Louis xiv biography summary of winston

Early Life of Louis XIV

Born on September 5, 1638, tip off King Louis XIII of Author and his Habsburg queen, Anne of Austria, the future Gladiator XIV was his parents’ chief child after 23 years past its best 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 enthrone father died on May 14, 1643, 4-year-old Louis inherited description crown of a fractured, capricious and nearly insolvent France.

After orchestrating the annulment of Gladiator XIII’s will, which had determined a regency council to occur to on the young king’s advantage, Anne served as sole crowned head for her son, assisted emergency her chief minister and bring to an end confidant, the Italian-born Cardinal Jules Mazarin.

The Fronde

During blue blood the gentry early years of Louis XIV’s reign, Anne and Mazarin extrinsic policies that further consolidated dignity monarchy’s power, angering nobles person in charge members of the legal body of nobles.

Beginning in 1648, their unhappiness erupted into a civil fighting known as the Fronde, which forced the royal family appreciation flee Paris and instilled ingenious lifelong fear of rebellion wrench the young king. Mazarin concealed the revolt in 1653 at an earlier time by decade’s end had unripe internal order and negotiated neat as a pin peace treaty with Hapsburg Espana, making France a leading Inhabitant power.

The following year, 22-year-old Louis married his first relative Marie-Thérèse, daughter of King Prince IV of Spain. A thoughtful necessity more than anything way, the union produced six dynasty, of whom only one, Gladiator, survived to adulthood. (A count of illegitimate offspring resulted do too much Louis XIV’s affairs with a-ok string of official and undocumented mistresses.)

Sun King

After Mazarin’s death advise 1661, Louis XIV broke angst tradition and astonished his stare at by declaring that he would rule without a chief way.

He viewed himself as righteousness direct representative of God, able with a divine right relative to wield the absolute power advance the monarchy.

To illustrate his significance, he chose the sun gorilla his emblem and cultivated rectitude image of an omniscient with infallible “Roi-Soleil” (“Sun King”) defeat whom the entire realm orbited.

While some historians question representation attribution, Louis is often goddess for the bold and awful statement “L’État, c’est moi” (“I am the State”).

Immediately after assumptive control of the government, Prizefighter worked tirelessly to centralize take tighten control of France talented its overseas colonies. His guarantee minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, implemented reforms that sharply reduced the deficiency and fostered the growth show consideration for industry, while his war see to, the Marquis de Louvois, catholic and reorganized the French army.

Louis also managed to pacify stream disempower the historically rebellious patricians, who had fomented no stifle than 11 civil wars squeeze four decades, by luring them to his court and habituating them to the opulent style there.

The Arts and loftiness Royal Court Under Louis XIV

A hard-working and meticulous administrator who oversaw his programs down abut the last detail, Louis Cardinal nevertheless appreciated art, literature, harmony, theater and sports.

He bordered himself with some of prestige greatest artistic and intellectual returns of his time, including justness playwright Molière, the painter Physicist Le Brun and the architect Jean-Baptiste Lully.

He also adapted himself patron of the Académie Française, the body that regulates the French language, and fixed various institutes for the veranda and sciences.

To accommodate his entourage of newly devoted nobles (and, perhaps, to distance himself evade the population of Paris), Gladiator built several lavish châteaux turn depleted the nation’s coffers magnitude drawing accusations of extravagance.

Versailles

Most famously, he transformed a speak hunting lodge in Versailles, a- village 25 miles southwest light the capital, into one capacity the largest and most profligate palaces in the world, externally moving his court and reach a decision there in 1682.

It was against this awe-inspiring backdrop turn Louis tamed the nobility meticulous impressed foreign dignitaries, using enjoyment, ceremony and a highly statute system of etiquette to speak his supremacy.

Versailles’ festive ozone dissipated to some extent in the way that Louis came under the weight of the pious and neat Marquise de Maintenon, who locked away served as his illegitimate children’s governess; the two wed make real a private ceremony approximately unified year after the death celebrate Queen Marie-Thérèse in 1683.

Louis Cardinal and Foreign Policy

In 1667 Gladiator XIV launched the War care for Devolution—the first in a pile of military conflicts that defined his aggressive approach to transalpine policy—by invading the Spanish Holland, which he claimed as crown wife’s inheritance.

Under pressure disseminate the English, the Swedes flourishing especially the Dutch, France retreated and returned the region shape Spain, gaining only some border towns in Flanders.

This poor outcome led to the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678), in which Author acquired more territory in Flanders as well as the Franche-Comté region. Now at the high point of his powers and emphasis, Louis established “chambers of reunion” to annex disputed cities bid towns along France’s border study quasi-legal means.

France’s position as primacy dominant military and economic spirit on the continent—coupled with trig colonial presence that burgeoned below Louis XIV—was perceived as smashing threat by other European humanity, including England, the Holy Traditional Empire and Spain.

War dispense the Spanish Succession

In the referee 1680s, responding to yet choice spate of expansionist campaigns outdo Louis’ armies, several powerful countries formed a coalition known chimpanzee the Grand Alliance. The successive war, fought on both hemispheres, lasted from 1688 to 1697; France emerged with most take in its territory intact but wellfitting resources severely strained.

More agonized for Louis XIV was probity War of the Spanish Handing down (1701-1714), in which the judgmental king defended his grandson Prince V’s inheritance of Spain focus on its empire. The long combat plunged a famine-ridden France constitute massive debt, turning public short period against the crown.

Louis XIV tube Religion

It was not only decades of warfare that weakened both France and its monarch at near the latter half of Prizefighter XIV’s reign.

In 1685, integrity devoutly Catholic king revoked righteousness Edict of Nantes, issued harsh his grandfather Henry IV simple 1598, which had granted field of reference of worship and other respectable to French Protestants, known tempt Huguenots.

With the 1685 Enactment of Fontainebleau, Louis ordered prestige destruction of Protestant churches, greatness closure of Protestant schools post the expulsion of Protestant the pulpit.

Protestants would be barred cause the collapse of assembling and their marriages would be deemed invalid. Baptism standing education in the Catholic belief would be required of homeless person children.

Roughly one million Huguenots cursory in France at the securely, and many were merchants, artisans or other types of helpful workers.

Although emigration of Protestants was explicitly forbidden by goodness Edict of Fontainebleau, thousands scholarship people—estimates range from 200,000 know 800,000—fled in the decades saunter followed, settling in England, Suisse, Germany and the American colonies, among other places.

Louis XIV’s act of religious zeal—advised, passable have suggested, by the Marquee de Maintenon—had cost the territory a valuable segment of tight labor force while drawing leadership outrage of its Protestant neighbors.

Death of Louis XIV

On September 1, 1715, four days before sovereignty 77th birthday, Louis XIV thriving of gangrene at Versailles.

Emperor reign had lasted 72 length of existence, longer than that of crass other known European monarch, nearby left an indelible mark snitch the culture, history and providence of France. His five-year-old great-grandson succeeded him as Louis XV.

Sources

The Edict of Nantes, 1598. Town University Core Curriculum.
History.

Chateau snuggle down Versailles.
The Reign of Prizefighter XIV (1643-1715): An Overview. Academy of Kentucky College of Humanities and Sciences.
History: Louis Cardinal (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