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| 1651 |
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| Tontine system of life insurance created by Lorenzo Tonti in Paris. This system paid a sum of money to the last surviving contributor. | 1 |
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| 1652 |
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| Louis XIV confirmed the Edict of Nantes, which gave French Protestants, particularly the Huguenots, freedom of worship. | 2 |
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| 1653, Feb. 3 |
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| Mazarin returned to power. The Fronde had ended with little gained. | 3 |
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| 1656 |
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| Hôpital Général opened in Paris. | 4 |
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| 1659 |
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| Treaty of the Pyrenees settled war between Spain and France. | 5 |
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| 1661 |
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| Death of Mazarin. Louis XIV (1661–1715) declared he would be his own first minister and created an ABSOLUTE MONARCHY (“L'état c'est moi”). Louis gained control of the French military. He also focused high society on the court at Versailles, impoverishing nobles by encouraging them to emulate him. He extended the French bureaucracy and thus enlarged the number of nobles holding offices who owed their loyalty solely to the king. Three customary limitations on the crown continued: the king must be a Catholic; no woman could occupy the throne (Salic law); the king could not alienate his lands by appanage system. | 6 |
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| 1662 |
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| Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83) controller general until his death. Colbert subscribed to mercantilistic policies. He believed that French trade could be advanced only at the expense of another country's trade. Colbert responded to hardships within France by reducing the taille and shifting some of the tax burden away from the peasantry. He also regulated tax farming closely. Such policies resulted in increased revenues for the crown between 1662 and 1672. | 7 |
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| 1663–67 |
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| Series of institutions directed at furthering academic and scientific knowledge founded: Academy of Inscriptions and Belle Lettres (1663), Academy of Sciences (1666), Royal Observatory (1667). | 8 |
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| 1666, Jan |
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| France allied itself with Holland during Second Anglo-Dutch War (See 1666, Jan). | 9 |
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| 1667 |
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| Tariff doubled the duty on cloth, part of the mercantilist protectionist system. | 10 |
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| July 31 |
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| Peace of Breda ended Second Anglo-Dutch War with restoration of territories (See July 31). | 11 |
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