Louis XIV. The very embodiment of an absolute monarch during the 17th century. As a power-hungry king, he weakened the power of his nobles so that he could be the sole leader of France. But he wasn't just a menace towards his own country. He engaged in several wars that, although gained him lands, also left his country poor and exhausted. His thirst for war and power nearly destroyed France. He called himself The Sun King.
Early Life
Louis XIV was born on September 5, 1638 in Saint Germaine-en-Laye, France to Louis XIII and the Spanish Hapsburg queen, Anne of Austria. He was christened as Louis-Dieudonne, meaning "Gift of God". He had a younger brother, Philippe, who would never come to power. Louis became king at the age of 5 when his father died in 1643. However, he didn't come to power until 1661 because Cardinal Mazarin, the true successor, took over. During his childhood, Louis was tutored by the cardinal in history and politics and looked after by his governor, Nicolas de Neufville. He was often neglected, as demonstrated when he almost drowned as a child. In 1648, the Parlement of Paris rebelled against Mazarin and started a civil war, in which Louis had to flee Paris and endure poverty and starvation. He returned to his home in 1653 when the war ended. In 1660, one year before he took over the throne, Louis married Marie-Therese of Austria to secure the peace treaty established between France and Hapsburg Spain. He replaced Mazarin in 1661 at the age of 22. |
A Trusted Advisor
Louis XIV appointed a master of finance to assist him. His name was Jean Baptiste Colbert. Colbert's goal was to make France a self-sufficient country. He aided French businesses with funds and specific tax benefits. He helped businesses with their deficits. To make more money for the government, he placed a tariff on imported goods. One of Colbert's focuses was also to industrialize France. When France began to settle the New World, he, along with Louis, encouraged settlers to move to French Canada and make lots of money off the fur trade. Colbert helped France become wealthy, even though just a few years later, Louis would fight too many wars and build a huge palace to bankrupt the country. |
Internal Affairs
One of Louis's main goals was to centralize his power and become the sole ruler of France. He proceeded to weaken the power of his untrusted nobles by excluding them from his councils and instead requiring that they wait on him and serve him. Louis also exempted them from taxes, making them more and more dependent on the monarchy. He gave more power to his intendants, so that nobles could no longer decide the amount of taxes the peasants would pay. As the government became more and more centralized, Louis built his rule upon a foundation of the bourgeoisie, slowly taking away the nobles' power over even the peasants. Another of Louis's goals was to make the whole of France Catholic, just like him. In 1685, he cancelled the Edict of Nantes. This caused many Huguenots to flee the country. Then Louis passed the Edict of Fontainbleau, which ordered all children to be baptized and educated into the Catholic church and Protestant churches and schools to be burned. With so many Huguenot artisans and merchants running away from the Sun King, France lost a lot of its culture and trade. The country was robbed of many skilled workers. |
External Affairs
Louis was a king who went to war just for the fun of it. In 1667, he invaded the Spanish Netherlands to fight for his wife's "rightful inheritance" of those lands. He gained much during the war, but when he surrendered to end the War of Devolution, as it was called, he gave up most of the land he'd conquered. He only kept a few towns in Flanders. In 1672, he waged the Franco-Dutch War to gain more land in Flanders and some in Franche-Compte. At the end of the war, France's military was a force to be reckoned with. Near the end of the 1680s, England, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire grew scared of Louis's power and came together to form the Grand Alliance. They fought France in the Nine Years' War in 1688. When that ended, France still had all of its land but was now exhausted and drained of resources. It was bankrupt. One of the last wars Louis fought was the War of the Spanish Succession. This was fought over his grandson's right to the throne. Lasting from 1701 to 1714, the war was only ended when Philip V, Louis's grandson, withdrew his claim to power. All of Louis XIV's fighting left his country famished and drowning in debt. He is documented as remarking to his heir that he took war "too lightly". |
A Patron of the Arts
Even though Louis left his country in an awful state, he did do some good for his country. He had the Academy of Inscriptions and Belle-Lettres built in 1663. The Royal Academy of Music was built during his reign in 1666, and the Paris Observatory was built from 1667-1672, while he was waging war on the Netherlands. His big achievement was the Palace of Versailles. |
Death and Legacy
On September 1, 1715, right before he would turn 77 on the 5th, Louis XIV died of gangrene. His 5-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, was left in power, the last male heir of Duc de Bourgogne. Louis left his people drowning in debt and famine and wishing the Sun King had never run their country. |