Louis the Xiv Was a Spporter of He Arts
The reign of France'southward Louis XIV (1638-1715), known equally the Sunday Male monarch, lasted for 72 years, longer than that of whatever other known European sovereign. In that time, he transformed the monarchy, ushered in a gold historic period of fine art and literature, presided over a dazzling purple court at Versailles, annexed cardinal territories and established his country every bit the dominant European ability. During the final decades of Louis Fourteen's dominion, French republic was weakened by several lengthy wars that drained its resource and the mass exodus of its Protestant population following the king's revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Early on Life and Reign of Louis XIV
Born on September 5, 1638, to King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643) and his Habsburg queen, Anne of Austria (1601-1666), the time to come Louis 14 was his parents' get-go child after 23 years of marriage; in recognition of this credible miracle, he was christened Louis-Dieudonné, meaning "gift of God." A younger blood brother, Philippe (1640-1701), followed two years afterward. When the king died on May xiv, 1643, 4-year-former Louis inherited the crown of a fractured, unstable and nearly insolvent France. Later on orchestrating the annulment of Louis XIII's volition, which had appointed a regency council to rule on the young king's behalf, Anne served as sole regent for her son, assisted by her principal minister and close confidant, the Italian-born Key Jules Mazarin (1602-1661).
During the early years of Louis XIV's reign, Anne and Mazarin introduced policies that further consolidated the monarchy'south power, angering nobles and members of the legal elite. Beginning in 1648, their discontent erupted into a civil war known as the Fronde, which forced the purple family to flee Paris and instilled a lifelong fright of rebellion in the young king. Mazarin suppressed the revolt in 1653 and by decade's end had restored internal order and negotiated a peace treaty with Hapsburg Spain, making France a leading European ability. The post-obit year, 22-year-old Louis married his first cousin Marie-Thérèse (1638-1683), daughter of King Philip IV of Spain. A diplomatic necessity more than anything else, the marriage produced six children, of whom merely 1, Louis (1661-1711), survived to adulthood. (A number of illegitimate offspring resulted from Louis Xiv'southward affairs with a string of official and unofficial mistresses.)
READ MORE: 9 Things You May Not Know Well-nigh Louis Fourteen
Louis XIV Assumes Control of France
After Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV bankrupt 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 correct to wield the absolute power of the monarchy. To illustrate his status, he chose the sun equally his emblem and cultivated the prototype of an omniscient and infallible "Roi-Soleil" ("Sun King") around whom the entire realm orbited. 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").
Immediately after assuming control of the government, Louis worked tirelessly to centralize and tighten command of France and its overseas colonies. His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), implemented reforms that sharply reduced the arrears and fostered the growth of industry, while his war government 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 less than 11 ceremonious wars in iv decades, by luring them to his court and habituating them to the opulent lifestyle there.
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A 1701 portrait of Louis Fourteen of French republic, known equally Louis the Neat or the Sun Rex (1638-1715), painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud.
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The Arts and the Royal Courtroom Under Louis 14
A difficult-working and meticulous ruler who oversaw his programs down to the last item, Louis XIV yet appreciated art, literature, music, theater and sports. He surrounded himself with some of the greatest creative 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 torso that regulates the French linguistic communication, and established various institutes for the arts and sciences.
To adapt his retinue of newly devoted nobles (and, perhaps, to distance himself from the population of Paris), Louis congenital several lavish châteaux that depleted the nation's coffers while drawing accusations of extravagance. Well-nigh 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 authorities there in 1682. It was against this awe-inspiring properties that Louis tamed the nobility and impressed foreign dignitaries, using entertainment, ceremony and a highly codified organisation of etiquette to assert his supremacy. Versailles' festive temper dissipated to some extent when Louis came under the influence of the pious and orderly Marquise de Maintenon (1635-1719), who had served as his illegitimate children's governess; the 2 midweek in a private ceremony approximately one year after the death of Queen Marie-Thérèse in 1683.
Louis XIV and Foreign Policy
In 1667 Louis XIV launched the State of war of Devolution (1667-1668), the first in a series of military conflicts that characterized his aggressive approach to foreign policy, by invading the Castilian Netherlands, which he claimed as his wife'due south inheritance. Nether pressure from the English, Swedish and peculiarly the Dutch, France retreated and returned the region to Kingdom of spain, gaining only some borderland towns in Flanders. This unsatisfactory outcome led to the Franco-Dutch State of war (1672-1678), in which France acquired more than territory in Flemish region besides as the Franche-Comté. At present at the height of his powers and influence, Louis established "chambers of reunion" to annex disputed cities and towns along France's edge through quasi-legal means.
France's position equally the ascendant power on the continent—coupled with a colonial presence that burgeoned under Louis XIV—was perceived as a threat past other European nations, including England, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. In the tardily 1680s, responding to even so another spate of expansionist campaigns past Louis' armies, they and several smaller countries formed a coalition known every bit the Grand Alliance. The ensuing war, fought on both hemispheres, lasted from 1688 to 1697; France emerged with almost of its territory intact but its resources severely strained. More disastrous for Louis XIV was the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which the crumbling king defended his grandson Philip V's inheritance of Kingdom of spain and its empire. The long disharmonize plunged a famine-ridden French republic into massive debt, turning public opinion against the crown.
Louis XIV and Faith
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 Cosmic rex revoked the Edict of Nantes, issued past 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. Protestants would exist barred from assembling and their marriages would be accounted invalid. Baptism and education in the Catholic faith would be required of all children.
Roughly 1 million Huguenots lived in France at the time, and many were artisans or other types of skilled workers. Although emigration of Protestants was explicitly forbidden by the Edict of Fontainebleau, scores of people—estimates range from 200,000 to 800,000—fled in the decades that followed, settling in England, Switzerland, Federal republic of germany and the American colonies, among other places. Louis Fourteen'due south human activity of religious zeal—brash, some take suggested, by the Marquise de Maintenon—had cost the country a valuable segment of its labor strength while cartoon the ire of its Protestant neighbors.
Expiry of Louis XIV
On September ane, 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 v-year-former great-grandson succeeded him as Louis XV.
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/france/louis-xiv
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