STRONGER MONARCHS DISPERSE WEALTH

 

FRANCOIS I FINANCES...

Fontainebleau, the chateaux of the Loire Valley, balls, banquets, favorites, the 300 young noblewomen who live at the court, dressed and bejeweled  by the king.

Fontainebleau  (Internet)

Ball at the wedding of the Duke de Joyeuse, anonymous, Louvre, c. 1570

Portrait of a lady at her toilette, workshop of François Clouet 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woman_at_her_Toilette,_by_the_School_of_Fontainebleau,_1550-1570_-_IMG_7423.JPG

 Royal households' enormous expenses

Each king, sibling or cousin, their wives and their children from babyhood, have households of hundreds of people, hierarchically organized. Louis XIV's brother, for example, has nine doctors, three medical consultants, an apothecary and his aide, seven other aides, a dentist, five barbers... 27 people in his medical service alone.

-- Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans by Jacqueline Duchêne, 1995 (in French).
An example of an important fact slipping without comment into the text.

Louis XV has eight daughters. The three youngest brought up in a convent, to save the cost of their households.

Catherine de Medici and 10-year-old Charles IX visit the entire kingdom, to unite the population behind him 

(In 1664-66)   

Kings and court had always moved from palace to palace (to clean them, restore provisions and let game recuperate) or gone on politically-useful excursions, but the Queen Mother takes the prince to visit the whole kingdom. The royal family, their households, the Council, the court, ambassadors, ecclesiastics, craftspeople, cooks, dwarfs, minstrels — 15,000 people, plus thousands of horses and pack animals to carry clothing, tapestries, tents, wine, provisions, furniture, books — make up the cortege. 

Since the towns finance the honor of receiving the king, the expedition siphons off the new wealth of the provincial middle classes.

The extraordinary parade takes a full day to pass by. Spectators come from great distances, to break the routine and share in the rulers' show.

Such flamboyance is expected of kings:
They cover its cost by expedients and loans,
which they may pay back with honors...
or not at all.  

*     *     *

Next,
Detour: The French monarchy's lasting éclat