Louis XIII ascended to the throne of France in 1610, at the age of eight and a half, upon the assassination of his father. His mother acted as Regent until Louis XIII came of age at thirteen, but she clung to power unofficially until in frustration he took the reins of government into his own hands at the age of fifteen. The assassination of Concino Concini (April 24, 1617), who had greatly influenced Marie's policymaking, and Marie's own exile to Blois, removed her from power. Louis then came into his own as ruler of France. He filled his court with loyal friends and sidelined those who remained loyal to his mother. Under Louis XIII's rule, the Bourbon Dynasty sustained itself effectively on the throne that Henry IV had recently secured; but the question of freedom of religion continued to haunt the country.
The brilliant and energetic Cardinal Richelieu played a major role in Louis XIII's administration from 1624, decisively shaping the destiny of France for the next 18 years and dying only months before the King himself. As a result of Richelieu's work, Louis XIII became one of the first exemplars of an absolute monarch. Under Louis XIII the Habsburgs were humiliated, the French nobility was firmly kept in line behind their King, and the special privileges granted to the Huguenots by his father were retracted. Furthermore, Louis XIII had the port of Le Havre modernized and built up a powerful navy. Unfortunately time and circumstances never permitted King and Cardinal to attend to the administrative reforms (particularly of France's tax system) which were urgently needed.
The King also did everything to reverse the trend for the promising artists of France to work and study in Italy. Louis XIII commissioned the great artists Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne to decorate the Louvre. In foreign matters, Louis XIII organized the development and administration of New France, expanding the settlement of Quebec westward along the Saint Lawrence River from Quebec City to Montreal.
On November 9, 1615, aged only 14, Louis XIII was married to a Habsburg Princess, Anne of Austria (1601–66), daughter of King Philip III of Spain (1578–1621). This marriage followed a tradition of cementing military and political alliances between the Catholic powers of France and Spain with royal marriages. The tradition went back to the marriage of King Philip II of Spain with the French princess, Élisabeth de Valois, the daughter of King Henry II of France, in 1559 as part of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. Their sexual relationship did not begin (other than the consummation of the wedding) until 1619 (when he was 18). The marriage, like many Bourbon-Habsburg relationships, was only briefly happy, and the King's duties often kept them apart. After 23 years of marriage and four miscarriages, Anne finally gave birth to a son in 1638. There is no evidence as to whether or not Louis had lovers.
Though Richelieu was firmly in charge of French policies, the King's favorites left their mark on the reign. The first was the Duc de Luynes, 23 years his senior, who was the boy's closest adult friend and adviser at the outset of his reign. The last of the King's favorites (1639–42) was the much younger Marquis de Cinq-Mars, who was executed for conspiring with the Spanish enemy in time of war.
Moote, A. Lloyd. Louis XIII, the Just. Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1991 (paperback, ISBN 0-520-07546-3).
Willis, Daniel A. (comp). The Descendants of Louis XIII. Clearfield, 1999.
Huxley, Aldous. "The Devils of Loudun". The 1952 book tells the story of the trial of Urbain Grandier, priest of the town who was tortured and burned at the stake in 1634.
Louis XIII also appears in novels of Robert Merle's Fortune de France series.
Ken Russell directed the film The Devils, in which Louis XIII is a significant character, albeit one with no resemblance to the real man. The film was based on Huxley's book "The Devils of Loudun".
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