Greatest King of France:

Louis XIV

Main Life Accomplishments:

Louis XIV ordered the construction of the military complex known as the Hôtel des Invalides to provide a home for officers and soldiers who had served him loyally in the army, but whom either injury or age had rendered infirm. While methods of pharmaceuticals at the time were quite elementary, the Hôtel des Invalides pioneered new treatments frequently and set a new standard for the rather barbarous hospice treatment styles of the period. He also improved the Palais du Louvre, as well as many other royal residences. Originally, when planning additions to the Louvre, Louis XIV had hired Gian Lorenzo Bernini as architect.

He also improved the Palais du Louvre, as well as many other royal residences. Originally, when planning additions to the Louvre, Louis XIV had hired Gian Lorenzo Bernini as architect. However, his plans for the Louvre would have called for the destruction of much of the existing structure, replacing it with a most awkward-looking Italian summer villa in the centre of Paris. In his place, Louis chose the French architect Claude Perrault, whose work on the "Perrault Wing" of the Louvre is widely-celebrated. Against a shadowed void, and with pavilions at either end, the simplicity of the ground-floor basement is set off by the rhythmically paired Corinthian columns and crowned by a distinctly non-French classical roof. Through the centre rose a pedimented triumphal arch entrance. Perrault's restrained classicizing baroque Louvre would provide a model for grand edifices throughout Europe and America for ages.
 

Basics:

Born: Born September 5, 1638 in Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France

Died: Died September 1, 1715 (aged 77) at Château de Versailles, Versailles, France

Nationality:  French

Religion:   Roman Catholic

Fields:  Politics, Military

Main Accomplishments:  He was a renaissance king and made France into a major world power

 

Chronology of Life Events:

Sep 5, 1638

Birth of Louis XIV
 

May 14, 1643
Louis XIV acceded when his father died
 

1658

The Anglo-French alliance achieved victory with the Battle of the Dunes
 

1659

The subsequent Treaty of the Pyrenees, fixed the border between France and Spain at the Pyrenees; according to its terms, Louis XIV pardoned Condé who had gone into the service of Spain against his king, while Spain ceded various provinces and towns to France in the Spanish Netherlands and the whole of Roussillon.
 

Jun 9, 1660

Louis XIV married Maria Theresa
 

1661

The French treasury, after a long war, stood close to bankruptcy when

Louis XIV assumed, upon the death of his Premier Ministre, Cardinal Mazarin, personal control of the reins of government
 

1665

Louis XIV, after having eliminated Nicolas Fouquet and abolished his position of Surintendant des Finances, appointed Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Contrôleur-Général des Finances. Louis XIV's father-in-law and uncle, Philip IV of Spain,
 

1679

He dismissed his foreign minister, Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne as he was viewed as having compromised too much with the allies and for being too much of a pacifist.
 

1680s

Louis XIV had greatly augmented his and France's influence and power in Europe and the world
 

1683

Louis XIV's most famous minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert died
Louis XIV's Queen, Marie-Thérèse, died
 

1685

Louis XIV stood at the apogee of his power.
The marriage between Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, was secret and morganatic, and would last to his death.
Louis continued his attempt to achieve a religiously united France by issuing an Edict
Louis XIV issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking that of Nantes, on the pretext that the near-extinction of Protestantism and Protestants in France made any edict granting them privileges redundant

1688

Louis XIV sent his troops into the Palatinate
 

1691

Under the personal supervision of Louis XIV, the French army captured Mons
 

1692

Under the personal supervision of Louis X0'IV, the French army captured the hitherto impregnable fortress of Namur
 

Sep 1, 1715
Louis XIV died
 

Early Life:

Louis XIV (baptised as Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) ruled as King of France and of Navarre.

He acceded to the throne on May 14, 1643, a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his First Minister ("premier ministre"), Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Louis would remain on the throne till his death just prior to his seventy-seventh birthday in 1715.

The reign of Louis XIV, known as The Sun King (in French Le Roi Soleil) or as Louis the Great (in French Louis le Grand, or simply Le Grand Monarque, "the Great Monarch"), spanned seventy-two years—the longest reign of any major European monarch. During that period of time he increased the power and influence of France in Europe, fighting three major wars—the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession—and two minor conflicts—the War of Devolution, and the War of the Reunions.

The political and military scene in France during his reign was filled with such illustrious names as Mazarin, Fouquet, Colbert, Michel le Tellier, Le Tellier's son Louvois, the Great Condé, Turenne, Vauban, Villars and Tourville. Under his reign, France achieved not only political and military pre-eminence, but also cultural dominance with various cultural figures such as Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Le Brun, Rigaud, Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Claude Perrault and Le Nôtre. The cultural achievements accomplished by these figures contributed to the prestige of France, its people, its language and its king.

One of France's greatest kings, Louis XIV worked successfully to create an absolutist and centralised state, consequently, Louis XIV became the archetype of an absolute monarch. The phrase "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the State") is frequently attributed to him, though this is considered by historians to be a historical inaccuracy and is more likely to have been conceived by political opponents as a way of confirming the stereotypical view of the absolutism he represented. Quite contrary to that apocryphal quote, Louis XIV is actually reported to have said on his death bed: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." ("I am going away, but the State will always remain").

On his birth at the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1638, his parents, Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria, who had been childless for twenty-three years, regarded him as a divine gift; hence he was christened "Louis-Dieudonné" ("Dieudonné" meaning "God-given"); he also received the titles premier fils de France ("First Son of France") as well as the more traditional title Dauphin.

Through Louis XIV's veins ran the blood of many of Europe's royal Houses. Indeed, according to François Bluche, Christian Carretier, in his work "Les cinq cents douze quartiers de Louis XIV", calculated to the tenth generation that Louis XIV's ancestry was approximately 28% French, 26% Spanish, 11% German and Austrian, 10% Portuguese, 8% Italian, 7% Slavic and 7% English. His paternal grandparents were Henri IV of France and Marie de' Medici, who were French and Italian respectively; while both his maternal grandparents were Habsburgs, Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. In this manner, he counted as his ancestors various historical figures like Charles Quint and Frederick Barbarossa, both Holy Roman Emperors. He also found himself descended from the founder of the Rurik dynasty, Rurik the Viking, as well as Charles I "le Téméraire", duc de Bourgogne, the poet Charles, duc d'Orléans, and Giovanni de' Medici, last of the great Condottieri. Most importantly, he traced his paternal lineage in unbroken male succession from Saint Louis, King of France.

Louis XIII and Anne had a second child, Philippe de France, duc d'Anjou (soon to be Philippe I, duc d'Orléans) in 1640. Louis XIII, however, did not trust in his wife's ability to govern France upon his demise. Thus he decreed that a regency council, of which Anne would be head, should rule in his son's name during his minority; this would have diminished the Queen Mother's power. Nevertheless, when Louis XIII died and his young son, Louis XIV, acceded on May 14, 1643, Anne had her husband's will annulled in the Parlement, did away with the Council and became sole Regent. She entrusted power to her chief minister, the Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, who was despised in most French political circles because of his alien non-French background (although he had already become a naturalized French subject).


Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648
The Thirty Years' War, which had commenced in the previous reign, ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, made up of the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, the work of Cardinal Mazarin. This Peace ensured Dutch independence from Spain and the independence of the German princes in the Empire. It marked the apogee of Swedish power and influence in German and European affairs. However, it was France who had the most to gain from the terms of the Peace. Austria ceded to France all Habsburg lands and claims in Alsace; and the petty German states eager to dislodge themselves from Habsburg domination placed themselves under French protection, leading to the further dissolution of Imperial power. The Peace of Westphalia humiliated Habsburg ambitions in the Holy Roman Empire and Europe and laid rest to the idea of the Empire having secular dominion over the entire Christendom.

Louis XIV as a young child
In the closing years of the Thirty Years' War, a civil war, the Fronde, which effectively curbed France's ability to make good the advantages gained in the Peace of Westphalia, broke out. The Frondeurs originally sought to protect the traditional feudal "liberties" from an increasingly centralized and centralizing royal government. On the other hand, Cardinal Mazarin had continued and would continue to follow the policies of centralization pursued by his predecessor, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, seeking to augment the power of the Crown at the expense of the nobility and the Parlements. In 1648, he sought to levy a tax on the members of the Parlement, a court whose judges comprised mostly nobles or high clergymen. The members of the Parlement not only refused to comply, but also ordered all of Cardinal Mazarin's earlier financial edicts burned. When Cardinal Mazarin, strengthened by the news of Condé's victory at Lens, arrested certain members of the Parlement in a show of force, Paris erupted in rioting and insurrection. A mob of angry Parisians broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king. Led into the royal bedchamber, they gazed upon Louis XIV, who was feigning sleep, and quietly departed. Prompted by the possible danger to the royal family and the monarchy, Anne fled Paris with the king and his courtiers. Shortly thereafter, the signing of the Peace of Westphalia allowed the French army under Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé to return to the aid of Louis XIV and his royal court. By January 1649, the prince de Condé had started besieging rebellious Paris; the subsequent Peace of Rueil temporarily ended the conflict.

After the first Fronde (Fronde Parlementaire) ended, the second Fronde, that of the princes, began in 1650. This second phase of the Fronde, unlike that which preceded it, was characterized by tales of sordid intrigue and half-hearted warfare conducted by nobles to whom war was nothing but leisure. Nobles of all ranks, from princes of the Blood Royal and cousins of the king, like Gaston Jean-Baptiste, duc d'Orléans, his daughter, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé, Armand de Bourbon-Condé, prince de Conti, and Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, duchesse de Longueville; to nobles of legitimated royal descent, like Henri II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville, and François de Vendôme, duc de Beaufort; and nobles of ancient families, like François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de Bouillon, his brother, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, and Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, duchesse de Chevreuse, participated in the rebellion against royal rule. Even the clergy was represented by Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz. With the coming of age of Louis XIV and his subsequent coronation, the Frondeurs, who could hitherto have claimed to have been acting on his behalf and in his real interests against his Regent-mother and First Minister, had lost their pretext for revolt. The Fronde thus gradually lost steam until it ended in 1653 when Mazarin returned triumphant from abroad after having been in exile on several multiple occasions. The result of these tumultuous times, when the Queen Mother reputedly sold her jewels to feed her children, was a king filled with a permanent distrust for the nobility and the mob.
 

Wife Background:

Maria Theresa was short, dwarflike and had the Hapsburg lip; the unfortunate product of generations of inbreeding. While she did not suffer the insanity or physical handicaps of her other inbred relatives, her personality had a childlike simplicity to it. She never learned to speak the French language very well, and her Spanish accent was considered irritating by those at court. Maria Theresa's days were often spent praying with her mother-in-law and playing cards, as she had no interest in politics or literature.

The King was faithful to his wife for the first year of their marriage, but the new queen's amiability and her undoubted virtues failed to secure her husband's regard and affection. Maria Theresa was always the last to know that her husband had found a new mistress. She saw herself neglected, although, the King always somehow made sure to be in her bed every night. Maria Theresa hated Louise de La Vallière. She tolerated Mme. de Montespan and others, but Marie Thérèse was too pious and too adoring of her husband to openly resent the position in which she was placed by the king's avowed infidelities. Eventually, the Queen acted with dignity and did not create scenes at court. As a reward the King left her to her own devices, with her dwarves, chocolate and maids. During the period Madame de Maintenon reigned over his mind and affections, the King bestowed more attention on his wife, which she repaid by lavishing kindness on the mistress.

Marie Thérèse only part in political affairs were the years of 1667, 1672, and 1678 when she acted as Regent during Louis XIV's absence on foreign campaigns. She died on 30 July 1683 at Versailles, not without suspicion of foul play on the part of her doctors. There is, however, no real proof that the Queen was poisoned. The modern day belief is that her death was caused by cancer, stemming from a large tumor under her arm. Her death was probably the only occasion in her life that caused the King any sort of emotion on his part, albeit briefly, apart from his sadness at losing so many legitimate children in infancy. Of her six children only one survived her, the dauphin Louis, who died in 1711.

Marie Therese's grandson, Philip V of Spain, would eventually come to inherit her succession rights to the Spanish throne, after the death of her mentally unstable half brother Charles II of Spain.
 

Father Background:

Château de Fontainebleau, Louis XIII was the eldest child of Henry IV of France (1589–1610) and Marie de' Medici. His father was the first Bourbon King of France, having succeeded his ninth cousin, Henry III of France (1574–89), in application of the Salic law. Louis XIII's paternal grandparents were Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome and Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre; his maternal grandparents were Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Johanna, archduchess of Austria.

Louis XIII ascended to the throne of France in 1610, at the age of eight and a half, upon the assassination of his father. His mother acted as Regent until Louis XIII came of age at thirteen, but she clung to power unofficially until in frustration he took the reins of government into his own hands at the age of fifteen. The assassination of Concino Concini (April 24, 1617), who had greatly influenced Marie's policymaking, and Marie's own exile to Blois, removed her from power. Louis then came into his own as ruler of France. He filled his court with loyal friends and sidelined those who remained loyal to his mother. Under Louis XIII's rule, the Bourbon Dynasty sustained itself effectively on the throne that Henry IV had recently secured; but the question of freedom of religion continued to haunt the country.

The brilliant and energetic Cardinal Richelieu played a major role in Louis XIII's administration from 1624, decisively shaping the destiny of France for the next 18 years and dying only months before the King himself. As a result of Richelieu's work, Louis XIII became one of the first exemplars of an absolute monarch. Under Louis XIII the Habsburgs were humiliated, the French nobility was firmly kept in line behind their King, and the special privileges granted to the Huguenots by his father were retracted. Furthermore, Louis XIII had the port of Le Havre modernized and built up a powerful navy. Unfortunately time and circumstances never permitted King and Cardinal to attend to the administrative reforms (particularly of France's tax system) which were urgently needed.

The King also did everything to reverse the trend for the promising artists of France to work and study in Italy. Louis XIII commissioned the great artists Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne to decorate the Louvre. In foreign matters, Louis XIII organized the development and administration of New France, expanding the settlement of Quebec westward along the Saint Lawrence River from Quebec City to Montreal.
On November 9, 1615, aged only 14, Louis XIII was married to a Habsburg Princess, Anne of Austria (1601–66), daughter of King Philip III of Spain (1578–1621). This marriage followed a tradition of cementing military and political alliances between the Catholic powers of France and Spain with royal.
 

Mother Background:

Marie de' Medici born April 26, 1573 in Florence, Italy, died July 3, 1642 (69 years old) in Cologne.

 

Queen consort of France under the French name Marie de Médicis. She was the second wife of King Henry IV of France, of the Bourbon branch of the kings of France. Later she was the regent for her son King Louis XIII of France.

She was the daughter of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and of Johanna, archduchess of Austria. Her maternal grandparents were Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anne of Bohemia. Anne was a daughter of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and his wife Anne de Foix.

Uncommonly pretty in her youth, in October 1600 she married Henri IV of France, following the annulment of his marriage to Marguerite de Valois. She brought as part of her dowry 600,000 crowns. Her eldest son, the future King Louis XIII, was born at Fontainebleau the following year.

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