In January 1648, France found itself in the same situation of discord as our country is today.
And it all started with a game of sling! This is what civil confrontation can lead to if you play too much. Now the French call that era with the cheerful word "Fronde"
Many are terrified of what is happening in Ukraine today. Skirmishes between the militants and the Berkutovites on Khreshchatyk. Capturing office buildings. The first dead and endless negotiations between the opposition and the president at a time when ordinary people are waiting for an early resolution of the political crisis. Many people ask me: when will IT end? How to say. Our country is again involved in HISTORY. Now you will not have to complain about the lack of news. How long? Future will tell. For example, France in the very middle of the 17th century lived in a similar unhealthy situation for five whole years! And only the funny name La Fronde (Fronde) and the novel by Alexandre Dumas "Twenty Years Later" remained from her. As if nothing terrible had happened!
In translation, "fronda" means "slingshot", "sling". The famous uprising got its name from the fact that the Parisian boys at the beginning of it shot at the royal soldiers with slingshots, hiding around the corner. Explanatory dictionary, in addition to its direct meaning, gives one more, figurative: "unprincipled, frivolous opposition for personal reasons." Wow, frivolous! They put the people in the thousands! They staged a real civil war. They took and handed over Paris. And then they frivolously waved their hand in French and got rid of the nightmare with one cheerful word "Fronda" …
However, the French are understandable. Unhappy, deprived of God. One war they called the Hundred Years. The other is Thirty. And if we take into account that in 1648 many in France had not yet moved away from the era of the Religious Wars (the very ones with St. Bartholomew's Night!), Which was closer for them than for us today the Great Patriotic War, then you can understand why, having survived the Fronde, D'Artagnan's contemporaries did not feel anything special. They say that it has passed - it could be worse. Meanwhile, the parallels with our present day at the Fronda are simply amazing.
It is not for nothing that Ukraine is compared to France. But in the middle of the 17th century, this country was especially similar to today's Ukraine. No, though. She was still much more confused and worse. Residents of neighboring states considered it a wild, low-civilized country inhabited by semi-barbarians. There was no great French literature yet. And philosophy. And architecture. The unpaved narrow streets of Paris stank of slop. The best roads in the whole country were the ancient Roman ones, dating back at least one and a half thousand years. The rest was impossible to pass, not to drive! There, behind every bush on the side of the road, there was a wolf, waiting for Little Red Riding Hood.
Residents spoke different languages and did not understand each other well. Something similar to the current French language existed only in the capital. In the north of the country they spoke the language "Oil", and in the south they spoke the language "ok" - both words meant "yes". Moreover, they mostly spoke, and did not write, due to almost complete illiteracy. However, many villages had their own dialects that were not understandable to anyone else.
FRANCE WITHOUT FRENCHES. The inhabitants did not feel themselves French, but Bretons, Picardians, Burgundians. Community and nepotism flourished. The same musketeers (an analogue of our "Berkut") were recruited mainly from Gascons - descendants of the Basques who inhabited the south of France. The Gascons pulled each other to Paris and seized the tastiest places in the system, as they would now say, "maintaining public order." From them and fed.
The rest of the provincials sincerely hated Paris, which sucked all the juices out of the peasant country, and considered it to be fed up. Moreover, in the north of the country, from hunger, they had to eat frogs, and in the south - snails. From such a wretched life, both snail and toad beetles fled across the ocean - to the recently discovered Canada, becoming completely wild fur hunters - trappers (an analogue of our Cossacks). And those that stayed at home, in spite of each other, professed two competing religions - Catholicism and Calvinism (a kind of Protestantism). Both Christian communities were in such "love" that from time to time they staged a mutual massacre.
It even came to this. The people in Paris expressed their dissatisfaction in the most active way
In general, if there was a truly divided and unsettled country in Europe, it was France. Some did not even consider it a country. For example, the Spaniards wanted to chop off the entire south - the one that spoke the language "ok", very similar to Catalan and Castilian in Spain. And the British did not at all consider the Hundred Years War to be completely lost and were still going to return to France to take "theirs" - all those areas where the "Oil" language reigned and frogs cracked.
But the Parisians were also unhappy, although they had the best life! They suffered from the so-called "capital complex" and believed that everyone owed them - both the king and the province, and did not like to pay taxes and constantly hid their business "in the shadows." And since among the Parisians there were the most literate people, their main entertainment was reading satirical anti-government brochures and leaflets, the authors of which "trolled" the authorities. These leaflets were analogous to the modern Internet.
While in France, Louis XIII and his first minister, Cardinal Richelieu, ruled with a fierce hand, the country still somehow kept in one wallet. All the separatists and conspirators, the cardinal without hesitation, chopped off their heads on the Place de Grève in Paris, regardless of social origin. The king without hesitation in everything supported the policy of his first minister and approved death sentences for the rebels, even when they turned out to be people from his inner circle - for example, the chief equerry Saint-Mar, who planned to remove Richelieu. Louis XIII willingly fulfilled this "royal duty", even though, according to the modern French historian Emile Magnus, "he wrote like a child in large, uneven letters, and there is nothing to say about spelling."
TAKE-ALL! But in 1642 and 1643, the king and his first minister died one after another (first Richelieu, and after him - Louis), and the country found itself in a strip of relative freedom. Young Louis XIV, when the pope went to a better world, was only five years old. Instead, his mother rules - Queen Anne of Austria (a forty-two-year-old woman still in full juice, with an insatiable appetite both at the dinner table and in bed) and her lover, Cardinal Mazarin. In addition to making love, this couple was especially fond of raising taxes.
They did not like the premiere of Mazarin, although he possessed administrative abilities and was a nominee of the great Richelieu.
And then the French people were terribly excited. “Who are these Anna of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin? - the French began to be indignant. - Where did they come from on our heads? We ourselves are not made with a finger! " The Parisians were especially fired up, having read street leaflets with "criticism" of the cardinal - the so-called "mazarinad". They were just noisy, like in a bazaar.
The fact that the queen and her intimate friend were foreigners added fuel to the fire: Anna, despite her nickname, was Spanish, and the cardinal was Italian. And no one wanted to remember that the late Richelieu, who noticed the administrative talents of the nimble Italian, made Mazarin the cardinal, and Louis XIII, whom, as soon as he died, everyone suddenly began to remember him with nostalgia, and even wrote on the fences: “Louis, come back!"
The first power in the world at that time was Spain, which played the role of the United States in international affairs. It was she, and not Britain, who owned the seas, her garrisons stood in Flanders (present-day Belgium) and Sicily, controlling the sea routes, and her galleons brought barrels with gold and silver mined by the Indians to the metropolis from South America. As now the United States is imposing "democracy" everywhere, so then Spain sought to instill Catholicism throughout Europe as the most correct teaching, guaranteeing both lifetime and posthumous bliss. All French "lovers of truth" had a habit of running to the Spanish Embassy for instructions and support - as we would say today, for "grants" for which they could release another batch of "mazarinades". There are quite a lot of such "foreign agents" in France, since Spain had enough gold.
REBEL OF OLIGARKHOV. But the most important foreign agents were "princes of the blood" - an analogue of our oligarchs, who were with the royal family of France in varying degrees of kinship. The princes received the best positions, became governors of the French provinces that spoke different languages, but each of them wanted to be the first minister, instead of Mazarin, and was very afraid that the "family" would take everything for itself. The princes of the blood also murmured and ran in a race to the Spanish embassy, and sometimes, especially intrigued, they fled abroad - into emigration, like some of the offended Ukrainian oligarchs.
In January 1648, this sweet political system boiled like onion soup.
Anna of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin decided to introduce a new portion of taxes in order to bring the war with Spain to an end - France, imagine, it also fought with it! But the Parisian parliament refused to approve them (Madril’s hand was felt!) And went over into deaf opposition to the government. The President of Parliament Pierre Brussels, an extremely stubborn type and a dangerous intriguer, was especially furious. Using his official position, he refused to register royal decrees that introduced new taxes. Sly Brussels sniffed with the Chamber of Indirect Fees and the Accounts Chamber and, as Anna of Austria said in her hearts, created his own "republic within the state." The Parisian boys, warmed up by the adults, began firing slingshots at the windows of the queen's supporters - an analogue of Automaidan.
Then Anna of Austria ordered the arrest of Brussel, which was successfully done. In response, the Parisians set up barricades - 1260 pieces at once. The day they did this went down in French history. They called it - Day of the Barricades. The capital became completely impassable. Even excrement (and they were removed from Paris, due to the lack of sewage, in ordinary barrels) became impossible to take out. So everything smelled like the SPIRIT of FULL FREEDOM.
Queen Anne of Austria first arrested the main oppositionists, and then released
The most piquant thing is that it was from these cesspool barrels, as well as empty wine barrels (the Parisians drank innumerable!) That most of the barricades were built. Why not cobblestones? But because, as I wrote above, no one paved the street in the capital of France. They were not much different from rural roads. I had to build fortifications from barrels. "Barrika" is French for "barrel". It was from this word that the "barricade" came about.
However, the Parisians also found use of excrement in revolutionary activity. Since the shit in Paris was just head over heels, it was also used for wrestling. Lavatories in French are le cabinets - "cabinets". The Parisians, dissatisfied with the tax policy, will sit down in their "offices", reading at the same time proclamations, pouring out their indignation into their chamber pots, and then looking out the windows and waiting for the royal guards to drive up to the barricades to disassemble. And there and then they pour everything that they have accumulated in pots (in comparison with the squalid French province, the inhabitants of the capital, I repeat, ate excellently!) From the upper floors to the "guardsmen" on their heads.
IN THE DAYS OF BARRICADES. Dumas' novel does not contain all these spicy details. There is a "war in lace", where street fighting is described something like this: "With twenty musketeers, he rushed to all this mass of people, which retreated in complete disarray. Only one man was left with an arquebus in his hand. He took aim at d'Artagnan, who was rushing towards him with his career. D'Artagnan bent down to the horse's neck. The young man fired, and the bullet knocked down the feather on D'Artagnan's hat. The horse, racing at full speed, ran into the madman who was trying to stop the storm, and threw him against the wall. D'Artanyan abruptly reined in his horse, and while the musketeers continued their attack, he with a raised sword turned to the man he had knocked down."
In reality, it turned out that the government of Anna of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin simply did not find effective means against the barricades from stinking barrels and chamber pots with excrement. Barricades were the most advanced means of street warfare at that time - INSURANCE. No lace cuffs could wipe them off.
Just a civil war. Comparing ourselves to France, do we really want to repeat her mistakes?
NIGHT POT AGAINST THE FINE. Only at the end of the next century, military theorists (by the way, all in the same France, addicted to anti-government "barricading") will come to the conclusion that it is possible to fight the barricades with the help of light assault guns and flanking rounds right through the houses. But such a simple truth was still very far away in 1648, and the cannons were so heavy and cumbersome that they simply did not fit into the narrow Parisian streets. Despite the presence of the world's best musketeers, Anna of Austria was forced to give in - she released Brussels from prison and fled from Paris to the provinces. And even went to negotiations with the parliament, satisfying all of its demands.
In Saint-Germain, a suburb of Paris, an agreement was signed between the queen and the rebels, which meant the actual surrender of the legitimate authority. The Party of Night Pots laid the Party of Epees on their shoulder blades. But that was only the beginning of the struggle.
In the XVII century. France was on the verge of collapse due to the game of "democracy".
A humiliating ending. The main fronder, Prince Condé, did not suspect that he would bow to Louis XIV when he grows up into the Sun King. And I had to bow my head …
Paris in the mid-17th century did not like its kings. The kings reciprocated. The young Louis XIV, on whose behalf Anne of Austria and Mazarin ruled, was only the third ruler of France from the Bourbon dynasty. Their family came from the south - from the kingdom of Navarre. This separate small state in the foothills of the Pyrenees was in vassalage with France.
As you know, the grandfather of Louis Henry IV "bought" his crown with the famous phrase: "Paris is worth the Mass." The previous dynasty was cut short. Only a Catholic could take the throne, and the Protestant Heinrich, a cheerful, rude southerner, smelling of garlic and another girl whom he lay on straw in his "regional" kingdom, easily abandoned the religion of the fathers for the scepter and crown of France.
At the time of the Fronde, this story was well remembered. The Parisians considered the Bourbons to be upstarts, opportunists and impudent, dreaming of raking in everything for themselves. And the kings sought to live not in the Louvre, but in nature - away from their capital, which was constantly seething with indignations and barricades.
Pope Louis XIV, who ruled under the lucky number "13", spent all his free time hunting, moving from one royal castle near Paris to another. He was a jack of all trades, he made wonderful keys and lock picks, with the help of which he got into other people's safes, and once, when his carriage broke an axle, he personally repaired it, just not to return to Paris, where artisans disliked him and broke the king's triple the price. Louis XIV, when the Fronde ends, will generally build Versailles - his own Koncha-Zaspa and Mezhyhirya at the same time, and will come to the capital only occasionally to participate in the most important ceremonies. Even foreign ambassadors, this king will begin to receive in Versailles, in fact - at the "dacha".
Little Louis XIV suffered from fear from French oligarchs who dreamed of curtailing his powers
OLIGARCHS "FOR THE PEOPLE"? But in the fall of 1648, this was still very far away. To earn the right to chill in a personal "mezhyhiria", it was necessary to defeat the opposition, which had barricaded Paris up and down. The Saint-Germain agreement in form meant the complete surrender of royal power to the rebels. But, in fact, neither the proud Spaniard Anna of Austria, nor her lover, the enterprising Italian Mazarin, who ruled on behalf of the kid Louis XIV, were not going to yield an inch and hoped to return everything that they had lost.
The French oligarchs - those same princes of blood, slightly pressed by the royal "family" - also bent their trump cards. The popular movement in Paris, fueled by the money of the Spanish embassy, made them incredibly happy. In words, these crooks took the side of the "rebellious people", as they immediately called the ugly rebellion pouring liquid excrement on the heads of the royal guards, but in fact entered into secret negotiations with the government, trying to bargain for themselves the most delicious pieces of the state pie.
The most enterprising "oligarch" among the opposition was Prince Condé, a young rich man who believed that candy was the most important thing in life. He literally cracked them with handfuls, and at the same time he loved to be in the thick of things and give various battles. And not without success. The Queen immediately bought him up and actually made him the first minister.
For a while, this cooled the passions. On March 15, 1649, Parliament came to an agreement with the royal court. The Parisians dismantled the barricades. The coalition government, which was now headed by Mazarin (from the king and his mother-regent) and Conde (as if "from the people") began to work.
The activities and utilities were restored. The strategic stocks of crap accumulated during the months of the uprising, which changed the course of French history, were taken out in oak barrels to suburban dumps. They literally surrounded the capital of beautiful France from all sides. Instead, water carriers in other barrels - clean ones - began to supply spring water to Paris so that Parisians would not sip it straight from the Seine, every minute at the risk of contracting jaundice and dysentery.
GREAT CONFETOFIL. However, between Conde and Mazarin immediately broke out a production conflict between two "genius" managers - old and young. Officially, it seems, on fundamental issues of national importance, but in reality - for money. The guys couldn't share the budget in any way.
Rival ministers. "Great" Conde and "great" Mazarin did not fit in one small Cabinet
Mazarin sought to preserve funding for the royal guards, who represented the only real power base. And Conde demanded to distribute more to the people of various "sweets", trying to increase his own popularity. But this is only in words! In fact, the cunning candy prince rowed everything for himself. And all at an increasing pace.
Some "political scientists" (these nice people commenting on everything were already there) whispered in the Queen's ear that Condé wants to remain the only prime minister, while others went even further in their forecasts. According to them, it turned out that Condé was going to finish off little Louis XIV and his younger brother - the harmless toddler of the Duke of Anjou - and he was going to climb the royal throne himself! After all, the Bourbon dynasty was very young and still, as they say, did not "sit still", and Condé also had some rights to the monarch's chair in the state, where half of the inhabitants said the word "yes" as "oil", and the other half - as "Ok", and at the same time did not understand each other at all.
Unexpectedly, there were adherents of Mazarin, who was offended by everyone - this prime minister was fluent in official French to the same extent as our Azarov in state Ukrainian, but he was an experienced business executive. And let's face it, not a bad person. Mazarinophiles have opened even in the ranks of the opposition! After all, the greedy Conde did not share with them!
For example, the incredibly oppositional (just stupid!) Young fighter Duke La Rochefoucauld unexpectedly confessed to Madame de Chevreuse, who played the same role in the political system of France as Mrs. Timoshenko in ours (in all regimes she was expelled from the country, then they were imprisoned, and the late Cardinal Richelieu generally fainted when he heard her name!) that Azarov, excuse me, Mazarin is undeservedly offended and could still serve France. After all, it is against it that foreign loans are given.
The Duchess de Chevreuse played the role of Yulia Timoshenko in the Fronde. All the threads of intrigue led to her sexy personality
WE DON'T APPRECIATE MAZARINI! In the memoirs of La Rochefoucauld there is a corresponding record of his conversation with Madame de Chevreuse, who was about to get out of the next “exile”: “I depicted to her, as accurately as I could, the state of affairs: I told about the Queen's attitude to Cardinal Mazarin and to herself; I warned that one cannot judge the court by her old acquaintances, and it is not surprising if she discovers many changes in it; advised her to be guided by the queen's tastes, since she would not change them, and indicated that the Cardinal was not accused of any crime, and that he was not involved in the violence of Cardinal Richelieu; that, perhaps, only he is well versed in foreign affairs; that he has no relatives in France and that he is too good a courtier. I also added that it is not easy to find people who are known for their ability and integrity to be preferred over Cardinal Mazarin. Madame de Chevreuse said she would follow my advice unswervingly. She came to the court in this determination."
I will not argue that Yulia Tymoshenko will be released from captivity, like Madame de Chevreuse, but I will once again marvel at how everything repeats itself in world history. But if the same Tymoshenko is pardoned by the president and is free, then the trinity of our main oppositionists in the person of Klitschko, Yatsenyuk and Tyagnibok will immediately fade in front of her brilliant radiance, and, honestly speaking, I do not undertake to predict the further course of events and the success of their political career. But back to Mazarin's France.
Condé raised his tail not only on Mazarin, but also on the queen. And then he got a hat - or rather, a hat with a beautiful ostrich feather. He was kicked out of service and then imprisoned.
All the other princes of the blood, without hesitation, came out in defense of the "unfortunate" lover of sweets. Instead of the parliamentary Fronde of the Parisians, its second series flared up - the so-called Fronde of Princes. Here they cut themselves cruelly!
Each of the princes had their own army of scumbags, motivated both ideologically (only we are right, and the rest do not care!), And the money generously allocated by Spain for the disintegration of the violent French kingdom. Everyone seemed to have gone mad. The roads were filled with bands of roving soldiers. Taverns were taken by storm. Wine shops and cellars were captured instead of fortresses. The girls were raped. Old women and old people were killed for fun. Children were hunted by pedophiles. Behind defenseless beauties - maniacs, like the one described in Suskind's novel "Perfume". Nobody in the world recognized the French. Even though they had a bad reputation of half-savages, ready to kill each other for any reason, no one expected such savagery from the inhabitants of a "non-existent" state. And all this was called the funny word Fronda - Slinging game!
Events began that were difficult to describe. The Queen released Condé from prison. Instead of gratitude, he immediately rushed into the fight, in a hurry to quickly bleed the sword. Opposition and power gave real field battles to the roar of cannons and the rustle of fluttering banners. The battles began beautifully, according to all the rules of the "war of laces", but no one wanted to clean up the corpses - everything that the dogs did not have time to eat decomposed in the sun, so even maniacs-perfumers temporarily stopped their villainy and scattered in all directions, holding their noses.
Battle of Paris. The game "in the sling" went serious - they pierced each other's heads with pistols mercilessly
MAIDAN FOR THREE YEARS! In such life-threatening entertainment, France spent as much as three years! Parliament has decided that foreigners are not allowed to hold public office. Cardinal Mazarin sometimes fled from the country, then returned again. Foreign banks demanded to return the loans. Economic life froze. The export has stopped. Import too. Traditional French cuisine has lost all of its most important ingredients. All the wine from the cellars was drunk and all grain supplies were consumed. Even snails and frogs disappeared somewhere (to be honest, they were simply eaten to the last), and mice were hung from hunger in empty barns. Not even an onion left for the onion soup. The cold hand of the Holodomor took the "little Frenchman" by the belly. The thought prompted: "It's time to make up!". Vanity whispered: “Don't give in! The hero must stand to death! Like Jeanne d'Arc!"
Only the Spaniards benefited from everything that happened. All the money given to the opposition for the "revolution" still returned to Madrid, since the "oppositionists" used them to buy weapons - all from Spain. Indeed, even the production of musketeer swords has ceased in France. The blacksmiths fled, and the mining of ore stopped due to the permanent civil war of all against all.
AND ALL SURVIVORS - AMNESTY. And then like grace descended on the kingdom forsaken by God. Someone in Paris, where it all began, threw a cry: "Enough!" The warring parties made mutual concessions. The Queen once again dismissed Mazarin. Parliament dismissed several of the most rabid deputies who did not want to calm down. They simply spat on Prince Condé, advising him to go to the ancestral castle - simply put, to the village from which he was born, and there to do a more peaceful business - for example, feed the geese. People who were just yesterday ready to give their lives for the “great Conde” (under such a nickname he appears in history) now could not even understand why they were so frenzied because of such an insignificant person.
Conde did not want to give up. But several fortresses still under his control surrendered to the royal troops as soon as the opposition ran out of salaries for them - after all, the treasury of Spain was not unlimited.
The only plus was that the inhabitants of different parts of France, as a result of civil strife, got to know each other a little better and realized that a bad world is still better than a good Fronde. At least the fact that during the time of peace, murder is considered a crime, and during the Fronde - a feat. Burgundians, Provençals, Picardians, Gascons and even arrogant Parisians with their ineradicable metropolitan complex began for the first time to recognize themselves as part of one people. Albeit very different from himself in different areas of a large country.
In order not to kindle passions, the royal government showed unprecedented mercy. No executions like in Richelieu's time. A universal amnesty for all leaders and participants in the uprising. The old people, who remembered how it was with this during the Religious Wars, even wept with emotion. Two hundred years later, the tragedy experienced by France already seemed simply ridiculous. Fronda, they say, what to take from her … Frivolous something. And Dumas even wrote his "Twenty Years Later", making an eerie, if no joke, era as a cheerful background for the continuation of the adventures of The Three Musketeers. And he took off, as usual, the cashier. Well, could the frontmers might come to the head that they cut tribesmen for the sake of commercial success of the novels of some kind of brisk "Negro" (in reality - Quarteron), whose grandmother was from the distant Antilles?
