International Comparisons Yet this Habsburg failure, it is
Citations (1)
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers whole source · open book
The Italian wars, besides repeatedly showing how short-lived and disastrous were the French efforts to gain influence in that peninsula (even when allied with Venice or the Turks), were also very expensive: it was not only the Habsburgs but also the French crown which had to declare bankruptcy in the fateful year of 1557. Well before that crash, and despite all the increase in the taille and in indirect taxes like the gabelle and customs, the French monarchy was already resorting to heavy borrowings from financiers at high rates of interest (10–16 percent), and to dubious expedients like selling offices. Worse still, it was in France rather than Spain or England that religious rivalries interacted with the ambitions of the great noble houses to produce a bloody and long-lasting civil war.
chapter: International Comparisons