The attempts of the Valois Dynasty to reform and re-establish control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Wars of Religion from to The drive for centralization related directly to questions of royal finances and the ability to wage war.
The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and the 17th centuries between Catholics and Protestants, the Habsburgs ' internal family conflict, and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century all demanded great sums, which needed to be raised by taxes, such as the land tax taille and the tax on salt gabelle , and by contributions of men and service from the nobility.
One key to the centralization was the replacing of personal patronage systems, which had been organised around the king and other nobles, by institutional systems that were constructed around the state. The same was true of the greater reliance that was shown by the royal court on the noblesse de robe as judges and royal counselors.
The creation of regional parlements had the same initial goal of facilitating the introduction of royal power into the newly assimilated territories, but as the parlements gained in self-assurance, they started to become sources of disunity.
Simon Schama has observed that "virtually as soon as the term was coined, 'old regime' was automatically freighted with associations of both traditionalism and senescence. It conjured up a society so encrusted with anachronisms that only a shock of great violence could free the living organism within.
