King of France Louis XIV

King Louis the XIV King of France and of Navarre Louis XIV (1638–1715), by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701) Reign May 14, 1643 – September 1, 1715 Coronation June 7, 1654, Notre-Dame de Reims, Reims, France Full name Louis-Dieudonné; known as The Great, The Grand Monarch, or The Sun King Born September 5 1638(1638--) Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France Died September 1 1715 (aged 76) Château de Versailles, Versailles, France Buried Saint Denis Basilica, Saint-Denis, France Predecessor Louis XIII, King of France Heir apparent Louis de France, "le Grand Dauphin" Successor Louis XV, King of France Consort Marie-Thérèse of Austria, Infanta of Spain, Queen of France Issue Louis de France Anne-Élisabeth de France Marie-Anne de France Marie-Thérèse de France Philippe-Charles de France Louis-François de France Royal House House of France (Bourbon Branch) Father Louis XIII, King of France Mother Anne of Austria, Infanta of Spain, Queen of France

House of Bourbon Henri IV Sister    Catherine of Navarre, Duchess of Lorraine Children    Louis XIII    Elisabeth, Queen of Spain    Christine Marie, Duchess of Savoy    Nicholas Henri    Gaston, Duke of Orléans    Henriette-Marie, Queen of England and Scotland Louis XIII Children    Louis XIV    Philippe, Duke of Orléans Louis XIV Children    Louis, Dauphin    Marie-Anne    Marie-Therèse    Philippe-Charles, Duc d'Anjou    Louis-François, Duc d'Anjou Grandchildren    Louis, Dauphin    King Felipe V of Spain    Charles, Duke of Berry Great Grandchildren    Louis, Dauphin    Louis XV Louis XV Children    Louise-Elisabeth, Duchess of Parma    Madame Henriette    Louis, Dauphin    Madame Marie Adélaïde    Madame Victoire    Madame Sophie    Madame Louise Grandchildren    Marie Clotilde, Queen of Sardinia    Louis XVI    Louis XVIII    Charles X    Madame Élisabeth Louis XVI Children    Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, Duchess of Angouleme    Louis-Joseph, Dauphin    Louis XVII    Sophie-Beatrix Louis XVII Louis XVIII Charles X Children    Louis XIX    Charles, Duke of Berry Grandchildren    Henri V    Louise, Duchess of Parma

Louis XIV (baptised as Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) ruled as King of France and of Navarre.

He acceded to the throne on May 14 1643, a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his First Minister ("premier ministre"), Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Louis would remain on the throne till his death just prior to his seventy-seventh birthday in 1715.

The reign of Louis XIV, known as The Sun King (in French Le Roi Soleil) or as Louis the Great (in French Louis le Grand, or simply Le Grand Monarque, "the Great Monarch"), spanned seventy-two years—the longest reign of any major European monarch. During that period of time he increased the power and influence of France in Europe, fighting three major wars—the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession—and two minor conflicts—the War of Devolution, and the War of the Reunions.

The political and military scene in France during his reign was filled with such illustrious names as Mazarin, Fouquet, Colbert, Michel le Tellier, Le Tellier's son Louvois, the Great Condé, Turenne, Vauban, Villars and Tourville. Under his reign, France achieved not only political and military pre-eminence, but also cultural dominance with various cultural figures such as Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Le Brun, Rigaud, Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Claude Perrault and Le Nôtre. The cultural achievements accomplished by these figures contributed to the prestige of France, its people, its language and its king.

Louis XIV worked successfully to create a centralized state governed from the capital in order to sweep away the fragmented feudalism which had hitherto persisted in France, thus giving rise to the modern state. As a result of his efforts, which seemed absolutist, Louis XIV became the archetype of such a monarch. The phrase "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the State") is frequently attributed to him, though this is considered by historians to be a historical inaccuracy and is more likely to have been conceived by political opponents as a way of confirming the stereotypical view of the absolutism he represented. Quite contrary to that apocryphal quote, Louis XIV is actually reported to have said on his death bed: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." ("I am going away, but the State will always remain").^[1]

Early years

Upon his birth at the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1638, his parents, Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria, who had been childless for twenty-three years, regarded him as a divine gift; hence he was christened "Louis-Dieudonné" ("Dieudonné" meaning "God-given"); he also received the titles premier fils de France ("First Son of France") as well as the more traditional title Dauphin.

Through Louis XIV's veins ran the blood of many of Europe's royal Houses. Indeed, according to François Bluche, Christian Carretier, in his work "Les cinq cents douze quartiers de Louis XIV", calculated to the tenth generation that Louis XIV's ancestry was approximately 28% French, 26% Spanish, 11% German and Austrian, 10% Portuguese, 8% Italian, 7% Slavic and 7% English.

His paternal grandparents were Henri IV of France and Marie de' Medici, who were French and Italian respectively; while both his maternal grandparents were Habsburgs, Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. In this manner, he counted as his ancestors various historical figures like Charles Quint and Frederick Barbarossa, both Holy Roman Emperors. He also found himself descended from the founder of the Rurik dynasty, Rurik the Viking, as well as Charles I "le Téméraire", duc de Bourgogne, the poet Charles, duc d'Orléans, and Giovanni de' Medici, last of the great Condottieri. Most importantly, he traced his paternal lineage in unbroken male succession from Saint Louis, King of France.

Louis XIII and Anne had a second child, Philippe de France, duc d'Anjou (soon to be Philippe I, duc d'Orléans) in 1640. Louis XIII, however, did not trust in his wife's ability to govern France upon his demise. Thus he decreed that a regency council, of which Anne would be head, should rule in his son's name during his minority; this would have diminished the Queen Mother's power. Nevertheless, when Louis XIII died and his young son, Louis XIV, acceded on May 14, 1643, Anne had her husband's will annulled in the Parlement, did away with the Council and became sole Regent. She entrusted power to her chief minister, the Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, who was despised in most French political circles because of his alien non-French background (although he had already become a naturalized French subject).

Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648

The Thirty Years' War, which lhad commenced in the previous reign, ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, made up of the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, the work of Cardinal Mazarin. This Peace ensured Dutch independence from Spain and the independence of the German princes in the Empire. It marked the apogee of Swedish power and influence in German and European affairs. However, it was France who had the most to gain from the terms of the Peace. Austria ceded to France all Habsburg lands and claims in Alsace; and the petty German states eager to dislodge themselves from Habsburg domination placed themselves under French protection, leading to the further dissolution of Imperial power. The Peace of Westphalia humiliated Habsburg ambitions in the Holy Roman Empire and Europe and laid rest to the idea of the Empire having secular dominion over the entire Christendom.

Louis XIV as a young child

In the closing years of the Thirty Years' War, a civil war, the Fronde, which effectively curbed France's ability to make good the advantages gained in the Peace of Westphalia, broke out. The Frondeurs originally sought to protect the traditional feudal "liberties" from an increasingly centralized and centralizing royal government. On the other hand, Cardinal Mazarin had continued and would continue to follow the policies of centralization pursued by his predecessor, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, seeking to augment the power of the Crown at the expense of the nobility and the Parlements. In 1648, he sought to levy a tax on the members of the Parlement, a court whose judges comprised mostly nobles or high clergymen. The members of the Parlement not only refused to comply, but also ordered all of Cardinal Mazarin's earlier financial edicts burned. When Cardinal Mazarin, strengthened by the news of Condé's victory at Lens, arrested certain members of the Parlement in a show of force, Paris erupted in rioting and insurrection. A mob of angry Parisians broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king. Led into the royal bedchamber, they gazed upon Louis XIV, who was feigning sleep, and quietly departed. Prompted by the possible danger to the royal family and the monarchy, Anne fled Paris with the king and his courtiers. Shortly thereafter, the signing of the Peace of Westphalia allowed the French army under Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé to return to the aid of Louis XIV and his royal court. By January 1649, the prince de Condé had started besieging rebellious Paris; the subsequent Peace of Rueil temporarily ended the conflict.

After the first Fronde (Fronde Parlementaire) ended, the second Fronde, that of the princes, began in 1650. This second phase of the Fronde, unlike that which preceded it, was characterized by tales of sordid intrigue and half-hearted warfare conducted by nobles to whom war was nothing but leisure. Nobles of all ranks, from princes of the Blood Royal and cousins of the king, like Gaston Jean-Baptiste, duc d'Orléans, his daughter, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé, Armand de Bourbon-Condé, prince de Conti, and Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, duchesse de Longueville; to nobles of legitimated royal descent, like Henri II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville, and François de Vendôme, duc de Beaufort; and nobles of ancient families, like François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de Bouillon, his brother, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, and Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, duchesse de Chevreuse, participated in the rebellion against royal rule. Even the clergy was represented by Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz. With the coming of age of Louis XIV and his subsequent coronation, the Frondeurs, who could hitherto have claimed to have been acting on his behalf and in his real interests against his Regent-mother and First Minister, had lost their pretext for revolt. The Fronde thus gradually lost steam until it ended in 1653 when Mazarin returned triumphant from abroad after having been in exile on several multiple occasions. The result of these tumultuous times, when the Queen Mother reputedly sold her jewels to feed her children, was a king filled with a permanent distrust for the nobility and the mob.

End of war and personal reign

War with Spain, however, continued. The French received aid in this military effort from England, then governed by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-French alliance achieved victory in 1658 with the Battle of the Dunes. The subsequent Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed in 1659, fixed the border between France and Spain at the Pyrenees; according to its terms, Louis XIV pardoned Condé who had gone into the service of Spain against his king, while Spain ceded various provinces and towns to France in the Spanish Netherlands and the whole of Roussillon. The treaty signalled a change in the balance of power in Europe with the decline of Spain and the rise of France. By the terms of the treaty, Louis XIV became engaged to marry the daughter of Philip IV of Spain, Maria Theresa (Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche), with an immense dowry (500,000 gold écus), to be paid in three installments. They were married on June 9, 1660 inside a church in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. According to the terms of the marriage contract, as translated by Ian Dunlop, "that on condition (que moyennant) that the sums are made over to His Most Christian Majesty (Louis XIV)...the said most serene Infanta (Marie-Thérèse) will rest content with the said dowry and not thereafter sue for any other of her rights", and thus she would renounce for herself and her descendants all claims the territories of the Spanish Monarchy. Since the dowry was not fully paid, Spain being at the time bankrupt, the renunciation was theoretically null and void and was never officially recognized by the French Crown.

The wedding ceremony of Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse at Saint-Jean-de-Luz

The French treasury, after a long war, stood close to bankruptcy when Louis XIV assumed, upon the death of his Premier Ministre, Cardinal Mazarin, personal control of the reins of government in 1661. Louis XIV, after having eliminated Nicolas Fouquet and abolished his position of Surintendant des Finances, appointed Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Contrôleur-Général des Finances in 1665. While it is true that Fouquet had committed no other financial indiscretions which Mazarin had committed before him or Colbert would after and that he had, during the war with Spain and the Fronde, effectively performed his duties as Surintendant des Finances and had been a loyal supporter of the king, Fouquet's growing ambition to take the place of Richelieu and Mazarin as Premier Ministre was such that Louis had to rid himself of him if he was to rule alone. At the same time, Louis was able to exploit the widespread public yearning for peace and order, which had resulted from civil conflicts caused by events such as the Fronde and the abuses of the people peretrated by certain nobles, to consoliate power at the aristocracy's expense. Trials such as the "Grand Jours d'Auvergne" were used to impose order by punishing some of the most outrageous noble abuses, to "lift the people up from the oppression of the powerful" in the words of the Procureur-Général Denis Talon, and increase public support for Louis' efforts.

The commencement of Louis' personal reign was marked by a series of administrative and fiscal reforms. Colbert reduced the national debt through more efficient taxation. His principal means of taxation included the aides, the douanes, the gabelle, and the taille. The aides and douanes were customs duties, the gabelle a tax on salt, and the taille a tax on land. While Colbert did not abolish the historic tax exemption enjoyed by the nobility and clergy, he did improve the methods of tax collection then in use. He also had wide-ranging plans to strengthen France through commerce and trade. His administration ordained new industries and encouraged manufacturers and inventors, such as the Lyon silk manufacturers and the Manufacture des Gobelins, which produced and still produces tapestries. He also brought professional manufacturers and artisans from all over Europe, such as glassmakers from Murano, or ironworkers from Sweden or shipbuilders from the United Provinces. In this manner, he sought to decrease French dependence on foreign imported goods while increasing French exports and hence to decrease the flow of gold and silver out of France. Colbert also made improvements to the navy to increase French naval prestige and to gain control of the high seas in times of war and of peace, improvements to the merchant marine to remove, at least partially, control of French commerce from Dutch hands, and improvements to the highways and the waterways of France which decreased the costs and time of transporting goods around the kingdom. Outside of France, Colbert supported and encouraged the development of colonies in the Americas, Africa and Asia not only to provide markets for French exports, but also to provide resources for French industries. He ranks as one of the fathers of the school of thought regarding trade and economics known as mercantilism — in fact, France calls "mercantilism" Colbertisme, and his policies effectively increased French State revenue for the king.

Silver coin of Louis XIV, dated 1674
Obverse. The Latin inscription is LVDOVICVS XIIII D[EI] GRA[TIA] ("Louis XIV, by the grace of God").	Reverse. The Latin inscription is FRAN[CIÆ] ET NAVARRÆ REX 1674 ("King of France and of Navarre, 1674").

While Colbert, his family, clients and allies at Court, focussed on the economy and maritime matters, another faction at Court, with Michel Le Tellier and his son François-Michel Le Tellier, marquis de Louvois at its head, turned their attention to military matters. By creating these two opposing factions, Louis XIV sought to play them off against one another and thus create a sense of checks-and-balances ensuring that no one group would attain such power and influence at Court as to destabilize his reign. Le Tellier and Louvois had an important role to play in the government, curbing the spirit of independence of the nobility at Court and in the army. Gone were the days when army generals, without regard to the bigger political and diplomatic picture, protracted war at the frontier and disobeyed orders coming from the capital, while quarrelling and bickering with each other over rank and status. Gone too were the days when positions of seniority and rank in the army were the sole possession of the old aristocracy. Louvois, in particular, pledged himself to modernizing the army, organizing it into a new professional, disciplined and well-trained force out of the old; he sought to contrive and direct campaigns and devoted himself to providing for the soldiers' material well-being and morale, and he did so admirably. Like Colbert and Louis XIV, Louvois was exceedingly hardworking. Louvois was one of the greatest of the rare class of great war ministers, comparable to Lazare Carnot.

Louis XIV, King of France

Louis also instituted various legal reforms. The major legal code, both civil and criminal, formulated by Louis XIV, the Code Louis, or the ordonnances sur la réformation de la justice civile et criminelle, also played a large part in France's legal history as it was the basis for Napoleon I's Code Napoléon, which is itself the basis for the modern French legal codes. It sought to provide France with a single system of law where there were two, customary law in the north and Roman law in the south. The Code forestier sought to control and oversee the forestry industry in France, protecting forests from destruction. The Code Noir granted sanction to slavery (though it did extend a measure of humanity to the practice such as prohibiting the separation of families), but no person could disown a slave in the French colonies unless he were a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and a Catholic priest had to baptise each slave.

The Sun King proved an incredibly generous spender, dispensing large sums of money to finance the royal court, and generously supported those who worked under him. He brought the Académie Française under his patronage, and became its "Protector". He also operated as a patron of the arts, funding literary and cultural figures such as Molière, Charles Le Brun, and Jean-Baptiste Lully. It was under his reign and indeed patronage that Classical French literature flourished with such writers as Molière, who mastered the art of comic satire and whose works still have a major impact on modern French literature and culture, Jean Racine, whose stylistic elegance is considered exceptional in its harmony, simplicity and poetry, or Jean de La Fontaine, the most famous French fabulist whose works are to this day learnt by generations of French students. The visual arts also found in Louis XIV the ultimate patron for he funded and commissioned various artists, such as Charles Le Brun, Pierre Mignard, Antoine Coysevox, André Le Nôtre and Hyacinthe Rigaud whose works became famed throughout Europe. In music, composers and musicians like Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jacques Champion de Chambonnières and François Couperin occupied the scene. Lully introduced opera to France and founded French Opera and, with Molière, popularized the Comédie-Ballet, while Couperin's famous book L'Art de toucher le clavecin greatly influenced Bach, Strauss and Maurice Ravel.

The colonnade of the Louvre

Louis XIV ordered the construction of the military complex known as the Hôtel des Invalides to provide a home for officers and soldiers who had served him loyally in the army, but whom either injury or age had rendered infirm. While methods of pharmaceuticals at the time were quite elementary, the Hôtel des Invalides pioneered new treatments frequently and set a new standard for the rather barbarous hospice treatment styles of the period. Louis XIV considered its construction one of the greatest achievements of his reign, which, along with the Chateau de Versailles, is one of the largest and most extravagant monuments in Europe, extolling a king and his country.

He also improved the Palais du Louvre, as well as many other royal residences. Originally, when planning additions to the Louvre, Louis XIV had hired Gian Lorenzo Bernini as architect. However, his plans for the Louvre would have called for the destruction of much of the existing structure, replacing it with a most awkward-looking Italian summer villa in the centre of Paris. In his place, Louis chose the French architect Claude Perrault, whose work on the "Perrault Wing" of the Louvre is widely-celebrated. Against a shadowed void, and with pavilions at either end, the simplicity of the ground-floor basement is set off by the rhythmically paired Corinthian columns and crowned by a distinctly non-French classical roof. Through the centre rose a pedimented triumphal arch entrance. Perrault's restrained classicizing baroque Louvre would provide a model for grand edifices throughout Europe and America for ages.

Monarchical Styles of King Louis XIV Par la grâce de Dieu, Roi de France et de Navarre
Reference style	His Most Christian Majesty
Spoken style	Your Most Christian Majesty
Alternative style	Monsieur Le Roi

War in the Low Countries

Anne of Austria and her niece, Marie-Thérèse, both Infantas of Spain and Queens of France

After Louis XIV's father-in-law and uncle, Philip IV of Spain, died in 1665, Philip IV's son (by his second wife) became Charles II of Spain. Louis XIV claimed that Brabant, a territory in the Low Countries ruled by the King of Spain, had "devolved" to his wife, Marie-Thérèse, Charles II's elder half-sister by their father's first marriage. He argued that the custom of Brabant required that a child should not suffer from his or her father's remarriage, hence having precedence in inheritance over children of the second or subsequent marriages. Louis personally participated in the campaigns of the ensuing War of Devolution, which broke out in 1667.

Problems internal to the Republic of the Seven United Provinces (the Netherlands) aided Louis XIV's designs on the Low Countries. The most prominent political figure in the United Provinces at the time, Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary, feared the ambition of the young William III, Prince of Orange, who in seeking to seize control might thus deprive De Witt of supreme power in the Republic and restore the House of Orange to the influence it had hitherto enjoyed until the death of William II, Prince of Orange. Therefore, with the United Provinces in internal conflict between supporters of De Witt and those of William of Orange, the "States faction" and the "Orange faction" respectively, and with England preoccupied in the Second Anglo-Dutch War with the Dutch, who were being supported, in accordance with the terms of the treaties signed between them, by their ally, Louis XIV, France easily conquered both Flanders and Franche-Comté. Shocked by the rapidity of French successes and fearful of the future, the United Provinces turned on their former friends and put aside their differences with England and, when joined by Sweden, formed a Triple Alliance in 1668. Faced with the threat of the spread of war and having signed a secret treaty partitioning the Spanish succession with the Emperor, the other major claimant, Louis XIV agreed to make peace. Under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), France retained Flanders, including the great fortress of Lille, but returned Franche-Comté to Spain.

Louis XIV

The Triple Alliance did not last very long. In 1670, Charles II, lured by French bribes and pensions, signed the secret Treaty of Dover, entering into an alliance with France; the two kingdoms, along with certain Rhineland German princes, declared war on the United Provinces in 1672, sparking off the Franco-Dutch War. The rapid invasion and occupation of most of the Netherlands precipitated a coup, which toppled De Witt and allowed William III, Prince of Orange, to seize power. William III entered into an alliance with Spain, the Emperor and the rest of the Empire; and a treaty of peace with England was signed in 1674, the result of which was England's withdrawal from the war and the marriage between William III, Prince of Orange, and the Princess Mary, niece of the English King Charles II. Facing a possible Imperial advance on his flank while in the Low Countries in that year, Louis XIV ordered his army to withdraw to more defensible positions.

Despite these diplomatic and military reverses, the war continued with brilliant French victories against the overwhelming forces of the opposing coalition. In a matter of weeks in 1674, the Spanish territory of Franche Comté fell to the French armies under the eyes of the king; while Condé defeated a much larger combined army, with Austrian, Spanish and Dutch contingents, under the Prince of Orange, preventing them from descending on Paris. In the winter of 1674–1675, the outnumbered Turenne, through a most daring and brilliant of campaigns, inflicted defeat upon the Imperial armies under Montecuccoli, drove them out of Alsace and back across the Rhine, and recovered the province for Louis XIV. Through a series of feints, marches and counter-marches towards the end of the war, Louis XIV led his army to besiege and capture Ghent, an action which dissuaded Charles II and his English Parliament from declaring war upon France and which allowed him, in a very superior position, to force the allies to the negotiating table. After six years, Europe was exhausted by war, and peace negotiations commenced, being accomplished in 1678 with the Treaty of Nijmegen. While Louis XIV returned all captured Dutch territory, he gained more towns and associated lands in the Spanish Netherlands and retained Franche-Comté, which had been captured by Louis and his army in a matter of weeks. As he was in a position to make demands which were much more exorbitant, Louis' actions were celebrated as evidence of his virtues of moderation in victory.

Reception of Le Grand Condé at Versailles, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1878)

The Treaty of Nijmegen further increased France's influence in Europe, but did not satisfy Louis XIV. The King dismissed his foreign minister, Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne, in 1679, as he was viewed as having compromised too much with the allies and for being too much of a pacifist. Louis XIV also kept up his army, but instead of pursuing his claims through purely military action, he utilised judicial processes to accomplish further territorial aggrandizement. Thanks to the ambiguous nature of treaties of the time, Louis was able to claim that the territories ceded to him in previous treaties ought to be ceded along with all their dependencies and lands which had formerly belonged to them, but had separated over the years, as had in fact been stipulated in the peace treaties. French Chambers of Reunion were appointed to ascertain which territories formally belonged to France; the French troops later occupied them. The annexation of these lesser territories was designed to give France a more defensible frontier, the "pré carré" suggested by Vauban. Louis sought to gain cities such as Luxembourg, for its strategic offensive and defensive position on the frontier, as well as Casale, which would give him access to the Po River valley in the heart of Northern Italy. Louis also desired to gain Strasbourg, an important strategic outpost through which various Imperial armies had in the previous wars crossed over the Rhine to invade France. Strasbourg was a part of Alsace, but had not been ceded with the rest of Habsburg-ruled Alsace in the Peace of Westphalia. It was nonetheless occupied by the French in 1681 under Louis' new legal pretext, and, along with other occupied territories, such as Luxembourg and Casale, was ceded to France for a period of twenty years by the Truce of Ratisbon.

Height of power in the 1680s

Louis XIV

By the early 1680s, Louis XIV had greatly augmented his and France's influence and power in Europe and the world. Louis XIV's most famous minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who died in 1683, exercised a tremendous influence on the royal treasury and coffers — the royal revenue had tripled under his supervision. The princes of Europe began to imitate France and Louis XIV in everything from taste in art, food and fashion to political systems; many even took official mistresses simply because it was done at Versailles. Outside Europe, French colonies abroad were multiplying in the Americas, Asia and Africa, while diplomatic relations had been initiated with countries as far afield as Siam, India and Persia. For example, the explorer René Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed and named, in 1682, the basin of the Mississippi River in North America "Louisiane" in honour of Louis XIV (Both the Louisiana Territory and the State of Louisiana in the United States formed part of Louisiane), while French Jesuits and missionaries could be seen at the Manchu Court in China.

In France too, Louis XIV succeeded in establishing and increasing the influence and central authority of the King of France at the expense of the Church and the nobles. Louis sought to reinforce traditional Gallicanism, a doctrine limiting the authority of the Pope in France. He convened an assembly of clergymen (Assemblée du Clergé) in November 1681. Before it was dissolved in June 1682, it had agreed to the Declaration of the Clergy of France. The power of the King of France was increased in contrast to the power of the Pope, which was reduced. The Pope was not allowed to send papal legates to France without the king's consent; such legates as could enter France, furthermore, required further approval before they could exercise their power. Bishops were not to leave France without royal approval; no government officials could be excommunicated for acts committed in pursuance of their duties; and no appeal could be made to the Pope without the approval of the king. The king was allowed to enact ecclesiastical laws, and all regulations made by the Pope were deemed invalid in France without the assent of the monarch. The Declaration was not accepted by the Pope for obvious reasons.

Equestrian statue of Louis XIV at Château of Versailles

Louis also achieved immense control over the Second Estate, that is of the nobility, in France by attaching much of the higher nobility to his orbit at his palace at Versailles, requiring them to spend the majority of the year under his close watch instead of in their own local communities and power-bases plotting rebellion and insurrection. It was only in this way were they able to gain pensions and privileges necessary to their rank. He entertained his permanent visitors with extravagant parties and other distractions, which were significant factors contributing to Louis' power and control over his hitherto unruly nobility. Thus, Louis was continuing the work of the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. He, as a result of the experiences derived from the Fronde, believed that his power would prevail only if he filled the high executive offices with commoners, or at least members of the relatively newer aristocracy (the "noblesse de robe"), because, he believed, while he could reduce a commoner to a nonentity by simply dismissing him, he could not destroy the influence of a great nobleman of ancient lineage as easily. Thus Louis XIV forced the older aristocracy to serve him ceremonially as courtiers, whilst he appointed commoners or newer nobles as ministers and regional intendants. As courtiers, the power of the great nobles grew ever weaker. The diminution of the power of the high aristocracy could be witnessed in the lack of such rebellions as the Fronde after Louis XIV.

In fact, the victory of the Crown over the nobles, finally achieved under Louis XIV, ensured that the Fronde was the last major civil war to plague France until the Revolution and the Napoleonic Age. Indeed, John A. Lynn has calculated that after Louis XIV there was a significant drop in years with internal civil war. The number of years dropped from a high of around 50 years out of 101 between 1560 and 1660 (50%), to 6 years out of 55 during Louis' personal reign from 1661 to 1715 (11%), to no civil wars till the Revolution in 1789. Not until the Revolution, about a hundred years later, did civil war once again trouble France.

The Cour d'Honneur of the Château of Versailles

Louis XIV had the Château of Versailles outside Paris, originally a hunting lodge built by his father, converted into a spectacular royal palace in a series of four major and distinct building campaigns. By the end of the third building campaign, the Château had taken on most of the appearance that it retains to this day, except for the Royal Chapel in the last decade of the reign. He officially moved there, along with the royal court, on May 6, 1682. Louis had several reasons for creating such a symbol of extravagant opulence and stately grandeur, and for shifting the seat of the monarch. The assertion that he did so because he hated Paris, however, is flawed as he did not cease to embellish his capital with glorious monuments while improving and developing it. Versailles served as a dazzling and awe-inspiring setting for stat