LUIGI XIII, King of FRANCE. - Of the house of Bourbon, b. at Fontainebleau on 27 Sept. 1601 to Enrico IV and Maria de' Medici, d. on 14 May 1643 at St-Germain-en-Laye. In 1615 he married Anna d'Austria, by whom he had Luigi XIV and Filippo d'Orléans. Having lost his father, who was murdered in 1610, he had an unhappy childhood under his mother's guardianship, amid party struggles and the domination of favourites, from whom he was freed by the assassination of Concini in 1617.
He then fell into the hands of other overbearing and incapable men, until in 1624 he made card. Richelieu prime minister, retaining his confidence in him until his death, despite the profound hostility of the Court and of the recalcitrant nobility toward the minister who restored the absolute authority of the king and crushed the Parliaments, the nobility, and the Huguenots as a political party. A mediocre man, but deeply conscious of his royal duties, he took part in the siege of La Rochelle and in expeditions in the south and in Piedmont. He supported Richelieu in the struggle against the House of Austria, both in Germany and in the various Spanish dominions (Flanders,
Catalonia, Portugal, Italy); and, after Richelieu's death, by appointing Mazzarino he ensured its continuation and success. He had good relations with Pope Urbano VIII, who likewise suspected Spanish overbearingness. Piedmont, governed by his sister Cristina as regent, followed his directives.
Bist.: M. Topin. Louis XIII et Richelieu. Paris 1876; R. de Beauchamps. L. XIII d'après sa corresp. avec le card. de Richelieu, ibid. 1902; Pastor, XII, XIII, passim (v. indice); J. Cann. Louis XIII et Richelieu. Paris 1944; B. Champigneulle, Le règne de Louis XIII, ibid. 1930. For further bibliography: E. Préclin-V. L. Tapié, Le XVIIe siècle, 2nd ed., ibid. 1949, p. 173 ff. Luigi Simeoni