Titans of History

LOUIS XIV

1638–1715

The only King of France worthy of the name.

Napoleon I

Louis XIV was the greatest ruler of Europe in his day, the paragon of magnificence and absolutism, but his ambitions to dominate Europe with his vision of French monarchy plunged the continent into long and vicious wars that cost the lives of many. Yet he remains the Sun King, the very definition of royal glory and probably, with Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest of French monarchs. He ruled for seventy-two years.

Louis was the son of King Louis XIII and his wife Anne of Austria: his birth came so late in their marriage that he was celebrated as a miraculous gift—Louis Godgiven. His father, who had ruled through his gifted chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, had pursued a policy of strengthening the crown against the over-mighty interests of the old feudal aristocracy. However Louis XIII died leaving a child heir and his wife Anne of Austria as Regent. Richelieu was already dead but his chosen successor as chief royal adviser was another fascinating and able character, Jules Mazarin, born Mazarini, an Italian diplomatist and priest, later cardinal, whose political genius, vast fortune, art collecting and pursuit of pleasure impressed the boy king and alienated the aristocracy.

The result was the Frondes, a series of aristocratic rebellions supposedly in the name of Louis XIV and against Anne and Mazarin. The rebellions left the boy with a hatred of noble power and confirmed his faith in the divine right of Catholic monarchy that he believed he personified. This conviction was encouraged by Mazarin his tutor in all matters political. When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis started to govern in his own right and proved a formidably talented politician, and a man of astonishing, indeed prolific, energy whether in the council or the bed chambers, the battle or the hunting fields.

Controlled, disciplined, sensuous haughty, mysterious, magisterial and visionary, pious and debauched, Louis created the new Palace of Versailles and with it a complex court hierarchy and ritual designed to remove the nobles from their feudal ambitions and regional power centers and concentrate their interests in the person of the king. Versailles itself was designed not only to house the king, court and entire nobility, but also to represent Louis himself: “I am Versailles,” he said, just as ‘L”état, c’est moi.’ The nobility competed for a glance, a word with the king: once when the king asked a noble when his baby was due, the nobleman answered, “Whenever Your Majesty wishes it.”

The next twenty years were the height of the king’s reign—he tamed the nobility, reformed his administration, improved his armies and France had become the dominant power on the continent.

Louis married Maria Theresa of Spain, with whom he had six children, only one of whom survived to adulthood. But the king, dark-skinned with full and sensual lips, was also an enthusiastic womanizer who enjoyed many mistresses, though there was usually a ruling maitresse en titre such as the famous Madame de Montespan, who often enjoyed considerable power. After the death of his queen, he quietly married his last mistress, Madame de Maintenon, the pious and capable nanny of his children.

Meanwhile his vision of himself as the supreme Catholic monarch led to his revocation of the Edict of Nantes, increasing the persecution of Protestants in France. Abroad, his ambitions meant that he was constantly at war, whether with the Dutch, the Habsburg emperor, the Spanish or Swedes. His payment of vast bribes to King Charles II of England often neutralized English power. His military successes led to the creation of the League of Augsburg against him, but superb French commanders and armies delivered him continued success.

In 1700, the Spanish King Carlos II died, leaving the Spanish empire to Louis XIV’s grandson Philippe of Anjou, a succession that, if accepted, would give the Sun King virtual dominion over not only much of Europe but of the Americas too. It was a step too far for Louis who—after decades of triumph and magnificence—was old, arrogant and perhaps exhausted. Certainly France was over-extended. Louis was faced with a difficult choice but ultimately he accepted the inheritance and his grandson became king of Spain. In 1702 William III of England along with his native Holland, the Habsburg emperor and others put together another Grand Alliance against Louis. His ambitions and absolutist Catholic vision cost France dear. As Louis aged, as his heirs died, as France suffered poverty and hunger, his armies were humiliated by the outstanding commanders the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy in a trans-European conflict known as the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis lived too long: he saw France defeated and the deaths of his sons and grandsons. French invincibility was broken. In 1715, just as he had dined and dressed in public, so Louis died in public after telling his child-heir, “I have delighted too much in war.” He was seventy-seven. His successor was his great-grandson, Louis XV, age five.