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Biography of Louis XIV (1643 – 1715) – The Sun King
Louis XIV was the King of France for 54 years. This long period of rule allowed him to dominate France. Louis was called "the Sun King" not only because he used the sun as his symbol, but because he believed that France depended on him the way the earth depended on the sun. Louis acted as the center of France, directing and controlling the lives of his subjects, often without caring about their own wishes.
Louis XIV was able to directly control the workings of his government through the administrative organization of his government. An important point of his administration was that he appointed intendants, or royal managers, from the middle class to govern the different parts of France, according to his commands. The intendants took the traditional place of nobles in assisting the king with controlling the country. The intendants were loyal to Louis XIV because they wanted to keep their positions. They worked to strengthen the power of the king by building the French economy and collecting taxes from the population. While these economic policies did grow the economy, the high taxes made many middle and lower class French citizens very poor.
Louis XIV's power was based his wealth. He used his wealth to build the Palace of Versailles to represent the glory and power of his reign. Versailles was more than just the center of Louis’ government. Louis spent extravagant amounts of money to make Versailles the cultural center of Europe. He financially supported the best artists, musicians and writers to make his court a sophisticated, luxurious and splendorous environment, which was envied and copied by European monarchs for generations. Louis cleverly used Versailles to weaken the nobles so they could not rebel against him. He required the nobles of France to live at Versailles so that he could keep an eye on them. However, many nobles actually enjoyed living at Versailles because it was so luxurious and there was always something to do. As a result of having to move to Versailles, the nobles became “absentee landlords”, which means they didn't take care of the peasants who worked their land.
Louis also used his money to fight wars to spread his power. For 30 of the 54 years that he ruled France, France was at war. Louis had the largest army in Europe at the time, with more than 400,000 professional soldiers. His most costly war was the War of the Spanish Succession where the other countries of Europe united in a "Balance of Power" strategy to defeat France. The smaller countries formed alliances to “balance” the greater power of France, because they saw France as such a big threat. Because of this, France was unable to use its greater military power to win any major victories.
Louis was a Catholic monarch and he believed that everyone should be the same religion because he believed this would give him more authority. In 1685, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes. An “edict” is an order from a king. The Edict of Nantes was issued by Louis' grandfather, Henry IV, and it allowed people to have religious freedom. When Louis XIV took away their religious freedom, hundreds of thousands of merchants and craftsmen who were not Catholic left France and went to countries like England and the Netherlands, where they could practice their religion. Ultimately, the loss of this skilled and productive population hurt the economy of France and strengthened the economies of France’s enemies.
Source # 1 - Video on the building of Versailles (Link to Video)
Source # 2 - Video on Louis XIV use of technology to build his absolute monarchy - click here
Source # 3 - Debt of the Royal Family of France during Louis XIV reign
Source # 4 - A person who lived at the time of Louis XIV wrote the following description of how commoners lived in France a the time:
The highroads of the country, and the streets of the towns and cities are full of beggars whom nakedness and famine have driven forth...One tenth of the population are actually beggars; five tenths do not absolutely beg, but are on the verge of starvation.
Classwork Source # 1 - Painting of Louis XIV and is court at Versailles
Classwork Source # 2 - Hall of Mirrors at Versailles
Classwork Source # 3 - Sun Symbol on Gate at Palaces of Versailles
Classwork Source # 4 - Debt of the Royal Family of France during Louis XIV reign
Classwork Source # 5 - Facts about Versailles
The Palace of Versailles is a French royal palace located about 15 miles south west of Paris, France, that was built for King Louis XIV in the late 1600s. The Palace of Versailles required the work of approximately 3000 people to construct the building and the grounds. There are more than 700 rooms, including 1,200 fireplaces and 60 staircases in the Palace of Versailles. In today's money it would have cost roughly $2 billion to build. In 1682 the French government moved to Versailles and it remained there for almost 100 years. In 1789 a mob took the Palace and the French Revolution began.
The gardens of the Palace of Versailles cover 30,000+ acres. The gardens included 200,000 trees (150 varieties of apple and peach trees in the Vegetable Garden), 12 miles of roads, 400 sculptures and 1400 fountains.
The Palace of Versailles building has 51,210 square meters of floors, 2,153 windows, 6,000 paintings, 2,100 sculptures, 5,000 items of furniture. The Palace of Versailles contains a room called the Hall of Mirrors. The room is one of the most spectacular in the palace and was originally lit with candles (3000).
It is estimated that approximately 5 million people visit the Palace of Versailles each year as tourists, and between 8 and 10 million people walks the gardens of the palace each year.
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