Essay On King Louis Xiv

Louis XIV’s was also known as Louis the Great or the Sun King was a monarch of House of Bourbon who rules as a king of France. Louis was born on September 5, 1638 at Saint-Germain, France, the son of Louis XII and his wife, Anne of Austria. On May 16, 1643, his father died and Louis became the king at the age of 5 and lasted until 1715. He did not take control of government until the age of 23 and the death of Cardinal Mazarin. As he was only 5 years old, France was governed by his mother as regent; as well as Cardinal Mazarin. Mazarin trained Louis to be the king of France. When he was a child, Mazarin and Anne introduced polices about monarchy’s power that angered nobleman. Beginning in 1648, their discontent erupted into a civil war known as
the Fronde, which forced the royal family to flee Paris and instilled a lifelong fear of rebellion in the young king.
During the training, Mazarin taught him that he was being trained to be a divine king. In addition to that, there were two rebellions that challenged the power of Louis, and Mazarin told Louis that they should be arrested and this would make example of them. Louis slogan was L’état, c’est moi” which illustrates that he is the state and no one can challenge him.
In the beginning, people like his mother and advisor was ruling for him under his name. Louis had a high opinion of himself and an exalted view of the office of king; he believed that God endowed kings with their power and expected them to rule personally. But he was also hard-working, spending many hours studying state papers. As mentioned in the text book, Louis was reserved, suspicious and secretive. When he was suspicious, he moved the royal court to the town Versailles. The palace at Versailles was an architecture achievement exhibiting the power of Louis XIV’s government, but it had a greater purpose. Louis built a palace in Versailles to show the world that it is the greatest castle in
the whole nation and hoped everyone would come see it. He had 10,000 servants in this palace. He required that the greater nobles attend his court and in return he gave them offices with fine titles but little power. He wanted the nobles at court so that they could not build up independent power in the provinces. He wanted the administration staffed by competent officials, dependent on him for their tenure. Immediately after assuming control of the government, Louis worked tirelessly to centralize and tighten control of France and its overseas colonies. His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), implemented reforms that sharply reduced the deficit and fostered the growth of industry, while his war minister, the Marquis de Louvois (1641-1691), expanded and reorganized the French army. During this time, he brought absolute monarchy to its height, established a glittering court at Versailles, and fought most of the other European countries in wars. The early part of his reign (1643-61), while Louis was young, was dominated by the chief minister Cardinal Mazarin. In the middle period (1661-85) Louis reigned personally and innovatively, but the last years of his personal rule (1685-1715) were beset by problems.
Although building a palace in Versailles was a great success and the wars that he waged were not, but he didn’t do a good job as being a king. In the modern days, he can be compared to Hitler. For example, he believed that no one can question him or no one can challenge him. I don’t think he was a successful king because he didn’t improve the economy, build house, bridges, hospitals and etc. In my opinion, I don’t think the public liked him. To support my opinion, here is an example. Once upon a time, he planned his own funeral (he thought everyone would love him), he had his coffin pulled by horses throughout Paris and people spit on him, cursed him, throw rock on his coffin, they were so happy that he is dead. If he was a good king, his people would love him, care for him but it didn’t happen. I think being a king, you have lots of responsibilities for your country, for your people and etc. He did not really take care of his people as the king supposed to do so.