THE MINISTERS WHO RESTORED FRANCE’S ACCOUNTS (1/5) – Alongside Henri IV for twelve years, Superintendent Maximilien de Béthune, also known as the Duke of Sully, launched the reconstruction of the country, torn apart by wars.
A few ministers have stood out throughout history for their desire to restore public finances. A look back at four centuries of solutions to reduce the country’s debt.
October 5, 1600. Under the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo of Florence, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, legate and nephew of Pope Clement VIII, is about to celebrate a royal wedding. The bride is Marie de Médicis, the niece of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand I. It is also the latter who will, by proxy, symbolically pass the ring on his finger, the groom not having been able to make the trip.
Read alsoHenri IV, the model king who reconciled the French
Since August, Henri IV, the King of France, has been fighting on the other side of the Alps to force the Duke of Savoy to cede Bugey and Bresse to him. It was not until December, the military campaign well underway, that the king, aged 47, joined his young wife of 25 years in Lyon to definitively seal their union in the Saint-Jean cathedral. It thus puts an end to a project of…
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