Louis XIII
Louis XIII (French pronunciation: [lwi tʁɛz]; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown.
For the cognac, see Louis XIII (cognac).Louis XIII
14 May 1610 – 14 May 1643
17 October 1610
Reims Cathedral
Marie de' Medici (1610–1614)
-
- Duke of Luynes
(1617–1621) - Cardinal Richelieu
(1624–1642) - Cardinal Mazarin
(1642–1643)
- Duke of Luynes
14 May 1610 – 20 October 1620
27 September 1601
Château de Fontainebleau, Kingdom of France
14 May 1643 (aged 41)
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Kingdom of France
19 May 1643
Shortly before his ninth birthday, Louis became king of France and Navarre after his father Henry IV was assassinated. His mother, Marie de' Medici, acted as regent during his minority. Mismanagement of the kingdom and ceaseless political intrigues by Marie and her Italian favourites led the young king to take power in 1617 by exiling his mother and executing her followers, including Concino Concini, the most influential Italian at the French court.[1]
Louis XIII, taciturn and suspicious, relied heavily on his chief ministers, first Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes and then Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the Kingdom of France. The King and the Cardinal are remembered for establishing the Académie française, and ending the revolt of the French nobility. They systematically destroyed the castles of defiant lords, and denounced the use of private violence (dueling, carrying weapons, and maintaining private armies). By the end of the 1620s, Richelieu had established "the royal monopoly of force" as the ruling doctrine.[2] The king's reign was also marked by the struggles against the Huguenots and Habsburg Spain.[3]
Antipathy with brother
Twice the king's younger brother, Gaston, Duke of Orléans, had to leave France for conspiring against his government and for attempting to undermine the influence of his mother and Cardinal Richelieu. After waging an unsuccessful war in Languedoc, he took refuge in Flanders. In 1643, on the death of Louis XIII, Gaston became lieutenant-general of the kingdom and fought against Spain on the northern frontiers of France.
Composer and lute player
Louis XIII shared his mother's love of the lute, developed in her childhood in Florence. One of his first toys was a lute and his personal doctor, Jean Héroard, reports him playing it for his mother in 1604, at the age of three.[34] In 1635, Louis XIII composed the music, wrote the libretto and designed the costumes for the "Ballet de la Merlaison." The king himself danced in two performances of the ballet the same year at Chantilly and Royaumont.[35]
Influence on men's fashion
In the sphere of men's fashion, Louis helped introduce the wearing of wigs among men in 1624.[36] This fashion spread in Europe and European-influenced countries in the 1660s and was a dominant style among men for about 140 years, until the change of dress in the 1790s effected by the French Revolution.[37]