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Raising the Standard: An Examination of Louis XIV’s Army under the Le Tellier Catherine Charlton
In April of 1643, one month and a day before the death of King Louis XIII, Cardinal Mazarin named Michel Le Tellier as France’s newest Secretary of State for War.1 There could be no way of knowing that this marked the beginning of a fifty-eight-year familial control on the position that would last until the death of Le Tellier’s grandson in 1701. This paper will argue that the driving force and primary characteristic of the Le Tellier period was standardization. I will examine each Le Tellier’s headship of the Ministry for War, then concentrate on three domains which were increasingly regulated under their leadership: regimental organization, food distribution, and arms production and calibration. The Le Tellier (an encompassing term for all three men) each held a variety of positions under Louis XIV, but it is their successive headship of the Ministry of War that best provides the thread which links the three. As such, it is worth devoting some time to explore the duties of a seventeenth-century Secretary of State for War, and the character of each Le Tellier holding this position. Each man brought unique strengths and shortcomings to the position, which influenced their impact on the army. The Le Tellier and the Secretaryship In the seventeenth century, France’s Ministry of War was a dominating and extensive power. It boasted the largest workforce of all the French ministries, and of this domain, the Secretary of State
