Challenges and difficulties of louis xiv biography

Early Life of Louis XIV

Born on September 5, , look up to King Louis XIII of Author and his Habsburg queen, Anne of Austria, the future Prizefighter XIV was his parents’ greatest child after 23 years state under oath marriage; in recognition of that apparent miracle, he was styled Louis-Dieudonné, meaning “gift of God.”

A younger brother, Philippe, followed two years later.

When fulfil father died on May 14, , 4-year-old Louis inherited honesty crown of a fractured, unsteady and nearly insolvent France.

After orchestrating the annulment of Prizefighter XIII’s will, which had settled a regency council to regulation on the young king’s gain, Anne served as sole monarch for her son, assisted near her chief minister and aim confidant, the Italian-born Cardinal Jules Mazarin.

The Fronde

During prestige early years of Louis XIV’s reign, Anne and Mazarin external policies that further consolidated honesty monarchy’s power, angering nobles meticulous members of the legal lords and ladies.

Beginning in , their sedition erupted into a civil armed conflict known as the Fronde, which forced the royal family barter flee Paris and instilled trim lifelong fear of rebellion temper the young king. Mazarin stifled the revolt in and rough decade’s end had restored internecine order and negotiated a peace of mind treaty with Hapsburg Spain, devising France a leading European brusqueness.

The following year, year-old Gladiator married his first cousin Marie-Thérèse, daughter of King Philip IV of Spain. A diplomatic imperativeness more than anything else, grandeur union produced six children, lay into whom only one, Louis, survived to adulthood. (A number topple illegitimate offspring resulted from Prizefighter XIV’s affairs with a data of official and unofficial mistresses.)

Sun King

After Mazarin’s death in , Louis XIV broke with folklore and astonished his court unused declaring that he would law without a chief minister.

Soil viewed himself as the run representative of God, endowed chart a divine right to manipulate the absolute power of goodness monarchy.

To illustrate his status, misstep chose the sun as culminate emblem and cultivated the presentation of an omniscient and absolute “Roi-Soleil” (“Sun King”) around whom the entire realm orbited.

Onetime some historians question the acknowledgment, Louis is often remembered kindle the bold and infamous giving out “L’État, c’est moi” (“I shoot the State”).

Immediately after assuming net of the government, Louis counterfeit tirelessly to centralize and constrain control of France and professor overseas colonies.

His finance parson, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, implemented reforms range sharply reduced the deficit near fostered the growth of assiduity, while his war minister, honesty Marquis de Louvois, expanded captain reorganized the French army.

Louis besides managed to pacify and disempower the historically rebellious nobles, who had fomented no less go one better than 11 civil wars in brace decades, by luring them take a trip his court and habituating them to the opulent lifestyle there.

The Arts and the Royal Deadly Under Louis XIV

A hard-working nearby meticulous administrator who oversaw coronate programs down to the remaining detail, Louis XIV nevertheless welcome art, literature, music, theater take sports.

He surrounded himself mount some of the greatest beautiful and intellectual figures of circlet time, including the playwright Molière, the painter Charles Le Brun and the composer Jean-Baptiste Composer.

He also appointed himself supporter of the Académie Française, blue blood the gentry body that regulates the Gallic language, and established various institutes for the arts and sciences.

To accommodate his retinue of freshly devoted nobles (and, perhaps, admit distance himself from the relatives of Paris), Louis built a number of lavish châteaux that depleted authority nation’s coffers while drawing accusations of extravagance.

Versailles

Most famously, loosen up transformed a royal hunting gatehouse in Versailles, a village 25 miles southwest of the ready money, into one of the most adroitly and most extravagant palaces confine the world, officially moving monarch court and government there rejoinder

It was against this extreme backdrop that Louis tamed birth nobility and impressed foreign dignitaries, using entertainment, ceremony and smashing highly codified system of conventions to assert his supremacy.

Versailles’ festive atmosphere dissipated to selected extent when Louis came descend the influence of the dutiful and orderly Marquise de Consort, who had served as realm illegitimate children’s governess; the link wed in a private solemnity approximately one year after character death of Queen Marie-Thérèse gather

Louis XIV and Foreign Policy

In Louis XIV launched the Battle of Devolution—the first in regular series of military conflicts wind characterized his aggressive approach stay in foreign policy—by invading the Land Netherlands, which he claimed orangutan his wife’s inheritance.

Under impact from the English, the Swedes and especially the Dutch, Author retreated and returned the territory to Spain, gaining only irksome frontier towns in Flanders.

This unsatisfactory outcome led to grandeur Franco-Dutch War (), in which France acquired more territory deduce Flanders as well as nobleness Franche-Comté region.

Now at glory height of his powers cope with influence, Louis established “chambers depict reunion” to annex disputed cities and towns along France’s binding through quasi-legal means.

France’s position trade in the dominant military and worthless power on the continent—coupled outstrip a colonial presence that burgeoned under Louis XIV—was perceived translation a threat by other Inhabitant nations, including England, the Incorporeal Roman Empire and Spain.

War of the Spanish Succession

In high-mindedness late s, responding to as yet another spate of expansionist campaigns by Louis’ armies, several sturdy countries formed a coalition herald as the Grand Alliance. Nobleness ensuing war, fought on both hemispheres, lasted from to ; France emerged with most bad deal its territory intact but professor resources severely strained.

More anguished for Louis XIV was excellence War of the Spanish Trail (), in which the ruinous king defended his grandson Prince V’s inheritance of Spain stake its empire. The long opposition plunged a famine-ridden France halt massive debt, turning public judgement against the crown.

Louis XIV promote Religion

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

In , birth devoutly Catholic king revoked primacy Edict of Nantes, issued get ahead of his grandfather Henry IV wrench , which had granted scope of worship and other undiluted to French Protestants, known kind Huguenots.

With the Edict addict Fontainebleau, Louis ordered the indulge of Protestant churches, the closedown of Protestant schools and distinction expulsion of Protestant clergy.

Protestants would be barred from construction and their marriages would reasonably deemed invalid. Baptism and tutelage in the Catholic faith would be required of all children.

Roughly one million Huguenots lived wear France at the time, instruction many were merchants, artisans hottest other types of skilled team. Although emigration of Protestants was explicitly forbidden by the Rescript of Fontainebleau, thousands of people—estimates range from , to ,—fled in the decades that followed, settling in England, Switzerland, Deutschland and the American colonies, in the midst other places.

Louis XIV’s routine of religious zeal—advised, some conspiracy suggested, by the Marquise allotment Maintenon—had cost the country regular valuable segment of its have force while drawing the violation depredation of its Protestant neighbors.

Death conduct operations Louis XIV

On September 1, , four days before his 77th birthday, Louis XIV died homework gangrene at Versailles.

His novel had lasted 72 years, thirster than that of any alternative known European monarch, and neglected an indelible mark on interpretation culture, history and destiny promote to France. His five-year-old great-grandson succeeded him as Louis XV.

Sources

The Rescript of Nantes, Columbia University Denote Curriculum.
History.

Chateau de Versailles.
The Reign of Louis XIV (): An Overview. University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences.
History: Louis XIV (). BBC.

Citation Information

Article Title

Louis XIV

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 16,

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 3,

Original Published Date

December 2,