Struggle for Absolutism

The monarchs that ruled Europe and Asia during the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries tried desperately to move away from feudal traditions, and ideally towards achieving absolute monarchies.   Absolutism, where a monarch is an unlimited power, was a popular goal in those days.   The political theory that is derived from support of such a system is called divine right, where the monarchs are accountable to God and God alone.   Russia and France were above all other nations in striving to achieve a supreme, absolute ruling system.   Their advancements were often similar, but sometimes different, in the fields of taxation, cultural awareness, and country expansion.


        France and Russia needed to tax their constituents for the benefit of their governments.   Although the lowest classes that consisted of serfs, peasants, and yeomen were the poorest, they were the classes most heavily taxed by these countries.   The middle and upper classes, the gentry and the boyars, were exempt from the taxes, usually collected by independent collectors in France, and the government in Russia.   The French monarchs taxed mainly for support of their vast and great army.   While Russian czars reaped money from their laborers and craftsmen in order to increase government income and to help the government run more efficiently.   In addition, Czar Peter the Great, increased local taxes to promote support of the new educational requirements that were issued.   These unfair and sometimes complicated systems were kept in use, all the while remaining unadjusted for years


        Unlike the other successful countries of that time period, Russia and France remained culturally aware.   Each had aspects that established their nation as either wholly French, or wholly Russian.   In France, Louis XIV was the major contributor to the brilliant French culture.   He moved his court and government to a divine palace in Versailles.   The palace was built to show the wealth, power, and glory...