Absolute monarchy in France

The National Assembly passed a series of radical measures, including the abolition of feudalism, state control of the Catholic Church and extending the right to vote.

During the course of the 9th and 10th centuries, continually threatened by Viking invasions, France became a very decentralised state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, and the authority of the king became more religious than secular and thus was less effective and constantly challenged by powerful noblemen.

By the time of Francis I, France was a very centralized state but the French Wars of Religion posed a new threat to royal absolutism with quasi-independent Protestant strongholds developing in various locations in the country.

The rebellion was crushed; however, many obstacles stood in the way of absolutism in France: To overcome these obstacles King Louis XIV adopted several measures to weaken or eliminate competing centers of power: The Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 removed the former policy of tolerance toward French Huguenots, as formalised by the Edict of Nantes A more subtle tactic was the demolition of a number of fortified castles still owned and occupied by members of the nobility.

Louis XIV, with the help of his minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, replaced them with royal appointees drawn largely from the merchant class, who were generally better educated and whose titles were revocable and not hereditary.

Known as the "fundamental laws of the Kingdom", these evolved over time and were a set of unwritten principles which placed limits on the otherwise absolute power of the king from the Middle Ages until the French Revolution in 1789.

Moreover, barred from New France, they immigrated to other nations, most notably the Thirteen Colonies, taking their skills of printing, glass making, carpentry, ceramics, a deep belief in the needs for freedom of religion (at least for Protestantism), and the right to bear arms.

Even today's Fifth Republic in France mimics some models from other European constitutional monarchies, because of the stability and influence of the head of state (monarch or elected president) to preserve the territorial unity by an enforced balance of powers.