François-Michel Le Tellier, marquis de Louvois

François-Michel Le Tellier, marquis de Louvois (baptized January 18, 1639, Paris, France—died July 16, 1691, Versailles) was the secretary of state for war under Louis XIV of France and his most influential minister in the period 1677–91. He contributed to the reorganization of the French army.

Early life.

Louvois was the son of one of the wealthiest and most powerful officials in France, Michel Le Tellier, secretary for war and a creature of Jules, cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV’s chief minister. Indeed, after the cardinal’s death many observers thought that Le Tellier would succeed his patron as first minister. Realizing that the king wanted no ambitious man to challenge his authority, Le Tellier subtly effaced himself while grooming his son as his replacement. His method was simple: he personally directed Louvois’s education while planting the suggestion in the king’s mind that the monarch deserved the credit for recognizing his son’s administrative talents. The task was no easy one; Louvois was not a brilliant scholar, and he received no more than a superficial education at the Jesuit college of Clermont. He was, moreover, dissolute and seemed well on the road to becoming a wastrel. If the secretaryship was to remain in the family—Louvois had acquired no more than the right of succession in 1655—he had to be reformed. Consequently, his father brought him into the war department and subjected him to an iron discipline that led the youth to the point of rebellion. Yet he emerged hardworking, supremely confident of his own ability, and with extensive experience in military administration.

Career as minister.

As his knowledge increased, so did his position: in 1662 he obtained the right to exercise his father’s functions in the latter’s absence or incapacity. The same year, he improved his social position by marrying Anne de Souvré, daughter of the marquis de Courtenvaux. In 1665 the king granted Louvois the right to handle all the duties of Le Tellier’s office and to sign all papers, but only in his father’s presence. His first important test came in the War of Devolution (1667–68) between France and Spain over Louis XIV’s claim to the Spanish Netherlands, when Louvois accompanied the king into battle. Although this campaign revealed a disturbing lack of supplies, Louvois learned his lessons well, and his competence became unquestioned. Nevertheless, Le Tellier continued to guide his son until 1677, when the father accepted the position of chancellor of France. Until this date, Louis XIV had in fact two secretaries of war, father and son, who cooperated closely. Indeed, the son consulted his father until the latter’s death in 1685.

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Louvois’s successful career was tarnished by two acts: the dragonnades leading up to the revocation in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes, which had granted French Protestants certain liberties, and the destruction of the Palatinate. Historians have accused Louvois of originating the dragonnades, the quartering of troops in Protestant households with the intention of forcing conversion to Roman Catholicism. Recent research, however, has shown that he was not responsible for this measure. Instead, they were the work of ambitious subordinates, who saw that overstepping the letter of the law led to royal favour. Yet, although Louvois had no strong religious feelings himself, he was guilty of complicity. As an astute politician, he recognized Louis XIV’s interest in religious unity and went along with the king’s wishes. Personally, he disliked the methods of the dragonnades, for they encouraged a lack of discipline among the troops.

Louvois bore much more responsibility for the destruction of the Palatinate (1688), to which Louis XIV laid claim, thus leading to the War of the League of Augsburg. Louvois had never been afraid of using force in enemy territory, and now military necessity seemed to demand the destruction of the Rhineland to prevent it from being used as a base for the invasion of France. He encouraged the destruction of the major cities of the Palatinate: Worms, Speyer, Mannheim, and Heidelberg. Yet Louvois alone cannot bear the entire blame; the king also approved the measure.

Louvois’s relationship with the king was often strained, particularly during the last years of Louvois’s life. Louis XIV had always tried to play off his officials against one another, preventing any servant from becoming too powerful. With the death of Colbert in 1683, however, Louvois increasingly dominated affairs of state. War seemed to perpetuate itself, and every campaign made the war minister indispensable, while Louis XIV’s resentment grew as Louvois asserted himself. Finally, during the difficult years of the War of the League of Augsburg (1689–97), rumours circulated at court of Louvois’s imminent disgrace, and, according to contemporaries, only his sudden death in July 1691 saved him from imprisonment in the Bastille. Most historians, however, reject this theory. Certainly, Louis XIV valued Louvois’s military talents too highly to remove him in the middle of a war.

Legacy

Most historians have allotted to Louvois all the glory for perfecting the French military machine. In reality, Le Tellier was the innovator; Louvois was only the brilliant administrator who brought his father’s reforms to fruition. Yet Louvois had done his work well. After his death the French army remained one of the most formidable in Europe.

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