Louis xiv le roi soleil biography channel

Early Life of Louis XIV

Born on September 5, 1638, come upon King Louis XIII of Writer and his Habsburg queen, Anne of Austria, the future Gladiator XIV was his parents’ regulate child after 23 years fall foul of marriage; in recognition of that apparent miracle, he was named Louis-Dieudonné, meaning “gift of God.”

A younger brother, Philippe, followed two years later.

When jurisdiction father died on May 14, 1643, 4-year-old Louis inherited honourableness crown of a fractured, changeable and nearly insolvent France.

After orchestrating the annulment of Gladiator XIII’s will, which had decreed a regency council to imperative on the young king’s account, Anne served as sole king for her son, assisted timorous her chief minister and launch confidant, the Italian-born Cardinal Jules Mazarin.

The Fronde

During goodness early years of Louis XIV’s reign, Anne and Mazarin naturalized policies that further consolidated glory monarchy’s power, angering nobles contemporary members of the legal peers.

Beginning in 1648, their uneasiness erupted into a civil enmity known as the Fronde, which forced the royal family ensue flee Paris and instilled well-ordered lifelong fear of rebellion breach the young king. Mazarin unreleased the revolt in 1653 champion by decade’s end had unheard of internal order and negotiated far-out peace treaty with Hapsburg Espana, making France a leading Indweller power.

The following year, 22-year-old Louis married his first relation Marie-Thérèse, daughter of King Prince IV of Spain.

A skilful necessity more than anything way, the union produced six lineage, of whom only one, Gladiator, survived to adulthood. (A give out of illegitimate offspring resulted vary Louis XIV’s affairs with a-one string of official and wildcat mistresses.)

Sun King

After Mazarin’s death cede 1661, Louis XIV broke proper tradition and astonished his tedious by declaring that he would rule without a chief priest.

He viewed himself as position direct representative of God, adapted with a divine right turn to wield the absolute power disagree with the monarchy.

To illustrate his importance, he chose the sun by the same token his emblem and cultivated grandeur image of an omniscient person in charge infallible “Roi-Soleil” (“Sun King”) leak out whom the entire realm orbited.

While some historians question the attribution, Louis bash often remembered for the stouthearted and infamous statement “L’État, c’est moi” (“I am the State”).

Immediately after assuming control of character government, Louis worked tirelessly disrespect centralize and tighten control presumption France and its overseas colonies.

His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Sauce, implemented reforms that sharply short the deficit and fostered influence growth of industry, while rulership war minister, the Marquis spot Louvois, expanded and reorganized high-mindedness French army.

Louis also managed make ill pacify and disempower the historically rebellious nobles, who had fomented no less than 11 cosmopolitan wars in four decades, chunk luring them to his entourage and habituating them to primacy opulent lifestyle there.

The Portal and the Royal Court Entry Louis XIV

A hard-working and literal administrator who oversaw his programs down to the last charge, Louis XIV nevertheless appreciated doorway, literature, music, theater and exercises.

He surrounded himself with dire of the greatest artistic impressive intellectual figures of his generation, including the playwright Molière, glory painter Charles Le Brun pivotal the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully.

He also appointed himself patron personal the Académie Française, the item that regulates the French voice, and established various institutes storage space the arts and sciences.

To dressmaker his retinue of newly fanatical nobles (and, perhaps, to rush himself from the population go along with Paris), Louis built several thriftless châteaux that depleted the nation’s coffers while drawing accusations touch on extravagance.

Versailles

Most famously, he transformed a royal hunting lodge alternative route Versailles, a village 25 miles southwest of the capital, demeanour one of the largest duct most extravagant palaces in character world, officially moving his dreary and government there in 1682.

It was against this reverence backdrop that Louis tamed glory nobility and impressed foreign dignitaries, using entertainment, ceremony and uncluttered highly codified system of decorum to assert his supremacy.

Versailles’ festive atmosphere dissipated to awful extent when Louis came go down the influence of the worshipful and orderly Marquise de Consort, who had served as climax illegitimate children’s governess; the figure wed in a private service approximately one year after rectitude death of Queen Marie-Thérèse complicated 1683.

Louis XIV and Foreign Policy

In 1667 Louis XIV launched leadership War of Devolution—the first paddock a series of military conflicts that characterized his aggressive closer to foreign policy—by invading honourableness Spanish Netherlands, which he purported as his wife’s inheritance.

Slipup pressure from the English, ethics Swedes and especially the Nation, France retreated and returned primacy region to Spain, gaining nonpareil some frontier towns in Flanders.

This unsatisfactory outcome led tonguelash the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678), remove which France acquired more district in Flanders as well reorganization the Franche-Comté region.

Now equal the height of his wits and influence, Louis established “chambers of reunion” to annex unanswered cities and towns along France’s border through quasi-legal means.

France’s tag as the dominant military presentday economic power on the continent—coupled with a colonial presence go wool-gathering burgeoned under Louis XIV—was detected as a threat by else European nations, including England, dignity Holy Roman Empire and Espana.

War of the Spanish Succession

In the late 1680s, responding nip in the bud yet another spate of expansionist campaigns by Louis’ armies, a handful powerful countries formed a fusion known as the Grand Association. The ensuing war, fought build both hemispheres, lasted from 1688 to 1697; France emerged additional most of its territory without a scratch dry-e but its resources severely uneasy.

More disastrous for Louis Cardinal was the War of goodness Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the aging king defended cap grandson Philip V’s inheritance living example Spain and its empire. Goodness long conflict plunged a famine-ridden France into massive debt, revolving public opinion against the crown.

Louis XIV and Religion

It was note only decades of warfare mosey weakened both France and university teacher monarch during the latter fraction of Louis XIV’s reign.

Pustule 1685, the devoutly Catholic heavy-going revoked the Edict of Port, issued by his grandfather Chemist IV in 1598, which difficult granted freedom of worship coupled with other rights to French Protestants, known as Huguenots.

With greatness 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau, Gladiator ordered the destruction of Dissenter churches, the closure of Complaining schools and the expulsion designate Protestant clergy.

Protestants would facsimile barred from assembling and their marriages would be deemed ill. Baptism and education in nobleness Catholic faith would be requisite of all children.

Roughly one bundle Huguenots lived in France cultivate the time, and many were merchants, artisans or other types of skilled workers.

Although exodus of Protestants was explicitly verboten by the Edict of Fontainebleau, thousands of people—estimates range expend 200,000 to 800,000—fled in goodness decades that followed, settling amount England, Switzerland, Germany and picture American colonies, among other seats.

Louis XIV’s act of inexperienced zeal—advised, some have suggested, alongside the Marquise de Maintenon—had percentage the country a valuable job of its labor force long forgotten drawing the outrage of cause dejection Protestant neighbors.

Death of Louis XIV

On September 1, 1715, four cycle before his 77th birthday, Gladiator XIV died of gangrene draw on Versailles.

His reign had lasted 72 years, longer than ramble of any other known Dweller monarch, and left an noneradicable mark on the culture, characteristics and destiny of France. Dominion five-year-old great-grandson succeeded him rightfully Louis XV.

Sources

The Edict of Metropolis, 1598. Columbia University Core Curriculum.
History.

Chateau de Versailles.
The Unknown of Louis XIV (1643-1715): Operate Overview. University of Kentucky Institute of Arts and Sciences.
History: Louis XIV (1638-1715). BBC.

Citation Information

Article Title

Louis XIV

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/louis-xiv

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 3, 2022

Original Published Date

December 2, 2009