Military history of the Ancien Régime

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 31. Chapters: Fronde, French Royal Army, Siege of La Rochelle, Nicolay, Franco-Spanish War, Huguenot rebellions, Piedmontese Civil War, Garde Écossaise, Constable of France, Maison militaire du roi de France, Colonel General, Peace of Rueil, French attack on the Vaudois, League of the Rhine, Clément Métezeau, Master of Crossbowmen, Grand Master of Artillery, Mestre de camp, Maître de camp. Excerpt: The French Royal Army (1652-1830) served the Bourbon kings beginning with Louis XIV and ending with Charles X with an interlude from 1792 until 1814, during the French Revolution and the reign of the Emperor Napoleon. After a second, brief interlude when Napoleon returned from exile in 1815, the Royal Army was reinstated. Its service to the direct Bourbon line was finished when Charles X was overthrown in 1830 by the July Revolution. Louis XIV of FranceUnder Louis XIV, the French Royal Army is considered to have been one of the most powerful in the world. When Louis' father, Louis XIII, died, Anne of Austria, the queen, became regent. She and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, ordered the arrest of legislative opponents, causing the enmity of many nobles and common citizens. When the bloody Thirty Years' War, in which France had sided with other Catholic nations in Europe against Protestant-governed countries, concluded, the Fronde civil war broke out and Mazarin was forced to flee. When Louis XIV came of age in 1652, the Fronde ended and Mazarin was permitted to return and appointed chief minister for a second time. The leader of the anti-Mazarin faction, the Prince de Conde, escaped to Spain, which soon went to war against France and its new ally, England, under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Under the command of Marshal Turenne, the Anglo-French army decisively defeated the Spanish in Flanders, part of which was a province of Spain. In 1667, Louis married the Spanish princess Marie Therese. He claimed the Spanish Netherlands as her dowry, starting another conflict with Spain known as the War of Devolution. Turenne and Conde, who had pardoned and allowed to return to France, commanded the French army. Their forces seized much of the Spanish Netherlands but, pressured by England, Holland, and Sweden, Louis was forced to return the conquered territory, with the exception of some fortified towns. From 1672 until 1678, France was embroiled in the Franco-Dutch War, ag