To write about the life of King Louis XIV (1623 –
1715, r. 1651 – 1715) paralleled writing of a novel. He did not became the most
renowned King of France for nothing. His reign had tumultuous event that shaped
French and world history.
Early Life
Born in September 5, 1623, Louis XIV was the son of
the King of France Louis XIII (r. 1610 – 1643) and Queen Anne of Austria. Louis
came to the world as a miracle for his parents’ 23-year barren marriage. For
this Louis Dieudonne called the Dauphine or Prince “The Gift of God.” French
people loathed Queen Anne for being a Hapsburg and unable to produce an heir
until Louis came then followed 2 years later by another son Philippe, future
Duc d’Orleans.
Though, he received excellent education in many
fields from warfare to dancing, he had been a neglected child, he said to have
almost drowned because lack of supervision. Nonetheless, his mother instilled
to her piety towards Catholicism that shaped his social and religious policy
during his reign.
Rise to
Power
Regency
France fell in sorrow in 1643 with the death of
King Louis XIII. Louis ascended as King at the age of 4, thus a regency would
rule under his name until he reach adulthood. His father prepared a council to
rule during the regency, but Queen Anne had other ideas. The Queen had the will
of the late King declared void and took the regency for herself and her close
confident and later Chief Minister Italian-born Cardinal Jules Mazarin.
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| Cardinal Mazarin |
The nobles supported the voiding of the will
thinking their privileges and autonomy would be recognized by the new regency.
The Queen and the Cardinal disappointed them and combined with mistrust of a
Hapsburg regent and her foreign advisor, the nobility rose up in revolt in
1648. It triggered a civil war that came to be known as the Fronde (1648 –
1653). The conflict went into critical phase for the Bourbons when the royal
family fled Paris for their safety. This traumatized Louis that developed
suspicion and mistrust towards the nobility and Paris.
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| Battle between the Fronde Forces of the Prince de Conde and loyalist of Queen Anne |
Eventually, Mazarin rallied the royalist to victory
in 1653. By then, Louis had emerged from the regency in 1651 to take his
rightful position as King. Nonetheless, trusting in the talents of the Cardinal
and in debt to Mazarin, Louis allowed the Chief Minister to continue in his
role until his demise in 1661.
In between 1651 to 1661, Mazarin secured a peace
treaty to end a long conflict called the Franco-Spanish War (1635 – 1659), a peace
cemented with the marriage of Louis XIV to the daughter of King Philip IV of
Spain, Marie Therese (1638 – 1683). At that point, Louis began his life as a
father and husband. The marriage resulted to 6 children, however, only one
survived into adulthood, the Grand Dauphin Louis (1661 – 1711). This showed
Louis’ capability to father an heir, but same could not be said as a faithful
husband.
Louis’
Private Life
Louis came to be known as one of history’s greatest
womanizers, a vice supported, welcomed, and even cheered by the nobility and
the French people. Back then, the French expected their Kings to have
mistresses as a show of strength, energy, and virility that came to describe
the whole Kingdom. Louis fathered illegitimate children, like those from one of
his mistresses Louise de la Valliere. The position of Mistress came to be
envied and fought over by any means. Such as the case of Madam de Montespan,
another mistress of Louis who got embroiled in a scandal called Affair of the
Poisons that involved murder and sorcery for the sake of keeping her place as
Louis’ woman.
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| Madam de Montespan |
“L’Etat,
c’est moi” (The State is me)
Cardinal Mazarin passed away in 1661. Louis shocked
the court by abolishing the office of Chief Minister and placed state affairs
in his hands. Thereafter, the King held absolute power and gave his energy in
governing the Kingdom. He worked for 8 hours a day and became a perfectionist
micromanager. He oversaw every detail of a proposal and dictated rules and laws
even for small affairs such as road construction.
Louis’ brazen action came as an act of
consolidation of power as well as manifestation of his belief of himself as
God’s chosen representative to rule France. Such belief renewed absolutist rule
of monarchy in France which other monarchs followed throughout Europe. Many
credited him of saying “L’Etat, c’est moi” or I am the State. This egocentric
style of rule came also to be visible in his beloved nickname “Roi-Soleil” or
the Sun King – where France, if not the world, revolves around him.
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| Louis XIV by Rigaud Hyacinthe |
With this attitude, he also manipulated the
nobility towards pacification. He believe in the saying keep your friends close
and your enemies closer. Instead of allowing nobles to roam their estates,
ruling and training their armies, he had them reside where he reside. He kept
them busy watching him waking up, dressing for the day, eating meals,
undressing for the night, sleeping in the night. He made his life a show to
distract the nobles. Over time, power and influence based not on military and
political prowess, but of talents in flattery and appreciation of the King.
Intrigue and gossip became the weapon instead of soldiers in the field. It,
hereby weakened the nobility as a political threat to the monarchy.
Economic
Policies
Louis wanted to secure his rule over France and
then towards lands beyond his kingdom’s borders. In order to do so required
huge sums of money and a self-reliant economy. In this matter, Louis placed his
trust in a talented man – Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619 – 1683).
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| Jean-Baptiste Colbert |
Colbert followed the principle of mercantilism
prevailing across Europe. Mercantilism measured an economy’s wealth base on the
amount of precious metal (gold or silver) it possessed. Therefore, Colbert
limited the amount of importation and directed the Kingdom towards
self-reliance. This led to the development of local industries such as the case
of silk and porcelain. Those that cannot be replicated sourced from colonies
across the globe – fur from the Americas and spices from India.
Military
Achievements
Reform and
Administration
Louis strengthen the military to maintain internal
security and to achieve his territorial ambitions. In this matter, equivalent
to Colbert in the economy, Louis relied in the father and son tandem of Michel
le Tellier and Francois-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois. The le Telliers
expanded the French army to a sheer size of 100,000 during peaceful times and
to about 400,000 in war times. They made the French military professional
basing promotion through merit and establishing fixed salaries. They compelled
the soldiers to be loyal to the Kingdom and the King and not to their liege
lords. They also upgraded the military’s weaponry introducing the bayonet and
flintlock rifles. They created an efficient and organized military logistic,
which became a political weapon as the le Telliers withheld supplies to units
of rogue officers suspected of being critical to the King.
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| Francois-Michel le Tellier |
Wars
Louis XIV’s reign also earned notoriety for the
numerous wars he fought. His first war began in 1667 with the War of Devolution
(1667 – 1668) where France launched an invasion of the Spanish Netherlands. He
did so under the pretext of taking the region as an inheritance of his Queen
Marie Louise. The War, however, soured as a coalition of great powers,
including the English, Swedes, and the Holy Roman Empire pressured France to
back down.
 |
| Louis XIV Visiting the Siege of Douai |
Eventually, Louis determined to expand to the Low
Countries and in 1672 began the Franco-Dutch War (1672 – 1678). France annexed
Flanders, Louraine, and the Franche-Compte. The initial success of the war came
with the support of Charles II of England, a fellow absolutist monarch. Louis
followed up his invasion with expansion of French sphere of Influence to the
Rhinelands through diplomatic and legal means through the use of “Chambers of
Reunion.” By 1678, France had expanded its border and solidified the Kingdom’s
status as a superpower and Louis’ as the most powerful man in Europe.
 |
| Battle of Palermo, French-Dutch War (1676) |
The War of the Grand Alliance (1688 – 1697),
meanwhile, came as a conflict aimed in containing the advancement of France. Otherwise
known as the War of the League of Augsburg, numerous European powers including
Spain, Holy Roman Empire, and later England stopped French advancement to the
Rhineland. Though by the wars end, French territory remained intact, its
finances and economy suffered heavily.
 |
| Battle of Almansa, Spanish Succession War (1707) |
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701 – 1714)
became the last major conflict Louis embroiled during the latter years of his
reign. Louis defended his grandson Philip of Anjou’s claim to the Spain after
King Charles II passed away childless. The French King saw it as opportunity to
secure the southern French border by having a Bourbon King placed in the
Spanish throne instead of a rival Habsburg. Louis, however, had a dilemma:
place a Bourbon King in Spain and Europe would mobilize to stop him or keep
Spain a Habsburg dominion while allowing France to recover. Louis decided that
the former option offered greater rewards compare to the risk that the latter
that would result to France’s isolation. Indeed, France’s enemies mobilized.
Louis faced a great coalition of countries that included England, the
Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire followed later by Prussia and Portugal.
By the wars end, the war cost Louis and France huge in death and resources.
France suffered from famine and the Kingdom’s debt grew and continued to plague
the French economy until 1791.
Cultural
Legacy
A cultured king Louis portrayed himself with his
talents and taste for the arts. As a Prince, Louis studied music and dancing.
He also showed interest in dramas, ballet, operas, and appreciated literature
and visual arts. He also sponsored the French Academy charged with the study
and development of the French language.
 |
| Louis XIV and Moliere |
Artist surrounded Louis. He hosted writers such as
Moliere and painters like Charles le Brun. Jean-Baptiste Lully played in Louis’
court. Finally, he hired architects such as Louis La Vau and Jules
Hardouin-Mansart to design and expand his most iconic construction project of
his reign – the Palace of Versailles.
 |
| Palace of Versaille (1668) |
The Palace of Versailles came synonymous to Louis
XIV. Louis wanted to escape Paris due to his experience during the Fronde. He
decided to expand his father’s old hunting lodge in the suburb outside Paris
called Versailles. Following Louis La Vau’s design, the small hunting lodge
became enveloped by buildings design from the vogue style of the era Baroque.
Louis ordered his court to move into the new palace and in 1682 he effectively
declared it the capital. In 1678, the
work for the Hall of Mirrors designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart began. The
iconic room hosted tumultuous events in history, for example, the declaration
of the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 and the signing of the Treaty
of Versailles that ended World War I in 1919. Versailles became a standard for
later palaces becoming a benchmark for splendor and style. It turned into the
most lasting monument of Louis XIV’s reign. However, the palace’s cost added
strain to the finances. Furthermore, it allowed Kings to live and rule though
safe, but away from the problems and needs of the common French people. It
became gilded cage that became the undoing of the Bourbon monarch as seen after
the 1791 Revolution.
Social
Policy
 |
| Madame de Maintenon |
Louis’s social policy coincided with religious
policy. As absolute monarch, he had the power over the lives of millions of his
French subjects. French society during Louis’ time included division in wealth
and power (nobility, clergy, and peasants) and division in religion between
Catholics and Protestants called Huguenots. Louis became divisive King when he
persecuted the Huguenots during his reign.
Influences to the King’s extreme
Catholic piety stemmed from his deeply religious mother and his determination
to strengthen the unity of the Kingdom under one religion. Moreover, with the
death of his Queen Marie Therese in 1683, he took a secret wife, the Marquise
de Maintenon, another extremely religious woman in Louis’ life, influenced him
to go against the Huguenots. In 1685, Louis revoke the Edict of Nantes of 1598
that secured religious freedom in the country for the Huguenots. He then issued
a new Edict of Fontainebleau that institutionalized state persecution of the
Protestants.
The Edict of Fontainebleau drove the Huguenots
underground. It ordered the destruction of Protestant churches and schools, the
expulsion of Protestant clergy, and force conversion or at least coercion to
convert Protestants to Catholicism. Louis used the military to force Huguenot
communities to convert to Catholicism. He also banned Protestants from leaving
the country, but many escape anyway finding their way to England, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, and German states. The exodus of thousands of
Huguenots out of the country created a brain drain. Skilled labor, mostly
Protestants, left the country and brought with them techniques and skills might
have contributed to the economic and technological advancement of France.
Demise and
Death
Louis turned into a widower in 1683 with the death
of his Queen Marie-Therese. In 1684, however, he decided to secretly marry his
new mistress Madam de Maintenon, a pious woman who once served as his
illegitimate children’s governess. In his 60’s, Louis turned religious fearing
the damnation of hell and fell to the influence of his new secret wife. The
relation led to the Edict of Fontainebleau that promoted persecution. Days of
his energetic lifestyle and passions set.
Domestic affairs in the late years of Louis
deteriorated, especially in administration. The 1680’s and 90’s saw the death
of many great minds in Louis government – Colbert (1683), Michel le Tellier
(1685) and Francois Michel le Tellier (1691). Louis had been surrounded by
flatterers and sycophants that he appointed men based on their skills in
flattering rather than competency. In other words, inept officials ruled the
kingdom by the late years of Louis. Worst, some officials fought with each
other with encouragement from Louis himself to keep them in check and prevent
them from becoming a threat. Hence, they spend more time in destroying each
other rather than solving problems especially the growing debt of the kingdom.
International affairs also turned against Louis
during the 1680’s. Habsburg became once again a threat in the east after they
push back the Ottomans in 1689 in the Battle of Mohacs. The seas also became
dangerous for the French when William of Orange overthrew James II. Thus, by
War of Spanish Succession, France needed to avoid further isolation by
controlling Spain.
Family deaths also plagued Louis in the 1700’s.
Most importantly, his brother Philippe, Duke of Orleans, passed away in 1701. A
decade later, in 1711, his son, the Grand Dauphin Louis passed away. The death
of his relatives disheartened Louis.
Death finally came to Louis in September 1, 1715.
His long 72-year reign came to an end and became a record for the longest reign
of a ruling European monarch then. His grandson Louis, a 5 year old boy,
ascended as King Louis XV.
Legacy of
Louis XIV
Louis XIV ruled France based in his personal will.
Traumatized by his childhood, he weakened the nobility and established an absolute
monarchy that many of his contemporaries emulated and admired. With right
person in the government, France became strong economically and military. His
wars, however, gained mixed result. Some wars led to glory and territorial
expansion of France, while later wars led to misery and debt that dented French
finance throughout the 18th century. His support of the arts made France a
leader in taste and style. Voltaire in his work about Louis XIV even stated
that once the Italians called those beyond Italy barbarians, but by time of the
Sun King it turned around.
The 1680’s, however, became a turning point. Good
men in government passed away. Incompetence among officials rose. Louis new
wife convinced him to enact a state sponsored persecution of Protestants,
putting an end to centuries of religious tolerance and freedom. In the
international stage, things went bad for France as it seem the whole continent turned
France. Eventually, with old age, ailments, and grief from the death of his
relatives, Louis XIV passed away a different man from the one who had ordered
the Palace of Versailles and led his troops to war.
Bibliography:
"Louvois, François Michel Le Tellier, marquis de." Encyclopedia.com. Accessed May 10, 2019. URL: https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/louvois-francois-michel-le-tellier-marquis-de
Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Anne of Austria." Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed May 10, 2019. URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anne-of-Austria
Erlanger, Philippe. "Louis XIV." Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed May 10, 2019. URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-XIV-king-of-France
History.com Editors. "Louis XIV." History. Accessed May 11, 2019. URL: https://www.history.com/topics/france/louis-xiv
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