrecked eastern Germany. They're also the only country besides the Netherlands and Switzerland that's Reformist, though England is pretty reformist at this point.
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Darn. I find it amazing how France goes from "Favorite Daughter of the Vatican/Church" to become a hotbed for religious reform, revivalism, spiritualism, to anti-clericalism, back to orthodox Catholicism, and then to its current standing of sort of a secular Cultural Catholic country all in the span of a very short time. Would have been interesting to see Jansenism emerge in France as a second Catholicism since France has a potential lineage to build upon with the Avignon Papacy.
So England is experiencing the Reformed revolution sweeping the land but hasn't switched state religions then I presume? I think that's appropriate since the Westminster Confession is basically a Calvinist-light document when you explore its declarations with similar Reformed catechisms like Heidelberg and the Synod of Dort.
Yeah it is a shame but I don't know enough about Jansenism to really place it as a continuing plotline in the AAR (beyond that there is no way that the event could be supported in the game).
Also yes, England remains Protestant until she gets a "Ruler is X religion" event in a row, one converting her to Catholicism (which I'll simulate with James II) and the second king coming from a revolt (who will not be William of Orange but who will be a similar kind of figure)
Also yes, England remains Protestant until she gets a "Ruler is X religion" event in a row, one converting her to Catholicism (which I'll simulate with James II) and the second king coming from a revolt (who will not be William of Orange but who will be a similar kind of figure)
The Test Controversy and the collapse of Paris
From Franceau Robb’s Roads to Enlightenment
...for while Louis XIII was forced into tolerating Catholic sects in the years immediately following the Fronde, he faced increasing pressure over his administration to reign in this policy. This pressure came first and foremost from the Church, whose criticisms of Jansenism came forcefully and often. “I fear that if Louis does not abandon his foolish acceptance of the Jansenist faction”, wrote Urban XIV in the 1660s, “that we will face a new Protestant uprising”. This concern was not unfounded; many in the 17th century blamed the War of Religion on Henri I’s lack of action regarding Protestantism in the 16th century.
But the context of the 17th century was different then the religiously fragmented times of Henri I’s reign. Instead of a question of tolerance, the main debate within the French government regarding the Jansenists involved the nature of absolutism itself. One faction, led by First Minister Colbert and supported by the King, saw absolutism as requiring standardization, of the government and of society. This group helped pressure through laws requiring testing of lawyers and officers, the creation of the intendant position, and the combination of the French army and bureaucracy through the early 1670s. The other faction was far more dispersed, but it was steadily growing in power through the 17th century and can be called, with some caveats, a ‘liberal’ faction. This group, of which Vauban was the foremost member, believed that Louis’ desire for standardization was leading to unconscionably poor policies and was infringing on the very rights which Louis’ reign had established. Though this group had little representation in the central government or the military, their key positions in provincial parliaments had prevented centralized direction of training drills as well as protecting municipal rights at the early stages of their existence.
Gottfried Leibniz, the head lecturer of Paris’ University of Philosophy and one of the most important philosophical figures of Louis’ reign
This was also during a period in time when blatant sectarianism was quickly being seen as passe. Leibniz was an influential figure in France, and his vision of a Europe finally reunited across religious lines was at least vaguely accepted as an important project in the halls of Saint Cyr. Furthermore France’s important alliance with England and the need to pass legislation through the strongly Protestant area of Flandres meant that direct action against Protestant-like sects was infeasible.
This said, the Jansenists were forcing Louis’ hand. Their opposition to the Jesuits (whom they saw as too lax with Catholic theology, preachers of “A kind of Christ religion, certainly, but certainly not Christianity” in the words of the the head of Paris’ Hopital de Laurence) steadily transformed into an opposition to France’s colonial policies. Unmarked by war, the Viceroyalty of Quebec had been expanding steadily past the Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes. This was achieved mainly via an interconnecting web of trade and religion which brought Amerindian tribes under the auspex of Sacremont, and the religious aspect of this was handled almost entirely by the Jesuits. As many as four hundred Jesuit missionaries were in western Quebec at a time during the reign of Louis, making it the largest point of Jesuit efforts outside of New Spain. Furthermore Jesuits were busy converting the Chinese in Wuzhou and Fujian, and had a sizeable presence in the French East India Company.
Quebec in 1670. The grey areas were administered directly from Sacremont, the yellow areas by Jesuit missions, while the brown areas were still wholly controlled by Amerindian tribes
The actions of the Jesuits, from allowing aspects of local religion to seep into Christianity, to their support of trading alcohol with the Amerindians, infuriated the Jansenists. They saw the first as allowing heresy, the second as the corruption of a group of humans who were free from Original Sin* They also saw France’s alliance with England as a horrid offense, and agitated in the cities against both of these crimes. They worked especially hard in the municipal districts to stop their adherents from volunteering for the army, and interfered with the increase in army size that Louis was moving towards in preparation for the end of the truce with the Netherlands. It was clear that something had to be done about the Jansenists. But what?
Colbert’s response was in line with the previous major initiatives that had emerged from Saint Cyr: a standardized test which would determine if a clergyman was fit to become a bishop. This was accompanied by a revamping of policy regarding the dioceses, which re-organized them to fit with the boundaries of the French provinces. This legislation, known as the Test Act, was a continuation of the policies adopted by Louis regarding the law and the army, and because it only applied to nationally supported Catholic dioceses, it garnered little attention from Protestants or the Parliaments.
That did not last long. Soon the Jansenist bishops were informed that they would have to submit to the test (involving Biblical history, contemporary Church controversies, and the dogma of the contemporary Church). They had to swear to God that their answers reflected their personal opinions, and were graded to see if they were competent enough to rank as a bishop. No Jansenist passed and they were required to relinquish their church lands to other, more pure Catholic priests and a new set of Catholic convents. This resulted in a minor uproar among the municipal districts, but despite minor dissent in the Paris and Bordeaux fauxbourgs the issue received little attention next to the spectacle that was the Franco-Dutch War. The only major immediate result of the test act was Vauban’s sidelining from the army; his dissent to the act (“I feel that such an act would remove from France one of her greatest resources”) led to him being assigned to the Spanish border, as far away from the action against the Netherlands as possible.
The Parisian Bread Riots of 1679
The response to the Test Act, in the end, came only after the war, and only indirectly. The war, and the garrisoning of Paris with a 10,000 man detachment, had buoyed Paris’ economy as the charity organizations started closing shop. But when the war ended Paris immediately entered into a swift depression. While we don’t have direct numbers, we know that the jobless and homeless, no longer supported by a safety net of charities and hospitals, crowded the streets. We know that the number of social organizations (such as hospitals and schools) fell by two thirds in the 1680s, and that the Jansenist organizations had employed 40,000 people over the course of the 1660s. And we know that in 1679 there was a bread riot as the jobless were unable to find work and were starving on the streets, who allied with the Parisian militia who had been paid mostly out of the coffers of the Jansenists.
The bread riots brutalized Paris, and when Louis chose not to negotiate (for his treasury was weakened as well), the Parisian militias fought street to street with the French army, ending with a siege by the Parisian militia on the French barracks. A group of militiamen even stormed the Louvre and took the young Henri III captive. But after a week of hard fighting, the militia was finally put down, and after the French army ceased its occupation in 1680, all that was left was a vacuum. Paris was back at square one, with much of her social and physical infrastructure in ruins.
Parisians turned to crime as a source of employment, smuggling, stealing, gambling and embezzlement becoming ways of life for tens of thousands. But what is rarely noted is just how much this infrastructure of crime acted as a social safety net, and just how much the underside of Paris supported the overside. Bakeries, guild houses, and construction companies often took loans out from mob bosses, and the smuggling operations kept prices in Paris cheap even as the Parisian countryside gentrified. And, surprisingly, Paris continued to grow, as the activities of the bosses as well as the growth of a fauxbourger merchant class meant that enough capital existed in Paris to create hundreds of new homes after the walls were taken down. At the dawn of the 18th century, Paris was a city of five hundred thousand souls, known as 'the greatest slum on earth'.
The growth of crime had another effect, though. Paris was seen, and saw itself as, a foreign city to France after the bread riots. It was ineffectually policed by the crown, but intermittent attacks on the city’s economy were undertaken by Henri III in an attempt to stamp out crime. This, and the bone crushing poverty seen everywhere in the city, meant that a subconscious ideology had started to grow in Paris, one that saw every element of the French crown and economy as dysfunctional, nepotistic, corrupt and belligerent towards the poor. This was a truly revolutionary ideology, and it is notable that several great revolutionary thinkers arose from Paris before the revolution had even taken place, most notably Louis Dominique “Cartouche” Bourgignon**. This is not to say that Paris or even urban Paris did not produce conservative thinkers, but even they had major issues with the monarchy, or otherwise felt that the corrupt state of France left it ripe for the taking.
The Parisian revolutionary attitude, which found fault with nearly every aspect of French society, could not be more different than the kind of politics that came out of Flandres...
*As late as the 18th century it was a common belief that Amerindians were human beings who had stayed in the Garden of Eden, as evinced by their dislike of clothes and ‘natural state’ of living. This idea fell out of popularity as the Bible’s version of history was challenged, but remained a popular idea until the 1700s.
**A robin hood like criminal IOTL
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I would have never expected a man whom I studied in philosophy to appear in an AAR that I wasn't writing! Although, I do find the later Leibniz, a la the Monadology, to be more of a philosopher than his earlier self, in which he was also a great scientist and mathematician. And he is one of the first great Europeans to take an interesting in Eastern (Chinese) history. Some would argue, I think incorrectly based on the direction of the debate, that he was also one of the first Orientalists...
Looks like you are doing very well in Canada? Although I wonder if the bread riots, besides being recurring, might also be a ploy of foreshadowing!
Although, I do find the later Leibniz, a la the Monadology, to be more of a philosopher than his earlier self, in which he was also a great scientist and mathematician. And he is one of the first great Europeans to take an interesting in Eastern (Chinese) history. Some would argue, I think incorrectly based on the direction of the debate, that he was also one of the first Orientalists...Looks like you are doing very well in Canada? Although I wonder if the bread riots, besides being recurring, might also be a ploy of foreshadowing!
I would have never expected a man whom I studied in philosophy to appear in an AAR that I wasn't writing!
Looks like you are doing very well in Canada? Although I wonder if the bread riots, besides being recurring, might also be a ploy of foreshadowing!
Well Leibniz gets a whole chapter to himself in The Crisis of the European Mind so how could I not mention him? The next entry (which will be the 100th) will either be a discussion of the early enlightenment or the first major war of Louis' reign, but either way it'll be done during the weekend because my canvassing job takes a lot out of me.
Yes and I am doing well in Canada, though I'm now at the extent of where I can expand.
And Paris' place as a seemingly occupied land will be a bit of foreshadowing yea
Early Enlightenment! Only because I have philosophical concentration in Enlightenment philosophy!
Lest we forget, "Cogito ergo sum."
Although he is dead by now...his legacy is without question!
The capital and the countryside appearing as completely alien to each other is not just a feature of the times. Many people still have that view in Austria today - I think it has something to do with the relative population sizes...