| Royal minorities in early modern France, usually seen as periods of acute weakness, actually facilitated the expansion of monarchical authority. Regency governments forced alterations in the structures of royal authority because regents utilized gendered conceptions of behavior to alter political practices.;Political and constitutional developments in the medieval period resulted in the exclusion of women from the throne and the gendering of notions of political capacity. In 1560, Catherine de Medicis offered the new argument that the queen mother, was the person most interested in the welfare of her son's person and his kingdom. This made the queen mother the best choice to exercise authority on behalf of a king during his minority.;Three successive queen mothers transformed the legal entitlement of regents and altered the representational structure of royal authority. Female regents had to balance the acceptable roles of wife, widow, and mother with their new, less acceptable political role. Novel representational claims sharpened the discourse concerning both gender in the polity and created expansive definitions of royal authority.;By the time Philippe d'Orleans became regent in 1715, the regency "traditionally" belonged to the king's mother. In the absence of a queen mother, Philippe tried to expand notions of family affection to consolidate his authority. The male regent's lack of clear entitlement forced him to concede a great deal to his political opponents, and the male regent fell back on authoritarian gestures which ultimately compromised the ability of the monarchy to reform.;Marie-Antoinette as queen mother remained politically and symbolically significant as a potential regent. The execution of the queen was in large part a response to the unacceptability of that potentiality. In a political culture defined by the exclusion of women, the implications of including a woman in the polity caused realignments of political authority and the representations of that authority. Regencies, rather than mere crises of royal authority, helped transform it by bringing into play the gendered assumptions that undergirded public political entitlement. |
