The cost of war

Here is the voice of the frustrated military commander, in this case Brissac, at being kept short of funds at a critical moment. The problem was repeated constantly throughout the Italian and Habsburg-Valois wars. Was the French financial system simply not up to waging war?

How much did war cost in 16th century France? A simple question, perhaps, but not one that is remotely simple to answer. Some foreign ambassadors made estimates of war expenditure that can be treated as educated guesses. The Venetian Contarini in 1491, for instance, thought that the gendarmerie cost 2.3 million lt. and fortifications and equipment 3 millions, while total revenues were only 3.6 millions. The figure for the gendarmerie is certainly an over-estimate but there is no way of judging the rest. Priorities were always difficult to establish. In October 1515, the pay of the gendarmerie had to be diverted for the April quarter to satisfy the pay of the lansquenets.

Marshal d’Esquerdes estimated the cost of the Italian campaign of 1494–5 as 1 million écus. Demands sent to the clergy for the don gratuit in August 1542 included a statement that the war with the Emperor was currently costing 1 million lt. a month (the high cost of campaigning months in the summer), financed through loans. The King had raised 250,000 lt. from Italian merchants (at 16%) and a further 50,000 from French merchants at 10%. To this could be added the revenues from the new tax for the infantry levied on the cities (200,000 écus from Paris) and grant from the Estates. Later in the year Francis admitted he had been short of funds but was sure he would have 6 millions for the following year's campaign. The rebellion at La Rochelle over the salt duty was a symptom of the problem. Contrôleur des guerres Bayard told an imperial envoy in 1544 that the war of 1542–4 had cost France 11 million lt. The imperial Ambassador reported to the Emperor in 1547 that Cardinal de Meudon had gone to the Louvre to inspect the coffers of the King's reserve war chest and had declared that there were 1,500,000 écus.