Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/902

Rh 878 PROVENCE vol. v. pp. 422-23), to replace the podestas by governors of his own nomination (1246). Charles died in 1285, leav ing the states of Anjou, Provence, and Naples to his son Charles II., under whose rule peace and prosperity to some extent revived. But the efforts of his son Robert (1309) in the cause of the Guelphs called for increased taxation, and he left a troubled heritage to his granddaughter Joan of Naples (1343). To avenge the murder of his brother Andrew, the husband of Joan, at whose instigation the crime had been committed, Louis of Hungary marched into Italy (1347), and made himself master of the kingdom of Naples. Joan fled to Provence, and by timely conces sions to her people secured their favour in her efforts to regain the Neapolitan crown. But money was needed ; so Avignon, where the popes had resided since 1305, was sold to Pope Clement VI., and Joan won back Naples. An important part in the affair was played by the Pro- ven9al estates, which consisted of the three houses of clergy, nobility, and commons, and were supreme in all financial matters, however absolute the counts might be in other branches of government. This power of the purse was jealously guarded, and the subsidies granted to the prince were never considered as other than dons gratuite, the name by which they were called even after the union with France, when they became an annual tri bute. Owing to the right of repartition to definite objects of the sums raised by taxation, the Provengaux were not on the whole badly governed, for, though the estates had only the right of petition for legislation, yet when the need arose they could very effectually speak with the voice of the whole people. The representation of the bulk of the nation in the tiers-etat was particularly good, for the deputies, who were paid, were returned not only by the twenty-five country electorates, or vigueries, but from thirty-seven communes as well. The English constitution may therefore be indebted to Provence for the important step which was taken by the younger Simon de Montfort in first summoning the representatives of cities and boroughs to the parliament of 1265. The earliest re corded session of the estates was in 1146, and the meet ings continued at intervals until 1639, when they ceased until 1787. The sessions not being annual, the powers of the estates in ordinary matters were delegated to a general assembly, composed of the archbishop of Aix, the pro- cureurs joints, who were representatives of each of the estates of the clergy and the nobility, and the whole of the tiers-etat. This assembly gradually superseded the estates until in 1639 it replaced them altogether. To meet sudden emergencies there was a &quot; great council, &quot; which consisted of the archbishop and three consuls of Aix as procureurs du pays, and the procureurs joints of the three estates, under the presidency of the grand seneschal. This officer was the representative of the counts in judicial affairs, and during their absence from the country in military matters also. His powers were not only adminis trative, but to a great extent legislative, and they were therefore fated either to increase at the expense of the sovereign or to be cut down by a firm ruler. Joan chose the latter course, and deprived the grand seneschal of his powers over the state domains, and his right to remove judges and pardon capital crimes. And she not only reduced his power but appointed an Italian to the office, upon which the nation rose in revolt, and Louis of Anjou, seizing the opportunity to press his claims to the throne, led an army into Provence in 1368. The pretensions of Louis were met by Joan s offer to adopt him as her heir, and on her death in 1382 he succeeded to the county. The reign of Louis I. was passed in the unsuccessful pur suit of his claims to the kingdom of Naples, and his son Louis II. (1384) and grandson Louis III. (1417) con tinued the same unprofitable contest. Rene (1434), a brother of Louis III., was not less inclined to give up his rights, which had revived in force from his adoption by Joan II. of Naples, but, though fortune at first smiled on him, he was at last forced to resign his claim in favour of the house of Aragon. The count, or titular king, was an accomplished musician and a lover of literature and tho arts ; and, the latter part of his reign being on the whole peaceful, he was able to give free play to his inclinations. The artistic fame of his court has lasted to the present day, but it was the interest which he took in his subjects material welfare, and his administration of wise laws, which caused his people to lament the death of Rene the Good. He died in 1480, and, leaving only a daughter Margaret, the ill-fated wife of Henry VI. of England, bequeathed the county to his nephew Charles of Maine. Charles III. died in the following year, making Louis XI. of France his heir, and in 1486 Charles VIII. by letters patent reunited the county to the kingdom of France. The union was confirmed by the estates with the full approval of the people ; but the emperor was not inclined to relinquish without a struggle his claims to overlordship, and he found a willing tool in the constable, Charles of Bourbon, who entered Provence at the head of the im-. perialist army in 1524. His adventure met with failure, and the invasion by the emperor Charles V. himself in 1536 was equally unsuccessful. In 1501 Louis XIIL, with the view of strengthening his own authority, replaced the &quot; conseil eminent,&quot; which in the time of the counts had been the highest court of justice, by a &quot; parlement,&quot; consist ing at first of the grand seneschal, a president, and eleven nominated councillors. The functions of the court were strictly judicial, but before its abolition in 1790 it had often assumed legislative rights, and consequently played a conspicuous part in the civil wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. The principles of the Reformation made what little progress they did in Provence from external rather than internal causes, and the people themselves never took kindly to doctrines which in many ways assumed an extremely bizarre and heretical form. The 13th century had witnessed Simon de Montfort s crusade against the Albigenses of Languedoc, and the ruin which heresy had brought on that province cannot have given the prosper ous Provengaux any great love for new doctrines. The Waldenses of the 16th century were therefore chiefly con fined to the mountainous districts, but the persecutions ordered by the paiiement brought the horrors of civil war on the whole country. The extreme Catholics formed the Holy League against the Protestants, and the two parties were equally at enmity with Henry III., who tried to please both without satisfying either. In time the royal ists and Protestants united under the name of Biyarratu, but it was not until Henry IV. had come to the throne, and Marseilles, the last stronghold of the League, had submitted, that the worn-out country was again at peace. Richelieu tried to increase the taxation of the people with out their consent, but the disorders of the Cascaveous were the result, and a similar attempt by Mazarin in 1C 4 7 led to disturbances in connexion with the Fronde which lasted until 1652. In 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the army of the allies under Prince Eugene invaded the province, and the horrors of war were followed by those of the plague of 1720, when 100,000 persons perished, Marseilles alone losing 50,000 out of a popula tion of 90,000. The dispute between the Jesuits and Jansenists waxed warm about 1726, but the victory of the former only preceded their suppression by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773 in return for the cession of Avignon and the county of Venaissin, which had twice changed hands since their reunion with Provence in 1663. On the re-