To pacify his realm by ensuring that individuals loyal to the Crown held municipal offices, Henry IV interfered in municipalel ections. From 1594 to 1598 many towns remained divided between royalists and Leaguers, and the king relied on electoral intervention to help prevent social unrest. Not surprisingly, Henry most often influenced the outcome of elections in former League towns, and in a few cases he reduced the size of their municipal governments. During the first half of the twentieth century, historians interpreted these actions as a policy intended to destroy municipal privileges. Henry IV was portrayed as the founder of absolutism with a municipal policy meant to centralize royal government and weaken municipalities. But this interpretation is misleading because it exaggerates Henry's efforts by failing to consider the number of towns he left alone and by associating electoral intervention with absolutism. In fact, the king's actions were more probably meant to secure stability after the long years of civil war.

Confirming municipal privileges demonstrated Henry's benevolence and legitimated his new kingship. In making peace with the towns, he restored municipal privileges with fatherly kindness. On a visit to Amiens in 1594, he told the townspeople that no king who truly loved his subjects would ruin them. He knew the Amiénois associated privileges with their well-being: ‘Your ruin is my ruin’, he declared. Henry understood that dismantling municipal governments or tampering with their charters threatened the fragile support of former Catholic League towns. Thus in 1594 Henry gave little thought to changing municipal governments because he urgently wanted the towns to accept his kingship.