Dans le cercle du pouvoir : les favoris dans les systèmes politiques des cours de Paris-Versailles et du grand-duché de Lituanie au xviie siècle

Abstract

During the seventeenth century, in both France and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the rulers formed their own parties to help them rule the state. The main purpose of the article is to present how rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and of France chose their favourites, what was their background, why were they chosen and how they could retain or lose the king’s favour. Common elements appeared in the seventeenth-century system of appointing favourites in both France and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In Poland and Lithuania, however, kings valued the maintaining of a balance of power, in order to prevent the dominant influence of any person over the ruler, while in France, certain favourites – Richelieu, Mazarin – took on a dominant role. When Louis XIV came to power, he introduced personal and independent government yet also had several favourites whose influence he tried to balance. In Lithuania, the situation began to change over time, when, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the hegemony of two families was established, that of the Pacs and the Sapiehas, who could follow their own political agenda, independently of the court of Warsaw, and which the king was obliged to take into account.

Keywords

• Grand Duchy of Lithuania
• Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
• favourite
• France
• absolutism
• hegemony