Versione classicaVersione mobile

Thémis en diplomatie

 | 
Éric Schnakenbourg
, 
Nicolas Drocourt

Première partie. Droit et organisation internationale

Les droits, le droit et la diplomatie de Louis XIV

Rights, the Law and Louis XIV’s Diplomacy

Lucien Bély

Abstract

Louis XIV’s diplomacy relied on strong legal discourse to justify its claims and its takeovers by force. The arguments came from the law of nations as well as from private law, which enabled him to demand sovereignty over the Spanish Low Countries in the name of the rule of Devolution in the 1660s, and from old feudal law, which legitimated the politics of Reunions in the 1680s. The use of legal argumentation to claim rights did not prevent Louis XIV from breaking some of the most well established rules of the law of nations, which was in the process of being elaborated. The practice of kidnapping in a foreign territory was based on the use of force without any regard for the sovereignty of a weaker prince. In the last decades of the seventeenth century, the emergence of international public opinion and the spread of certain legal principles fed written propaganda that denounced Louis XIV’s bad faith or, on the contrary, supported the rightness of his claims. Criticising his greed was a way to present the French king as a troublemaker among the society of princes, whereas respecting each prince’s rights should enable the pacification of international relations. Finally, the War of Spanish Succession raised considerable legal difficulties following Philippe V’s renunciation of his right to the French crown, as required by the Allies. In this case, a legal provision resulting from diplomatic negotiations was imposed on the rules of succession to the French crown, which had been considered intangible. This process illustrates the new hierarchy of legal norms that came into being in the eighteenth century.

I formati HTML, PDF ed ePub di questo libro sono accessibili agli utenti di biblioteche e istituzioni che lo hanno acquistato come parte dell'offerta OpenEdition Freemium for Books. Il libro può anche essere acquistato sui siti dei librai partner, nei formati PDF ed ePub, se l'editore ha scelto questa distribuzione commerciale. Se l'edizione cartacea è disponibile, i link alle librerie sono proposti in questa pagina.

Estratto del testo

La politique étrangère de Louis XIV affirme et défend des « droits » historiques1. Si la France n’est pas la seule à présenter ainsi des revendications nourries du passé, elle a désormais les moyens, en raison de sa puissance militaire, de les faire entendre au sein de la société des princes2. Dans le monde des souverains tel qu’il se structure après la paix de Westphalie3, la confrontation est permanente et elle se fonde souvent sur des arguments juridiques. Le gouvernement royal élabore alors un discours pour justifier des interventions, le plus souvent agressives. Il a recours à des juristes et à des écrivains qui travaillent à fonder ces raisonnements et ces arguments. Une telle argumentation sert aussi à nourrir les déclarations de guerre4 qui apparaissent comme des justifications lancées à l’opinion publique internationale.

Un vade-mecum du diplomate français

Nous pouvons partir d’un manuel intitulé : Mémoires et instructions pour servir dans les négociations e...

Il testo e gli altri elementi (illustrazioni, file importati) possono essere utilizzati con OpenEdition Books License, se non diversamente specificato.

Cerca su OpenEdition Search

Sarai reindirizzato su OpenEdition Search