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Date of birth
Louis XIV was born on September 5, 1638, in Saint-Germaine-en-Laye, France.born to King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643) and his Habsburg queen, Anne of Austria (1601-1666), A younger brother, Philippe (1640-1701), followed two years later. -
start of rule
When king louis XIII of france died his son Louis the XIV became king.....AT FOUR YEARS OLD?! luckly his father in his will appointed a regency council to rule on the youngs king behalf.Anne served as sole regent for her son, assisted by her chief minister and close confidant, the Italian-born Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-1661). -
Start of The Fronde
During the early years of Louis XIV’s reign, Anne and Mazarin introduced policies that further consolidated the monarchy’s power, angering nobles and members of the legal aristocracy. Beginning in 1648, their discontent erupted into a civil war known as the Fronde, which forced the royal family to flee Paris and instilled a lifelong fear of rebellion in the young king.Start -
End of the Fronde
Mazarin suppressed the revolt in 1653 and by decade’s end had restored internal order and negotiated a peace treaty with Hapsburg Spain -
"I am the State"
While some historians question the attribution, Louis is often remembered for the bold and infamous statement “L’État, c’est moi” (“I am the State”). -
Louis XIV of france assumes control
After Mazarin’s death in 1661, Louis XIV broke with tradition and astonished his court by declaring that he would rule without a chief minister. He viewed himself as the direct representative of God, endowed with a divine right to wield the absolute power of the monarchy. To illustrate his status, he chose the sun as his emblem and cultivated the image of an omniscient and infallible “Roi-Soleil” (“Sun King”) around whom the entire realm orbited. -
to rule
Immediately after assuming control of the government, Louis worked tirelessly to centralize and tighten control of France and its overseas colonies. His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), implemented reforms that sharply reduced the deficit and fostered the growth of industry, while his war minister, the Marquis de Louvois (1641-1691), expanded and reorganized the French army. Louis also managed to pacify and disempower the historically rebellious nobles, who had fomented no le -
The fine Arts
A hard-working and meticulous ruler who oversaw his programs down to the last detail, Louis XIV nevertheless appreciated art, literature, music, theater and sports. He surrounded himself with some of the greatest artistic and intellectual figures of his time, including the playwright Molière (1622-1673), the painter Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687). He also appointed himself patron of the Académie Française, the body that regulates the French language, -
Royal court under Louis
To accommodate his retinue of newly devoted nobles (and, perhaps, to distance himself from the population of Paris), Louis built several lavish châteaux that depleted the nation’s coffers while drawing accusations of extravagance. Most famously, he transformed a royal hunting lodge in Versailles, a village 25 miles southwest of the capital, into one of the largest palaces in the world, officially moving his court and government there in 1682. It was against this awe-inspiring backdrop that Louis -
Foreign Policy
In 1667 Louis XIV launched the War of Devolution (1667-1668), the first in a series of military conflicts that characterized his aggressive approach to foreign policy, by invading the Spanish Netherlands, which he claimed as his wife’s inheritance. Under pressure from the English, Swedish and especially the Dutch, France retreated and returned the region to Spain, gaining only some frontier towns in Flanders. This unsatisfactory outcome led to the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678), in which France ac -
Franco-Duch war
Louis XIV engaged his country in the Franco-Dutch War from 1672 to 1678, during which France managed to acquire more land in Flanders and the Franche-Compté. The victory promoted France to the status of a dominant power. This status, coupled with Louis XIV's campaigns to continually expand territorial claims through the use of military force, positioned France as a threat to other European nations. -
Louis and religon
It was not only decades of warfare that weakened both France and its monarch during the latter half of Louis XIV’s reign. In 1685, the devoutly Catholic king revoked the Edict of Nantes, issued by his grandfather Henry IV in 1598, which had granted freedom of worship and other rights to French Protestants (known as Huguenots). With the Edict of Fontainebleau, Louis ordered the destruction of Protestant churches, the closure of Protestant schools and the expulsion of Protestant clergy. Protestant -
France vs The grand Alliance
Near the end of the 1680s, those nations, including Spain, England and the Holy Roman Empire, responded by banding together to form the Grand Alliance. A war between France and the Grand Alliance broke out in 1688 and waged on for nearly a decade, leading to its becoming known as the Nine Years' War. -
A fast decline
The War of the Spanish Succession, from 1701 to 1714, further hastened Louis XIV's decline as a leader. In this conflict, Louis XIV appeared to many of his subjects to place his personal interests above his country's, as his goal was to defend the right of his grandson, Philip V, to inherit the Spanish Empire. The long war was so costly for France that it prompted famine and placed the country deep in debt. The public went from hailing Louis XIV as a hero to blaming him for France's financial de -
DEATH
On September 1, 1715, four days before his 77th birthday, Louis XIV died of gangrene at Versailles. His reign had lasted 72 years, longer than that of any other known European monarch, and left an indelible mark on the culture, history and destiny of France. His 5-year-old grandson succeeded him as Louis XV.
