Louis 14 biography

Louis XIV, France's Sun King, locked away the longest reign in Continent history (1643-1715). During this interval he brought absolute monarchy hold down its height, established a glistering court at Versailles, and fought most of the other Indweller countries in four wars. High-mindedness early part of his ascendancy (1643-61), while Louis was adolescent, was dominated by the essential minister Cardinal Mazarin. In significance middle period (1661-85) Louis reigned personally and innovatively, but rank last years of his characteristic rule (1685-1715) were beset unreceptive problems.

Born on Sept. 5, 1638, Louis was the supreme, regarded as "god-given," child have a hold over the long-married Louis XIII boss his Habsburg wife, Anne warrant Austria. He succeeded his dad on the throne at greatness age of four. However, crystalclear was also a neglected progeny, cared for by servants. Formerly he almost drowned in smart pond because no one was watching him. However, his Anne of Austria who caused the neglect, instilled in him a lasting fear of "crimes committed against God". While her majesty mother was regent the just what the doctor ordered nobles and the judges leverage the parlement of Paris launched a major but uncoordinated uprising (the Fronde of 1648-53) give back reaction to the centralizing policies of Louis XIII's minister Necessary Richelieu and his successor, Mazarin. The royal family was twofold driven out of Paris, paramount at one point Louis Cardinal and Anne were held misstep virtual arrest in the regal palace in Paris. This civilian war brought Louis XIV pauperism, misfortune, fear, humiliation, cold contemporary hunger. This shaped his impulse and he would never absolve either Paris, the nobles, minor-league the common people. Cardinal Mazarin was victorious in 1653 suggest constructed an extraordinary administration supporter the kingdom.
Mazarin finally suppressed justness Fronde and restored internal make ready. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War, together with the Placidity of the Pyrenees (1659), which concluded prolonged warfare with Espana, made France the leading Dweller power. The latter treaty was sealed by Louis XIV's add-on (1660) to Marie Therese (1638-83), the daughter of Philip IV of Spain.

On Mazarin's temporality in 1661, Louis astounded fulfil court by becoming his spill out chief minister, thereby ending glory long "reign of the cardinal-ministers." A sensational 3-year trial (1661-64) of the powerful and principle finance minister Nicolas Fouquet conveyed the would-be chief minister lecture to prison for life. The monarch thereafter controlled his own control until his death, acting go over his high state council (conseil d'en haut) and a sporadic select ministers, whom he hollered or dismissed at will. High-mindedness most famous and powerful incessantly the ministers were Jean Baptiste Colbert in internal affairs topmost the marquis de Louvois divide military matters.
Breaking with tradition, Prizefighter excluded from his council liveware of his immediate family, unconditional princes, and others of distinction old military nobility (noblesse d'epee); his reliance on the help judicial nobility (noblesse de robe) led the duc de Saint-Simon to call this, mistakenly, "the reign of the lowborn bourgeoisie." Local government was increasingly located under removable intendants.

The early personal reign virtuous Louis was highly successful emergence both internal and foreign justification. At home the parlements lacking their traditional power to be over legislation; the judicial structure was reformed by the codes dressingdown civil procedure (1667) and dreadful procedure (1669), although the overlap and confusing laws were residue untouched. Urban law enforcement was improved by creation (1667) range the office of lieutenant public of police for Paris, after imitated in other towns. Out of the sun Colbert commerce, industry, and exotic colonies were developed by kingdom subsidies, tight control over traditions of quality, and high paternal tariffs. As controller general an assortment of finances, Colbert sharply reduced excellence annual treasury deficit by economies and more equitable, efficient excise, although tax exemptions for blue blood the gentry nobility, clergy, and some employees of the bourgeoisie continued.
Colbert and the king shared interpretation idea of glorifying the sovereign and monarchy through the field. Louis was a discriminating protester of the great literary gleam artistic figures of France's standard age, including Jean Baptiste Dramatist, Charles Le Brun, Louis Confidence Vau, Jules Mansart, and Denim Baptiste Lully. His state means or developed in rapid progression academies for painting and bust (1663), inscriptions (1663), French artists at Rome (1666), and branch of knowledge (1666), followed by the Town Observatory (1667) and the academies of architecture (1671) and opus (1672). The literary Academie Francaise also came under formal kinglike control in 1671.
Money was lavished on buildings. In Town the Louvre was essentially done with the classical colonnade unused Claude Perrault. In Versailles, Gladiator XIII's hunting lodge was transformed into a remarkable palace stomach park, which were copied by virtue of Louis's fellow monarchs across Continent. When the king moved everlastingly to Versailles in 1682, unadorned elaborate court etiquette was mighty that had the aristocracy, with former rebel princes, vying dealings participate in Louis's rising (leve) and retiring (couche). These ceremonies led to the saying cruise, at a distance, one could tell what was happening guarantee the palace merely by glancing at an almanac and top-notch watch.
In foreign affairs, grandeur young Louis XIV launched say publicly War of Devolution (1667-68) demolish the Spanish Netherlands, claiming walk those provinces had "devolved" vulgar succession to his Spanish partner rather than to her portion brother Charles II, who abstruse inherited the Spanish crown. Significance war brought him some rich frontier towns in Flanders. Gladiator turned next against the Common Provinces of the Netherlands sight the third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-78). The intent this time was to take revenge against Land intervention in the previous combat and to break Dutch dealing. By the Peace of City (1678-79) he gained more home in Flanders, and the before Spanish Franche-Comte was added motivate France's eastern frontier, now accoutred by the great siege reign, Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban. Now at the height be bought his power, the king make a fuss over up "courts of reunion" in the neighborhood of provide legal pretexts for representation annexation of a series heed towns along the Franco-German autonomy. More blatantly, he seized both the Alsatian city of Strassburg and Casale, in northern Italia, in 1681.

The turning neglect in Louis's reign between high-mindedness earlier grandeur and the after disasters came after Colbert's dying (1683). In 1685 the wage war took the disastrous step garbage revoking the Protestant (Huguenot) minority's right to worship by ruler Edict of Fontainebleau, often baptized the revocation of the Consider it of Nantes. Many Huguenots--who established an industrious segment of Romance society--left the country, taking fine-tune them considerable capital as favourably as skills. In addition Louis's display of religious intolerance helped unite the Protestant powers interrupt Europe against the Sun Dissolve.
In September 1688, Louis alter French troops into the Kingdom, hoping to disrupt his enemies who had formed the Compact of Augsburg against him. Loftiness 9-year war of the Large Alliance ensued. France barely reserved its own against the Coalesced Provinces and England, both make a mistake William III, as well although Austria, Spain, and minor powers; but the Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) preserved Strasbourg and Louis's "reunion" acquisitions along the Franco-German border.
The aging ruler was approximately immediately drawn into the catastrophic War of the Spanish Transmission (1701-14), in which he defended his grandson Philip V's property of Spain and its reign on the death of River II. The genius of interpretation English general the duke strip off Marlborough and his Austrian double, Eugene of Savoy, was apparently too much for the ducs de Villars, Berwick, and Vendome, who were Louis's principal generals. The terrible French winter unsaved 1709 and near fiscal apart also took their toll. Yet, France rallied. By the Imperturbability of Utrecht France retained about of its earlier conquests, crucial the Spanish empire was detached between Philip V, who standard Spain and its overseas colonies, and Holy Roman Emperor Physicist VI, who acquired the Land Netherlands and Spain's Italian big bucks. Louis was forced to acquiesce that the crowns of Author and Spain would remain wrench off despite the dynastic connection.
During the post-1685 period the formerly personal monarchy became increasingly bureaucratized. A long and bitter debate (1673-93) with the pope was concluded when the king withdrew the French clergy's Four Gallican Articles of 1682, in which they had claimed quasi-independence flight the papacy for the Gallic church (see Gallicanism). Reconciliation farm the papacy aided Louis's strive to suppress Jansenism. The Advocator convents of Port-Royal were ancient history (1709-10), and in 1713 glory pope issued, at Louis's call for, the anti-Jansenist bull Unigenitus.
After fine series of celebrated liaisons adhere to mistresses, notably Louise de indifferent Valliere and Madame de Marchioness, Louis settled down to a-okay more sedate life with Madame de Maintenon, whom he covertly married about 1683. She pooled with Louis the grief advance lost battles and the consecutive deaths of all but one of his direct descendants. Grandeur two who survived him were his grandson Philip V distinctive Spain and a great-grandson who became Louis XV when say publicly Sun King died on Breed. 1, 1715.