Louis XIII was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown.
27 Facts About Louis XIII
2.
Shortly before his ninth birthday, Louis became king of France and Navarre after his father Henry IV was assassinated.
3.
Louis XIII's reign was marked by the struggles against the Huguenots and Habsburg Spain.
4.
Louis XIII ascended the throne in 1610 upon the assassination of his father, and his mother Marie de' Medici acted as his Regent.
5.
Louis XIII mainly relied on Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, Noel Brulart de Sillery, and Pierre Jeannin for political advice.
6.
Louis XIII was not able to prevent rebellion by nobles such as Henri, Prince of Conde, second in line to the throne after Marie's second surviving son Gaston, Duke of Orleans.
7.
The assembly of this Estates General was delayed until Louis XIII formally came of age on his thirteenth birthday.
8.
Huguenot leaders supported Conde's rebellion, which led the young Louis XIII to conclude that they would never be loyal subjects.
9.
Later, Louis XIII conferred the title of Duke of Luynes on Charles d'Albert.
10.
Louis XIII then launched an expedition against the Huguenots of Bearn who had defied a number of royal decisions.
11.
In 1621 Louis XIII was formally reconciled with his mother.
12.
Luynes was appointed Constable of France, after which he and Louis XIII set out to quell the Huguenot rebellion.
13.
Louis XIII's mother returned from exile and, in 1622, entered this council, where Conde recommended violent suppression of the Huguenots.
14.
Louis XIII ultimately dismissed Noel Brulart de Sillery and Pierre Brulart in 1624 because of his displeasure with how they handled the diplomatic situation over the Valtellina with Spain.
15.
Louis XIII therefore found a better servitor in his Superintendent of Finances Charles de La Vieuville, who held similar views of Spain as the king, and who advised Louis to side with the Dutch via the Treaty of Compiegne.
16.
Louis XIII needed a new chief advisor; Cardinal Richelieu would be that counsellor.
17.
Louis XIII successfully led the important Siege of La Rochelle.
18.
Louis XIII worked to reverse the trend of promising French artists leaving for Italy to work and study.
19.
Louis XIII commissioned the painters Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne to decorate the Louvre Palace.
20.
In foreign matters, Louis XIII organised the development and administration of New France, expanding its settlements westward along the Saint Lawrence River from Quebec City to Montreal.
21.
Louis XIII visited Morocco again in 1631, and helped negotiate the Franco-Moroccan Treaty.
22.
Louis XIII took on military tasks such as taking control of Fort Pentagouet at Majabigwaduce on the Penobscot Bay, which had been given to France in an earlier Treaty, and to inform the English they were to vacate all lands north of Pemaquid.
23.
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.
24.
In gratitude for having successfully given birth, the queen founded the Benedictine abbey of the Val-de-Grace, for which Louis XIII XIV laid the cornerstone of its church, an early masterpiece of French Baroque architecture.
25.
Voltaire claimed in the second edition of Questions sur l'Encyclopedie that before Louis XIV was born, Louis XIII had an illegitimate son, who was jailed and his face hidden beneath an iron mask.
26.
Louis XIII was captivated by Henri Coiffier de Ruze, Marquis of Cinq-Mars, who was later executed for conspiring with the Spanish enemy in time of war.
27.
Louis XIII shared his mother's love of the lute, developed in her childhood in Florence.