There are several interesting topics of chapter 15 but I chose to focus on just a few areas like ” The witchcraft craze”. When we think or hear the word witch, most of us instantly think of Halloween or some movie or old folktale they have heard. Logic tells u s that the likely hood of real witches flying around on brooms ticks casting spells and putting curses on people are just pure fiction. Even though the idea makes for a great bedtime or campsite spooky storyline.
It is very hard to believe that some of these wild stories actually have some truth based on real events well before our time. I can admit, I am the beli eve what I see type; but , m uch to my dismay, there were many recounts of strange behavior during the 16th -17th century era . People felt the need to blame the unexplainable and so -called weird happenings on something or someone. One writer writes; reports of strange behavior, such as Roman complaints about Strigae, women who could fly when they turned themselves into owl -like creatures and went about stealing babies.
The cult of Diana involved nocturnal women on horseback, and stories circulated about peculiar pagan fertility cults. Moreover, there was a long -standing tradition of popular belief in various forms of magic, practiced by many lay people, and often to helpful ends. Cunning women, diviners, healers, and astrologers were among those who ordinary people might consult in the belief that these specialists could utilize the magical properties that reputedly were inherent in nature and not the monopoly of the Christian Church.
On occasion, such people might turn their talents to more destructive ends (practicing bad magic or maleficia) and others might be more inherently or persistently malicious ” (Witchcraft Explained 1) .
The phase was not all negative as many were able to gain capital off being noted as witch es by selling things that could heal, rid or cure someone. Many had come increasingly more and more comfortable and accepting of the craze as religion spread forcing people to think differently and outside the box. more people were questioning traditional attitudes toward religion and finding it contrary to reason to believe in the old view of a world haunted by evi l spirits ” (Spielvogel359) .
If you search the internet for information pertaining to Louis XVI, you will find both enlightening and confusing knowledge about his life, failures , and accomplishments . Louis ‘s story begins in Versailles, where he was born on August 23, 1754. Married a woman named Marie Antoinette who happened to be the daughter of the emperor and empress of Austria in 1770; their union was thought to be able to bring better relations between France and Austria .
Depending on where you retrieve information about Louis, you will find accounts of a heroic ruler, as well as behavior that could be deemed questionable for a king. Louis took over as king in 1774 , holding this position was nothing new for his family since his grandfather; Louis XV was the previous ruler. Several little unknown facts about Louis exist.
Few monarchs have ruled for longer. Born in 1638, Louis XIV became king at age 4 following the death of his father, Louis XIII, and remained on the throne for the next 72ye ars. This marks him as both the longest -reigning French monarch in history and the longest -reigning monarch of any extant European nation.
Louis’ mother served as his regent. In his will, Louis XIII arranged for a regency council to rule on his young son’s behalf. However, his Habsburg wif e, Anne of Austria, rchestrated an annulment of the council and took over as sole regent. In that capacity, she and her chief minister, Italian -born Cardinal Jules Mazarin, conflicted with the country’s nobles and judges, who rose up against the crown in a series of rebellions from 1648 to 1653.
Mazarin was eventually able to crush the dissenters, but not before Louis XIV suffered numerous perceived humiliations, including twice having to flee Paris. From then on, Louis XIV distrusted not only aristocrats and commoners alike, but also Paris itself.
He ruled without a chief minister. As a young man, Louis XIV largely left the decision -making to Mazarin, his mentor and godfather. But when Mazarin died in 1661, the 22 -year – old immediately informed his astonished court that he would henceforth rule without a chief minister something no French king had done for generations. Though many officials apparently expected him to soon bore of this role, he continued carrying out the routine, monotonous affairs of government for the rest of his life. Sitting in on council meetings, writing letters, reading documents, hosting foreign representatives and planning military strategy, he all the while consolidate d power in his own hands. 4. Louis considered himself God’s representative on Earth. Although Louis XIV did not invent the divine right of kings doctrine, which held that monarchs derived their authority from God and were therefore entitled to wield absolute power, he was certainly an adherent.
He made a particular point of associating himself with the Greek and Roman sun god Apollo, adopting the sun as his emblem and even playing Apollo in a royal ballet. Like many other kings, Louis XIV also claimed to possess miraculous healing powers. On major holidays, he went around touching those infected with scrofula (also known as tuberculosis of the neck).
He was quite open about his infidelities. In 1660, Louis XIV married Marie -Thse, the daughter of Spain’s king, a politically expedient move that cemented peace b etween the two nations. Yet he also took on a string of mistresses, three of whom gained semi -official status, appearing next to him at church and eve going off with him to war.
Among other benefits, the first of those three became a duchess, the second r eceived a chateau with 1,200 gardeners, and the third wed Louis XIV in a secret ceremony following the death of the queen. Many of his i llegitimate children were given the proper education and considered part of royal society.
He was a religio us bigot. A devout Catholic, Louis XIV believed in the motto, one king, one law, one faith. To that end, he mercilessly cracked down on the country’s Protestants, known as Huguenots, who made up roughly 5 percent of the population. The coup de gr?ce came in 1685, when, in revoking the nearly century -old Edict of Nantes, he stripped them of all religious and civil liberties.
Hundreds of Huguenots who continued practicing their religion were put to death and at least 200,000 others fled France for lands that are more tolerant . At around the same time, Louis XIV expelled all Jews from the French West Indies. He even went after other Catholics who did not adhere to his narrow view of the faith, such as the Jansenists, who believed that humankind was inherently corrupt a nd that God bestowed salvation arbitrarily. In 1709, he banished the nuns from the movement’s main convent and soon after ordered its destruction, all the while lobbying the pope to condemn Jansenism as heretical.
He was constantly at war. Disingenuously claiming the Spanish Netherlands (roughly corresponding to present -day Belgium) as the inheritance of his wife, Louis XIV launched the War of Devolution in 1667. This invasion, along with the Dutch War (1672 -1678) and the War of the Reunions (1683 -1684), netted him a number of new territories that remain part of France to this day.
Yet in aggressively expanding his borders, he attracted the enmity of much of the rest of Europe, which united in a Grand Alliance against him during the next two conflicts: The Nine Years’ War (1688 -1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 – 1714). With countless lives lost, disease and famine rampant, the economy in shambles and taxes high, Louis XIV had an apparent change of heart late in life. Do not follow the bad example that I have set for you, a dying Louis told his heir. I have often undertaken war too lightly and have sustained it for vanity. Do not imitate me, but be a peaceful prince.
Louis owned the Hope Diamond. As one might expect from the creator of the 700 -room Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV knew a thing or two about luxury. One of his prized possessions was an immense diamond, and then called the French Blue, which purportedly produced the dazzling illusion of a sun at its center when positioned against a gold background.
Stolen during the French Revolution, well after Louis XIV’s death, it reemerged in Great Britain years later with a new cut and then bounced around from one owner to another. Now known as the Hope Diamond, this 45.52 – carat stone, arguably the most famous jewel in the world, is housed at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. Not until 2009, when a lead replica of the French Blue turned up, did experts confirm definitively that the French Blue and the Hope Diamond are the same.
His successor was France’s second -longest -reigning monarch. In the last few years of his life, Louis XIV suffered through a series of family tragedies. First, in 1711, his son and heir apparent died of smallpox. Then, the following year, measles claimed the lives of a grandson and a great -grandson, as well as a beloved granddaug hter -in -law. Two grandsons remained alive.
However, one died in the aftermath of a 1714 hunting accident, and the other was forced to renounce the French throne as part of a deal in, which he remained ruler of Spain. Louis XIV was now down to just one potential heir: a sickly great – grandson. Though in desperation he declared that two of his illegitimate sons could become king if his direct line died out, it never came to that. Taking over at age 5, his great -grandson would go on to govern France for the next 59 years as Louis XV (Greenspan 2015) .
The Bill of Rights The Bill of Rights came about because people were tired of being taken advantage of and having standards only apply to certain things and individuals. They sought for a way to make things fair and bring more structure. They demonstrated a modern day protest that forced the hand of many people, bring ing forth change. In 1688 Stuart king James II was replaced by Mary, James’s daughter, and her husband, William of Orange. After William and Mary had assumed power, Parliament passed a bill of rights that specified the rights of the parliament and laid the foundation for a constitutional monarchy Spielvogel 377) .
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