Louis XIV - the Sun King: Biography The Sun King Links Biography Louis XIV, France's Sun King, had the longest reign in European history (1643-1715). During this time he brought absolute monarchy to its height, established a glittering court at Versailles, and fought most of the other European countries in four wars. The early part of his reign (1643-61), while Louis was young, was dominated by the chief minister Cardinal Mazarin. In the middle period (1661-85) Louis reigned personally and innovatively, but the last years of his personal rule (1685-1715) were beset by problems. Louis XIV, baby Louis XIV, 10 years old Minority Born on Sept. 5, 1638, Louis was the first, regarded as "god-given," child of the long-married Louis XIII and his Habsburg wife, Anne of Austria. He succeeded his father on the throne at the age of four. However, he was also a neglected child, cared for by servants. Once he almost drowned in a pond because no one was watching him.

However, his mother, Anne of Austria who caused the neglect, instilled in him a lasting fear of "crimes committed against God". While his mother was regent the great nobles and the judges of the parlement of Paris launched a major but uncoordinated revolt (the Fronde of 1648-53) in reaction to the centralizing policies of Louis XIII's minister Cardinal Richelieu and his successor, Mazarin. The royal family was twice driven out of Paris, and at one point Louis XIV and Anne were held under virtual arrest in the royal palace in Paris. This civil war brought Louis XIV poverty, misfortune, fear, humiliation, cold and hunger. This shaped his character and he would never forgive either Paris, the nobles, or the common people. Cardinal Mazarin was victorious in 1653 and constructed an extraordinary administration for the kingdom. Mazarin finally suppressed the Fronde and restored internal order. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War, together with the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), which concluded prolonged warfare with Spain, made France the leading European power.

The latter treaty was sealed by Louis XIV's marriage (1660) to Marie Therese (1638-83), the daughter of Philip IV of Spain. Personal Administration On Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis astounded his court by becoming his own chief minister, thereby ending the long "reign of the cardinal-ministers." A sensational 3-year trial (1661-64) of the powerful and corrupt finance minister Nicolas Fouquet sent the would-be chief minister to prison for life. The king thereafter controlled his own government until his death, acting through his high state council (conseil d'en haut) and a few select ministers, whom he called or dismissed at will. The most famous and powerful of the ministers were Jean Baptiste Colbert in internal affairs and the marquis de Louvois in military matters.

Breaking with tradition, Louis excluded from his council members of his immediate family, great princes, and others of the old military nobility (noblesse d'epee); his reliance on the newer judicial nobility (noblesse de robe) led the duc de Saint-Simon to call this, mistakenly, "the reign of the lowborn bourgeoisie." Local government was increasingly placed under removable intendants. Marie-Therese Cardinal Mazarin Period of Glory The early personal reign of Louis was highly successful in both internal and foreign affairs. At home the parlements lost their traditional power to obstruct legislation; the judicial structure was reformed by the codes of civil procedure (1667) and criminal procedure (1669), although the overlapping and confusing laws were left untouched. Urban law enforcement was improved by creation (1667) of the office of lieutenant general of police for Paris, later imitated in other towns. Under Colbert commerce, industry, and overseas colonies were developed by state subsidies, tight control over standards of quality, and high protective tariffs.

As controller general of finances, Colbert sharply reduced the annual treasury deficit by economies and more equitable, efficient taxation, although tax exemptions for the nobility, clergy, and some members of the bourgeoisie continued. Colbert and the king shared the idea of glorifying the monarch and monarchy through the arts. Louis was a discriminating patron of the great literary and artistic figures of France's classical age, including Jean Baptiste Moliere, Charles Le Brun, Louis Le Vau, Jules Mansart, and Jean Baptiste Lully. His state established or developed in rapid succession academies for painting and sculpture (1663), inscriptions (1663), French artists at Rome (1666), and science (1666), followed by the Paris Observatory (1667) and the academies of architecture (1671) and music (1672). The literary Academie Francaise also came under formal royal control in 1671. Money was lavished on buildings. In Paris the Louvre was essentially completed with the classical colonnade by Claude Perrault.

In Versailles, Louis XIII's hunting lodge was transformed into a remarkable palace and park, which were copied by Louis's fellow monarchs across Europe. When the king moved permanently to Versailles in 1682, an elaborate court etiquette was established that had the aristocracy, including former rebel princes, vying to participate in Louis's rising (leve) and retiring (couche). These ceremonies led to the saying that, at a distance, one could tell what was happening at the palace merely by glancing at an almanac and a watch. In foreign affairs, the young Louis XIV launched the War of Devolution (1667-68) against the Spanish Netherlands, claiming that those provinces had "devolved" by succession to his Spanish wife rather than to her half brother Charles II, who had inherited the Spanish crown. The war brought him some valuable frontier towns in Flanders. Louis turned next against the United Provinces of the Netherlands in the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-78). The intent this time was to take revenge against Dutch intervention in the previous war and to break Dutch trade.

By the Peace of Nijmegen (1678-79) he gained more territory in Flanders, and the formerly Spanish Franche-Comte was added to France's eastern frontier, now fortified by the great siege expert, Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban. Now at the height of his power, the king set up "courts of reunion" to provide legal pretexts for the annexation of a series of towns along the Franco-German border. More blatantly, he seized both the Alsatian city of Strasbourg and Casale, in northern Italy, in 1681. Period of Decline The turning point in Louis's reign between the earlier grandeur and the later disasters came after Colbert's death (1683). In 1685 the king took the disastrous step of revoking the Protestant (Huguenot) minority's right to worship by his Edict of Fontainebleau, often called the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Many Huguenots--who constituted an industrious segment of French society--left the country, taking with them considerable capital as well as skills.

In addition Louis's display of religious intolerance helped unite the Protestant powers of Europe against the Sun King. In September 1688, Louis sent French troops into the Palatinate, hoping to disrupt his enemies who had formed the League of Augsburg against him. The 9-year war of the Grand Alliance ensued. France barely held its own against the United Provinces and England, both under William III, as well as Austria, Spain, and minor powers; but the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) preserved Strasbourg and Louis's "reunion" acquisitions along the Franco-German border. The aging ruler was almost immediately drawn into the disastrous War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), in which he defended his grandson Philip V's inheritance of Spain and its empire on the death of Charles II. The genius of the English general the duke of Marlborough and his Austrian counterpart, Eugene of Savoy, was almost too much for the ducs de Villars, Berwick, and Vendome, who were Louis's principal generals. The terrible French winter of 1709 and near fiscal collapse also took their toll. Nonetheless, France rallied.

By the Peace of Utrecht France retained most of its earlier conquests, and the Spanish empire was divided between Philip V, who received Spain and its overseas colonies, and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, who acquired the Spanish Netherlands and Spain's Italian possessions. Louis was forced to agree that the crowns of France and Spain would remain separate despite the dynastic connection. During the post-1685 period the once personal monarchy became increasingly bureaucratized. A long and bitter quarrel (1673-93) with the pope was concluded when the king withdrew the French clergy's Four Gallican Articles of 1682, in which they had claimed quasi-independence from the papacy for the French church (see Gallicanism). Reconciliation with the papacy aided Louis's attempt to suppress Jansenism. The Jansenist convents of Port-Royal were closed (1709-10), and in 1713 the pope issued, at Louis's request, the anti-Jansenist bull Unigenitus.

After a series of celebrated liaisons with mistresses, notably Louise de la Valliere and Madame de Montespan, Louis settled down to a more sedate life with Madame de Maintenon, whom he secretly married about 1683. She shared with Louis the grief of lost battles and the successive deaths of all but two of his direct descendants. The two who survived him were his grandson Philip V of Spain and a great-grandson who became Louis XV when the Sun King died on Sept. 1, 1715.

Death of Louis XIV Louis XIV | king of France | Britannica.com king of France Alternative Titles: Le Roi Soleil, Louis le Grand, Louis le Grand Monarque, Louis the Grand Monarch, Louis the Great, The Sun King Louis XIV Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban Louis XIV, byname Louis the Great, Louis the Grand Monarch, or the Sun King, French Louis Le Grand, Louis Le Grand Monarque, or Le Roi Soleil (born September 5, 1638, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France—died September 1, 1715, Versailles , France), king of France (1643–1715) who ruled his country, principally from his great palace at Versailles , during one of its most brilliant periods and who remains the symbol of absolute monarchy of the classical age.

Internationally, in a series of wars between 1667 and 1697, he extended France’s eastern borders at the expense of the Habsburgs and then, in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), engaged a hostile European coalition in order to secure the Spanish throne for his grandson. Portrait of King Louis XIV, by Charles Le Brun, c. 1655. Photos.com/Jupiterimages Early life and marriage Louis was the son of Louis XIII and his Spanish queen, Anne of Austria . He succeeded his father on May 14, 1643. At the age of four years and eight months, he was, according to the laws of the kingdom, not only the master but the owner of the bodies and property of 19 million subjects. Although he was saluted as “a visible divinity,” he was, nonetheless, a neglected child given over to the care of servants. He once narrowly escaped drowning in a pond because no one was watching him.

Anne of Austria, who was to blame for this negligence, inspired him with a lasting fear of “crimes committed against God.” Louis XIII, engraving by Jaspar Isac, 1633. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris Louis was nine years old when the nobles and the Paris Parlement (a powerful law court), driven by hatred of the prime minister Jules Cardinal Mazarin , rose against the crown in 1648. This marked the beginning of the long civil war known as the Fronde , in the course of which Louis suffered poverty, misfortune, fear, humiliation, cold, and hunger. These trials shaped the future character, behaviour, and mode of thought of the young king. He would never forgive either Paris , the nobles, or the common people. Jules Cardinal Mazarin, detail of a portrait by Philippe de Champaigne; in the Musée … Courtesy of the Musée Condé, Chantilly, Fr.; photograph, Giraudon/Art Resource, New York In 1653 Mazarin was victorious over the rebels and then proceeded to construct an extraordinary administrative apparatus with Louis as his pupil.

The young king also acquired Mazarin’s partiality for the arts, elegance, and display. Although he had been proclaimed of age, the king did not dream of disputing the cardinal’s absolute power. Britannica Stories EU Considers Rules For Robots The war begun in 1635 between France and Spain was then entering its last phase. The outcome of the war would transfer European hegemony from the Habsburgs to the Bourbons . A French king had to be a soldier, and so Louis served his apprenticeship on the battlefield. In 1658 Louis faced the great conflict between love and duty, a familiar one for princes of that period. He struggled with himself for two years over his love for Mazarin’s niece, Marie Mancini . He finally submitted to the exigencies of politics and in 1660 married Marie-Thérèse of Austria, daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, in order to ratify peace between their two countries.

Painting depicting the wedding of Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse, a union that ratified … Laumosnier—Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images The childhood of Louis XIV was at an end, but no one believed him capable of seizing the reins of power. No one suspected his thoughts. He wrote in his Mémoires: In my heart I prefer fame above all else, even life itself.…Love of glory has the same subtleties as the most tender passions.…In exercising a totally divine function here on earth, we must appear incapable of turmoils which could debase it. The young king Exploring Italy and France: Fact or Fiction? Mazarin died on March 9, 1661. The dramatic blow came on March 10. The king informed his astonished ministers that he intended to assume all responsibility for ruling the kingdom. This had not occurred since the reign of Henry IV . It cannot be overemphasized that Louis XIV’s action was not in accordance with tradition; his concept of a dictatorship by divine right was his own. In genuine faith, Louis viewed himself as God’s representative on earth and considered all disobedience and rebellion to be sinful.

From this conviction he gained not only a dangerous feeling of infallibility but also considerable serenity and moderation. He was backed up first by the great ministers Jean-Baptiste Colbert , marquis de Louvois , and Hugues de Lionne , among whom he fostered dissension, and later by men of lesser capacity. For 54 years Louis devoted himself to his task eight hours a day; not the smallest detail escaped his attention. He wanted to control everything from court etiquette to troop movements, from road building to theological disputes. He succeeded because he faithfully reflected the mood of a France overflowing with youth and vigour and enamoured of grandeur. Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Despite the use of pensions and punishments, the monarchy had been unable to subdue the nobles, who had started 11 civil wars in 40 years. Louis lured them to his court, corrupted them with gambling, exhausted them with dissipation , and made their destinies dependent on their capacity to please him. Etiquette became a means of governing. From that time, the nobility ceased to be an important factor in French politics, which in some respects weakened the nation.

Louis XIV, detail of a portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1701; in the Louvre, Paris. Giraudon/Art Resource, New York Patronage of the arts Louis’s great fortune was in having among his subjects an extraordinary group of men in every area of activity. He knew well how to make use of them. He was the protector of writers, notably Molière and Jean Racine , whom he ordered to sing his praises, and he imposed his own visions of beauty and nature on artists. France’s appearance and way of life were changed; the great towns underwent a metamorphosis , the landscape was altered, and monuments arose everywhere. The king energetically devoted himself to building new residences. Little remains of his splendid palaces at Saint-Germain and Marly, but Versailles —cursed as extravagant even as it was under construction and accused of having ruined the nation—still stands. Louis XIV and His Family, oil painting by Nicolas de … Reproduced by permission of the trustees of the Wallace Collection, London; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd. Versailles was approximately the price of a modern airport; it was an object of universal admiration and enhanced French prestige .

All the power of the government was brought to bear in the construction of Versailles. Louis XIV was not wrong, as some have claimed, to remove himself from unhealthful and tumultuous Paris, but he erred in breaking with the wandering tradition of his ancestors. The monarchy became increasingly isolated from the people and thereby assumed a decidedly mythical quality. The gardens at the Palace of Versailles, France, designed by André Le Nôtre. © air/Fotolia Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest While Louis watched his buildings going up, Colbert, who supervised the construction, obtained from him the means to carry out an economic revolution aimed at making France economically self-sufficient while maximizing exports. Manufacturers, the navy and merchant marine, a modern police organization, roads, ports, and canals all emerged at about the same time. Louis attended to every detail, while at the same time giving dazzling entertainment and carrying on a tumultuous love affair with Louise de La Vallière . In 1667 he invaded the Spanish Netherlands , which he regarded as his wife’s inheritance, thus beginning a series of wars that lasted for a good part of his reign.

Louis himself on his deathbed said, “I have loved war too much,” but his subjects, who often complained of his prudence and moderation, would not have understood had he not used force to strengthen the frontiers of France. After a brilliant campaign, the king had to retreat (1668) in the face of English and especially Dutch pressure. He never forgave the Dutch and swore to destroy their Protestant mercantile republic. To this end he allied himself with his cousin Charles II of England and invaded the Netherlands in 1672. The long war that ensued ended in 1678, in the first treaty of Nijmegen with Louis triumphant. Zenith and decline The Sun King was at his zenith. Almost alone he had defeated a formidable coalition (Spain and the Holy Roman emperor had joined the Dutch against him) and dictated terms to the enemy. He had extended the frontier of France in the north by annexing part of Flanders and in the east by seizing Lorraine and Franche-Comté . His fleet equaled those of England and Holland.

Paris called him “the Great.” In his court he was an object of adoration, and as he approached age 40 he could view himself as far surpassing all other men. Louis XIV Holding a Plan of the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at … French School—The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images Trending Topics Lady Flora Hastings At the same time, great changes were occurring in his private life. In 1680 the marquise de Montespan , who had replaced Mme de La Vallière as Louis’s mistress in 1667, was implicated in the Affair of the Poisons , a scandal in which a number of prominent people were accused of sorcery and murder. Fearful for his reputation, the king dismissed Mme de Montespan and imposed piety on his entourage. The ostentation, gambling, and entertainments did not disappear, but the court, subjected to an outward display of propriety, became suffused with boredom. Hypocrisy became the rule. The king had openly renounced pleasure, but the sacrifice was made easier for him by his new favourite, the very pious Mme de Maintenon .

She was the widow of the satirist Paul Scarron and the former governess of the king’s illegitimate children. Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, depicted in a portrait by Pierre Mignard, … The Art Gallery Collection/Alamy In 1682 the seat of government was transferred to Versailles. The following year marked a turning point in the life and reign of Louis XIV. The queen died, and the king secretly married Mme de Maintenon, who imperceptibly gained in political influence. He remained devoted to her; even at age 70 she was being exhorted by her confessor to continue to fulfill her conjugal duties, according to letters still extant . Colbert also died, leaving the way free for the bellicose Louvois. The repulse of a Turkish invasion of his Austrian domains left the emperor free to oppose France in the west. In 1688–89 the fall of the Stuarts and William of Orange ’s accession to the throne of England further reversed the situation to the detriment of France. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes To his traditional enemies Louis now added the entire Protestant world.

His mother had inculcated in him a narrow and simplistic religion , and he understood nothing of the Reformation . He viewed French Protestants as potential rebels. After having tried to convert them by force, he revoked the Edict of Nantes , which had guaranteed their freedom of worship, in 1685. The revocation, which was accompanied by a pitiless persecution, drove many artisans from France and caused endless misfortune. Thus began the decline. England , the Dutch, and the emperor united in the Grand Alliance to resist Louis’s expansionism. The resulting war lasted from 1688 to 1697. Despite many victories, Louis gave up part of his territorial acquisitions when he signed the Treaty of Rijswijk , for which the public judged him harshly. He reconciled himself to another painful sacrifice when he recognized William of Orange as William III of England, in violation of his belief in the divine right of the Stuart king James II to William’s throne. Three years later, in 1700, Charles II , the last Habsburg king of Spain , died, bequeathing his kingdoms to Louis’s grandson, Philip of Anjou ( Philip V ).

Louis, who desired nothing more than peace, hesitated but finally accepted the inheritance. He has been strongly criticized for his decision, but he had no alternative . With England against him, he had to try to prevent Spain from falling into the hands of the equally hostile Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I , who disputed Philip’s claim. Final years In the War of the Spanish Succession the anti-French alliance was reactivated by William of Orange before his death. The disasters of the war were so great that, in 1709, France came close to losing all the advantages gained over the preceding century. Private griefs were added to Louis’s public calamities . Almost simultaneously he lost his son, the grand dauphin ; two of his grandsons, the dukes de Bourgogne and Berry; his great grandson, the duke de Bretagne; and his granddaughter-in-law, the duchess de Bourgogne, who had been the consolation of his declining years.

King Louis XIV of France proclaiming Philip, duc d’Anjou, to be king of Spain in 1700, … © Photos.com/Jupiterimages An excess of flattery from within and an excess of malediction from without had created an artificial image of the king. He was viewed as an idol who would collapse under the blows of ill fortune, but the opposite occurred. Having first been the embodiment of a triumphant nation, Louis surpassed himself by bearing his own suffering and that of his people with unceasing resolution. Finally, a palace revolution in London, bringing the pacific Tories to power, and a French victory over the imperial forces at the Battle of Denain combined to end the war. The Treaties of Utrecht , and of Rastatt and Baden , signed in 1713–14, cost France its hegemony but left its territory intact. It retained its recent conquests in Flanders and on the Rhine , which were so much in the order of things that neither later defeats nor revolutions would cause it to lose them. Louis XIV died in 1715, at age 77.

His body was borne, amid the jeers of the populace, to the Saint-Denis basilica. His heir , the last son of the duke de Bourgogne, was a five-year-old child who was not expected to live. Louis had distrusted his nephew, the duke d’Orléans , and wanted to leave actual power in the hands of the duke du Maine, his son by Mme de Montespan. In attempting to accomplish this, he had drawn up a will that was to help destroy the monarchy. The Parlement of Paris, convened to nullify the will after his death, rediscovered a political power that it used to prevent all reforms during the ensuing reigns, thus making the Revolution inevitable. Assessment During his lifetime, Louis was flattered ceaselessly by his subjects, while foreign journals compared him to a bloodthirsty tiger. Voltaire portrayed his grandeur in his Age of Louis XIV. The duke de Saint-Simon , a member of his court whose Mémoires show equal proportions of literary genius and insincerity, dealt with him quite harshly, without denying his admiration for him. Later judgments of Louis varied according to the author’s political views.

Louis XIV was the foremost example of the monarchy that brought France to its pinnacle . He has been accused of having dug the grave of that monarchy, particularly through his religious policy, his last will, and his isolation of the court from the people. These mistakes could have been corrected. His irremediable error was to have concentrated all the machinery of the state in his own person, thus making of the monarchy a burden beyond human strength. His reign, compared by Voltaire to that of the Roman emperor Augustus , had both its strong and its weak points. Despite his victories and conquests, France lost her primacy under him. Yet the brilliance of his reign made up for his military policies. The aristocracy of Europe adopted the language and customs of the France where the Sun King had shone, although resentments lingered for a long time. The king identified with his office to such an extent that it is difficult to find the individual. His harshness and courage, despotism and stoicism, prodigious pride and passion for order, megalomania and religion, intolerance and love of beauty can be understood only as a function of the exigencies of governing.

He wanted France to be powerful, prosperous, and magnificent but was not overly concerned with the well-being of the French people. His armies committed atrocities, but the horrors of today have eclipsed them, and under his reign one did not see whole nations reduced to slavery, mass deportations, and genocide. When an Italian chemist offered him a bacteriological weapon , he gave him a pension on condition that he never divulge his invention. Louis was sometimes a tyrant, but in the words of Voltaire: “His name can never be pronounced without respect and without summoning the image of an eternally memorable age.” BBC - History - Historic Figures: Louis XIV (1638-1715) Historic Figures z Louis XIV, c.1701 © Louis XIV, the 'Sun King', was king of France from 1643 to 1715 and widely held to be the greatest monarch of his age. Louis was born on 5 September 1638 at St Germain-en-Laye. He became king at the age of four on the death of his father, Louis XIII.

While Louis was a child, his mother, Anne of Austria, served as regent, assisted by Louis XIII's chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin. Louis's early years were marked by a series of rebellions against his mother and Mazarin, which were known as the 'Fronde'. These created in him a lifelong fear of rebellion, and a dislike of Paris, prompting him to spend more and more time in Versailles, southwest of Paris. In 1660, he married Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain. When Mazarin died in 1661, the 23-year-old Louis decided to rule without a chief minister. He regarded himself as an absolute monarch, with his power coming directly from God. He carefully cultivated his image and took the sun as his emblem. Between 1661 and 1689, he built a magnificent palace at Versailles and moved his government there from Paris in 1682. In the early part of his reign, Louis worked with his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to tighten central control over the country, reviving the use of regional royal officials, 'intendants' and carrying out other financial and administrative reorganisation.

Louis also expanded the French army and navy. Louis's reign was marked by aggressive French foreign policies. After the death of his father-in-law, Louis claimed part of the Spanish Netherlands and launched the War of Dutch Devolution (1667-1668). In the Second Dutch War, he failed to crush the Dutch, led by William of Orange, but made significant territorial gains. In 1685, Louis, a devout Catholic, revoked the Edict of Nantes which had allowed freedom of worship to French Protestants (Huguenots). Around 200,000 Huguenots, many of them skilled craftsmen, fled to Holland and England. The last three decades of Louis's reign were marked by almost constant warfare. France was now the dominant power on the continent and other European nations felt threatened by this supremacy. The War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697), followed by the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) severely strained French resources.

In the War of the Spanish Succession, for the first time in nearly a century France consistently lost battles, most notably at Blenheim in 1704 and Ramillies in 1706. Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715, shortly after the Peace of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. As his eldest son and grandson had died before him, his great-grandson succeeded him as Louis XV. Browse subject: France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715 | The Online Books Page The Online Books Page You can also browse an alphabetical list from this subject or from: France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715 See also what's at your library , or elsewhere . Broader term: The Correspondence of Madame Du Noyer (2 volumes; London: R. Bentley and Son, 1890), by Madame Du Noyer, ed.

by Florence Louisa Layard Histoire de France sous le Ministère de Mazarin (1651-1661) (3 volumes in French; Paris: Hachette, 1882), by Adolphe Chéruel , by Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon, trans. by Bayle St.

John (Gutenberg text) Le Maréchal de Château-Renault (1637-1716) (in French; Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1903), by Jean Joseph Robert Calmon-Maison The Man in the Iron Mask , by Alexandre Dumas (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1898) , by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet (page images at HathiTrust) Twenty Years After (2 volumes; Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1896) , by Alexandre Dumas (page images at HathiTrust) Francesca Carrara The Conquest of New France: A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars , by George McKinnon Wrong (Gutenberg text) The Indian Massacre at York, Maine, January 25, 1691-2 (ca. 1917), by Ida May Wightman (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1883) , by Catherine Charlotte Jackson (page images at HathiTrust; US access only) Old Paris: Its Court and Literary Salons (2 volumes; Boston: J.

Knight Co., 1895), by Catherine Charlotte Jackson The Genesis of Napoleonic Propaganda, 1796-1799 (c2002) , by Wayne Hanley (illustrated HTML and PDF with commentary at gutenberg-e.org) Exposé Fidèle des Faits Authentiquement Prouvés, Qui Ont Précédé et Amené la Journée de Bordeaux, au 12 Mars 1814 (in French; Paris: A. Egron, 1816), by J. S. Rollac Louis XIV (1638–1715) Biography – Life of King of France and Navarre Religion Catholicism Louis XIV rose to power when he was only five years old. His mother served as regent until he was educated enough to become ruling king. Louis XIV was politically educated by Cardinal Mazarin, he chose the sun for his emblem. He is frequently referred to as “The Sun King” to this day. His influential years were marked by revolutionary actions against his mother and political adviser.

These actions were referred to as “La Fronde.” Louis XIV disliked Paris immensely and had a great fear and distaste for revolutionaries and those working against the monarchy. This contributed to his decision to later move to Versailles permanently. He married Marie Therese, an Infanta from Spain, solidifying the relationship between France and Spain. The Death of Cardinal Mazarin When Louis XIV was 23 years old, Cardinal Mazarin died. Louis XIV shocked the country of France by becoming his own chief minister. This had several implications. First, the “reign of the cardinal ministers,” in which a religious minister had the ear of the king, was effectively over. After a difficult few years, Louis XIV started to manage all of the state’s affair through the help of ministers whom were not employed by government, but rather called and dismissed by the king when necessary. Unlike monarchs before him, he excluded family members and old nobility. He worked with his finance minister Jean-Baptise Colbert during the early years. He reorganized several financial and administration aspects of the government at the time and expanded urban law enforcement to create a police force in Paris. He also expanded the French navy and the French army.

An Aggressive King Louis XIV believed in forceful foreign policies. He fought in several wars for land, two of which were against the Dutch. He was successful only in the first one, but he managed to gain a considerable amount of territory during the second war. In light of these wars, the growing size and might of the French army and other rising political tensions in Europe, many countries stopped being allies with France during this time. This led to the country becoming isolated. Louis XIV and The Arts The idea of glorifying the monarchy and himself through the arts was incredibly appealing to King Louis XIV and his finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Under him, French literature and art flourished. The government developed several academies which specialized in writing, music and architecture. Louis XIV believed in propaganda and hired many artist to paint several different works of him. He did this so that his face would be preserved and he would be seen everywhere. Artists were also commissioned to paint important moments during the king’s ruling such as his many victories in war. Artists also depicted the king, like monarchs before him, in mythological situations which showed him as having great power physically and mentally. Louis XIV was patron of The Académie Française.

The Louvre was originally intended to be built upon and expanded as a royal residence, but it was given over to the arts and to the public after court relocated to Versailles. The Palace of Versailles Versailles was a country suburb about 20 kilometers from the capital of France. At the time it was the perfect place for the monarch to get away from Paris. It was built in four building campaigns that took around 50 years altogether. The construction of the palace ended with The Hall of Mirrors, the biggest room in the palace. It is named this way because there are seventeen mirror arches in it that face seventeen windows that over look the park. The Palace of Versailles housed approximately twenty thousand noblemen and women at one time. There were many parties and events at Versailles. This was a way for Louis XIV to keep an eye on the monarchy. Although the monarch lived in the palace, he never saw it completed. This was largely due to the fact that he always had new ideas about ways to expand the palace. The Palace of Versailles was King Louis XIV’s main residence until his death. It continued to be the court’s location until the monarchs were forced to flee nearly a hundred years later during the French revolution.

It still stands as a museum for visitors because of its beautiful and lavish architecture. Fashion in His Reign The role of fashion during Louis XIV’s reign was incredibly important. He increased the cost of clothes and fashion in general and made it a competition to see who would dress him best. It is widely believed that this incredible emphasis on fashion was in part because he wanted noble people to go into debt. The king required a different dress code for every event, depending on what time of the day it was and depending on the season. He used fashion as a way to control the nobility and to keep an eye on them as another part of his social strategy. The Decline of Louis XIV: Religious Persecution Things were deteriorating in France by the end of the seventeenth century. A “Grand Alliance” between Spain, England and the Roman Empire attacked France. This war went on for almost an entire decade and is known as The Nine Years’ War. In 1685, the devoutly Catholic King Louis XIV attempted to establish religious uniformity throughout France by revoking the right of the protestants, called Huguenots, to worship. This was referred to as the revocation of the Edicts of Nante.

He disallowed Catholics from marrying Protestants and encouraged protestants to convert to Catholicism. Many Huguenots fled the country to seek more religious freedom, moving to Holland and Great Britain. Many of these protestants were highly skilled and had money, which they took with them when they emigrated from the country. Louis XIV’s religious intolerance reached a boiling point when he banned emigration and started persecuting protestants. This caused considerable strain in France and heightened tensions with other European countries. The Fall of Louis XIV’s Foreign Policy Throughout the last years of his reign, this king was plagued with diplomatic and military failures. European nations reacted to France having become the biggest power in the region. With resources already strained, many wars under Louis XIV’s ruling greatly effected the French economy. The Nine Years’ War was the first of these wars, with the main portion of fighting taking place within France’s borders. Although the country did not lose much territory, its resources were considerably drained. The treaty of Ryswick ended the war and the Grand Alliance was disbanded. The Spanish Succession was the next war that was fought. Spain and several adjoining territories had a ruling king with issues complicating who would be next heir to the throne.

Louis XIV’s main goal was to defend the right of his grandson Philip V to take the crown. This was a long war that lasted nearly fifteen years. The ruling monarch of Spain, Charles II, suddenly changed his will while in his deathbed. He was convinced by his advisers, due to France’s political might, that he should give the empire to Philip V, Duke of Anjou. Louis XIV had to choose between dividing the territories of Spain, and thus avoiding war, or accepting Charles II’s offer and risking war. Although Philip V was generally accepted by European nations as the legitimate king, tensions rose because of the perceived alliance between Spain and France. A treaty resulted in a division of land with France managing to retain most of its territory. The Results of The Spanish Succession War The war was very expensive and although France did not lose any land, it did lose a lot of money. The economy of France kept declining and the populace grew hungry and tired. Another effect of the war the overexertion of France which may have led to the Anglo-Saxon world domination that followed.

Louis XIV and His Women Perhaps the most respected part of this king’s ruling is that he made all his illegitimate children legitimate and helped to integrate them fully in aristocratic society. This allowed them to take on official roles and serve the monarchy when necessary. Before the king was married to the Infanta of Spain, he had a relationship with Cardinal Mazarin’s daughter. She was several years older than him. He wanted her to be his wife, but instead he went on to marry Marie Therese of Austria. The King was never in love with her, but they respected each other and had many children together. Marie Therese was widely known as simple-minded. She enjoyed playing cards and never learned French. A year after Louis XIV became religious again, and vouched to be faithful to his wife, she became ill and died at the age of 45. Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière, Henrietta of England’s sister-in-law, was Louis XIV’s mistress for around five years. He had four children with her. Both children were legitimized and his mistress was made a duchess. She retired to a convent a few years later.

Françoise Athénaïs marquise de Montespan replaced Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière as the king’s mistress and had seven children with him, all of whom were highly educated. Their affair was discreet and she also went to a convent to spend the last years of her life. Françoise d’Aubigné marquise de Maintenon was the Louis XIV’s second wife. She was the most highly educated woman in court and 32 years old when she married Louis XIV. She was a great influence on the King. She was a remarkable woman that spent the later parts of her years dealing with education by devoting her time to academies and writing essays about education. King XIV’s Later Years and Death The last years of King Louis XIV’s life were not happy ones. He was unable to get over the many tragedies that had been suffered, both personally and by the country he ruled. He was also not able to get his finances back under control. Additionally, some unsavory alliances caused him to alienate the public and lose the respect that many loyal Frenchmen and women gave him.

Louis XIV had lost all direct decedents but two of his illegitimate sons and granted both of them Prince of Blood titles in his will, but they were stripped of this power by his successor. He died in 1715 after ruling as king for 72 years. He was buried at the Basilica of St. Dennis. Leave a Reply FC95: The Age of Louis XIV, the "Sun King" (1643-1715) - The Flow of History The Flow of History A Dynamic and Graphic Approach to Teaching History Primary Links FC95: The Age of Louis XIV, the "Sun King" (1643-1715) Flowchart Covered in multimedia lectures #2026 , #2028 and #2029 . I am the state. — Voltaire, incorrectly quoting Louis XIV Introduction From 1643 to 1815 France dominated much of Europe's political history and culture. Foreigners came to France, preferring it to the charms of their own homeland. Even today, many still consider it the place to visit in Europe and the world.

In the 1600's and 1700's there was a good reason for this dominance: population. France had 23,000,000 people in a strongly unified state compared to 5,000,000 in Spain and England, and 2,000,000 in the Dutch Republic and the largest of the German states. This reservoir of humanity first reached for and nearly attained the dominance of Europe under Louis XIV, the "Sun King". Louis' early life and reign (1643-61) Louis was born in 1638 and succeeded his father, Louis XIII, as king in 1643 at the age of five. Luckily, another able minister and Richelieu's successor, Cardinal Mazarin, continued to run the government. In 1648, encroachment by the government on the nobles' power, poor harvests, high taxes, and unemployed mercenaries plundering the countryside after the Thirty Years War led to a serious revolt known as the Fronde, named after the slingshot used by French boys. Louis and the court barely escaped from Paris with their lives.

Although Mazarin and his allies crushed the rebels after five hard years of fighting (1648-53), Louis never forgot the fear and humiliation of having to run from the Parisian mob and fight for his life and throne against the nobles. This bitter experience would heavily influence Louis' policies when he ruled on his own. From 1643 to 1661, Cardinal Mazarin ruled ably in the young king's interests, although he provided Louis with a rather odd upbringing for a king. Despite an immense fortune, Mazarin was something of a miser who gave the young king inadequate food, clothing, and attention. (Once the young Louis was left unattended and fell into a fountain where he almost drowned.) Louis also got little in the way of a formal education and, even as an adult, was barely literate. But Mazarin did give Louis a sense of what it meant to be a king. As a result, he turned out to be a hard working ruler, but often lacked much common sense and the willingness to entrust enough freedom of action to his subordinates.

From his mother, a full-blooded Spanish princess, Louis learned great religious piety and love of ritual, another trait that would influence his reign. In 1661, Mazarin died. Louis' officials, assuming he would be a "do nothing" king like his father, asked to whom they should now answer. Louis' reply was "To me." The age of Louis XIV was about to begin in earnest. Louis' internal policies Louis XIV may not have said, "I am the state", but he ruled as if he had said it. Louis was the supreme example of the absolute monarch, and other rulers in Europe could do no better than follow his example. Although Louis wished to be remembered as a great conqueror, his first decade of active rule was largely taken up with building France's internal strength. There are two main areas of Louis' rule we will look at here: finances and the army. Louis' finance minister, Jean Baptiste Colbert, was an astute businessman of modest lineage, being the son of a draper. Colbert's goal was to build France's industries and reduce foreign imports.

This seventeenth century policy where a country tried to export more goods and import more gold and silver was known as mercantilism. While its purpose was to generate revenue for the king, it also showed the growing power of the emerging nation state. Colbert declared his intention to reform the whole financial structure of the French state, and he did succeed in reducing the royal debt by cutting down on the number of tax farms he sold and freeing royal lands from mortgage. Colbert especially concentrated on developing France's economy in three ways. First of all, Colbert concentrated on developing French internal trade in order to reduce foreign imports. He developed better inland trade routes by building canals and improving ports and river ways, which would connect different parts of the country to each other and open up new markets. Secondly, Colbert worked to develop French industries. Most industries he developed can be seen as being aimed against imports from other countries: mirrors from Venice, lace from England, and iron and firearms from Sweden. He also built a merchant marine to stop foreign powers, especially the Dutch, from carrying French goods and making profits at France's expense. In 1661, France had a merchant marine of 18 ships.

By 1681, it was up to 276 ships. Finally, Colbert encouraged the development of overseas colonies much like those of other European powers. During this time, France established and tightened control over colonies in Canada, French Guiana, and Madagascar. For all his efforts and financial wizardry, Colbert's successes were limited, largely because he was trying to drag a basically medieval economy into the modern world. Guilds were still powerful and held back progress in new production and financing techniques. Local authorities still jealously guarded their rights to charge tolls on trade. Getting across France involved paying up to 100 such local tolls, which of course stifled trade. The tax burden was extremely unfair, with nobles and the Church virtually exempt from taxation even though they controlled much of the land. Colbert's own techniques of having the government control so many aspects of the economy were heavy handed and tended to stifle initiative. His efforts at trying to centrally control France's overseas colonies were especially disastrous. However, Colbert did make real progress in developing the French economy. A merchant marine and navy were built. Industries were developed. And for a few years Colbert even managed to run the government at a profit.

Unfortunately, Louis' desire for glory and conquests led to a long series of wars that embroiled Europe in a new round of bloodshed and wrecked France's economy. Not even Colbert could do anything to stop that. The army was another primary object of reform. By the mid 1600's, the old system of recruiting armies and fighting wars was clearly outmoded. Mercenaries were disloyal, untrustworthy, and terribly destructive to friend and foe alike. By contrast, the Swedish army of Gustavus Adolphus and the English army of Oliver Cromwell each had loyal native recruits that proved reliable and effective, while Brandenburg-Prussia was transforming its troublesome nobles into a loyal professional officer corps. These lessons were not lost on Louis and his minister of war, Louvois, who built what amounted to one of the first modern national armies. Three aspects of the army they concentrated on were its training and discipline, its equipment, and its supplies. First of all, soldiers in Louis' new army, whether mercenaries or peasant draftees, found military life was much stricter and more regularized in several ways.

For one thing, instead of mercenary captains who recruited, paid, and commanded them, soldiers now answered to the state and its officers. Along these lines, there was also a regular chain of command from the Intendant de l'armee (roughly equivalent to our modern secretary of defense) down through field marshals, generals, colonels, and captains. Officers also got regular training and were much more strictly under the rule of the central government than ever before. Naturally, the nobles claimed the officers' positions as their birthright. However, the government kept tighter control of its army, largely through new positions filled by men of more humble birth. These lieutenant colonels performed many vital duties in lieu of the noble officers without actually replacing them. In this way, a more modern army helped Louis bring the old troublesome medieval nobility more tightly under his control. A second reform was that uniforms and equipment were more standardized, which made the army easier to supply, more efficient, and promoted more of a group identity and higher morale. Finally, the army maintained regular supply lines. This reduced the need for foraging, which increased discipline and control over the army and protected the civilian populace from being plundered.

There were two major factors that limited the effectiveness of Louis' military reforms. For one thing, Louis's standing army was large and expensive, having some 400,000 men at its height. It is estimated that a pre-industrial society such as seventeenth century France could only afford to support 1% of its population in the military. Louis' army at its height was nearly twice that, which was a terrible strain on French society. This became especially apparent in Louis' later wars when supply lines broke down, which led to foraging and a breakdown in discipline. Second, the expense of Louis' wars forced him to sell military offices, which brought in less capable and dedicated officers. Overall, Louis' military reforms were much like Colbert's economic reforms. They made progress, but met severe obstacles that prevented them from being completely successful. Despite these limits to Louis' economic and military reforms, France was the most powerful state in Europe by the late 1660's. Louis realized this quite well, in fact probably too well, because he embarked on an ambitious series of policies that nearly ruined France by the end of his reign.

There were three areas where Louis chose to show his power: religion, his palace at Versailles, and foreign expansion. Religion was one aspect of Louis' reign that illustrated the absolute nature of his monarchy quite well. Louis himself was quite a pious Catholic, learning that trait from his mother. However, in the spirit of the day, he saw religion as a department of state subordinate to the will of the king. By the same token, not adhering to the Catholic faith was seen as treason. As a result, Louis gradually restricted the rights of the French Huguenots and finally, in 1685, revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had given them religious freedom since the end of the French Wars of Religion in 1598. This drove 200,000 Huguenots out of France, depriving it of some of its most skilled labor. Thus Louis let his political and religious biases ruin a large sector of France's economy. Versailles Louis' religious faith was largely a superficial one attached to the elaborate ritual of the Catholic mass. This love of ritual also showed itself in how Louis ran his court at his magnificent palace of Versailles, several miles outside of Paris.

Much of the reason for building Versailles goes back to the Fronde that had driven Louis from Paris as a young boy. Ever since then, Louis had distrusted the volatile Paris mob and was determined to move the court away from the influence of that city. Versailles was also the showpiece of Louis' reign, glorifying him as the Sun King with its magnificent halls and gardens. The palace facade was a quarter of a mile across. The famous Hall of Mirrors alone was 250 feet long. Water pumped from the Seine River to hills 500 feet above Versailles fed its fountains. The Orangery had over 1200 orange trees that were moved inside for the winter. All this was built and maintained at tremendous expense. But it was worth it to Louis, regardless of the burden it put on the French people. As splendid as it may seem, life at Versailles was not always such a picnic. The site itself was on low marshy ground that made it unhealthy to live in. Except for a few magnificent rooms and bedrooms, most people had small cramped rooms with little or no ventilation. Nevertheless, a noble was considered socially and politically dead if he did not live at Versailles.

He lived there at his own expense and was expected to keep up a sumptuous life style in order to be a proper ornament for Louis' court. The seemingly endless round of masquerades, plays, operas, and parties eventually grew old to even the most ardent partygoers. For many, life became a bitter series of petty intrigues over such things as who could stand closest to Louis when he held court or got dressed in the morning. Some even saw this as a plot to ruin the nobles by making them go bankrupt while they were trapped in the gilded cage of Versailles. And indeed, Versailles did bankrupt many nobles along with the French government, helping lead to the French Revolution some 75 years after Louis died. Louis' diplomacy and wars Just as Louis's palace at Versailles dominated European culture during the late 1600's and early 1700's, his diplomacy and wars dominated Europeans political history. As Louis himself put it: "The character of a conqueror is regarded as the noblest and highest of titles." Interestingly enough, he never led his troops in battle except for overseeing a few sieges from a safe distance.

Louis' main goals were to expand France to its "natural borders": the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. This, of course, would make him enemies among the Dutch, Germans, Austrians, Spanish, and English. Therefore, Louis' diplomacy had to clear the way to make sure he did not fight everyone at once. For this purpose he skillfully used money to neutralize potential enemies (such as Charles II of England in the Secret Treaty of Dover) and extracted favorable terms from stalemate or losing situations. But Louis could also make some fateful blunders to hurt his cause. His obsessive hatred of the Dutch dominated his policy too much, as did his own self-confidence and arrogance in trying to publicly humiliate his enemies. However, this just alarmed Louis' enemies more, especially the Dutch, Austrians, and English, who allied against Louis to preserve the balance of power. Several new inventions transformed the warfare of this period. First of all there was the bayonet, invented in Bayonne, France around 1670.

This blade, when attached to the end of a musket, transformed it into a short pike, thus eliminating the need for separate pikemen to protect the musketeers in hand-to-hand combat. Second, there was the flintlock musket, which provided more reliable firing and faster loading than the old matchlock muskets. Finally, there was the introduction of paper cartridges with pre-measured amounts of gunpowder that also sped up the process of loading in combat. With all infantrymen carrying flintlock muskets, premeasured charges of powder, and bayonets for hand-to-hand combat, generals could create much less dense formations and greatly stretch their battle lines. These new linear tactics vastly increased European armies' firepower and warfare's destructiveness. They also made armies harder to control since they were stretched out over such a great distance. As a result, discipline was tightened even more, which further increased the power of the state over its armies. It also made it harder to attract recruits, leading to a growing reliance on peasant draftees. The general trend in Louis' wars was for them to become increasingly longer, bloodier, and less successful.

His first major conflict, the War of Devolution, lasted only two years (1667-1668). Louis' goal was to conquer the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium), which would give him control of the mouth of the Rhine and much of Germany's trade. At this point, Colbert's financial measures provided Louis a strong economic base with which to wage war. Louis' military reforms had also given him the best fighting machine in Europe. The system of supply lines worked so well that the French officers were even supplied with silverware for their tables. As a result, Louis gained several strategic towns and fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands. However, Europe's suspicion and fear of French aggression had been aroused, and each succeeding war would be progressively harder for Louis to win. The Dutch War (1672-78) brought in the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, and Austria against Louis. French progress was much slower, and fighting much costlier, as the Dutch in particular fought desperately to defend their homeland, even opening the dikes to flood out the French. Although Louis gained nothing against the Dutch, he did win lands along the Rhine at the expense of various German states, but at considerable cost.

France lost its two best field marshals, and the French people endured ever-higher taxes, some peasants even being reduced to making bread from acorns and roots. Louis' next adventure, the War of the League of Augsburg, also known as the Nine Years War (1688-97), embroiled Europe in an even more prolonged and fruitless conflict. French expansion was directed across the Rhine into Germany while Austria was preoccupied with its Turkish war. Austria put the Turks on hold and allied with the Dutch, English, and several German states to stop French aggression. Fighting raged through most of the 1690's. Peasants were drafted in greater numbers, taxes were raised to intolerable heights, and a major famine in 1694 merely added to the misery. Finally, peace was made in 1697 with little changed, except for everyone being severely weakened by the senseless struggle. By 1700, France's population had declined from an estimated 23,000,000 in 1670 to 19,000,000. Unfortunately, a new and bloodier war soon arose.

This time the prize was Spain and its extensive empire, left without a ruler by the death of Charles II. Louis' grandson had an excellent claim through Louis' wife, a Spanish princess. Predictably, the rest of Europe would not tolerate a French Empire that surpassing even that of Charles V in the 1500's. The resulting conflict, the War of the Spanish Succession, would bring twelve more dreary years of warfare and destruction to Europe (1701-13). For the first time, Louis' generals suffered decisive defeats, mostly at the hands of the brilliant British general, John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough. French armies were thrown on the defensive, and French peasants were drafted in growing numbers to defend their homeland. Resistance stiffened and the war ground down to a bloody stalemate. Exhaustion on both sides finally led to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Louis' grandson took the throne of Spain and its American empire, but the French and Spanish thrones could not be united under one ruler. Austria got the Spanish Netherlands to contain French aggression to the north.

Just as the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 had contained Hapsburg aggression, the Treaty of Utrecht contained French expansion. Two years later Louis XIV was dead, with little to show for his vaunted ambitions as a conqueror except an exhausted economy and dissatisfied populace. Results of Louis' reign The age of Louis XIV was important to European history for several reasons. First of all, it saw the triumph of absolutism in France and continental Europe. Versailles was a glittering symbol and example for other European rulers to follow. Any number of German and East European monarchs modeled their states and courts after Louis XIV, sometimes to the point of financial ruin. Second, Louis' wars showed the system of Balance of Power politics working better than ever. French aggression was contained and the status quo was maintained. All this had its price, since the larger sizes of the armies and the final replacement of the pike with the musket took European warfare to a new level of destruction. Finally, Louis' reign definitely established France as the dominant power in Europe. However, the cost was immense and left his successors a huge debt.

Ironically, the problems caused by Louis XIV's reign would help lead to the French Revolution in 1789 and the spread of democratic principles across Europe and eventually the world. » Medalist: Michel Molart | Louis XIV (1638-1715), King of France (1643-1715) | French, Paris | The Met Louis XIV (1638-1715), King of France (1643-1715) Artist: Medalist: Michel Molart (French, Dieppe 1641–1713 Dieppe) Date: Diam. 2 7/8 in. (73 mm.) Classification: Gift of Louis S. Levy, 1950 Accession Number: Signature: MOLART.F (on obverse and reverse) Inscription: Obverse: LVDOVICVS.MAGNVS.REX.GALLIARVM.INVICTISSIMVS; reverse: BELLO.ET.COMMERCIO, (on truncated column) NAVAARVM.LX.MILL CONSCRIPT, (in exergue) M.DC.LXXX Provenance Louis S.

Levy (until 1950; to MMA) Timeline of Art History (2000-present) Essays Possibly by François Varin | Louis XIV (1638-1715), King of France (1643-1715) | French, Paris | The Met Louis XIV (1638-1715), King of France (1643-1715) Maker: Possibly by François Varin (ca. 1672–1699) Date: Diam. 3 1/4 in. (83 mm.) Classification: Gift of Louis S. Levy, 1950 Accession Number: Inscription: Obverse: .LVD.MAGNVS.FRAN.ET.NAV.REX.P.P.; reverse: .NEC.PLVRIBVS.IMPAR.1674 Provenance Louis S.

Levy (until 1950; to MMA) Timeline of Art History (2000-present) Timelines Louis XIV of France - Wikidata Louis XIV of France King of France and Navarra, from 1643 to 1715 Louis the Great roi de France Louis XIV König Ludwig XIV. Frankreich Rey de Francia Luis XIV The Sun King King of France Ludwig XIV King of France Louis XIV Le Roi Soleil Cite this page This page was last modified on 10 January 2017, at 14:15. All structured data from the main and property namespace is available under the Creative Commons CC0 License ; text in the other namespaces is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Question: Who was King of France from 1643 to 1715?
Answer: Louis XIV