Criticism originally faced by the French king (4)
I believe the answer is:
flak
'criticism' is the definition.
(I know that flak is a type of criticism)
'originally faced by the french king' is the wordplay.
'originally' suggests taking the first letters.
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'the french' becomes 'la' (one of the French words for 'the').
'king' becomes 'K' (abbreviation for king in chess).
The initial letter of 'faced' is 'f'.
'f'+'la'+'k'='FLAK'
(Other definitions for flak that I've seen before include "Burst of abuse" , "Anti-aircraft fire - strong criticism" , "Shooting" , "Brickbats" , "Unfriendly criticism" .)