How'd you get things like King Louis during the French Revolution?
I'd think over time, even with immense responsibilities and enemies around, they'll grow decadent
Well, admittedly the System that gave a King Louis power had been steadily dismantled, often by the king, since at least Richelieu in the 1630s, where much of the practical power of the Nobility, and the meritocratic elements that kept it healthy, were curtailed till they were basically ornamental by the 1800s. Considering the Nobility as a power structure were basically crushed after the
Fronde of 1650, being steadily supplanted by a non-noble bureaucratic/buisness class which eventually overthrew that last bit of Noble rule, the King himself, part of the amazing thing with France is how long it still took the ancient regime to fall. Probably because you had Louis XIV figures, the Sun King, who was individually competent enough and strong willed enough to bring all the power of the noble class into himself ("I am the State") without collapsing everything. Having one ruler who reigned for almost 72 years, previously had a King rule for 30 years, and the next and last King, Louis XV, ruling for a total of 59 years, may have played a role as well, and may be a reason why France proceeded in the way it did, now that I'm looking at it:
France, between 1610-1774, only had 3 Kings (Louis XIII-XV). 3 rulers over a 164 year period is probably nearly unprecedented period of stability at the top: In the first 164 years of the Roman Empire for example, from 27 BC to 137 AD, there were 14 Emperors. During the same period of time in England from 1610 to 1774 there were 12 Rulers of England, of whom two were (aristocratic) Cromwell after the English civil war, one was the co-ruler of the Netherlands after the Glorious revolution, and another was a distantly related German selected to avoid Catholics. So, not only did England have 4x as many rulers as France, England had some 2 revolutions, one merging of states (England and Scotland merging) and in summary about 5 different (if somewhat closely related) families rule England. So More families rotated through the English Kingship in the time it took France to rotate through 3 Kings!
Russia likewise had 16 Czars, The holy roman Empire had 10 Emperors, the Ottoman Empire had 15 Sultans, China had 18 Emperors (inflated a bit due to a civil war where there were two emperors floating around at the same time). Japan had 11 emperors and 9 shoguns.
It really seems that France in the 1600-1700s had an unprecedented run of stability (or stagnation, to put a more negative spin on it) of the top leadership, something I'm not sure has ever been repeated somewhere else. Hm, History class never really emphasizes just how bizarre the political system in France actually was: Luis XIV the sun king is generally held out as a model of his age of absolute Monarchy in history, rather than the bizarre quirk of fate he actually is.
en.wikipedia.org
