King Louis Xiv's Influence In European History

Among the longest ruling monarchs of all time, Louis XIV was also one of the most influential in European history. King Louis XIV managed, in nearly seventy-five years of rule over France, to change the structure of all of Europe. Within France, Louis had nearly absolute power with an almost non-existent Estates General, and poorly constructed and scattered “parlements.” Economically, taxation was biased toward the aristocracy, leading to corruption practiced to substitute for lost income. With the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Louis XIV effectively cut what little rights the Protestant Huguenots had in France. Under Louis XIV, French society had a strong middle class, setting an example for the rest of Europe to follow. The French
One of the best examples of France’s artistic ability recognized to the present day is the palace at Versailles, the estate of Louis XIV. Cultural advancements were supported by the King to help enhance the image of France as a strong European power. “. . . He therefore gave generous financial support to his favorite writers and artists. . . He also brought the arts and sciences into the state’s administrative system, establishing royal academies. . . for art, music, dance, and science. . . (170).” With these new institutions, French arts and sciences were vastly expanded as an important part of a re-envisioned French society. Louis XIV’s contributions to the arts was undoubtedly one of the most positive aspects of his reign on France and throughout Europe. The artistic influence of King Louis XIV on France thus helped to reinstate vast culture into his
That is not to say that he was a bad ruler because, put simply, King Louis XIV was a great monarch with many positive aspects about him and his rule of seventy-two years. Albeit, there is a lot that the King did to hurt his country more than he helped it out overall. Regarding politics and economics, Louis proved to be not a harmful ruler, but a corrupt and biased one. Religiously, King Louis was intolerant, capable only of accepting those of one religious belief; Catholicism. Socially, France was divided into two by the societal differences between the aristocracy and the impoverished throughout Louis’s reign. Artistically, it could be argued whether Louis was over his head with the extravagance of the palace at Versailles. In the end, France did not benefit greatly at all from the destructive and corrupt rule of Louis