Editing Louis XIII (section)

==Ascendancy of Charles de Luynes, 1617–1621==
[[File:Louis XIII on Horseback. Circa 1615-1620 CE. Bronze, from France (probably Paris). The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.jpg|thumb|Louis XIII on horseback, {{circa}} 1615–1620. [[Bronze]], from France (probably Paris). [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], London]]

[[Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes|Luynes]] soon became as unpopular as Concini had been. Other nobles resented his monopolisation of the King. Luynes was seen as less competent than Henry IV's ministers, many now elderly or deceased, who had surrounded Marie de' Medici.

The [[Thirty Years' War]] broke out in 1618. The French court was initially unsure of which side to support. On the one hand, France's traditional rivalry with the [[House of Habsburg]] argued in favour of intervening on behalf of the Protestant powers (and Louis's father Henry IV of France had once been a Huguenot leader). On the other hand, Louis XIII had a strict Catholic upbringing, and his natural inclination was to support the [[Holy Roman Emperor]], the Habsburg [[Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor|Ferdinand II]].

The French nobles were further antagonised against Luynes by the 1618 revocation of the ''[[Paulette (tax)|paulette tax]]'' and by the sale of offices in 1620. From her exile in Blois, Marie de' Medici became the obvious rallying point for this discontent, and the Bishop of Luçon (who became [[Cardinal Richelieu]] in 1622) was allowed to act as her chief adviser, serving as a go-between Marie and the King.

French nobles launched a rebellion on 2 July 1620, but their forces were easily routed by royal forces at the {{ill|Battle of Ponts-de-Cé|fr|Bataille des Ponts-de-Cé (1620)}} on 7 August 1620. Louis then launched an expedition against the Huguenots of [[Béarn]] who had defied a number of royal decisions. This expedition managed to re-establish Catholicism as the official religion of Béarn. However, the Béarn expedition drove Huguenots in other provinces into a rebellion led by [[Henri, Duke of Rohan]].

In 1621 Louis XIII was formally reconciled with his mother. Luynes was appointed [[Constable of France]], after which he and Louis set out to quell the Huguenot rebellion. The siege at the Huguenot stronghold of [[Montauban]] had to be abandoned after three months owing to the large number of royal troops who had succumbed to camp fever. One of the victims of camp fever was Luynes, who died in December 1621.