Louis XIV Of France
Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great or the Sun King (French: le Roi-Soleil), was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is one of the longest in French and European history.
Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661 after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent of the theory of the divine right of kings, which advocates the divine origin of monarchical rule, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling many members of the nobility, especially the noble elite, to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during Louis's minority. By these means he became one of French history's most powerful monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution.
During Louis's reign France was the leading European power and fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg and the War of the Spanish Succession, as well as two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Louis encouraged and benefited from the work of prominent political, military and cultural figures such as Mazarin, Colbert, Turenne and Vauban, as well as Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Le Brun, Rigaud, Bossuet, Le Vau, Mansart, Charles and Claude Perrault, and Le Nôtre.
Upon his death just days before his seventy-seventh birthday, Louis was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. All his intermediate heirs—his son Louis, le Grand Dauphin; the Dauphin's eldest son Louis, duc de Bourgogne; and Bourgogne's eldest son and his second eldest son, Louis, duc de Bretagne (the older brothers of the future Louis XV)—predeceased him.
Read more about Louis XIV Of France: Early Years, Minority and The Fronde, Personal Reign and Reforms, Patronage of The Arts, Early Wars in The Low Countries, Non-European Relations and The Colonies, Height of Power, Personal Life, Revocation of The Edict of Nantes, Death, Legacy, Image and Depiction, Piety and Religion, Quotes, Style and Arms, Order of Saint Louis
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“[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Every time I bestow a vacant office I make a hundred discontented persons and one ingrate.”
—Louis XIV (1638–1715)
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.”
—Anatole France (1844–1924)