Louis XIV

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Louis XIV

• The Sun King

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Today we will

• Describe how Louis XIV strengthened royal power
  in France.
• Explain why Louis XIV was afraid of the nobility
  and how he sought to control them.
• List the successes of Louis XIV.
• List the failures of Louis XIV.

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Louis Early Life

• He was the great grandson of Phillip II of Spain.
• When Louis was five he inherited the throne.
• He entrusted the government to his adviser
  Cardinal Jules Mazarin.
• While a child, Louis was driven from the royal
  palace by a riot called the Fronde.
• The Fronde left Louis emotionally scarred.
• The Fronde was comprised of nobles, merchants,
  peasants, and the urban poor who were unhappy
  with conditions in France.

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What do you think Louis XIV meant when he said,
I am the State?
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I Am the State or Letat, cest moi

• Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661 and Louis resolved
  to take over the government.
• I have been pleased to entrust the government of
  my affairs to the late cardinal, he declared
• It is now time that I govern them myself.

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The Sun King

• Louis took the sun as his symbol of royal power.
• Just as the sun stands at the center of our solar
  system, he argued, so the Sun King stands at the
  center of our nation.
• During his reign, Louis did not call a meeting of
  the Estates-General, the medieval council made up
  of representatives of all French social classes.
• In fact, the Estates-General did not meet between
  1614-1789.
• The Estates-General played no role in checking
  royal power.

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Strengthening Royal Power

• Louis spent many hours each day attending to
  government affairs.
• To strengthen the state, he followed the policies
  of Cardinal Richelieu.
• He expanded the bureaucracy and appointed
  intendants (royal officials)
• The office of intendant and other governmental
  jobs went to wealthy middle-class men.
• The intendants recruited soldiers, collected
  taxes, and carried out government policies.
• By using intendants, Louis cemented ties between
  himself and the middle class.

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Louis Strengthens the Army

• As with all absolute monarchs, Louis created a
  permanent standing army.
• The French army became the strongest in Europe.
• The state paid, fed, trained, and supplied up to
  300,000 soldiers.
• Louis used this army to enforce his policies at
  home and abroad.

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Colbert and the Economy (Mercantilism)

• Louis had a brilliant minister named Jean
  Baptiste Colbert.
• Colbert followed mercantilist policies to bolster
  the economy.
• His goal was to make France self-sufficient.
• A nations wealth is determined by how much gold
  it is able to keep within the country. A
  favorable balance of trade.
• He built up French farming and manufacturing.
• He put high tariffs on imported goods.
• He encouraged overseas colonies in North America
  (New France) and regulated trade with the
  colonies.

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Colberts Effect on France

• Colberts policies helped make France the
  wealthiest state in Europe.
• Nonetheless, Louis was often short of cash.
• Not even the financial genius of Colbert could
  produce enough income to support the huge costs
  of Louis courts or pay for his many foreign wars.

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A High-Maintenance King

• No expense is too great. Applying this rule
  certainly helped Louis XIV make sure his every
  wish was fulfilled.
• For Example
• As much as 1.5 billion may have been taken from
  the French treasury to build his lavish palace
  Versailles. Tens of thousands of workers spent
  decades building this project.
• One minor item for Versailles was his bathtub,
  which was carved out of a single piece of
  priceless Languedoc marble.
• Guards were stationed at every fountain in
  Versailles gardens. The guards job was to turn
  the fountain on whenever the king approached.

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Versailles, Symbol of Royal Power
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Versailles
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Versailles, Symbol of Royal Power

• In the countryside near Paris, Louis turned a
  royal hunting lodge into the immense palace of
  Versailles.
• He spared no expense to make it the most
  magnificent in Europe.
• Its halls and salons displayed the finest
  paintings, status, glittering chandeliers and
  mirrors.
• In the royal gardens, millions of flowers, trees,
  and fountains were set out in precise geometric
  patterns.
• The greatest room remains the hall of mirrors.

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My Trip To Versailles
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My Trip to Versailles
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Versailles, Symbol of Royal Power

• Versailles became the perfect symbol of the Sun
  Kings wealth and power.
• As both the Kings home and the seat of
  government, it housed at least 10,000 people,
  from nobles to servants.
• Court life was a mixture of parties, balls,
  puppet shows, concerts, hunting and hawking
  expeditions, and a dozen other types of
  diversions.

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Court Ceremonies

• With such titles as The Sun King, The Grand
  Monarch, and Louis the Great, the king drew
  much attention to his position.
• Louis perfected elaborate ceremonies to occupy
  the nobles of France.
• Each day began in the kings bedroom with a major
  ritual known as the levee or rising. High
  ranking nobles would compete for the honor of
  holding the royal wash basin or handing the king
  his diamond-buckled shoes.
• At night the nobles competed for the honor of
  undressing him called the corvee.

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Court Ceremonies

• Rituals such as these served a serious purpose.
• French nobles were descendants of feudal lords
  who held power in medieval times.
• Left at their estates, these nobles were a threat
  to the monarchy.
• By luring the nobles to Versailles, Louis
  subtlety turned them into courtiers angling for
  privileges rather than warriors battling for
  power.
• Louis carefully protected their prestige and
  excused them from paying taxes.

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Versailles Had its Problems too!

• Versailles became the home to thousands of noble
  men and women.
• The odors caused the grounds to smell constantly.
• Louis ordered hundreds of fragrant orange trees
  in boxes to be placed about the grounds to cover
  up the stench.
• The palace was also drafty and cold.
• Water would freeze on the bed stands at night.
• Meals were served cold because the kitchen was
  far away.

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Louis Control of France

• Louis was paranoid about having ultimate control
  of France.
• The Fronde left him emotionally scarred and
  bitter.
• In order to take power away from the nobles, he
  sold noble titles called peerages.
• He also could be ruthless and tyrannical.
• By using a power called the letter de cachet, any
  document which bore the royal seal could send
  them into exile or imprisonment.

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Cultural Flowering

• The king and his court supported a splendid
  century of the arts.
• Louis sponsored musical entertainments and
  commissioned plays by the best playwrights.
• Louis was particularly fond of ballet.
  Performing in many during his lifetime.
• In painting, music, architecture, and decorative
  arts, French style became the model for all of
  Europe.

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Successes and Failures

• Louis ruled France for 72 years, far longer than
  any other monarch.
• During his reign, French culture, manners, and
  customs replaced those of Renaissance Italy.
• In both foreign and domestic affairs, many of
  Louis policies were costly failures.

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Wars of Louis XIV

• Louis XIV poured vast resources into wars to
  expand Frances borders.
• At first, he did gain some territory.
• His later wars were disastrous, though, because
  rival rulers joined forces to check French
  ambitions.
• Led by the Dutch or English, these alliances
  fought to maintain the balance of power in
  Europe.

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War of the Spanish Succession

• In 1700, Louis grandson, Phillip V, inherited
  the throne of Spain.
• Louis declared that France and Spain must regard
  themselves as one.
• But neighboring powers led by England were
  determined to prevent this union.
• The War of the Spanish Succession dragged on
  until 1713.
• In 1713, an exhausted France signed the Treaty of
  Utrecht.
• Phillip remained the Spanish king but France
  agreed never to unite the two crowns.

Phillip V
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Persecution of the Huguenots

• Louis saw Frances protestant minority as a
  threat to religious and political unity.
• Jansenism Threat
• In 1685, he revoked the Edict of Nantes.
• More than 100,000 Huguenots fled France.
• The persecution of the Huguenots was perhaps the
  kings most costly blunder.
• The Huguenots had been among the most
  hard-working and prosperous of Louis subjects.
• Their loss was a serious blow to the French
  economy, just as the expulsion of Jews and
  Muslims had been in Spain.

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Looking Ahead

• Louis outlived his sons and grandsons.
• When he died in 1715, his five year old great
  grandson inherited the throne as Louis XV.
• The prosperity nurtured by Colbert evaporated
  under heavy taxation, poor harvests, and bad
  decisions.
• Louis XV was too weak a king to deal with such
  problems.
• He devoted his days to pleasure and ignored the
  pleas for reform.
• He often quoted an old proverb, after us, the
  deluge.
• As you will see later on, the deluge came during
  the reign of the next king.

Louis XV
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Random facts about Louis XIV

• A clock at the palace of King Louis XIV stopped
  at 745am, the time of his death.
• The clock has not been fixed since that day, and
  to this day still reads a quarter to eight.
• When Louis XVI of France was a child, an
  astrologer warned him to be always on his guard
  on the twenty-first day of every month.
• His date of death is January 21st, 1793. Now
  that's scary.
• Louisiana was named in honor of Louis XIV

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In your opinion.

• Was Louis XIV a good king or a bad king? Give at
  least 3 reasons why you feel this way.

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