Did Louis XIV Have Absolute Power?
last updated: 2/27/2024 (completed pages might be rewritten over time)
I spent the first five years of my life in Peterhof, a satellite town of St. Petersburg, Russia. There, I lived with my parents in an apartment that my grandfather had received for his military service (he was a World War II veteran). Peterhof was originally created by Peter the Great, the same tsar who strategically founded the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 as the first port to connect Russia with the West. As part of his plan to modernize the country, Peter the Great brought in many innovations from Europe. In particular, Peterhof remains a testimony of Peter's admiration for the French culture of his time.
This admiration was somewhat of a paradox. In his extensive account of the life and reign of Louis XIV, historian Philip Mansel mentions the area of my childhood this way: "Despite his personal taste for simplicity, in 1714–23 [Peter the Great] built a vast country palace called Peterhof outside St. Petersburg: it was partly inspired by Versailles, with a park and fountains designed by a pupil of Le Nôtre called J. B. le Blond, and a nearby villa named Marlia [inspired by Marly near Versailles]" (Chapter 24, my emphasis).
I spent the first five years of my life in Peterhof, a satellite town of St. Petersburg, Russia. There, I lived with my parents in an apartment that my grandfather had received for his military service (he was a World War II veteran). Peterhof was originally created by Peter the Great, the same tsar who strategically founded the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 as the first port to connect Russia with the West. As part of his plan to modernize the country, Peter the Great brought in many innovations from Europe. In particular, Peterhof remains a testimony of Peter's admiration for the French culture of his time.
This admiration was somewhat of a paradox. In his extensive account of the life and reign of Louis XIV, historian Philip Mansel mentions the area of my childhood this way: "Despite his personal taste for simplicity, in 1714–23 [Peter the Great] built a vast country palace called Peterhof outside St. Petersburg: it was partly inspired by Versailles, with a park and fountains designed by a pupil of Le Nôtre called J. B. le Blond, and a nearby villa named Marlia [inspired by Marly near Versailles]" (Chapter 24, my emphasis).
Image credit: Peterhof by Slava Korolev
I walked in the Peterhof park many times alone and with friends, admiring its scope and beauty. Little did I know that years later, living in a different country, I would decide to refer to Louis XIV's reign to explain my theory of power. Peterhof seems to be a perfect manifestation of his immense influence. Even Peter the Great, who did not like luxury, decided to imitate the French king's extravagant style! But was Louis's influence truly limitless? To answer this question, I read the detailed account of this controversial king's life published by Philip Mansel (2020). Relying on the authority of this reputable historian, below I will explain why Louis XIV's power was far from absolute.
To be clear, I am not inventing a wheel. The idea that absolute monarchs did not have absolute power is not new. This is how political science scholar Keith Dowding puts it
in his entry on absolutism in Encyclopedia of Power:
"These monarchs had great formal powers, which in practice extended to closing down other power centers, emasculating parliaments, creating powerful bureaucracies and standing armies, and generally centralizing power to a greater extent than previously happened... [However, their power] can be overemphasized. Certainly there were other centers of power, notably the churches and nobility, though absolutist monarchs attempted to enfeeble the latter by requiring them to work with state officials on their lands. [I]t is not clear that the absolute rulers had significantly greater power than other rulers. Absolute rulers still needed to negotiate with barons and with the church and were beholden to powerful figures within their palaces and bureaucracies."
Still, the idea that absolute monarchs did not have absolute power might catch many people by surprise. In this essay, I draw on Mansel's account of Louis XIV's reign to bring some life to the dry language of the encyclopedia entry quoted above.
I must clarify that any historic account can only be a work of interpretation. Therefore, the description that I offer below can be contested by people who choose to interpret historical sources and accounts differently. My interpretation is guided by my personal belief in the importance of empathy. As a scholar, I want to support my theory of power, which claims that in any person's actions power always coexists with powerlessness (although this combination can take many forms depending on the person and their circumstances).
I acknowledge that it is my choice not to see Louis XIV merely as a haughty and heartless lover of exquisite entertainments. Instead, I choose to see him as a person who, like all of us, was born into the world of meanings and relationships that he did not fully comprehend. He tried to navigate this world the best could, in the process making many mistakes and hurting numerous people, which he was able to do due to the meanings of absolute monarchy instilled in his mind and reinforced by those around him.
I walked in the Peterhof park many times alone and with friends, admiring its scope and beauty. Little did I know that years later, living in a different country, I would decide to refer to Louis XIV's reign to explain my theory of power. Peterhof seems to be a perfect manifestation of his immense influence. Even Peter the Great, who did not like luxury, decided to imitate the French king's extravagant style! But was Louis's influence truly limitless? To answer this question, I read the detailed account of this controversial king's life published by Philip Mansel (2020). Relying on the authority of this reputable historian, below I will explain why Louis XIV's power was far from absolute.
To be clear, I am not inventing a wheel. The idea that absolute monarchs did not have absolute power is not new. This is how political science scholar Keith Dowding puts it
in his entry on absolutism in Encyclopedia of Power:
"These monarchs had great formal powers, which in practice extended to closing down other power centers, emasculating parliaments, creating powerful bureaucracies and standing armies, and generally centralizing power to a greater extent than previously happened... [However, their power] can be overemphasized. Certainly there were other centers of power, notably the churches and nobility, though absolutist monarchs attempted to enfeeble the latter by requiring them to work with state officials on their lands. [I]t is not clear that the absolute rulers had significantly greater power than other rulers. Absolute rulers still needed to negotiate with barons and with the church and were beholden to powerful figures within their palaces and bureaucracies."
Still, the idea that absolute monarchs did not have absolute power might catch many people by surprise. In this essay, I draw on Mansel's account of Louis XIV's reign to bring some life to the dry language of the encyclopedia entry quoted above.
I must clarify that any historic account can only be a work of interpretation. Therefore, the description that I offer below can be contested by people who choose to interpret historical sources and accounts differently. My interpretation is guided by my personal belief in the importance of empathy. As a scholar, I want to support my theory of power, which claims that in any person's actions power always coexists with powerlessness (although this combination can take many forms depending on the person and their circumstances).
I acknowledge that it is my choice not to see Louis XIV merely as a haughty and heartless lover of exquisite entertainments. Instead, I choose to see him as a person who, like all of us, was born into the world of meanings and relationships that he did not fully comprehend. He tried to navigate this world the best could, in the process making many mistakes and hurting numerous people, which he was able to do due to the meanings of absolute monarchy instilled in his mind and reinforced by those around him.
King's Childhood
When his father died in 1643, four-year-old Louis XIV was proclaimed King. Of course, he did not start managing France right away. Upon the death of her husband, Queen Anne became the regent, ruling with the help of Cardinal Mazarin until Louis reached the age of majority (13 years old) in 1651. After that, although his mother was not a regent anymore, the young King did not fully take state matters in his hands for another ten years, until Mazarin passed away in 1661.
Image credit: Louis XIV during his minority, c. 1643, by Pierre Mignard
Let us first take a look at the formative years of the future self-proclaimed Sun King.
We could hardly claim that Louis XIV came anywhere close to absolute power as a child.
But as King by law, perhaps he enjoyed a life of exceptional happiness and freedom?
Chapter I of Mansel's volume dispels this myth starting from the first sentence: "Even by royal standards, the family into which the future Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 was a nest of vipers." In this family (not atypical for a royal household of the time), closest relatives often could not trust or even stand each other. Intrigues flourished and rebellions were common. Queen Anne herself, being of Spanish origin, conspired against her husband (Louis XIII) and helped her home country during the conflict between Spain and France that was ongoing at the time.
Driving this point home, Mansel writes in the Introduction: "Thus antiquity, heredity, coronation and the widely proclaimed belief that the kings of France were representatives and images of God himself did not protect them from rebellion or assassination. France was a monarchy on a knife-edge... Both Henri IV’s son Louis XIII and his grandson Louis XIV would be threatened by repeated revolts and haunted by fears of new religious wars and acts of regicide."
All in all, Louis XIV's family could hardly be called a healthy environment for a young child trying to make sense of the world. Consider that, as Mansel argues, "[e]ven at the age of two, Louis was a pawn in his parents’ marriage. His feelings and manners were used as political weapons" (Chapter 1). The French court where this family was embedded was no better. "[A]t the French court every nuance of human relationships, and every inch of the royal apartments, could have political consequences. The court was a zone of negotiation, and a school of psychology, as well as a battlefield" (Chapter 1). Louis XIV had to navigate this battlefield, or rather minefield, of a court from a very young age while attending a variety of required events. As he was growing, his public life was quickly turning into "an unending sequence of ceremonies" (Chapter 2), which he soon came to detest but could not avoid.
One can only wonder how becoming a king at the age of four can affect a child. No psychological studies that would help us better understand what it really means to grow us as an absolute monarch can ever be conducted. But it is clear that, before Louis XIV could start exercising his power as a king, he received many lessons in powerlessness.
On the positive side, he had a close and tender relationship with his mother, something that few (if any) contemporary kings could boast. Unlike many royal parents of the epoch, Queen Anne spent a lot of time with her beloved first-born son and played an active role in his education.
In particular, she worked hard to instill in Louis the belief in the divine rights of the King of France. Queen Anne, who had experienced her own share of powerlessness, wanted absolute power for her son, probably because she believed that power could protect him and make him happy (these wishes are natural for any caring mother). We can assume that her lessons sank deep and determined how Louis XIV wanted to see himself and to be seen by others. Over the years, the conviction in his divine rights coupled with life's stresses, heartbreaks, and very human biases led Louis XIV to commit mistakes that hurt numerous people. One of these heartbreaks was his mother's painful death at the age of 64 (Louis himself was only 28 at the time) of breast cancer in a Parisian convent, where she had retired after her regency was over. Louis XIV was so shaken by her death that he barely visited the city since then, preferring to enhance his beloved Versailles and surrounding smaller residences.
Let us first take a look at the formative years of the future self-proclaimed Sun King.
We could hardly claim that Louis XIV came anywhere close to absolute power as a child.
But as King by law, perhaps he enjoyed a life of exceptional happiness and freedom?
Chapter I of Mansel's volume dispels this myth starting from the first sentence: "Even by royal standards, the family into which the future Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 was a nest of vipers." In this family (not atypical for a royal household of the time), closest relatives often could not trust or even stand each other. Intrigues flourished and rebellions were common. Queen Anne herself, being of Spanish origin, conspired against her husband (Louis XIII) and helped her home country during the conflict between Spain and France that was ongoing at the time.
Driving this point home, Mansel writes in the Introduction: "Thus antiquity, heredity, coronation and the widely proclaimed belief that the kings of France were representatives and images of God himself did not protect them from rebellion or assassination. France was a monarchy on a knife-edge... Both Henri IV’s son Louis XIII and his grandson Louis XIV would be threatened by repeated revolts and haunted by fears of new religious wars and acts of regicide."
All in all, Louis XIV's family could hardly be called a healthy environment for a young child trying to make sense of the world. Consider that, as Mansel argues, "[e]ven at the age of two, Louis was a pawn in his parents’ marriage. His feelings and manners were used as political weapons" (Chapter 1). The French court where this family was embedded was no better. "[A]t the French court every nuance of human relationships, and every inch of the royal apartments, could have political consequences. The court was a zone of negotiation, and a school of psychology, as well as a battlefield" (Chapter 1). Louis XIV had to navigate this battlefield, or rather minefield, of a court from a very young age while attending a variety of required events. As he was growing, his public life was quickly turning into "an unending sequence of ceremonies" (Chapter 2), which he soon came to detest but could not avoid.
One can only wonder how becoming a king at the age of four can affect a child. No psychological studies that would help us better understand what it really means to grow us as an absolute monarch can ever be conducted. But it is clear that, before Louis XIV could start exercising his power as a king, he received many lessons in powerlessness.
On the positive side, he had a close and tender relationship with his mother, something that few (if any) contemporary kings could boast. Unlike many royal parents of the epoch, Queen Anne spent a lot of time with her beloved first-born son and played an active role in his education.
In particular, she worked hard to instill in Louis the belief in the divine rights of the King of France. Queen Anne, who had experienced her own share of powerlessness, wanted absolute power for her son, probably because she believed that power could protect him and make him happy (these wishes are natural for any caring mother). We can assume that her lessons sank deep and determined how Louis XIV wanted to see himself and to be seen by others. Over the years, the conviction in his divine rights coupled with life's stresses, heartbreaks, and very human biases led Louis XIV to commit mistakes that hurt numerous people. One of these heartbreaks was his mother's painful death at the age of 64 (Louis himself was only 28 at the time) of breast cancer in a Parisian convent, where she had retired after her regency was over. Louis XIV was so shaken by her death that he barely visited the city since then, preferring to enhance his beloved Versailles and surrounding smaller residences.
Image credit: Queen Anne, Louis XIV's mother, c. 1620, by Peter Paul Rubens
There is another reason why Louis XIV hated Paris, and this reason further illustrates why his childhood was far from carefree. Mansel describes France's capital as "a cauldron of combustible institutions, at once the support and rival of the monarchy" (Chapter 2). Indeed, support and rivalry were often tied so close that this combination could easily become confusing, frustrating, and scary. The King would be glorified when riding through the street of Paris one day, but booed and threatened on another occasion. He was alternatively treated as god and as the worst person on the Earth. For instance, "On 18 May 1643, three days after his state entry into Paris, Louis proceeded from the Louvre through the streets caked in mud and excrement, for which Paris would remain notorious until the mid-nineteenth century, to the Parlement on the Île de la Cité" (Chapter 2, my emphasis).
Before Louis XIV reached the age of majority, Paris became a hotbed of dissent known as the Fronde. It was essentially a civil war. The Fronde was not a bottom-up rebellion; instead, it was led by aristocracy dissatisfied with their rights and privileges. The noblemen exploited popular discontent among Parisians who were not happy about growing taxes and diminishing authority of the Parlement. Notably, when Louis XIV was 12, an angry mob broke into the capital's palace and demanded to see the King.
Upon seeing the boy sleeping in his room, the rioters left the palace. Soon thereafter, the Queen and her son fled Paris accompanied by the court. On another occasion, Louis XIV and his mother were held in the same palace under virtual arrest.
This is not to say that Parisians did not have reasons to be concerned about the actions of the government trying to centralize its authority (something that absolutist monarchies were known for). Without excusing the French government's actions, my goal is to have my readers wonder how confusing messages and events of the time could affect the King's maturing mind. (And remember that, at that point, he was not the one making decisions about how France was supposed to be ruled.) We can assume that the idea of the King's divine rights was attractive for the growing Louis XIV as it promised certainty in a life full of conflicts and contradictions. In addition, the idea of the King's absolute power matched what Louis XIV often observed, since "[f]or most Frenchmen in the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, Christianity and monarchy were similar cults of hierarchy and obedience" (Chapter 1). Any rebellions and riots (even as extensive ones as the Fronde) could be written off as unpleasant aberrations. Inspired by his beloved mother, Louis XIV was growing up with the conviction that he was destined to become the King of the World. He was learning about his rights and responsibilities. But nobody could explain to him how the power he had been given was going to change him over time.
There is another reason why Louis XIV hated Paris, and this reason further illustrates why his childhood was far from carefree. Mansel describes France's capital as "a cauldron of combustible institutions, at once the support and rival of the monarchy" (Chapter 2). Indeed, support and rivalry were often tied so close that this combination could easily become confusing, frustrating, and scary. The King would be glorified when riding through the street of Paris one day, but booed and threatened on another occasion. He was alternatively treated as god and as the worst person on the Earth. For instance, "On 18 May 1643, three days after his state entry into Paris, Louis proceeded from the Louvre through the streets caked in mud and excrement, for which Paris would remain notorious until the mid-nineteenth century, to the Parlement on the Île de la Cité" (Chapter 2, my emphasis).
Before Louis XIV reached the age of majority, Paris became a hotbed of dissent known as the Fronde. It was essentially a civil war. The Fronde was not a bottom-up rebellion; instead, it was led by aristocracy dissatisfied with their rights and privileges. The noblemen exploited popular discontent among Parisians who were not happy about growing taxes and diminishing authority of the Parlement. Notably, when Louis XIV was 12, an angry mob broke into the capital's palace and demanded to see the King.
Upon seeing the boy sleeping in his room, the rioters left the palace. Soon thereafter, the Queen and her son fled Paris accompanied by the court. On another occasion, Louis XIV and his mother were held in the same palace under virtual arrest.
This is not to say that Parisians did not have reasons to be concerned about the actions of the government trying to centralize its authority (something that absolutist monarchies were known for). Without excusing the French government's actions, my goal is to have my readers wonder how confusing messages and events of the time could affect the King's maturing mind. (And remember that, at that point, he was not the one making decisions about how France was supposed to be ruled.) We can assume that the idea of the King's divine rights was attractive for the growing Louis XIV as it promised certainty in a life full of conflicts and contradictions. In addition, the idea of the King's absolute power matched what Louis XIV often observed, since "[f]or most Frenchmen in the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, Christianity and monarchy were similar cults of hierarchy and obedience" (Chapter 1). Any rebellions and riots (even as extensive ones as the Fronde) could be written off as unpleasant aberrations. Inspired by his beloved mother, Louis XIV was growing up with the conviction that he was destined to become the King of the World. He was learning about his rights and responsibilities. But nobody could explain to him how the power he had been given was going to change him over time.
Closer to Power
Between the year 1651 (when the King started formally ruling by himself, without the regent, at the age of 13) and the year 1661 (when Mazarin died), Louis XIV was gradually learning to manage his country. However, over this ten-year-long period, his decisions were often not his own, shaped by Mazarin's and his mother's wills. In an interesting twist of events, Mazarin and Queen Anne were rumored to have got secretly married; so the Cardinal, the former Regent, and the King formed a kind of nuclear family. Their relationships, just as any relationships between children and parents, were not free from tensions, but this bond was surprisingly tender according to the royal family standards of the time. Indeed, Louis XIV trusted and admired both his mother and Mazarin, which does not mean that he was always happy with their choices.
Image credit: Cardinal Jules Mazarin, 1658, by Pierre Mignard
It became particularly clear who was calling the shots in this family when Louis XIV fell madly in love with Marie Mancini, Mazarin's charming niece. When he shared his intention to marry Marie with his mother and Mazarin, their response shattered his hopes. Mazarin might have toyed with the idea of becoming the King's official uncle-in-law, but Queen Anne was firmly against it. It would have messed up her plan to protect her son from life's uncertainties by ensuring that he had absolute power as the King, which required strengthening political and dynastic bonds. Louis XIV was to marry Queen Anne's own niece, daughter of Philip IV of Spain.
Trying to persuade the pleading King to give up the politically inconvenient relationship, Mazarin composed a letter that serves as an example of contradictory messages that the young Louis was receiving about his power: "[Mazarin] reminded the King that he was not an individual but an institution: ‘Although you are the master in a certain sense to do what you wish, nevertheless you owe an account to God of your actions for your salvation and to the world for the maintenance of your glory and your reputation’" (Chapter 4). Although he was heartbroken, Louis XVI had to do what was considered his duty. Fulfilling his mother's will, in 1660 he married his double first cousin Maria Theresa of Spain.
As a side note, it must be added that absolute (or any other) monarchs seldom had a privilege to marry for love. In fact, they had to obey rules of dynastic marriages that "could be biological, as well as personal and political, disasters. In order to maintain their prestige, European sovereigns almost always married cousins from within ‘the family of kings’, whose ties were so strong that they wore mourning for each other as relations even when they were at war. Yet the products of inbreeding are predisposed to illnesses, including madness and infertility" (Chapter 5). Most of the children born from the union between Maria Teresa and Louis died young; this might have been an adverse consequence of inbreeding, which produces less viable offspring. Louis XIV was emotionally attached to all of his children, and each death became a new heartbreak.
In 1661, the year after the royal marriage was celebrated, Mazarin passed away, which was a hard blow for the King. As Mazarin was receiving his last religious rites, "[t]he King was crying so much, he was asked to leave the bedroom" (Chapter 5). Having to say goodbye first to his love to Marie Mancini, and then to his beloved mentor the Cardinal, were possibly the first devastating experiences in Louis XIV's life. Many more were to come. Nevertheless, in his early twenties, his heart had not hardened yet as it did in the later years of his reign. In Mansel's words, "[b]etween the ages of fourteen and thirty, between the abjection of the Fronde and the intoxication of absolutism, he was affable, informal and Parisian" (Chapter 4).
Louis was now 23 years old, and he was finally able to take the reign in his hands.
"To the amazement of Louis’ family, court and ministers, the day Mazarin died the King had announced, ‘I am determined henceforth to govern my state by myself.’ He wanted no over-powerful minister or relation, not even his mother, challenging his control of the government" (Chapter 6). After all the lessons of powerlessness that Louis XIV had received in his life so far, and fueled by the conviction that absolute power was his destiny, the King was ready to take all the power he could get.
As probably any other person who has ever walked the face of the Earth, Louis XIV was full of contradictions. He wanted to use the power that, in his mind, he was supposed to have, but he was not planning on using it solely for selfish reasons. After all, he was told for the first twenty years of his life by people he respected and loved that his responsibility was to strengthen his country and the Bourbon dynasty. Louis XIV thought that he would be able to rule France the best way he could if we eliminated all the intermediaries, which was a logical assumption based on what he had experienced so far. From then on, he spent a considerable amount of time managing – even micro-managing – as many things in his state as he could, usually with the conviction that he was doing good. One of the biggest contradictions of Louis XIV's personality was that he honestly wanted to make France the strongest and most admired country, but he could delude himself into believing that this was his primary interest when in reality his actions were guided by vanity, anxieties, and biases.
Louis is known as a monarch who haughtily said, "I am the state." However, as Mansel notes, the fact of him stating that in a speech or in writing was not recorded by any contemporary observers. It appears that this famous quote is an invention. By the same token, the image of Louis XIV as an absolute monarch is often distorted by the prism of time and by other people's perceptions. This image is full of myths that can prevent us from seeing both power and powerlessness that characterized the life of this King.
It became particularly clear who was calling the shots in this family when Louis XIV fell madly in love with Marie Mancini, Mazarin's charming niece. When he shared his intention to marry Marie with his mother and Mazarin, their response shattered his hopes. Mazarin might have toyed with the idea of becoming the King's official uncle-in-law, but Queen Anne was firmly against it. It would have messed up her plan to protect her son from life's uncertainties by ensuring that he had absolute power as the King, which required strengthening political and dynastic bonds. Louis XIV was to marry Queen Anne's own niece, daughter of Philip IV of Spain.
Trying to persuade the pleading King to give up the politically inconvenient relationship, Mazarin composed a letter that serves as an example of contradictory messages that the young Louis was receiving about his power: "[Mazarin] reminded the King that he was not an individual but an institution: ‘Although you are the master in a certain sense to do what you wish, nevertheless you owe an account to God of your actions for your salvation and to the world for the maintenance of your glory and your reputation’" (Chapter 4). Although he was heartbroken, Louis XVI had to do what was considered his duty. Fulfilling his mother's will, in 1660 he married his double first cousin Maria Theresa of Spain.
As a side note, it must be added that absolute (or any other) monarchs seldom had a privilege to marry for love. In fact, they had to obey rules of dynastic marriages that "could be biological, as well as personal and political, disasters. In order to maintain their prestige, European sovereigns almost always married cousins from within ‘the family of kings’, whose ties were so strong that they wore mourning for each other as relations even when they were at war. Yet the products of inbreeding are predisposed to illnesses, including madness and infertility" (Chapter 5). Most of the children born from the union between Maria Teresa and Louis died young; this might have been an adverse consequence of inbreeding, which produces less viable offspring. Louis XIV was emotionally attached to all of his children, and each death became a new heartbreak.
In 1661, the year after the royal marriage was celebrated, Mazarin passed away, which was a hard blow for the King. As Mazarin was receiving his last religious rites, "[t]he King was crying so much, he was asked to leave the bedroom" (Chapter 5). Having to say goodbye first to his love to Marie Mancini, and then to his beloved mentor the Cardinal, were possibly the first devastating experiences in Louis XIV's life. Many more were to come. Nevertheless, in his early twenties, his heart had not hardened yet as it did in the later years of his reign. In Mansel's words, "[b]etween the ages of fourteen and thirty, between the abjection of the Fronde and the intoxication of absolutism, he was affable, informal and Parisian" (Chapter 4).
Louis was now 23 years old, and he was finally able to take the reign in his hands.
"To the amazement of Louis’ family, court and ministers, the day Mazarin died the King had announced, ‘I am determined henceforth to govern my state by myself.’ He wanted no over-powerful minister or relation, not even his mother, challenging his control of the government" (Chapter 6). After all the lessons of powerlessness that Louis XIV had received in his life so far, and fueled by the conviction that absolute power was his destiny, the King was ready to take all the power he could get.
As probably any other person who has ever walked the face of the Earth, Louis XIV was full of contradictions. He wanted to use the power that, in his mind, he was supposed to have, but he was not planning on using it solely for selfish reasons. After all, he was told for the first twenty years of his life by people he respected and loved that his responsibility was to strengthen his country and the Bourbon dynasty. Louis XIV thought that he would be able to rule France the best way he could if we eliminated all the intermediaries, which was a logical assumption based on what he had experienced so far. From then on, he spent a considerable amount of time managing – even micro-managing – as many things in his state as he could, usually with the conviction that he was doing good. One of the biggest contradictions of Louis XIV's personality was that he honestly wanted to make France the strongest and most admired country, but he could delude himself into believing that this was his primary interest when in reality his actions were guided by vanity, anxieties, and biases.
Louis is known as a monarch who haughtily said, "I am the state." However, as Mansel notes, the fact of him stating that in a speech or in writing was not recorded by any contemporary observers. It appears that this famous quote is an invention. By the same token, the image of Louis XIV as an absolute monarch is often distorted by the prism of time and by other people's perceptions. This image is full of myths that can prevent us from seeing both power and powerlessness that characterized the life of this King.
Image credit: Louis XIV, c. 1655, by Charles Le Brun
Powerful/less King
Louis XIV clearly did not have absolute power as a child-king. He also did not have absolute power as a young man when Mazarin was still alive. How about the King's reign starting from the age of 23, when he began managing France as best as (he thought) he could? From then on and till the end of his life, Louis XIV's decisions influenced – and hurt – numerous people inside and outside of France. But it would be wrong to argue that he could do whatever he wanted, even as seemingly one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe of the time. It would be also wrong to argue that his life was always easy or fun, although the luxurious beauty of his court and the extravagant entertainments of Versailles suggested otherwise. Far from justifying all the mistakes that Louis XIV made during his eventful life, we can acknowledge how he tried to be a good person and to do what his thought (or wanted to think) was good for his country and people. We can also recognize how some of the King's mistakes stemmed from factors that were hard for him to fully comprehend or change, or how his delusions of grandeur coupled with anxieties about losing his power were shaped by his life's contradictions. I present details about various aspects of Louis's life and reign in the sections below.
1. King and his court
In order to understand the relationship between Louis XIV and his court, we first need to know that a court was an extended royal household. It could include thousands of individuals (many of them nobility) who lived close to the king and queen in order to serve them, but also to enjoy the power that came with this advantageous social position. When Versailles became Louis XIV's primary residence, his court, depending on the day, could consist of up to 10,000 people.
Having a large and beautiful court was considered essential for a king and queen to signal their power to the world. However, maintaining such a court was very expensive. Louis XIV poured a lot of money into first building and then improving Versailles because a royal residence needed to provide enough space for all the courtiers. Despite the strict etiquette that those had to obey, they were no slaves. In fact, they were there often not just to serve the royal family but also (and sometimes mostly) to achieve their own political and personal goals. Courts could be filled with intrigues and tensions, which sometimes created toxic environments that monarchs had to navigate on a daily basis. To Louis XIV's credit, "[he] made his family and court into an emotional community – unlike the venomous courts of the Stuarts, the Hanovers, the Romanovs and his own father, which were split by conspiracies and executions" (Chapter 14).
Both Louis XIV and his courtiers had to take part in numerous ceremonies that were not invented by any of them but inherited from previous reigns. Over time, Louis XIV introduced some innovations that made his court less formal. "[I]t was, as foreigners frequently remarked, more accessible, and less hierarchical, than other courts. Louis XIV himself disliked ceremonies and would write, in a famous phrase, ‘if there is a singularity in this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of subjects to the monarch'" (Chapter 13). Less formality meant less structure. "The Italian Primi Visconti described Louis XIV’s court as ‘a real confusion of men and women’. Another visitor from Italy... wrote in 1698: ‘when you want, you can see, talk with and almost touch the King.’ The King needed his cane not only for support, but to bar uninvited guests, or to fight to make room for the Queen and her ladies, or even for himself... Not even Louis XIV, for all the fear and awe he inspired, was in total control" (Chapter 13).
The strange combination of ceremoniousness and lack of formality characterized two essential daily rites – King's awakening ("lever") and going to bed ("coucher"). "Sometimes there were as many as a hundred men at the lever [admitted to the room after the King was dressed]... In contrast to their respectful silence in his youth, courtiers continued talking even when the King was praying by his bed. John Locke was surprised in December 1678 ‘by the noise and buzz of the rest of the chamber which is full of people standing and talking to one another’ (Chapter 13). In the process of getting ready for the day, the King would listen to the visitors and occasionally announce a piece of news. Both lever and coucher lasted for about an hour and a half. There were fewer people when the King was retiring to bed. After most of the visitors left, the part called petit [small] coucher began, when "wearing no more than his dressing gown, the King sat on his commode [toilet]. Even during his most basic functions, the King received one or two courtiers ‘by ceremony far more than by necessity’. They were proud recipients of the brevet d’affaires [chamber pot]... an honour which gave special opportunities to talk freely to the King and on occasion to ask for favours" (Chapter 13). It was not uncommon for kings and queens of the past to experience lack of privacy. On some occasions, like in the case of waking-up and going-to-bed ceremonies, Louis XIV even chose to increase this lack because he wanted to be as informal and accessible as the royal etiquette (and the need for some order) allowed.
As much as Louis XIV wanted to be in control, he would not have possibly been able to supervise everything in his country, not even in his court, himself. The King had to delegate responsibilities, so he wanted (but could not always guarantee) that they were assigned the best way possible. Not surprisingly, "[t]he King regarded job allocation as one of his principal duties" (Chapter 13). Serving this purpose "Versailles functioned as a national job centre, rather than as a gilded cage, for the nobility" (Chapter 13). Louis XIV's way to show his power was to avoid or delay job-related decisions, but this was also a way for him to make sure that jobs were given to people who deserved them. Courtiers depended on his decisions; on the downside for this King, this dependance meant that Louis XIV was constantly pestered by people who wanted something from him. For example, "[d]uring the King’s daily procession, through the Grande Galerie and the state apartment, to mass in the royal chapel, people presented petitions for jobs, pensions or promotion. The 103 placets [petitions] presented to the King at Versailles on 12 June 1702, carefully listed and summarized by an official, confirm his role as the engine in a vast machine distributing jobs and money" (Chapter 13).
Same as French people in general, courtiers could alternatively (or simultaneously) be in awe of the King and afraid of him, love him and question his actions. "Louis was aware that he was constantly criticized… Even in July 1672, at the height of Louis XIV’s success, courtiers criticized his ministers, his generals and his policies. By the end of the reign Madame de Maintenon was complaining that ‘freedom of speech in our court has been taken to excess.’ She too, however, criticized the King’s wars and entertainments in letters to friends" (Chapter 13). The King sometimes ignored these criticisms and sometimes listened to them. On a number of occasions, he welcomed in his court people who openly disagreed with him.
In fact, "the court, bringing so many intelligent and ambitious people together under one roof, fostered opposition as well as loyalty. La Fontaine and La Bruyère, for example, lived partly at court but criticized it in their writings. Saint-Simon used his years at Versailles to gather stories and information for memoirs extremely hostile to Louis XIV" (Chapter 13). Despite all this hostility, Saint-Simon also had many good things to say about the King. For example, this famous memoirist wrote about Louis XIV's charm, his "incomparable grace and majesty", about his kind-heartedness and politeness to everybody who surrounded him in court. "‘Never did anyone give with better grace, thereby augmenting the price of his favours,’ wrote Saint-Simon. [The King's] manners were more than skin deep. ‘Never was a man so naturally polite,’ Saint-Simon added: he raised his hat to every woman he met, even to the maids at Marly" (Chapter 14). According to Mansel's interpretation, based on a variety of historical sources, "Louis XIV’s warmth, charm and joie de vivre... strengthened the forces of power, fear, loyalty and ambition on which the monarchy normally relied" (Chapter 14).
1. King and his court
In order to understand the relationship between Louis XIV and his court, we first need to know that a court was an extended royal household. It could include thousands of individuals (many of them nobility) who lived close to the king and queen in order to serve them, but also to enjoy the power that came with this advantageous social position. When Versailles became Louis XIV's primary residence, his court, depending on the day, could consist of up to 10,000 people.
Having a large and beautiful court was considered essential for a king and queen to signal their power to the world. However, maintaining such a court was very expensive. Louis XIV poured a lot of money into first building and then improving Versailles because a royal residence needed to provide enough space for all the courtiers. Despite the strict etiquette that those had to obey, they were no slaves. In fact, they were there often not just to serve the royal family but also (and sometimes mostly) to achieve their own political and personal goals. Courts could be filled with intrigues and tensions, which sometimes created toxic environments that monarchs had to navigate on a daily basis. To Louis XIV's credit, "[he] made his family and court into an emotional community – unlike the venomous courts of the Stuarts, the Hanovers, the Romanovs and his own father, which were split by conspiracies and executions" (Chapter 14).
Both Louis XIV and his courtiers had to take part in numerous ceremonies that were not invented by any of them but inherited from previous reigns. Over time, Louis XIV introduced some innovations that made his court less formal. "[I]t was, as foreigners frequently remarked, more accessible, and less hierarchical, than other courts. Louis XIV himself disliked ceremonies and would write, in a famous phrase, ‘if there is a singularity in this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of subjects to the monarch'" (Chapter 13). Less formality meant less structure. "The Italian Primi Visconti described Louis XIV’s court as ‘a real confusion of men and women’. Another visitor from Italy... wrote in 1698: ‘when you want, you can see, talk with and almost touch the King.’ The King needed his cane not only for support, but to bar uninvited guests, or to fight to make room for the Queen and her ladies, or even for himself... Not even Louis XIV, for all the fear and awe he inspired, was in total control" (Chapter 13).
The strange combination of ceremoniousness and lack of formality characterized two essential daily rites – King's awakening ("lever") and going to bed ("coucher"). "Sometimes there were as many as a hundred men at the lever [admitted to the room after the King was dressed]... In contrast to their respectful silence in his youth, courtiers continued talking even when the King was praying by his bed. John Locke was surprised in December 1678 ‘by the noise and buzz of the rest of the chamber which is full of people standing and talking to one another’ (Chapter 13). In the process of getting ready for the day, the King would listen to the visitors and occasionally announce a piece of news. Both lever and coucher lasted for about an hour and a half. There were fewer people when the King was retiring to bed. After most of the visitors left, the part called petit [small] coucher began, when "wearing no more than his dressing gown, the King sat on his commode [toilet]. Even during his most basic functions, the King received one or two courtiers ‘by ceremony far more than by necessity’. They were proud recipients of the brevet d’affaires [chamber pot]... an honour which gave special opportunities to talk freely to the King and on occasion to ask for favours" (Chapter 13). It was not uncommon for kings and queens of the past to experience lack of privacy. On some occasions, like in the case of waking-up and going-to-bed ceremonies, Louis XIV even chose to increase this lack because he wanted to be as informal and accessible as the royal etiquette (and the need for some order) allowed.
As much as Louis XIV wanted to be in control, he would not have possibly been able to supervise everything in his country, not even in his court, himself. The King had to delegate responsibilities, so he wanted (but could not always guarantee) that they were assigned the best way possible. Not surprisingly, "[t]he King regarded job allocation as one of his principal duties" (Chapter 13). Serving this purpose "Versailles functioned as a national job centre, rather than as a gilded cage, for the nobility" (Chapter 13). Louis XIV's way to show his power was to avoid or delay job-related decisions, but this was also a way for him to make sure that jobs were given to people who deserved them. Courtiers depended on his decisions; on the downside for this King, this dependance meant that Louis XIV was constantly pestered by people who wanted something from him. For example, "[d]uring the King’s daily procession, through the Grande Galerie and the state apartment, to mass in the royal chapel, people presented petitions for jobs, pensions or promotion. The 103 placets [petitions] presented to the King at Versailles on 12 June 1702, carefully listed and summarized by an official, confirm his role as the engine in a vast machine distributing jobs and money" (Chapter 13).
Same as French people in general, courtiers could alternatively (or simultaneously) be in awe of the King and afraid of him, love him and question his actions. "Louis was aware that he was constantly criticized… Even in July 1672, at the height of Louis XIV’s success, courtiers criticized his ministers, his generals and his policies. By the end of the reign Madame de Maintenon was complaining that ‘freedom of speech in our court has been taken to excess.’ She too, however, criticized the King’s wars and entertainments in letters to friends" (Chapter 13). The King sometimes ignored these criticisms and sometimes listened to them. On a number of occasions, he welcomed in his court people who openly disagreed with him.
In fact, "the court, bringing so many intelligent and ambitious people together under one roof, fostered opposition as well as loyalty. La Fontaine and La Bruyère, for example, lived partly at court but criticized it in their writings. Saint-Simon used his years at Versailles to gather stories and information for memoirs extremely hostile to Louis XIV" (Chapter 13). Despite all this hostility, Saint-Simon also had many good things to say about the King. For example, this famous memoirist wrote about Louis XIV's charm, his "incomparable grace and majesty", about his kind-heartedness and politeness to everybody who surrounded him in court. "‘Never did anyone give with better grace, thereby augmenting the price of his favours,’ wrote Saint-Simon. [The King's] manners were more than skin deep. ‘Never was a man so naturally polite,’ Saint-Simon added: he raised his hat to every woman he met, even to the maids at Marly" (Chapter 14). According to Mansel's interpretation, based on a variety of historical sources, "Louis XIV’s warmth, charm and joie de vivre... strengthened the forces of power, fear, loyalty and ambition on which the monarchy normally relied" (Chapter 14).
Image credit: Louis XIV meets his Spanish bride Maria Teresa on the Island of Pheasants in 1660, a later copy painted by Jacques Laumosnier
2. Hardworking king
It is easy to picture Louis XIV spending most of his time at extravagant parties. These parties, indeed, happened, and they were as lavish as one can imagine. However, they only took a fraction of the King's time. When Louis XIV was not resting or having fun, he could be found diligently working for what he believed to be the good of France. "‘Work is the first object of His Majesty and he prefers it to everything else,’ wrote [the First Minister] Colbert. Colbert was right. Until the end of the reign the King almost never missed a council meeting, every morning from 9 to 11 from Monday to Friday, and held lengthy meetings about finances three times a week in the evening. In addition he worked alone with the secretaries of state: Lionne on Saturday and Sunday; Colbert... on Wednesday and Thursday; Le Tellier, for war, on Tuesday. He also held council meetings in the evening before supper at 10. The King’s hours were said to be as regular as a monk’s" (Chapter 7).
"Louis XIV spent as much time with his ministers as with his family, his court officials or his mistresses" (Chapter 14). It helped that the King was by nature very energetic. "Louis XIV’s enjoyment of his court was heightened by his stupendous vitality. He could work six or seven hours a day, or more, in addition to performing the daily rituals of the lever, mass, public dinner and coucher, and following a strenuous outdoor routine of hunts, shoots and walks" (Chapter 14). Of course, Louis XIV's dedication can be explained by his intention to govern the country by himself, which he expressed in his early twenties. This dedication can be also explained by the fear that, if he had let other people take too much responsibility, he would not have been in control. There was certainly an element of vanity, as Louis XIV wanted to take responsibility as well as credit. But there was also sincere commitment and curiosity, as the King strived to understand different aspects of France and its relationships with other countries by himself, rather than rely on knowledge of intermediaries.
Whether he was indeed able to govern the way he wanted, remains an open question.
"Despite the King’s hard work, and his access to information from non-ministerial sources, many believed that... he could be ‘absolutely governed by his ministers’. Absolutism could be a façade hiding the power of ministers and factions to persuade the King to take the decisions they wanted. He could be their instrument not their master" (Chapter 14). The truth might be hiding somewhere in-between these two extreme views. Louis XIV was probably not absolutely governed by his ministers, but he also did not have absolute power over them.
Louis's addiction to micro-management continued during war time. "On 14 March 1691 Dangeau wrote: ‘the King is never for one moment not working.’ He inspected French trenches around the city for six hours at a time and worked on political affairs in the evening" (Chapter 18). When not on campaign, the King spent hours trying to understand and control what was going on in the field. For example, when war minister Louvois passed away and Louvois's son Barbezieux was appointed to take his place, Louis was happy to take most responsibility for all the war-related decisions in his hands. He "worked with Barbezieux many hours most days, dictating letters for the minister to write in his own name, or writing letters in his own hand. Louis also wrote hundreds of letters about the war to princes, generals, army intendants, directly through his own secretaries, rather than through the Secretary of State for War. Many thought the King had become his own war minister. He drew up plans of campaign, and selected and promoted officers himself" (Chapter 18).
The value of this and other instances of war-related micro-management have been questioned by Louis XIV's contemporaries as well as by historians. "Louis’ critics... said that, as supreme warlord, he hampered generals’ actions in the field by micro-management from his office at Versailles" (Chapter 18). They pointed out that the King's hard work was not always selfless, but rather a way to prove to himself and others that he was in control. For example, after France's victory in one siege, memoirist "Le Peletier... wrote that the siege had been undertaken by Louis XIV for emotional rather than military reasons, to flatter himself: ‘to show all Europe that without the help of [the War Minister] M. de Louvois His Majesty on his own could execute a great design’. Indeed Louis’ own account confirms Le Peletier. He wrote that he was ‘all the more satisfied by his conquest because this great expedition was entirely his own work... he had undertaken it [guided] solely by his own judgement; executed it, so to say, with his own hands’" (Chapter 18).
Although the King's working style was initially well-intentioned, as time went by, this approach created more problems than it solved. In fact, Mansel believes that "[t]he King’s methods of government, and delusions about French power, would contribute to the disasters of the second half of his reign" (Chapter 14). Louis XIV did not learn from his early mistakes. During subsequent wars, "[e]ven more than before, generals were paralysed by micro-management from Versailles. Working late into the night, the King sent frequent couriers to his generals, with demands for the smallest details of news, and counsels of prudence, as is clear from many letters in his hasty, sprawling handwriting" (Chapter 20).
While Louis XIV was not just a partying king, and despite the fact that he worked hard (partially) because he wanted to bring glory to France and its people, the King's actions weakened his country. Ruling France the way he wanted, understanding motivations behind his own decisions, or fully grasping their outcomes was outside of Louis XIV's power. Beyond his vanity and the sincere commitment to the good of France, the King's attempts to micro-manage everything, from wars to the construction of Versailles, reveal his anxieties, his fear of not being in control.
3. King's image
Louis XIV considered maintaining the political and cultural status of France as his essential responsibility. One might note that to achieve this goal, the King conveniently needed to maintain his own status, which let him justify enormous expenses related to food, clothes, and residence, as well as to such entertainments as balls, hunting, and theater. After working hard for several hours and taking part in ceremonies that he did not enjoy, the King could relax at a party while telling himself that its extravagance was required for showing the glory of France to people inside and outside of the country. "His parties, like Versailles itself, were... intended to impress ‘all our subjects in general’ and Europe. The Gazette de France wrote that the [these beautiful entertainments] showed that Louis XIV was the first monarch in the world. Louis wrote in his memoirs – pretending that parties were organized only for the good of his country, rather than also for his pleasure – that such [parties] made ‘a very advantageous impression’, on foreigners as well as Frenchmen, ‘of magnificence, of power, of wealth and grandeur’" (Chapter 13).
Indeed, the impression was powerful. France of the time was a major cultural center in almost everything related to fashion and art. French court's dresses were copied by monarchs and nobility around Europe. French styles were popular among elites even in countries that were at war with France. Although Louis XIV most certainly derived a lot of pleasure from sending these messages of wealth and fashion to the world, maintaining the image of cultural power was not easy, as it required constant work and a lot of money (and money, as we will see in one of the sections below, was an issue).
2. Hardworking king
It is easy to picture Louis XIV spending most of his time at extravagant parties. These parties, indeed, happened, and they were as lavish as one can imagine. However, they only took a fraction of the King's time. When Louis XIV was not resting or having fun, he could be found diligently working for what he believed to be the good of France. "‘Work is the first object of His Majesty and he prefers it to everything else,’ wrote [the First Minister] Colbert. Colbert was right. Until the end of the reign the King almost never missed a council meeting, every morning from 9 to 11 from Monday to Friday, and held lengthy meetings about finances three times a week in the evening. In addition he worked alone with the secretaries of state: Lionne on Saturday and Sunday; Colbert... on Wednesday and Thursday; Le Tellier, for war, on Tuesday. He also held council meetings in the evening before supper at 10. The King’s hours were said to be as regular as a monk’s" (Chapter 7).
"Louis XIV spent as much time with his ministers as with his family, his court officials or his mistresses" (Chapter 14). It helped that the King was by nature very energetic. "Louis XIV’s enjoyment of his court was heightened by his stupendous vitality. He could work six or seven hours a day, or more, in addition to performing the daily rituals of the lever, mass, public dinner and coucher, and following a strenuous outdoor routine of hunts, shoots and walks" (Chapter 14). Of course, Louis XIV's dedication can be explained by his intention to govern the country by himself, which he expressed in his early twenties. This dedication can be also explained by the fear that, if he had let other people take too much responsibility, he would not have been in control. There was certainly an element of vanity, as Louis XIV wanted to take responsibility as well as credit. But there was also sincere commitment and curiosity, as the King strived to understand different aspects of France and its relationships with other countries by himself, rather than rely on knowledge of intermediaries.
Whether he was indeed able to govern the way he wanted, remains an open question.
"Despite the King’s hard work, and his access to information from non-ministerial sources, many believed that... he could be ‘absolutely governed by his ministers’. Absolutism could be a façade hiding the power of ministers and factions to persuade the King to take the decisions they wanted. He could be their instrument not their master" (Chapter 14). The truth might be hiding somewhere in-between these two extreme views. Louis XIV was probably not absolutely governed by his ministers, but he also did not have absolute power over them.
Louis's addiction to micro-management continued during war time. "On 14 March 1691 Dangeau wrote: ‘the King is never for one moment not working.’ He inspected French trenches around the city for six hours at a time and worked on political affairs in the evening" (Chapter 18). When not on campaign, the King spent hours trying to understand and control what was going on in the field. For example, when war minister Louvois passed away and Louvois's son Barbezieux was appointed to take his place, Louis was happy to take most responsibility for all the war-related decisions in his hands. He "worked with Barbezieux many hours most days, dictating letters for the minister to write in his own name, or writing letters in his own hand. Louis also wrote hundreds of letters about the war to princes, generals, army intendants, directly through his own secretaries, rather than through the Secretary of State for War. Many thought the King had become his own war minister. He drew up plans of campaign, and selected and promoted officers himself" (Chapter 18).
The value of this and other instances of war-related micro-management have been questioned by Louis XIV's contemporaries as well as by historians. "Louis’ critics... said that, as supreme warlord, he hampered generals’ actions in the field by micro-management from his office at Versailles" (Chapter 18). They pointed out that the King's hard work was not always selfless, but rather a way to prove to himself and others that he was in control. For example, after France's victory in one siege, memoirist "Le Peletier... wrote that the siege had been undertaken by Louis XIV for emotional rather than military reasons, to flatter himself: ‘to show all Europe that without the help of [the War Minister] M. de Louvois His Majesty on his own could execute a great design’. Indeed Louis’ own account confirms Le Peletier. He wrote that he was ‘all the more satisfied by his conquest because this great expedition was entirely his own work... he had undertaken it [guided] solely by his own judgement; executed it, so to say, with his own hands’" (Chapter 18).
Although the King's working style was initially well-intentioned, as time went by, this approach created more problems than it solved. In fact, Mansel believes that "[t]he King’s methods of government, and delusions about French power, would contribute to the disasters of the second half of his reign" (Chapter 14). Louis XIV did not learn from his early mistakes. During subsequent wars, "[e]ven more than before, generals were paralysed by micro-management from Versailles. Working late into the night, the King sent frequent couriers to his generals, with demands for the smallest details of news, and counsels of prudence, as is clear from many letters in his hasty, sprawling handwriting" (Chapter 20).
While Louis XIV was not just a partying king, and despite the fact that he worked hard (partially) because he wanted to bring glory to France and its people, the King's actions weakened his country. Ruling France the way he wanted, understanding motivations behind his own decisions, or fully grasping their outcomes was outside of Louis XIV's power. Beyond his vanity and the sincere commitment to the good of France, the King's attempts to micro-manage everything, from wars to the construction of Versailles, reveal his anxieties, his fear of not being in control.
3. King's image
Louis XIV considered maintaining the political and cultural status of France as his essential responsibility. One might note that to achieve this goal, the King conveniently needed to maintain his own status, which let him justify enormous expenses related to food, clothes, and residence, as well as to such entertainments as balls, hunting, and theater. After working hard for several hours and taking part in ceremonies that he did not enjoy, the King could relax at a party while telling himself that its extravagance was required for showing the glory of France to people inside and outside of the country. "His parties, like Versailles itself, were... intended to impress ‘all our subjects in general’ and Europe. The Gazette de France wrote that the [these beautiful entertainments] showed that Louis XIV was the first monarch in the world. Louis wrote in his memoirs – pretending that parties were organized only for the good of his country, rather than also for his pleasure – that such [parties] made ‘a very advantageous impression’, on foreigners as well as Frenchmen, ‘of magnificence, of power, of wealth and grandeur’" (Chapter 13).
Indeed, the impression was powerful. France of the time was a major cultural center in almost everything related to fashion and art. French court's dresses were copied by monarchs and nobility around Europe. French styles were popular among elites even in countries that were at war with France. Although Louis XIV most certainly derived a lot of pleasure from sending these messages of wealth and fashion to the world, maintaining the image of cultural power was not easy, as it required constant work and a lot of money (and money, as we will see in one of the sections below, was an issue).
Image credit: Versailles by Armand Khoury
Finding a justification in the need to uphold France's status, Louis XIV extended his micro-management to everything related to Versailles. There, he "was not merely following fashion or building what he thought a king of France should build. Unlike other monarchs, he decided every aspect of the plan and decoration, and often visited the building site" (Chapter 8). Unlike Parisian attitudes and many other things in France that Louis XIV could not fully control, Versailles as a physical space was where the King felt that he was in charge. As a result of all the work and money put into it, Versailles inevitably left foreign ambassadors and other travelers deeply impressed. But it would be wrong to assume that these outsiders were the only audience allowed to marvel at France's grandeur embodied in the King's majestic residence. Any ordinary French men and women were welcome to visit as well. Thus, apart from the grandeur, accessibility was another aspect of the King's image that he diligently cultivated. (Of course, one might also point out that such accessibility was also useful to assert Louis's power inside France.)
"The public was usually allowed into the gardens and palace of Versailles ‘without distinction of sex, age or condition’. Only the dirty or diseased were stopped by the Gardes du Corps at the entrances. Sometimes, however, the King preferred to be alone when giving orders to the gardeners. The garden was also closed if the King felt ‘overwhelmed’ by the multitude of people, ‘above all from Paris’; ‘la canaille’ [scoundrels], [as one memoirist wrote] damaged the statues and vases. However, Louis XIV’s sense of kingship trumped his love of privacy: the public was always allowed back. Without the public, the gardens would have lost their purpose. In 1704 the King ordered fences to be removed from the bosquets [regular gardens] of Versailles so that the public could enjoy walking inside them (which it cannot now do, except on the few days the fountains are playing). Versailles was built for Europe, as well as for France" (Chapter 12). In another instance of micro-management, Louis XIV wrote his own guidebook titled The Way to Show the Gardens of Versailles, and he subsequently rewrote it six times.
This accessibility extended beyond Versailles. "The public could also wander in and out of the courtyards of the Louvre and its apartments, even in the evening after dinner. As [the King's mother] was dying, for example, Paris workmen came to her guard room in the Louvre to learn the news. A visiting Italian called Sébastien Locatelli (whose description is confirmed by other contemporaries) wrote in 1665: ‘the King wants all his subjects to enter freely so that he can be informed if necessary of very important events like rebellions, treasons and threats of revolt’... Louis XIV’s collections of sculpture and paintings in the Louvre, his furniture in the Garde-meuble, the royal library and the Gobelins factory could be visited by members of the public, if they were well dressed. Thus the court of France inspired and financed creativity, gave artists space in which to work and displayed the results to the public" (Chapter 8).
While we can see how the accessibility cultivated by Louis XIV was meant to contribute to his power, it was not possible without certain sacrifices that marked his powerlessness. Accessibility could sometimes encourage disrespect that the King could not or did not want to do anything about. When during some festivities the public was invited to the gardens of Versailles, the crowd could be hard to control. For example, during a festivity to celebrate the end of a war, "[m]ost ambassadors left early... after they had been jostled by hordes of unruly guests, as they often were at the French court. The Gardes du Corps could not or would not control them. The Queen herself had to wait half an hour before she could enter the theatre, while the King had to ask gentlemen to leave, to ensure that she and other ladies were given seats" (Chapter 13). On another occasion, "[i]n the scramble for supper after the ball, Monsieur [Louis's brother] was knocked to the ground and trampled on. The King too was jostled, and had to use his cane to make space for the ladies. However, the Venetian Ambassador was impressed. ‘At that hour when the glory and grandeur of France were made manifest, one can see how poor, how despicable are the imitations of other nations’" (Chapter 18).
Louis XIV also wanted to be seen as a modern king. Despite his dislike of France's capital city, he spent considerable resources modernizing it, to Parisians' benefit. He "made Paris one of Europe’s most modern cities... with the best shops and post service. Public carriages able to take up to eight passengers began on certain routes in 1662. The city walls were demolished after 1669 and turned into tree-lined boulevards. An English visitor in 1672 called Francis Tallents was impressed by the ‘wondrous clean and handsome’ streets, the ‘great and excellent order’ and the lack of beggars... In 1667 Louis XIV also introduced public lighting to Paris – the first city in Europe to have it, before Amsterdam and London. Lamps, hanging 15 feet above the street, from ropes attached to buildings on each side, made the city safer, encouraging Parisians to go out at night. There were 5,400 such lights by 1702. Louis XIV’s and [his First Minister] Colbert’s most original achievement was the expansion of the Louvre into the ‘palace of the arts’ which it remains to this day" (Chapter 8).
The King's preoccupation with his image certainly had a dark side. "On 19 October 1684 Louis XIV announced at the lever his plan to divert and canalize part of the River Eure, 40 miles to the west, in order to bring more water to the reservoirs and improve water pressure at Versailles… Some 1,500 soldiers died during the operations. More fell ill from the marshy air and bad water, and later spread diseases among other troops. Vauban, the voice of reason, was appalled, criticizing the King in a letter to Louvois on 29 June 1685 for trying to surpass the Romans while ruling only a tenth of their Empire: ‘the King will be accountable to all nations and to posterity.’ As with the construction of Versailles on a bad site, the difficulty of the enterprise was part of its attraction. Louis XIV wanted to demonstrate omnipotence" (Chapter 12). In the following years, many more people would be sacrificed to the Sun King's pursuit of glory and immortality.
The King worked so hard to control his image that he failed to notice how, for lack of better words, his image was controlling him. The fact that many see Louis XIV as a monarch who had absolute power is a result not only of the King's efforts but also of other people's assumptions about him. These assumptions were often expressed through flattery, which royal subjects used not only because they were afraid of the King but also because they wanted something from him. Louis XIV was happy to hear himself described as a monarch with absolute power because these words suggested that he had achieved what, according to his mother, was rightfully his. As a person who, on many occasions, was not in complete control of what was going on in his country, in his court, and even in his personal life, embracing the image of the absolutely powerful King was highly attractive for Louis XIV. He craved flattery so much that over the years this became a sort of addiction that gradually changed his personality and allowed him to justify many cruel decisions in the second half of his reign.
"By 1680, in his own eyes, Louis XIV was master of France and arbiter of Europe. Colbert wrote that year, exaggerating government control, ‘everything reflects total submission . . . the authority of the Parlement reduced to a point where only the shadow of it remains.’ Even ‘the misery and distress of the peoples’ served royal power, since the King could control ‘this proud and inconstant nation with the restraint of extreme necessity’... Versailles was considered the wonder of the world. Royal academies glorified the King, the monarchy and France. Louis XIV had won almost universal admiration as administrator, commander, patron and king. Yet his achievements hid inner weaknesses. As a young man Louis had been considered kind and ‘civil and courteous beyond anything one can imagine’. By the age of forty, blinded by flattery, power, success, a new man had emerged... Narcissism, tactlessness, lack of realism and failure to foresee consequences had become characteristics of Louis XIV" (Chapter 14).
The King was a celebrity of the time, and celebrities are often overwhelmed by attention and misunderstood by people who claim to know them. Royal subjects felt special when they were allowed in his presence. But when not close to the King, they could enjoy gossiping about him and picking apart his flaws. When he died, people cried but also rejoiced, ignoring his suffering. As it happens with celebrities, those who were in awe of the King did not really understand him as a person, with his concerns and joys, heartbreaks and worries. But they certainly expected a lot from him, and different people expected different things. For example, during wars that devastated France financially and made it one of the most hated countries in Europe, ordinary French men and women were understandably outraged by taxes, but many were also proud of their country's victories. Some even wanted the King to reject peace offers and keep fighting for the glory of the country.
King's subjects, as well as Louis XIV himself, were captives of the same illusions associated with absolute monarchy. Ironically, Louis often ignored how his actions aimed to maintain France's glory actually damaged its image. In particular, the wars he waged and his persecution of Protestants (to be discussed below) undermined the glory of France and turned him into the most unpopular monarch of the time.
Finding a justification in the need to uphold France's status, Louis XIV extended his micro-management to everything related to Versailles. There, he "was not merely following fashion or building what he thought a king of France should build. Unlike other monarchs, he decided every aspect of the plan and decoration, and often visited the building site" (Chapter 8). Unlike Parisian attitudes and many other things in France that Louis XIV could not fully control, Versailles as a physical space was where the King felt that he was in charge. As a result of all the work and money put into it, Versailles inevitably left foreign ambassadors and other travelers deeply impressed. But it would be wrong to assume that these outsiders were the only audience allowed to marvel at France's grandeur embodied in the King's majestic residence. Any ordinary French men and women were welcome to visit as well. Thus, apart from the grandeur, accessibility was another aspect of the King's image that he diligently cultivated. (Of course, one might also point out that such accessibility was also useful to assert Louis's power inside France.)
"The public was usually allowed into the gardens and palace of Versailles ‘without distinction of sex, age or condition’. Only the dirty or diseased were stopped by the Gardes du Corps at the entrances. Sometimes, however, the King preferred to be alone when giving orders to the gardeners. The garden was also closed if the King felt ‘overwhelmed’ by the multitude of people, ‘above all from Paris’; ‘la canaille’ [scoundrels], [as one memoirist wrote] damaged the statues and vases. However, Louis XIV’s sense of kingship trumped his love of privacy: the public was always allowed back. Without the public, the gardens would have lost their purpose. In 1704 the King ordered fences to be removed from the bosquets [regular gardens] of Versailles so that the public could enjoy walking inside them (which it cannot now do, except on the few days the fountains are playing). Versailles was built for Europe, as well as for France" (Chapter 12). In another instance of micro-management, Louis XIV wrote his own guidebook titled The Way to Show the Gardens of Versailles, and he subsequently rewrote it six times.
This accessibility extended beyond Versailles. "The public could also wander in and out of the courtyards of the Louvre and its apartments, even in the evening after dinner. As [the King's mother] was dying, for example, Paris workmen came to her guard room in the Louvre to learn the news. A visiting Italian called Sébastien Locatelli (whose description is confirmed by other contemporaries) wrote in 1665: ‘the King wants all his subjects to enter freely so that he can be informed if necessary of very important events like rebellions, treasons and threats of revolt’... Louis XIV’s collections of sculpture and paintings in the Louvre, his furniture in the Garde-meuble, the royal library and the Gobelins factory could be visited by members of the public, if they were well dressed. Thus the court of France inspired and financed creativity, gave artists space in which to work and displayed the results to the public" (Chapter 8).
While we can see how the accessibility cultivated by Louis XIV was meant to contribute to his power, it was not possible without certain sacrifices that marked his powerlessness. Accessibility could sometimes encourage disrespect that the King could not or did not want to do anything about. When during some festivities the public was invited to the gardens of Versailles, the crowd could be hard to control. For example, during a festivity to celebrate the end of a war, "[m]ost ambassadors left early... after they had been jostled by hordes of unruly guests, as they often were at the French court. The Gardes du Corps could not or would not control them. The Queen herself had to wait half an hour before she could enter the theatre, while the King had to ask gentlemen to leave, to ensure that she and other ladies were given seats" (Chapter 13). On another occasion, "[i]n the scramble for supper after the ball, Monsieur [Louis's brother] was knocked to the ground and trampled on. The King too was jostled, and had to use his cane to make space for the ladies. However, the Venetian Ambassador was impressed. ‘At that hour when the glory and grandeur of France were made manifest, one can see how poor, how despicable are the imitations of other nations’" (Chapter 18).
Louis XIV also wanted to be seen as a modern king. Despite his dislike of France's capital city, he spent considerable resources modernizing it, to Parisians' benefit. He "made Paris one of Europe’s most modern cities... with the best shops and post service. Public carriages able to take up to eight passengers began on certain routes in 1662. The city walls were demolished after 1669 and turned into tree-lined boulevards. An English visitor in 1672 called Francis Tallents was impressed by the ‘wondrous clean and handsome’ streets, the ‘great and excellent order’ and the lack of beggars... In 1667 Louis XIV also introduced public lighting to Paris – the first city in Europe to have it, before Amsterdam and London. Lamps, hanging 15 feet above the street, from ropes attached to buildings on each side, made the city safer, encouraging Parisians to go out at night. There were 5,400 such lights by 1702. Louis XIV’s and [his First Minister] Colbert’s most original achievement was the expansion of the Louvre into the ‘palace of the arts’ which it remains to this day" (Chapter 8).
The King's preoccupation with his image certainly had a dark side. "On 19 October 1684 Louis XIV announced at the lever his plan to divert and canalize part of the River Eure, 40 miles to the west, in order to bring more water to the reservoirs and improve water pressure at Versailles… Some 1,500 soldiers died during the operations. More fell ill from the marshy air and bad water, and later spread diseases among other troops. Vauban, the voice of reason, was appalled, criticizing the King in a letter to Louvois on 29 June 1685 for trying to surpass the Romans while ruling only a tenth of their Empire: ‘the King will be accountable to all nations and to posterity.’ As with the construction of Versailles on a bad site, the difficulty of the enterprise was part of its attraction. Louis XIV wanted to demonstrate omnipotence" (Chapter 12). In the following years, many more people would be sacrificed to the Sun King's pursuit of glory and immortality.
The King worked so hard to control his image that he failed to notice how, for lack of better words, his image was controlling him. The fact that many see Louis XIV as a monarch who had absolute power is a result not only of the King's efforts but also of other people's assumptions about him. These assumptions were often expressed through flattery, which royal subjects used not only because they were afraid of the King but also because they wanted something from him. Louis XIV was happy to hear himself described as a monarch with absolute power because these words suggested that he had achieved what, according to his mother, was rightfully his. As a person who, on many occasions, was not in complete control of what was going on in his country, in his court, and even in his personal life, embracing the image of the absolutely powerful King was highly attractive for Louis XIV. He craved flattery so much that over the years this became a sort of addiction that gradually changed his personality and allowed him to justify many cruel decisions in the second half of his reign.
"By 1680, in his own eyes, Louis XIV was master of France and arbiter of Europe. Colbert wrote that year, exaggerating government control, ‘everything reflects total submission . . . the authority of the Parlement reduced to a point where only the shadow of it remains.’ Even ‘the misery and distress of the peoples’ served royal power, since the King could control ‘this proud and inconstant nation with the restraint of extreme necessity’... Versailles was considered the wonder of the world. Royal academies glorified the King, the monarchy and France. Louis XIV had won almost universal admiration as administrator, commander, patron and king. Yet his achievements hid inner weaknesses. As a young man Louis had been considered kind and ‘civil and courteous beyond anything one can imagine’. By the age of forty, blinded by flattery, power, success, a new man had emerged... Narcissism, tactlessness, lack of realism and failure to foresee consequences had become characteristics of Louis XIV" (Chapter 14).
The King was a celebrity of the time, and celebrities are often overwhelmed by attention and misunderstood by people who claim to know them. Royal subjects felt special when they were allowed in his presence. But when not close to the King, they could enjoy gossiping about him and picking apart his flaws. When he died, people cried but also rejoiced, ignoring his suffering. As it happens with celebrities, those who were in awe of the King did not really understand him as a person, with his concerns and joys, heartbreaks and worries. But they certainly expected a lot from him, and different people expected different things. For example, during wars that devastated France financially and made it one of the most hated countries in Europe, ordinary French men and women were understandably outraged by taxes, but many were also proud of their country's victories. Some even wanted the King to reject peace offers and keep fighting for the glory of the country.
King's subjects, as well as Louis XIV himself, were captives of the same illusions associated with absolute monarchy. Ironically, Louis often ignored how his actions aimed to maintain France's glory actually damaged its image. In particular, the wars he waged and his persecution of Protestants (to be discussed below) undermined the glory of France and turned him into the most unpopular monarch of the time.
Image credit: Louis d’or of Louis XIV (1709), National Museum of American History
4. King and money
Louis XIV inherited France on the verge of bankruptcy. The King's favorite mentor Mazarin contributed to this pitiful state: over almost twenty years of being an informal ruler of the country, the Cardinal accumulated significant wealth. Just like Louis XIV himself, it's difficult to describe Mazarin as simply a villain or a hero. While he embezzled significant amounts of money, becoming one the richest people in Europe of the time, the Cardinal also brought several important military and diplomatic victories to France. "Mazarin left France the leading power in Europe, but his accumulation of a vast personal gold reserve, as well as jewels and other treasures, had exacerbated France’s financial problems" (Chapter 5).
As much as Louis XIV loved his mentor and admired Mazarin's political genius, the King was also aware of the Cardinal's flaws. One can argue that Louis XIV's decision to rule France without intermediaries, expressed right after Mazarin's passing, was a result of the King's observation of the Cardinal's rapacity. To counter its effects, freed from Mazarin's influence, Louis began his reign with administrative and fiscal reforms. "Mastering institutional and individual opposition, Louis XIV was able to devote himself to an ambitious reform programme to galvanize the economy and modernize the monarchy" (Chapter 7).
Early in his reign, Louis XIV got rid of Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances. Fouquet's rapacity was similar to Mazarin's, but it was coupled with personal ambition that threatened the King's status and power. The treatment received by Fouquet was harsh. He lost his post and money, and was imprisoned for life. "The former Surintendant des Finances was condemned to solitary confinement in the castle of Pignerol in the Alps. He was not at first permitted to take exercise. Only in 1674, after thirteen years, was he allowed to exchange two letters a year with his wife. She and his family were not allowed to visit him until a year before he died. Louis XIV had shown a streak of cruelty, hitherto unsuspected, from which many thousands more, inside and outside France, would suffer in the future" (Chapter 6).
From then on, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the future First Minister of State, was in charge of finances. Although he helped Louis XIV to strengthen France – in particular, by developing its trade – Colbert's financial indiscretions were not much different than those of Mazarin or Fouquet before him. This contradiction is another example of how, as much as Louis XIV tried, he kept failing to surround himself with people who would strengthen France in important ways without weakening it in others.
Louis XIV also struggled, and was not entirely able, to create an effective system of collecting taxes. It is easy to imagine a greedy and selfish king imposing excessive taxes on the poor while bathing in luxury. While bearing some resemblance with reality, this story is incomplete if we don't take into account some additional details. The poor were, indeed, the ones who had to suffer most of the taxation burden. But the unjust taxes were a result of the financial system that the King could not entirely control. Direct taxes, once collected, passed through many intermediaries. Money that reached the King's treasury was sometimes significantly less than what was initially obtained from taxpayers. Indirect taxes were collected by so-called tax farmers, hired officials who often embezzled money. As a result of these ineffective processes, the state never received all the money that taxpayers paid, and some years the difference was striking. For example, when Fouquet was in power "the King was receiving only 35 or 40 per cent of the value of French taxes" (Chapter 6).
One can rightfully note that placing most of the tax burden on the poor was outrageously unjust. Why didn't the King tax the rich people? The reason was that Louis XIV had a bargain with the nobility, who agreed to support the King if he freed them from the financial burden of taxation. Louis XIV, who had experienced what a nobility's revolt could look like during the Fronde, knew that his own power depended on the actions of the elites. Only towards the end of his reign Louis was able to impose some form of direct tax on nobility, and he did it only when the stress of fighting with them was outweighed by stresses of financially devastating wars. Even then, the new system was still not entirely effective, since some members of the aristocratic class were able to obtain exemptions.
With all its ineffectiveness, the tax system was often not able to support the State's growing needs, especially the expenses associated with the wars. Where did the King get the money? One revenue source was selling jobs to nobility, which then made the whole system further ineffective, feeding into the never-ending vicious circle. Another strategy was taking loans from bankers. "The government avoided bankruptcy by short-term borrowing at disastrous interest rates (far higher than those paid by its enemies) and creating more offices to sell. By 1708 government debt would reach 2 billion livres and servicing it would absorb over 50 per cent of government expenditure: 470 of 756 million livres" (Chapter 20). During the worst times, "revenues were spent four years in advance, and the government was borrowing at 16 per cent interest or more" (Chapter 24).
Versailles' luxury was real, but it was hiding the King's constant struggles to get France out of financial ruin. "Louis’ reign was a glorious façade, masking the continued power of financiers and beginning and ending in semi-bankruptcy" (Chapter 24). Of course, we can rebuke Louis XIV for enjoying the expensive lifestyle he is famous for. We can argue that he could have made choices (related to the cost of his residence, parties, wars, etc.) that would have required less money. But we should also remember about all the expectations of supporting the political, cultural, and personal image that Louis XIV felt the need to respond to. We should also wonder if the King's life experiences equipped him with the ability to understand how to navigate these expectations in a way that would appear more reasonable and less selfish to us today.
4. King and money
Louis XIV inherited France on the verge of bankruptcy. The King's favorite mentor Mazarin contributed to this pitiful state: over almost twenty years of being an informal ruler of the country, the Cardinal accumulated significant wealth. Just like Louis XIV himself, it's difficult to describe Mazarin as simply a villain or a hero. While he embezzled significant amounts of money, becoming one the richest people in Europe of the time, the Cardinal also brought several important military and diplomatic victories to France. "Mazarin left France the leading power in Europe, but his accumulation of a vast personal gold reserve, as well as jewels and other treasures, had exacerbated France’s financial problems" (Chapter 5).
As much as Louis XIV loved his mentor and admired Mazarin's political genius, the King was also aware of the Cardinal's flaws. One can argue that Louis XIV's decision to rule France without intermediaries, expressed right after Mazarin's passing, was a result of the King's observation of the Cardinal's rapacity. To counter its effects, freed from Mazarin's influence, Louis began his reign with administrative and fiscal reforms. "Mastering institutional and individual opposition, Louis XIV was able to devote himself to an ambitious reform programme to galvanize the economy and modernize the monarchy" (Chapter 7).
Early in his reign, Louis XIV got rid of Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances. Fouquet's rapacity was similar to Mazarin's, but it was coupled with personal ambition that threatened the King's status and power. The treatment received by Fouquet was harsh. He lost his post and money, and was imprisoned for life. "The former Surintendant des Finances was condemned to solitary confinement in the castle of Pignerol in the Alps. He was not at first permitted to take exercise. Only in 1674, after thirteen years, was he allowed to exchange two letters a year with his wife. She and his family were not allowed to visit him until a year before he died. Louis XIV had shown a streak of cruelty, hitherto unsuspected, from which many thousands more, inside and outside France, would suffer in the future" (Chapter 6).
From then on, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the future First Minister of State, was in charge of finances. Although he helped Louis XIV to strengthen France – in particular, by developing its trade – Colbert's financial indiscretions were not much different than those of Mazarin or Fouquet before him. This contradiction is another example of how, as much as Louis XIV tried, he kept failing to surround himself with people who would strengthen France in important ways without weakening it in others.
Louis XIV also struggled, and was not entirely able, to create an effective system of collecting taxes. It is easy to imagine a greedy and selfish king imposing excessive taxes on the poor while bathing in luxury. While bearing some resemblance with reality, this story is incomplete if we don't take into account some additional details. The poor were, indeed, the ones who had to suffer most of the taxation burden. But the unjust taxes were a result of the financial system that the King could not entirely control. Direct taxes, once collected, passed through many intermediaries. Money that reached the King's treasury was sometimes significantly less than what was initially obtained from taxpayers. Indirect taxes were collected by so-called tax farmers, hired officials who often embezzled money. As a result of these ineffective processes, the state never received all the money that taxpayers paid, and some years the difference was striking. For example, when Fouquet was in power "the King was receiving only 35 or 40 per cent of the value of French taxes" (Chapter 6).
One can rightfully note that placing most of the tax burden on the poor was outrageously unjust. Why didn't the King tax the rich people? The reason was that Louis XIV had a bargain with the nobility, who agreed to support the King if he freed them from the financial burden of taxation. Louis XIV, who had experienced what a nobility's revolt could look like during the Fronde, knew that his own power depended on the actions of the elites. Only towards the end of his reign Louis was able to impose some form of direct tax on nobility, and he did it only when the stress of fighting with them was outweighed by stresses of financially devastating wars. Even then, the new system was still not entirely effective, since some members of the aristocratic class were able to obtain exemptions.
With all its ineffectiveness, the tax system was often not able to support the State's growing needs, especially the expenses associated with the wars. Where did the King get the money? One revenue source was selling jobs to nobility, which then made the whole system further ineffective, feeding into the never-ending vicious circle. Another strategy was taking loans from bankers. "The government avoided bankruptcy by short-term borrowing at disastrous interest rates (far higher than those paid by its enemies) and creating more offices to sell. By 1708 government debt would reach 2 billion livres and servicing it would absorb over 50 per cent of government expenditure: 470 of 756 million livres" (Chapter 20). During the worst times, "revenues were spent four years in advance, and the government was borrowing at 16 per cent interest or more" (Chapter 24).
Versailles' luxury was real, but it was hiding the King's constant struggles to get France out of financial ruin. "Louis’ reign was a glorious façade, masking the continued power of financiers and beginning and ending in semi-bankruptcy" (Chapter 24). Of course, we can rebuke Louis XIV for enjoying the expensive lifestyle he is famous for. We can argue that he could have made choices (related to the cost of his residence, parties, wars, etc.) that would have required less money. But we should also remember about all the expectations of supporting the political, cultural, and personal image that Louis XIV felt the need to respond to. We should also wonder if the King's life experiences equipped him with the ability to understand how to navigate these expectations in a way that would appear more reasonable and less selfish to us today.
Image: Louis XIV crosses the Rhine at Lobith, June 12, 1672, by Adam Frans van der Meulen.
5. King at war
The worst mistakes of Louis XIV's reign were, arguably, his wars and the treatment of Protestants. Notably, both of these mistakes were made in the second half of the Sun King's reign, when his biases and anxieties were getting the better of him. These mistakes also reflect Louis' delusions of absolute power: he thought he could achieve results that turned out to be outside of his control. Let us first take a look at Louis XIV's military pursuits.
As part of his project to strengthen the country, Louis started his reign by reorganizing the army. Under Marquis de Louvois, the new Secretary of War who worked with Louis XIV to support this important transition, the French army turned into a remarkably modernized, disciplined, and well-trained war machine. "One of Louis’ long-term ambitions, in addition to his drives to modernize and enlarge France, and to become the arbiter of Europe, was to win France a global empire" (Chapter 6). With his new army, he was ready to work towards these goals.
Unfortunately, Louis XIV did not see war as something to be avoided, but as a desirable opportunity to increase France's and his own glory. Arrogance and vanity, worsening with age, played a role in his ill-conceived military decisions. We should also consider what Louis XIV was brought up to believe and how he was taught to act. In the minds of children growing up in noble and royal households of the time, war was normalized and celebrated. The King had learned early on that he was supposed to be a great warrior, victor, and military leader. "From the age of five he... drilled a troop of enfants d’honneur in the art of war. Wearing black velvet trimmed with grey, they were exercised by him in the garden of the Palais Royal, ‘pike in hand and beating drums’, remembered one of them, Henri de Brienne. A miniature fort with bastions, built in the Tuileries garden in 1650, would start the passion for siege warfare which would mark the King’s entire reign" (Chapter 3).
During this reign, France took part in three major wars and two lesser conflicts. As a result, the country "was at war for thirty-three of the fifty-four years of his personal rule after 1661. The army was by far the largest item in the French budget, usually consuming over 50 per cent of revenues, and in war years over 80 per cent" (Chapter 18). Same as with other areas of Louis' life, his military pursuits showcase the combination of his power with powerlessness. He was able to wage wars that he desired, and he did achieve many important victories. At the height of France's glory under the Sun King, the country outshone the rest of Europe in terms of population size, wealth, and cultural influence. But this glorious state of affairs did not last. France started to lose its international prestige, while its population was ravaged by poverty, which was then exacerbated by famines. Louis's calculations were wrong, and his plans backfired. "Even at its height... Louis XIV’s influence had limits. He never enjoyed hegemony in Europe" (Chapter 5). On the contrary, the King's carefully crafted (as he thought) military strategies eventually became national and international disasters.
Almost till the end of his life, Louis XIV remained blinded by his military ambitions and delusions of grandeur. As his modernized army showed itself capable of effectively expanding France's territory, the praise that Louis XIV received within France proved to him that he chose the correct strategy for strengthening and maintaining his status as an absolute monarch. The fact that the international status of France started to suffer did not bother him too much. "For the King and many of his subjects, the number of his enemies revealed his strength, rather than his unpopularity and lack of diplomatic skills" (Chapter 18). We can assume that many of his war decisions were dictated by the fear of not being the absolute monarch that he felt he was supposed to be. "Desire to win praise, and to outshine both his rivals and his ministers, could be as important to Louis XIV as winning territory. He preferred sieges to battles, as the outcome was more certain, while the glory, in his eyes, was the same. The King’s need for admiration was well known (Chapter 14).
In his blindness, the King preferred to listen to advisors (like Louvois) who recommended bold military moves and actions meant to intimidate adversaries at the cost of human suffering. Louis did not pay attention to warnings coming from generals who did not approve of the harsh methods of warfare and from diplomats who thought that arrogant phrasings of French political declarations were inappropriate. In the past, "[h]e had once been a gentle youth who cried easily, and called mercy ‘the most royal of all the virtues’... By 1672, however, he had changed. In the Dutch countryside, on Louvois’ orders, French troops unleashed a reign of terror. ‘I dare not tell you what excesses pillaging has reached,’ wrote their commander the Maréchal de Luxembourg to Louvois on 12 August. Some soldiers were hanged for their crimes. But the policy was repeated in following years, in order to terrorize the inhabitants into paying ‘contributions’. Louvois wrote to an army intendant to have everything possible burnt, and to the Comte de Calvo: ‘you must burn entire villages’" (Chapter 10).
The King's power lay in the ability to make decisions that many (though not all) of his contemporaries decried. His powerlessness, however, consisted in the inability to see how his actions were destroying his own image and the status of his country, which he had worked so hard to establish. "In the words of Herbert Rowen... the King chose ‘brutal methods which repeatedly led precisely to the result he was seeking to avert’... Even Condé, famous for his ruthlessness, warned Louis XIV of ‘the cruel aversion we have attracted to ourselves’ through the behaviour of French troops; ‘I do not know if it is in the interest of France to continue.’ The Marquis de La Fare would complain that France, by its own efforts, had lost ‘the domination of Europe’ in exchange for its hatred" (Chapter 10). International alliances that would cause France's financial ruin were forged because of the fear and hatred that this country started to inspire thanks to Louis XIV's military and political choices.
At the beginning of Louis XIV's reign, war was for him a source of excitement, possibly due to his lack of experience and youthful naivete. Dominating his mind, there was the image of war as a fun strategic game of his youth, when, as a child brandishing a miniature sword, he was always allowed to win. Over the years, the war became important for the King's self-confidence when he won, but it also caused plenty of frustration and pain. Towards the end of his reign, during the Nine Years' War (1688 to 1697) and then the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 to 1714), it was hard not to see the definitive decline in Louis XIV's military fortune. Although both wars on many occasions demonstrated French power, they also revealed Louis's powerlessness to fully control something that he had set in motion.
Louis XIV's decisions during the Nine Years' War were partially shaped by his relationships with the Ottoman Empire, a major political force of the time that France chose to ally itself with (possibly because most European countries had been already alienated by France's actions). Mansel believes that "the Ottoman government... blackmailed Louis, threatening to make peace with Austria even under the most unfavourable conditions unless he made war in Europe. It accused him of staying on the Rhine, ‘with his arms folded’, when he could win great advantages over Austria. On 10 September Louis replied by promising to march his troops towards the Rhine and Italy" (Chapter 17); this was the beginning of the war that served to further decrease France's popularity. Even though the conflict brought some new territories to France, it exacerbated its economic crisis. It also revealed how "Louis XIV’s army had become a machine for destruction" (Chapter 18) that acquired the life of its own.
At some point, "Louis urged, without success, that Catholic churches be spared. He was not in full control of his war machine. From Düsseldorf in the north to Freiburg 200 miles to the south, Louis turned the valley of the Rhine into a vale of desolation. Cities, villages and farms in the Rhineland were burnt or blown up, their inhabitants expelled, their cattle, grain and wine seized" (Chapter 18). Even some French generals who were fighting in this war were horrified. They warned Louis XIV and his war minister Louvois "of the ‘terrible feelings of aversion’ sweeping Europe" (Chapter 18). But those did not want to or could not hear the warnings. Ironically, the King's actions were eventually less beneficial for France than for the Ottoman Empire, which had encouraged Louis XIV to start this war to begin with. "The King and Louvois had failed in their aim to make the Rhineland a buffer zone protecting France. Nevertheless their action on the Rhine, by drawing away Imperial forces from attacking the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, helped to preserve the latter, until it made peace with the Holy Roman Empire, two years after Louis, in 1699" (Chapter 18).
Military strategies that seemed smart in the short term, ended up hurting France. "The ‘wasting’ of the Rhineland, following the persecution of the Huguenots [the other major mistake to be discussed in the next section], confirmed Europeans’ view of Louis XIV as a ‘new Attila’" (Chapter 18). As a result, Europe became even more unified against France as it was before. Former supporters were ready to join the anti-French coalition that was going to play a major role in Louis XIV's last war, the War of Spanish succession. (The King died in 1715, a year after it was over.)
Louis's haters could rejoice. Towards the end of the last major military conflict of his reign, the Sun King was wishing for peace, but he could not take it because of the corner that his own decisions had put him into. As part of the treaty, the allied forces demanded that Louis attack his own grandson in order to force him off the throne of Spain. An alternative to this humiliating act was to continue with the war that had devastated France to the point that its previously enviable army was falling apart under the burden of poverty and corruption (which Louis could not fully exterminate). Louis XIV was able to get out of this dead-end when Great Britain and the Dutch Republic suddenly withdrew their demand to him to fight his grandson (due to changes that had nothing to do with Louis' actions). The King was saved not by his military genius but by a stroke of luck. But his status and his country were in ruin. Within France, "[m]any were reluctant to support official peace celebrations… It was a peace which dishonoured ‘the king and the whole nation’. Europe had beaten France" (Chapter 18). Once again, absolute power proved to be an unreachable horizon.
One can, of course, doubt words of repentance uttered on deathbed, when a religious person feels the need to unburden themselves before entering the kingdom of their god. I find it is still worth mentioning what Louis XIV said a few days before his passing to his five-year-old great-grandson: "Do not imitate me in my wars; try always to maintain peace with your neighbours, to relieve your people as much as you will be able to, which I have had the misfortune to be unable to do, due to necessities of State’ (Chapter 23). As it appears at least, the Sun King was finally openly admitting his powerlessness. But even if Louis XIV truly meant these words, it was too late for him and for the French monarchy, which he had been so anxious to preserve.
5. King at war
The worst mistakes of Louis XIV's reign were, arguably, his wars and the treatment of Protestants. Notably, both of these mistakes were made in the second half of the Sun King's reign, when his biases and anxieties were getting the better of him. These mistakes also reflect Louis' delusions of absolute power: he thought he could achieve results that turned out to be outside of his control. Let us first take a look at Louis XIV's military pursuits.
As part of his project to strengthen the country, Louis started his reign by reorganizing the army. Under Marquis de Louvois, the new Secretary of War who worked with Louis XIV to support this important transition, the French army turned into a remarkably modernized, disciplined, and well-trained war machine. "One of Louis’ long-term ambitions, in addition to his drives to modernize and enlarge France, and to become the arbiter of Europe, was to win France a global empire" (Chapter 6). With his new army, he was ready to work towards these goals.
Unfortunately, Louis XIV did not see war as something to be avoided, but as a desirable opportunity to increase France's and his own glory. Arrogance and vanity, worsening with age, played a role in his ill-conceived military decisions. We should also consider what Louis XIV was brought up to believe and how he was taught to act. In the minds of children growing up in noble and royal households of the time, war was normalized and celebrated. The King had learned early on that he was supposed to be a great warrior, victor, and military leader. "From the age of five he... drilled a troop of enfants d’honneur in the art of war. Wearing black velvet trimmed with grey, they were exercised by him in the garden of the Palais Royal, ‘pike in hand and beating drums’, remembered one of them, Henri de Brienne. A miniature fort with bastions, built in the Tuileries garden in 1650, would start the passion for siege warfare which would mark the King’s entire reign" (Chapter 3).
During this reign, France took part in three major wars and two lesser conflicts. As a result, the country "was at war for thirty-three of the fifty-four years of his personal rule after 1661. The army was by far the largest item in the French budget, usually consuming over 50 per cent of revenues, and in war years over 80 per cent" (Chapter 18). Same as with other areas of Louis' life, his military pursuits showcase the combination of his power with powerlessness. He was able to wage wars that he desired, and he did achieve many important victories. At the height of France's glory under the Sun King, the country outshone the rest of Europe in terms of population size, wealth, and cultural influence. But this glorious state of affairs did not last. France started to lose its international prestige, while its population was ravaged by poverty, which was then exacerbated by famines. Louis's calculations were wrong, and his plans backfired. "Even at its height... Louis XIV’s influence had limits. He never enjoyed hegemony in Europe" (Chapter 5). On the contrary, the King's carefully crafted (as he thought) military strategies eventually became national and international disasters.
Almost till the end of his life, Louis XIV remained blinded by his military ambitions and delusions of grandeur. As his modernized army showed itself capable of effectively expanding France's territory, the praise that Louis XIV received within France proved to him that he chose the correct strategy for strengthening and maintaining his status as an absolute monarch. The fact that the international status of France started to suffer did not bother him too much. "For the King and many of his subjects, the number of his enemies revealed his strength, rather than his unpopularity and lack of diplomatic skills" (Chapter 18). We can assume that many of his war decisions were dictated by the fear of not being the absolute monarch that he felt he was supposed to be. "Desire to win praise, and to outshine both his rivals and his ministers, could be as important to Louis XIV as winning territory. He preferred sieges to battles, as the outcome was more certain, while the glory, in his eyes, was the same. The King’s need for admiration was well known (Chapter 14).
In his blindness, the King preferred to listen to advisors (like Louvois) who recommended bold military moves and actions meant to intimidate adversaries at the cost of human suffering. Louis did not pay attention to warnings coming from generals who did not approve of the harsh methods of warfare and from diplomats who thought that arrogant phrasings of French political declarations were inappropriate. In the past, "[h]e had once been a gentle youth who cried easily, and called mercy ‘the most royal of all the virtues’... By 1672, however, he had changed. In the Dutch countryside, on Louvois’ orders, French troops unleashed a reign of terror. ‘I dare not tell you what excesses pillaging has reached,’ wrote their commander the Maréchal de Luxembourg to Louvois on 12 August. Some soldiers were hanged for their crimes. But the policy was repeated in following years, in order to terrorize the inhabitants into paying ‘contributions’. Louvois wrote to an army intendant to have everything possible burnt, and to the Comte de Calvo: ‘you must burn entire villages’" (Chapter 10).
The King's power lay in the ability to make decisions that many (though not all) of his contemporaries decried. His powerlessness, however, consisted in the inability to see how his actions were destroying his own image and the status of his country, which he had worked so hard to establish. "In the words of Herbert Rowen... the King chose ‘brutal methods which repeatedly led precisely to the result he was seeking to avert’... Even Condé, famous for his ruthlessness, warned Louis XIV of ‘the cruel aversion we have attracted to ourselves’ through the behaviour of French troops; ‘I do not know if it is in the interest of France to continue.’ The Marquis de La Fare would complain that France, by its own efforts, had lost ‘the domination of Europe’ in exchange for its hatred" (Chapter 10). International alliances that would cause France's financial ruin were forged because of the fear and hatred that this country started to inspire thanks to Louis XIV's military and political choices.
At the beginning of Louis XIV's reign, war was for him a source of excitement, possibly due to his lack of experience and youthful naivete. Dominating his mind, there was the image of war as a fun strategic game of his youth, when, as a child brandishing a miniature sword, he was always allowed to win. Over the years, the war became important for the King's self-confidence when he won, but it also caused plenty of frustration and pain. Towards the end of his reign, during the Nine Years' War (1688 to 1697) and then the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 to 1714), it was hard not to see the definitive decline in Louis XIV's military fortune. Although both wars on many occasions demonstrated French power, they also revealed Louis's powerlessness to fully control something that he had set in motion.
Louis XIV's decisions during the Nine Years' War were partially shaped by his relationships with the Ottoman Empire, a major political force of the time that France chose to ally itself with (possibly because most European countries had been already alienated by France's actions). Mansel believes that "the Ottoman government... blackmailed Louis, threatening to make peace with Austria even under the most unfavourable conditions unless he made war in Europe. It accused him of staying on the Rhine, ‘with his arms folded’, when he could win great advantages over Austria. On 10 September Louis replied by promising to march his troops towards the Rhine and Italy" (Chapter 17); this was the beginning of the war that served to further decrease France's popularity. Even though the conflict brought some new territories to France, it exacerbated its economic crisis. It also revealed how "Louis XIV’s army had become a machine for destruction" (Chapter 18) that acquired the life of its own.
At some point, "Louis urged, without success, that Catholic churches be spared. He was not in full control of his war machine. From Düsseldorf in the north to Freiburg 200 miles to the south, Louis turned the valley of the Rhine into a vale of desolation. Cities, villages and farms in the Rhineland were burnt or blown up, their inhabitants expelled, their cattle, grain and wine seized" (Chapter 18). Even some French generals who were fighting in this war were horrified. They warned Louis XIV and his war minister Louvois "of the ‘terrible feelings of aversion’ sweeping Europe" (Chapter 18). But those did not want to or could not hear the warnings. Ironically, the King's actions were eventually less beneficial for France than for the Ottoman Empire, which had encouraged Louis XIV to start this war to begin with. "The King and Louvois had failed in their aim to make the Rhineland a buffer zone protecting France. Nevertheless their action on the Rhine, by drawing away Imperial forces from attacking the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, helped to preserve the latter, until it made peace with the Holy Roman Empire, two years after Louis, in 1699" (Chapter 18).
Military strategies that seemed smart in the short term, ended up hurting France. "The ‘wasting’ of the Rhineland, following the persecution of the Huguenots [the other major mistake to be discussed in the next section], confirmed Europeans’ view of Louis XIV as a ‘new Attila’" (Chapter 18). As a result, Europe became even more unified against France as it was before. Former supporters were ready to join the anti-French coalition that was going to play a major role in Louis XIV's last war, the War of Spanish succession. (The King died in 1715, a year after it was over.)
Louis's haters could rejoice. Towards the end of the last major military conflict of his reign, the Sun King was wishing for peace, but he could not take it because of the corner that his own decisions had put him into. As part of the treaty, the allied forces demanded that Louis attack his own grandson in order to force him off the throne of Spain. An alternative to this humiliating act was to continue with the war that had devastated France to the point that its previously enviable army was falling apart under the burden of poverty and corruption (which Louis could not fully exterminate). Louis XIV was able to get out of this dead-end when Great Britain and the Dutch Republic suddenly withdrew their demand to him to fight his grandson (due to changes that had nothing to do with Louis' actions). The King was saved not by his military genius but by a stroke of luck. But his status and his country were in ruin. Within France, "[m]any were reluctant to support official peace celebrations… It was a peace which dishonoured ‘the king and the whole nation’. Europe had beaten France" (Chapter 18). Once again, absolute power proved to be an unreachable horizon.
One can, of course, doubt words of repentance uttered on deathbed, when a religious person feels the need to unburden themselves before entering the kingdom of their god. I find it is still worth mentioning what Louis XIV said a few days before his passing to his five-year-old great-grandson: "Do not imitate me in my wars; try always to maintain peace with your neighbours, to relieve your people as much as you will be able to, which I have had the misfortune to be unable to do, due to necessities of State’ (Chapter 23). As it appears at least, the Sun King was finally openly admitting his powerlessness. But even if Louis XIV truly meant these words, it was too late for him and for the French monarchy, which he had been so anxious to preserve.
Image credit: Protestant engraving representing the dragonnades against the French Huguenots under Louis XIV, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Godfrey Engelmann from a drawing of 1686
6. King and religion
"Fun" fact: thanks to Louis XIV's treatment of Protestants, the word "refugee" entered the world's vocabulary. How did it come to this? First, we need to recall that France of the time was a thoroughly Catholic country, where the cults of religion and monarchy depended on and supported each other. Wherever French leaders turned in their ambition for a global empire, they brought their religion with them. "Catholicism was presented overseas, as in Europe, as a buttress of monarchy" (Chapter 15). Same as Louis XIV's belief in absolute monarchy, instilled from an early age by people he loved and trusted above all (especially by his mother and Mazarin), so was his passion for Catholicism. Religion was associated with certainty, meant to maintain his right to wield absolute power that was supposedly given to him by God.
Not surprisingly, Louis XIV's "Catholicism reflected both his belief in God and his belief in monarchy. He wrote to his son that Catholicism taught obedience to kings as lieutenants of God. Therefore, for reasons of prudence and common sense as well as faith, Catholicism should be ‘the first and most important part of our policy’" (Chapter 14). Louis XIV was honest in his piety and took very seriously his status of a leader of France appointed by God. For instance, "[t]hroughout his reign, from his coronation in 1654 to his death in 1715, even when he was ill, Louis (after taking communion)... performed the ritual of touching for the King’s Evil (scrofula), usually in Versailles’ ground-floor galleries, sometimes more than a thousand people in one day…. On 1 November 1685, for example, although barely able to stand from gout, he touched 300: a triumph of duty over ill-health" (Chapter 14).
His piety did not mean that he had no tensions with other representatives of his faith. "The French Catholic or Gallican church was more powerful and more courageous in the seventeenth century than in the twentieth. It could challenge Louis XIV through its hold on his subjects’ hearts and minds, and through the independently elected Assembly of Clergy, on whose ‘free gift’, voted every five years, the crown relied for revenue. At times the Gallican church acted as an unofficial opposition to Louis XIV. However pious the King showed himself to be, however often he visited churches and followed processions, the Gallican church or the Papacy occasionally thwarted his desires. The King was unable to restrict the number and size of the monasteries which owned so much land and in Colbert’s opinion weakened the economy" (Chapter 9).
Individual Catholic priests enjoyed the King's respect even when they chose to point out his flaws (for example, his luxurious lifestyle or his love affairs). "The King fasted during Lent, and encouraged courtiers to do likewise, and he listened to Lent and Advent sermons, by a variety of preachers... some of whom criticized his private life with a frankness which few modern heads of state would tolerate" (Chapter 14). Representatives of another branch of Christianity – Protestantism – were less lucky, no matter how much respect and obedience they displayed.
Although some Protestants, known in France of the time as Huguenots, occupied high social and political positions, all members of this religious group were aware of their status as a marginalized minority. Fresh was the memory of French Wars of Religion, which had ended less than one hundred years before the Sun King's reign. These wars were known for their bloodshed, especially the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, when thousands of Huguenots were brutally murdered over a period of several weeks. The French Wars of Religion ended in 1598, as King Henry IV (grandfather of Louis XIV) guaranteed substantial rights to Huguenots in a document that became known as the Edict of Nantes. In 1685, it was this edict that Louis XIV decided to revoke.
The persecution of Huguenots under Louis XIV did not begin with this revocation, however. Several years prior, the King started introducing changes that dramatically intensified religious discrimination (for example, closing many Protestant churches and schools). The goal was to make French Protestants convert to Catholicism, which some did, at least on paper. Many Huguenots continued to resist; so in 1681, an infamous measure was taken that became known as dragonnades. Dragoons (cavalry soldiers) were told to stay in Huguenots' homes in-between war campaigns. This created a significant financial strain on homeowners forced to welcome such "guests", and often caused abuses by soldiers who were led to believe that they were allowed to do to their hosts anything they wanted. Protestants were not even allowed to leave France anymore. As a result of these measures, the number of conversions went up. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was, then, presented as a next logical step. Since not too many Huguenots were officially left in the country, their privileges were declared to be redundant.
Dragonnades seem to be horrible enough, but what happened after the revocation was even worse. "All remaining Protestant churches and schools were destroyed, beginning with the Temple at Charenton a few miles east of Paris, and its surrounding graveyard. All Protestant assemblies and forms of worship were forbidden, all priests expelled. The possessions of all French Protestants abroad were confiscated. All Protestant children had henceforth to receive Catholic baptism and instruction or their parents would be fined. Even the graveyard for foreign Protestants outside Paris, to the horror of the Danish envoy, was destroyed" (Chapter 16).
Mansel believes that the revocation of the Edict of Nantes revocation was Louis' greatest single mistake. One can think of a variety of reasons behind the King's fateful decision. Some of these reasons reveal the Sun King's powerlessness rather than his power. Mansel notes that "[a]lmost since its promulgation, the Edict of Nantes had been under attack. The clergy, the one group in France with its own national assembly, agents and income, a portion of which it offered the King as ‘free gifts’ in lieu of taxes, had been urging the proscription of Protestantism since 1614… Louis XIV also needed the support of the French clergy, since he was in conflict with his personal enemy Pope Innocent XI, over the régale (income from vacant sees), the perennial problem of French diplomatic immunities in Rome, and what the King considered the Pope’s pro-Austrian bias. Perhaps there was an unwritten bargain between the King and the clergy: he would eliminate the Protestants; they would support him against the Pope" (Chapter 16).
Another reason “may have been [the King's] desire for a grand gesture to impress Catholic Europe and minimize his Ottoman alliance… To remove the shame of his alliance with the Ottoman Empire, Louis XIV needed to prove himself to be more Catholic than the Emperor [ruler or the Holy Roman Empire]“ (Chapter 16). Rivalry with other major political forces of the time (e.g., the House of Austria) for the leadership of Catholic Europe was probably also a factor. "In addition to his desire to outshine Leopold I, and please the Assembly of Clergy, Louis was corrupted by piety. He believed that he was doing God’s work, and that revocation would save Protestants’ souls: ‘I am persuaded that God will devote to his glory the deed which he has inspired in me,’ he wrote to the Archbishop of Paris" (Chapter 16). We could, of course, also consider this decision as yet another manifestation of the Sun King's megalomania that was only increasing with time. He did not like the fact that not all people in his kingdom practiced his own preferred faith (the faith that guaranteed his divine rights) and he thought he could do anything to change that.
Support that this religious persecution garnered in France further contributed to Louis's misguided conviction in his own righteousness. Some Catholics were horrified. However, "[f]ew others in France expressed... revulsion. The potential popularity of the Revocation may have hastened it. Like other persecutions of minorities, it gave part of the population the pleasure of joining in or watching what they considered patriotic acts, as well as opportunities to acquire, at low prices, the possessions of the persecuted… As Pierre Bayle wrote from Rotterdam, ‘you have thus all been complicit, in these crimes.’ Unlike many of the King’s other policies, including his wars, his taxes, his treatment of the Parlements and the Jansenists, his persecution of Protestants aroused little criticism in France" (Chapter 16). In fact, during that exact time "[m]any Frenchmen believed that they had entered a golden age. Panegyrics praised the King’s immortal, divine or supernatural powers. Frenchmen’s love for the King was compared to a second religion" (Chapter 16).
As with many other Sun King's attempts to prove his absolute power to himself and to the world, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes backfired spectacularly. First, it contributed to undermining France's image, which was already suffering as a result of inhumane military practices. Second, although Huguenots were not allowed to leave France, many in fact did, effectively turning into refugees (that's when the term was coined) and settling down in countries that welcomed protestants. Many of these refugees were highly skilled professionals; others were rich, and their flight drained the French economy, which was at the time already in a pitiful state. "By the Revocation, Louis XIV not only helped to unite Europe against France, but also transferred French cultural, commercial and technical leads to its rivals. The impact of even a small number of Huguenots outside France shows how advanced its culture and economy were, in comparison to other countries’ – and that for some exile can lead to success as well as suffering" (Chapter 16).
Louis XIV's persecution of Protestants weakened France while increasing the number of its adversaries and strengthening them. After the revocation "Louis faced not only enemy rulers like Leopold I and William III, but the wrath of a Protestant diaspora. By driving Huguenots into exile, Louis XIV turned them from obedient subjects, who had been hoping their King’s persecution would abate, into dangerous adversaries. From the safety of exile, they preached, wrote and fought back against their persecutor. Thousands of soldiers and officers and perhaps 15 to 20 per cent of the manpower of the French navy left, usually to fight for Louis XIV’s enemies" (Chapter 16).
Louis XIV's persecution of Protestants might lead us to doubt whether he truly understood what he was doing. It is possible that some combination of megalomania and anxiety – both outside of his conscious control – determined that the King let himself be persuaded by advisors who advocated for tough measures (like Louvois) instead of those who pointed out potential problems (e.g., reminding the King that "in nearly all trades the most able workers and richest businessmen were Protestants" (Chapter 16)). Louis XIV let his worst impulses guide his decisions, contradicting himself. The King "was allied to the Ottoman Sultan, curious about Confucianism and tolerant of Lutherans and Calvinists in Alsace. Yet in France he became a fanatic" (Chapter 16).
Notably, "Huguenot refugees spread not only religious scepticism, but also hostility to the French monarchy. A violent attack on the Bastille was written by a Huguenot officer who had been imprisoned there for eleven years, Constantin de Renneville. L’Inquisition française ou Histoire de la Bastille, listing Louis XIV’s prisoners in the Bastille and their sufferings, first published in 1715, was republished in six volumes in Amsterdam in 1724. It helped confirm the Bastille’s reputation as a symbol of royal tyranny" (Chapter 16). Louis XIV was powerful enough to take actions that affected and hurt numerous people. But he was powerless to see how these actions were damaging what he valued so much: his country, his image, and the Bourbon Dynasty.
6. King and religion
"Fun" fact: thanks to Louis XIV's treatment of Protestants, the word "refugee" entered the world's vocabulary. How did it come to this? First, we need to recall that France of the time was a thoroughly Catholic country, where the cults of religion and monarchy depended on and supported each other. Wherever French leaders turned in their ambition for a global empire, they brought their religion with them. "Catholicism was presented overseas, as in Europe, as a buttress of monarchy" (Chapter 15). Same as Louis XIV's belief in absolute monarchy, instilled from an early age by people he loved and trusted above all (especially by his mother and Mazarin), so was his passion for Catholicism. Religion was associated with certainty, meant to maintain his right to wield absolute power that was supposedly given to him by God.
Not surprisingly, Louis XIV's "Catholicism reflected both his belief in God and his belief in monarchy. He wrote to his son that Catholicism taught obedience to kings as lieutenants of God. Therefore, for reasons of prudence and common sense as well as faith, Catholicism should be ‘the first and most important part of our policy’" (Chapter 14). Louis XIV was honest in his piety and took very seriously his status of a leader of France appointed by God. For instance, "[t]hroughout his reign, from his coronation in 1654 to his death in 1715, even when he was ill, Louis (after taking communion)... performed the ritual of touching for the King’s Evil (scrofula), usually in Versailles’ ground-floor galleries, sometimes more than a thousand people in one day…. On 1 November 1685, for example, although barely able to stand from gout, he touched 300: a triumph of duty over ill-health" (Chapter 14).
His piety did not mean that he had no tensions with other representatives of his faith. "The French Catholic or Gallican church was more powerful and more courageous in the seventeenth century than in the twentieth. It could challenge Louis XIV through its hold on his subjects’ hearts and minds, and through the independently elected Assembly of Clergy, on whose ‘free gift’, voted every five years, the crown relied for revenue. At times the Gallican church acted as an unofficial opposition to Louis XIV. However pious the King showed himself to be, however often he visited churches and followed processions, the Gallican church or the Papacy occasionally thwarted his desires. The King was unable to restrict the number and size of the monasteries which owned so much land and in Colbert’s opinion weakened the economy" (Chapter 9).
Individual Catholic priests enjoyed the King's respect even when they chose to point out his flaws (for example, his luxurious lifestyle or his love affairs). "The King fasted during Lent, and encouraged courtiers to do likewise, and he listened to Lent and Advent sermons, by a variety of preachers... some of whom criticized his private life with a frankness which few modern heads of state would tolerate" (Chapter 14). Representatives of another branch of Christianity – Protestantism – were less lucky, no matter how much respect and obedience they displayed.
Although some Protestants, known in France of the time as Huguenots, occupied high social and political positions, all members of this religious group were aware of their status as a marginalized minority. Fresh was the memory of French Wars of Religion, which had ended less than one hundred years before the Sun King's reign. These wars were known for their bloodshed, especially the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, when thousands of Huguenots were brutally murdered over a period of several weeks. The French Wars of Religion ended in 1598, as King Henry IV (grandfather of Louis XIV) guaranteed substantial rights to Huguenots in a document that became known as the Edict of Nantes. In 1685, it was this edict that Louis XIV decided to revoke.
The persecution of Huguenots under Louis XIV did not begin with this revocation, however. Several years prior, the King started introducing changes that dramatically intensified religious discrimination (for example, closing many Protestant churches and schools). The goal was to make French Protestants convert to Catholicism, which some did, at least on paper. Many Huguenots continued to resist; so in 1681, an infamous measure was taken that became known as dragonnades. Dragoons (cavalry soldiers) were told to stay in Huguenots' homes in-between war campaigns. This created a significant financial strain on homeowners forced to welcome such "guests", and often caused abuses by soldiers who were led to believe that they were allowed to do to their hosts anything they wanted. Protestants were not even allowed to leave France anymore. As a result of these measures, the number of conversions went up. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was, then, presented as a next logical step. Since not too many Huguenots were officially left in the country, their privileges were declared to be redundant.
Dragonnades seem to be horrible enough, but what happened after the revocation was even worse. "All remaining Protestant churches and schools were destroyed, beginning with the Temple at Charenton a few miles east of Paris, and its surrounding graveyard. All Protestant assemblies and forms of worship were forbidden, all priests expelled. The possessions of all French Protestants abroad were confiscated. All Protestant children had henceforth to receive Catholic baptism and instruction or their parents would be fined. Even the graveyard for foreign Protestants outside Paris, to the horror of the Danish envoy, was destroyed" (Chapter 16).
Mansel believes that the revocation of the Edict of Nantes revocation was Louis' greatest single mistake. One can think of a variety of reasons behind the King's fateful decision. Some of these reasons reveal the Sun King's powerlessness rather than his power. Mansel notes that "[a]lmost since its promulgation, the Edict of Nantes had been under attack. The clergy, the one group in France with its own national assembly, agents and income, a portion of which it offered the King as ‘free gifts’ in lieu of taxes, had been urging the proscription of Protestantism since 1614… Louis XIV also needed the support of the French clergy, since he was in conflict with his personal enemy Pope Innocent XI, over the régale (income from vacant sees), the perennial problem of French diplomatic immunities in Rome, and what the King considered the Pope’s pro-Austrian bias. Perhaps there was an unwritten bargain between the King and the clergy: he would eliminate the Protestants; they would support him against the Pope" (Chapter 16).
Another reason “may have been [the King's] desire for a grand gesture to impress Catholic Europe and minimize his Ottoman alliance… To remove the shame of his alliance with the Ottoman Empire, Louis XIV needed to prove himself to be more Catholic than the Emperor [ruler or the Holy Roman Empire]“ (Chapter 16). Rivalry with other major political forces of the time (e.g., the House of Austria) for the leadership of Catholic Europe was probably also a factor. "In addition to his desire to outshine Leopold I, and please the Assembly of Clergy, Louis was corrupted by piety. He believed that he was doing God’s work, and that revocation would save Protestants’ souls: ‘I am persuaded that God will devote to his glory the deed which he has inspired in me,’ he wrote to the Archbishop of Paris" (Chapter 16). We could, of course, also consider this decision as yet another manifestation of the Sun King's megalomania that was only increasing with time. He did not like the fact that not all people in his kingdom practiced his own preferred faith (the faith that guaranteed his divine rights) and he thought he could do anything to change that.
Support that this religious persecution garnered in France further contributed to Louis's misguided conviction in his own righteousness. Some Catholics were horrified. However, "[f]ew others in France expressed... revulsion. The potential popularity of the Revocation may have hastened it. Like other persecutions of minorities, it gave part of the population the pleasure of joining in or watching what they considered patriotic acts, as well as opportunities to acquire, at low prices, the possessions of the persecuted… As Pierre Bayle wrote from Rotterdam, ‘you have thus all been complicit, in these crimes.’ Unlike many of the King’s other policies, including his wars, his taxes, his treatment of the Parlements and the Jansenists, his persecution of Protestants aroused little criticism in France" (Chapter 16). In fact, during that exact time "[m]any Frenchmen believed that they had entered a golden age. Panegyrics praised the King’s immortal, divine or supernatural powers. Frenchmen’s love for the King was compared to a second religion" (Chapter 16).
As with many other Sun King's attempts to prove his absolute power to himself and to the world, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes backfired spectacularly. First, it contributed to undermining France's image, which was already suffering as a result of inhumane military practices. Second, although Huguenots were not allowed to leave France, many in fact did, effectively turning into refugees (that's when the term was coined) and settling down in countries that welcomed protestants. Many of these refugees were highly skilled professionals; others were rich, and their flight drained the French economy, which was at the time already in a pitiful state. "By the Revocation, Louis XIV not only helped to unite Europe against France, but also transferred French cultural, commercial and technical leads to its rivals. The impact of even a small number of Huguenots outside France shows how advanced its culture and economy were, in comparison to other countries’ – and that for some exile can lead to success as well as suffering" (Chapter 16).
Louis XIV's persecution of Protestants weakened France while increasing the number of its adversaries and strengthening them. After the revocation "Louis faced not only enemy rulers like Leopold I and William III, but the wrath of a Protestant diaspora. By driving Huguenots into exile, Louis XIV turned them from obedient subjects, who had been hoping their King’s persecution would abate, into dangerous adversaries. From the safety of exile, they preached, wrote and fought back against their persecutor. Thousands of soldiers and officers and perhaps 15 to 20 per cent of the manpower of the French navy left, usually to fight for Louis XIV’s enemies" (Chapter 16).
Louis XIV's persecution of Protestants might lead us to doubt whether he truly understood what he was doing. It is possible that some combination of megalomania and anxiety – both outside of his conscious control – determined that the King let himself be persuaded by advisors who advocated for tough measures (like Louvois) instead of those who pointed out potential problems (e.g., reminding the King that "in nearly all trades the most able workers and richest businessmen were Protestants" (Chapter 16)). Louis XIV let his worst impulses guide his decisions, contradicting himself. The King "was allied to the Ottoman Sultan, curious about Confucianism and tolerant of Lutherans and Calvinists in Alsace. Yet in France he became a fanatic" (Chapter 16).
Notably, "Huguenot refugees spread not only religious scepticism, but also hostility to the French monarchy. A violent attack on the Bastille was written by a Huguenot officer who had been imprisoned there for eleven years, Constantin de Renneville. L’Inquisition française ou Histoire de la Bastille, listing Louis XIV’s prisoners in the Bastille and their sufferings, first published in 1715, was republished in six volumes in Amsterdam in 1724. It helped confirm the Bastille’s reputation as a symbol of royal tyranny" (Chapter 16). Louis XIV was powerful enough to take actions that affected and hurt numerous people. But he was powerless to see how these actions were damaging what he valued so much: his country, his image, and the Bourbon Dynasty.
Image credit: Versailles by Diane Picchiottino
Flawed Legacy
The Sun King was most certainly not powerless. But how powerful was he really? Mansel reminds us that "Louis XIV was able to play a global role because of the power of the kingdom of France. His reign and personality were conditioned by the geography, history, demography and traditions of the country he ruled" (Introduction). The King's power had been given to him by circumstances and by other people. His power, therefore, depended on factors that, paradoxically, he had no power over. And when circumstances were not in his favor (or when certain people were against him), luck often turned away from the King.
No matter how hard Louis XIV tried to be in control, no matter how hard he tried to persuade himself and others that he was in control, his power clearly had its limits.
"Even hard work, and the vast theoretical authority of his crown... did not guarantee Louis XIV total control of France. Keen to show that they are not deceived by royal propaganda, or by the inflated view of royal power enshrined in Louis XIV’s memoirs written for the instruction of the Dauphin, many historians emphasize the constraints placed on the crown by the social and economic structures, the traditional institutions (especially the Church) and the conservatism of France. Even at the height of his power, as Fouquet’s trial showed, individuals and law courts could challenge or criticize the King. In 1662 the Chancellor and the Parlement of Paris would defeat his attempts to modify the composition of the royal family by adding the House of Lorraine to the French order of succession. The monarchy could be stronger than the King. Christianity, as well as conservatism, could encourage disobedience to Louis XIV – as he would find after 1680, when despite bribes and threats many Protestants would refuse to convert to Catholicism. There were also individual examples of disobedience..." (Chapter 7).
Most importantly, Louis XIV clearly did not have the power to see how his actions were undermining the very goals he was trying to achieve. The extent of his mistakes, as summarized by Mansel in the last chapter of his book, is mind-boggling.
"After the death of Mazarin in 1661, having inherited the strongest country and army in Europe, Louis XIV had been expected to become the greatest monarch in history. By the end of his reign, however, France was no longer the supreme power in Europe. His own character [something outside of his control – E.F.] was one reason. Power, leadership and hard work did not compensate for Louis XIV’s love of war and lack of judgement. He overestimated French resources and underestimated European reactions. In 1661 France had been protected by treaties with almost all the powers of Europe, except Austria – with Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Brandenburg, Bavaria, the Netherlands, England, Portugal and Spain – and by the long-standing alliance with the Ottoman Empire. As guarantor of the Treaty of Oliva in the north and the League of the Rhine in the Empire, France also had many pretexts for intervention abroad. By his wars and persecutions, however, Louis XIV had helped unite Europe against France. At his death in 1715, France had no allies but Spain, Sweden, Bavaria and the Ottoman Empire. Louis’ lack of judgement led him to pick losers. His alliance with the exiled Stuarts benefited neither them nor France" (Chapter 24).
The King depended on others for help and advice. When his advisors themselves were blinded by their own biases (which was not uncommon), multiple failures were sure to follow. "The number and gravity of Louis’ mistakes increased after Colbert’s death in 1683, showing both the power of his ministers and that the famous inscription in the Galerie des Glaces ‘le roi gouverne par lui-meme’ was in part an illusion. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the invasion of the Rhineland in 1688 (thereby helping to ensure the success of William III’s invasion of England), the dispersion of French forces on different fronts in 1690–93 and the commitment to the restoration of the Stuarts were self-inflicted disasters. The bombardments of Genoa and Brussels, the persecution of the Huguenots and the devastation of the Palatinate showed the cruelty which helped turn much of Europe against France" (Chapter 24).
Again and again, Louis's actions led to results that he was trying hard to avoid. "The transformations of its rivals England, Austria, Prussia and Savoy from second-rank into major powers (including England’s conquest of Gibraltar and union with Scotland) were helped by Louis’ wars, and in the case of England and Prussia by Huguenots fleeing his persecutions. Compared to Louis’ alternations between dynasticism and nationalism, expansion and retrocession, Gallicanism and Papalism, his fellow monarchs Leopold I, William III, Victor Amadeus II and his own grandson Philip V, none of whom had Louis’ initial advantages, proved more consistent and more successful. Finance was another of Louis’ weaknesses. In 1661 he had promised that ‘the relief of my people is my strongest passion.’ But, as he lamented on his deathbed, and as some of his subjects complained in their songs during his funeral procession, he failed in the task" (Chapter 24).
Louis XIV's bad judgments were something that he could not properly evaluate. They shaped his decisions related to numerous aspects of his reign and personal life, from military to health, and everything in-between. "His habit of conducting some of his wars by micromanagement from Versailles, and dividing commands between rival generals, helped lead to French defeats. Louis XIV did not even choose good doctors. The attentions of his doctors led to the premature deaths of his wife, son, eldest grandson, granddaughter-in-law, two great-grandsons and, in the opinion of some courtiers, the King himself" (Chapter 24).
Louis XIV's power and his powerlessness cannot be clearly separated from each other. After all, as Mansel reminds us, the Sun King "proved better at incorporating French conquests, and defending France, than his republican and Bonapartist successors. He helped make Frenchmen out of Flemish, Alsatians and Burgundians and gave France its present shape. He also provided many Frenchmen with immense emotional satisfaction, as he still does. Many were proud, like the King himself, of his wars, conquests and palaces, proud of his imposition of religious uniformity, of his hospitality to James II and of the fact that, as the lawyer M. Borelly of Nîmes wrote in his diary, ‘all Europe is against our great king.’ In 1698 Matthew Prior noted that ‘the common people of this nation have a strange veneration for their king’" (Chapter 24).
Louis XIV's mistakes, inherited by his successors, eventually led to the French Revolution, which was the Sun King's worst nightmare. "Partly because of the legacy of Louis XIV, and the economic and social disparities he had aggravated, the French social order had been the first in Europe to be overthrown" (Chapter 24). Mansel believes that "[t]he trigger for the revolution... was not famine, the unpopularity of the Austrian Queen Marie Antoinette or social tensions, but the financial system inherited from Louis XIV" (Chapter 24). Notably, the French Revolution only became possible when "[t]he great institutions which had served Louis XIV’s monarchy [ – ] the nobility, the church, the army, the Parlements [ – ] began to withdraw support or demand change" (Chapter 24). The Revolution could have happened during the Sun King's reign, but it did not – due to a combination of cultural, political, and personal factors rather than because of how powerful Louis XIV was. If anything, we can see that he was eventually powerless to stop the French monarchy from hurtling towards the precipice.
Even after all these blunders, Louis XIV was not universally detested in France, as one might expect. When he was dying a painful death from a gangrene in his leg, "[t]he churches of Paris filled with people praying for the King’s recovery – as the crowds at Versailles also showed, he was not as detested as critics would later claim" (Chapter 23). Meanwhile, in Versailles, "[c]ourtiers filled the gallery, and those with the right entrées the council chamber. Such was the magnetism of the King and the monarchy that both soon became impenetrable. Crowds filled the palace courtyards and the surrounding streets" (Chapter 23).
But power is a paradox after all, and the change of the mood after the King's death serves as a good reminder. "In contrast to the funeral procession’s outward dignity... ‘on all sides’ along the route from Versailles to Saint-Denis, people had been drinking, laughing, singing and playing music – as the young writer François Arouet, later known as Voltaire... remembered. Resentment of his wars and taxes, and oppression, was increased by the prospect of change in a new reign. Even the Master of Ceremonies Desgranges in his official register admitted, ‘the people regarded it as a fête and, full of joy at having seen the living king, did not feel all the sorrow which the death of such a great King should cause.’ Pierre Narbonne adds: ‘many people rejoiced at the death of this prince and on all sides you could hear the sound of violins.’ Perhaps for fear of popular reactions, the funeral procession, unlike that of the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne three years earlier, did not pass through Paris" (Chapter 23).
Soon after Louis XIV's death, he was being laughed at with glee. "[P]oems provided a mocking counterblast to the official narrative:
Here in the same tomb
Lie the great Louis and the finances.
. . our invincible king . . . died as he lived,
Without leaving us the
Quarter of an écu . . .
In Saint-Denis as at Versailles,
He is without heart and without entrails.
‘Our immortal king’ was attacked for his taxes even more than for his wars or his absolutism. Only financiers, wrote the curé of Saint-Sulpice near Blois in his parish register, had benefited from his reign, since they acquired all the money in the kingdom. Other poems called him ‘the slave of an unworthy woman’, the enemy of peace. ‘Do not pray God for his soul. Such a monster never had one.’ One called him Louis le Petit [Louis the Small, as opposed to Louis the Great]" (Chapter 23).
Balancing between mockery and veneration, some people pointed out Louis XIV's numerous mistakes while not taking away his dignity. "At a solemn memorial service... in the spiritual heart of the French monarchy... one of the most respected preachers of the day, Jean-Baptiste Massillon, praised ‘the father of kings, greater than all his ancestors, more magnificent than Solomon in all his glory’. However, he also mourned what he called ‘an entire century of horror and carnage, the elite of the French nobility precipitated into the grave, so many ancient lines extinguished, so many inconsolable mothers who still weep for their children, our countryside deserted . . . our towns laid waste; our peoples exhausted . . . trade languishing . . . burning, bloodshed, blasphemy, abomination and all the horrors of which war is the father.’ He described the glory of establishing Philip V on the throne of Spain as ‘triste et amère’ (‘sad and bitter’); lamented that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had weakened the monarchy as a result of ‘the escape of so many citizens’ (one of the few public criticisms of their persecution); quoted the King’s deathbed advice to his great-grandson to avoid wars; and deplored ‘our crimes’" (Chapter 23).
Yes, power is a paradox. Today, same as in the past, Louis XIV is both criticized and respected. And although his actions undermined the Bourbon Dynasty, they also strengthened it, although not in France itself. "The Bourbon dynasty in Spain would outlast both its cousins in France and British control of North America; and, as Louis XIV would have been proud to observe, reigns again today" (Chapter 24). The Sun King was at least partially successful. According to Mansel, "Louis XIV... is now more admired than a hundred years ago" (Chapter 24). His "role as Apollo, the dazzling patron who inspired so many musicians, dancers, writers, sculptors, painters, architects and gardeners, overshadows his crimes and failures as Mars" (Chapter 24). Louis XIV would probably be especially proud to learn about the fate of his beloved Versailles. "The palace is not only a unique asset for French diplomacy and tourism but also a valued show room for modern French businesses, as well as the traditional luxury trades which Louis did so much to encourage. Books and films and television have turned Louis XIV and Versailles into an international industry... Three hundred years after his death, Versailles keeps Louis XIV’s glory alive."
The question, however, remains: If Louis XIV could see what has transpired since he died, if he could visit Earth as a spirit freed from the blindness of his biases and see the full extent of his accomplishments and failures, would pride be his main emotion? Or would he be overwhelmed with painful embarrassment upon realizing how much suffering his decisions caused? Yes, he is remembered and admired (by some). But at the same time his worst vices and blunders are being meticulously picked apart by numerous historians, on display for anybody who would like to learn about them. He, who cared so much about his image, would be devastated to find out how much this image was tainted by actions that could have been avoided if he only truly understood what he was doing and why. The emotional person that he was underneath the crust of the hardened heart, if the spirit of Louis now perceived all the damage he caused, he would probably weep in despair. No matter all the power, the Sun King has never been able to escape powerlessness, either in his life or after death.
No matter how hard Louis XIV tried to be in control, no matter how hard he tried to persuade himself and others that he was in control, his power clearly had its limits.
"Even hard work, and the vast theoretical authority of his crown... did not guarantee Louis XIV total control of France. Keen to show that they are not deceived by royal propaganda, or by the inflated view of royal power enshrined in Louis XIV’s memoirs written for the instruction of the Dauphin, many historians emphasize the constraints placed on the crown by the social and economic structures, the traditional institutions (especially the Church) and the conservatism of France. Even at the height of his power, as Fouquet’s trial showed, individuals and law courts could challenge or criticize the King. In 1662 the Chancellor and the Parlement of Paris would defeat his attempts to modify the composition of the royal family by adding the House of Lorraine to the French order of succession. The monarchy could be stronger than the King. Christianity, as well as conservatism, could encourage disobedience to Louis XIV – as he would find after 1680, when despite bribes and threats many Protestants would refuse to convert to Catholicism. There were also individual examples of disobedience..." (Chapter 7).
Most importantly, Louis XIV clearly did not have the power to see how his actions were undermining the very goals he was trying to achieve. The extent of his mistakes, as summarized by Mansel in the last chapter of his book, is mind-boggling.
"After the death of Mazarin in 1661, having inherited the strongest country and army in Europe, Louis XIV had been expected to become the greatest monarch in history. By the end of his reign, however, France was no longer the supreme power in Europe. His own character [something outside of his control – E.F.] was one reason. Power, leadership and hard work did not compensate for Louis XIV’s love of war and lack of judgement. He overestimated French resources and underestimated European reactions. In 1661 France had been protected by treaties with almost all the powers of Europe, except Austria – with Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Brandenburg, Bavaria, the Netherlands, England, Portugal and Spain – and by the long-standing alliance with the Ottoman Empire. As guarantor of the Treaty of Oliva in the north and the League of the Rhine in the Empire, France also had many pretexts for intervention abroad. By his wars and persecutions, however, Louis XIV had helped unite Europe against France. At his death in 1715, France had no allies but Spain, Sweden, Bavaria and the Ottoman Empire. Louis’ lack of judgement led him to pick losers. His alliance with the exiled Stuarts benefited neither them nor France" (Chapter 24).
The King depended on others for help and advice. When his advisors themselves were blinded by their own biases (which was not uncommon), multiple failures were sure to follow. "The number and gravity of Louis’ mistakes increased after Colbert’s death in 1683, showing both the power of his ministers and that the famous inscription in the Galerie des Glaces ‘le roi gouverne par lui-meme’ was in part an illusion. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the invasion of the Rhineland in 1688 (thereby helping to ensure the success of William III’s invasion of England), the dispersion of French forces on different fronts in 1690–93 and the commitment to the restoration of the Stuarts were self-inflicted disasters. The bombardments of Genoa and Brussels, the persecution of the Huguenots and the devastation of the Palatinate showed the cruelty which helped turn much of Europe against France" (Chapter 24).
Again and again, Louis's actions led to results that he was trying hard to avoid. "The transformations of its rivals England, Austria, Prussia and Savoy from second-rank into major powers (including England’s conquest of Gibraltar and union with Scotland) were helped by Louis’ wars, and in the case of England and Prussia by Huguenots fleeing his persecutions. Compared to Louis’ alternations between dynasticism and nationalism, expansion and retrocession, Gallicanism and Papalism, his fellow monarchs Leopold I, William III, Victor Amadeus II and his own grandson Philip V, none of whom had Louis’ initial advantages, proved more consistent and more successful. Finance was another of Louis’ weaknesses. In 1661 he had promised that ‘the relief of my people is my strongest passion.’ But, as he lamented on his deathbed, and as some of his subjects complained in their songs during his funeral procession, he failed in the task" (Chapter 24).
Louis XIV's bad judgments were something that he could not properly evaluate. They shaped his decisions related to numerous aspects of his reign and personal life, from military to health, and everything in-between. "His habit of conducting some of his wars by micromanagement from Versailles, and dividing commands between rival generals, helped lead to French defeats. Louis XIV did not even choose good doctors. The attentions of his doctors led to the premature deaths of his wife, son, eldest grandson, granddaughter-in-law, two great-grandsons and, in the opinion of some courtiers, the King himself" (Chapter 24).
Louis XIV's power and his powerlessness cannot be clearly separated from each other. After all, as Mansel reminds us, the Sun King "proved better at incorporating French conquests, and defending France, than his republican and Bonapartist successors. He helped make Frenchmen out of Flemish, Alsatians and Burgundians and gave France its present shape. He also provided many Frenchmen with immense emotional satisfaction, as he still does. Many were proud, like the King himself, of his wars, conquests and palaces, proud of his imposition of religious uniformity, of his hospitality to James II and of the fact that, as the lawyer M. Borelly of Nîmes wrote in his diary, ‘all Europe is against our great king.’ In 1698 Matthew Prior noted that ‘the common people of this nation have a strange veneration for their king’" (Chapter 24).
Louis XIV's mistakes, inherited by his successors, eventually led to the French Revolution, which was the Sun King's worst nightmare. "Partly because of the legacy of Louis XIV, and the economic and social disparities he had aggravated, the French social order had been the first in Europe to be overthrown" (Chapter 24). Mansel believes that "[t]he trigger for the revolution... was not famine, the unpopularity of the Austrian Queen Marie Antoinette or social tensions, but the financial system inherited from Louis XIV" (Chapter 24). Notably, the French Revolution only became possible when "[t]he great institutions which had served Louis XIV’s monarchy [ – ] the nobility, the church, the army, the Parlements [ – ] began to withdraw support or demand change" (Chapter 24). The Revolution could have happened during the Sun King's reign, but it did not – due to a combination of cultural, political, and personal factors rather than because of how powerful Louis XIV was. If anything, we can see that he was eventually powerless to stop the French monarchy from hurtling towards the precipice.
Even after all these blunders, Louis XIV was not universally detested in France, as one might expect. When he was dying a painful death from a gangrene in his leg, "[t]he churches of Paris filled with people praying for the King’s recovery – as the crowds at Versailles also showed, he was not as detested as critics would later claim" (Chapter 23). Meanwhile, in Versailles, "[c]ourtiers filled the gallery, and those with the right entrées the council chamber. Such was the magnetism of the King and the monarchy that both soon became impenetrable. Crowds filled the palace courtyards and the surrounding streets" (Chapter 23).
But power is a paradox after all, and the change of the mood after the King's death serves as a good reminder. "In contrast to the funeral procession’s outward dignity... ‘on all sides’ along the route from Versailles to Saint-Denis, people had been drinking, laughing, singing and playing music – as the young writer François Arouet, later known as Voltaire... remembered. Resentment of his wars and taxes, and oppression, was increased by the prospect of change in a new reign. Even the Master of Ceremonies Desgranges in his official register admitted, ‘the people regarded it as a fête and, full of joy at having seen the living king, did not feel all the sorrow which the death of such a great King should cause.’ Pierre Narbonne adds: ‘many people rejoiced at the death of this prince and on all sides you could hear the sound of violins.’ Perhaps for fear of popular reactions, the funeral procession, unlike that of the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne three years earlier, did not pass through Paris" (Chapter 23).
Soon after Louis XIV's death, he was being laughed at with glee. "[P]oems provided a mocking counterblast to the official narrative:
Here in the same tomb
Lie the great Louis and the finances.
. . our invincible king . . . died as he lived,
Without leaving us the
Quarter of an écu . . .
In Saint-Denis as at Versailles,
He is without heart and without entrails.
‘Our immortal king’ was attacked for his taxes even more than for his wars or his absolutism. Only financiers, wrote the curé of Saint-Sulpice near Blois in his parish register, had benefited from his reign, since they acquired all the money in the kingdom. Other poems called him ‘the slave of an unworthy woman’, the enemy of peace. ‘Do not pray God for his soul. Such a monster never had one.’ One called him Louis le Petit [Louis the Small, as opposed to Louis the Great]" (Chapter 23).
Balancing between mockery and veneration, some people pointed out Louis XIV's numerous mistakes while not taking away his dignity. "At a solemn memorial service... in the spiritual heart of the French monarchy... one of the most respected preachers of the day, Jean-Baptiste Massillon, praised ‘the father of kings, greater than all his ancestors, more magnificent than Solomon in all his glory’. However, he also mourned what he called ‘an entire century of horror and carnage, the elite of the French nobility precipitated into the grave, so many ancient lines extinguished, so many inconsolable mothers who still weep for their children, our countryside deserted . . . our towns laid waste; our peoples exhausted . . . trade languishing . . . burning, bloodshed, blasphemy, abomination and all the horrors of which war is the father.’ He described the glory of establishing Philip V on the throne of Spain as ‘triste et amère’ (‘sad and bitter’); lamented that the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had weakened the monarchy as a result of ‘the escape of so many citizens’ (one of the few public criticisms of their persecution); quoted the King’s deathbed advice to his great-grandson to avoid wars; and deplored ‘our crimes’" (Chapter 23).
Yes, power is a paradox. Today, same as in the past, Louis XIV is both criticized and respected. And although his actions undermined the Bourbon Dynasty, they also strengthened it, although not in France itself. "The Bourbon dynasty in Spain would outlast both its cousins in France and British control of North America; and, as Louis XIV would have been proud to observe, reigns again today" (Chapter 24). The Sun King was at least partially successful. According to Mansel, "Louis XIV... is now more admired than a hundred years ago" (Chapter 24). His "role as Apollo, the dazzling patron who inspired so many musicians, dancers, writers, sculptors, painters, architects and gardeners, overshadows his crimes and failures as Mars" (Chapter 24). Louis XIV would probably be especially proud to learn about the fate of his beloved Versailles. "The palace is not only a unique asset for French diplomacy and tourism but also a valued show room for modern French businesses, as well as the traditional luxury trades which Louis did so much to encourage. Books and films and television have turned Louis XIV and Versailles into an international industry... Three hundred years after his death, Versailles keeps Louis XIV’s glory alive."
The question, however, remains: If Louis XIV could see what has transpired since he died, if he could visit Earth as a spirit freed from the blindness of his biases and see the full extent of his accomplishments and failures, would pride be his main emotion? Or would he be overwhelmed with painful embarrassment upon realizing how much suffering his decisions caused? Yes, he is remembered and admired (by some). But at the same time his worst vices and blunders are being meticulously picked apart by numerous historians, on display for anybody who would like to learn about them. He, who cared so much about his image, would be devastated to find out how much this image was tainted by actions that could have been avoided if he only truly understood what he was doing and why. The emotional person that he was underneath the crust of the hardened heart, if the spirit of Louis now perceived all the damage he caused, he would probably weep in despair. No matter all the power, the Sun King has never been able to escape powerlessness, either in his life or after death.
Image credit: Versailles by Stephanie LeBlanc
***
My goal in writing this essay was not to present a sanitized version of Louis XIV's life, focusing on his accomplishments while downplaying the extent of damage that his decisions caused. I am by no means trying to say that his actions were okay. But my readers will undoubtedly note that my interpretation of Louis XIV is rather sympathetic. I describe him as person with many flaws who made serious mistakes that had impact on numerous people – but I do not present him as a bad person. Moreover, throughout this essay I am offering explanations for why he had those flaws and made those mistakes. I know that some readers will find my attempts to find such explanations misguided or even insulting. However, I hope that others will appreciate the nuance between justifying an action (as in, showing that an action was right or reasonable) and explaining an action by referring to complexity of human psychology and social context.
Louis XVI made plenty of blunders as he was navigating life's pressures, complicated networks of personal and political relationships, his own needs, and what he saw as his responsibilities as a representative of the Bourbon Dynasty and the ruler of France. From our advantageous position as outside observers, we can theorize how some of these mistakes could have been avoided. But considering the complexity of cultural, political, and personal factors at play, avoiding them was not as easy for Louis as it might seem to us now. I am not arguing that there was no way to make different decisions. But I believe that we should be careful with an urge to claim that he could have made different choices if he really wanted to, because he had all the power he is known for. As a person who puts big emphasis on empathy, I believe that we should not get carried away by the conviction that "if only I had been in his place, I would have done so much better [because I am a good person and he was a bad person]." For what would it truly mean to be in Louis XIV's place?
It would mean not having a kind of childhood that many people today imagine and hope for their children. Instead, being Louis XIV would mean being born into a world of strange rigid rules, endless ceremonies, complicated and sometimes even toxic relationships, filled with serious responsibilities and pressures but without appropriate psychological support. Being Louis XIV would mean trying to navigate this world with the help of conflicting ideas provided by those he respected and loved: "you have special rights and power granted to you by God" but "you must ignore your needs if they do not benefit your dynasty and your country."
Being Louis XIV would mean to be a celebrity from the day you are born, and to gradually realize that you are at the same time feared and loved, hated and used by people around you. It would mean developing strategies of coping with those confusing circumstances without fully understanding how these strategies benefit you and how they can hurt you – or those around you. (Developing coping strategies that can later backfire is, actually, not uncommon. This happens to many people who have to navigate complicated circumstances. But not everybody has the power of a king – the power that would make downside of these coping strategies so visible and widely known).
Being Louis XIV would mean feeling the constant pressure to show and prove your power to the world. It would mean dealing with intrigues of the court and of your own family. It would mean realizing at some point that you cannot manage your country the way you think it needs to be managed, no matter how much hard work you put into it. Being Louis XIV would also mean realizing that in order to achieve your goals you often need to negotiate and give other people what they want from you (which might not always be in your best interests). It would mean having to admit that, despite all the power you supposedly have, you often cannot make people and institutions do what you want them to do.
Today, we have access to rich research on human psychology which can help us understand our own reactions and actions. We have therapists and meditation teachers to help us find peace with ourselves. (Even then, not everybody has access to these resources or knows how to use them.) But Louis XIV did not have any of that, so he was unable to understand what was going on in his heart and mind. He was given power by people around him, but nobody could explain to him how having this kind of power can impact one's personality. So, even though Louis had power to make decisions that had visible effect on numerous people, he did not have power to fully comprehend why he was making these decisions. Just as he did not quite understand himself, he also did not understand other people, despite all his knowledge about internal and international politics. This lack of understanding explains, in particular, why he miscalculated effects of his decisions related to wars and religion.
The goal of this essay was not to deny that Louis XIV had power but to acknowledge how this power coexisted with powerlessness. I also wanted to show different aspects of his powerlessness: not being able to control institutions or to make anybody do what he wanted them to do; not fully understanding reasons behind his own actions and reactions; not knowing how to predict or shape outcomes of his decisions. In each instance when Louis XIV did something what he seemingly wanted, it was because some other people wanted it as well. I believe that, in all his great mistakes and accomplishments, there was no instance where he would have been one against everybody, yet still being able to achieve his odds against all odds. He was able to do many things as a French monarch; but the monarchy, with all its privileges, rules, and responsibilities, was something he was born into, not single-handedly created. Monarchy depended on ideas and ideologies that Louis and most of his subjects did not know how to properly question.
As the name of my website suggests, I am especially interested in meanings – ideas and associations that our mind attaches to aspects of the world we live in. Meanings exist in our heads, and as human history suggests, they change over time due to people's interactions. Supposedly, people have power over these ideas: meanings do not change themselves, people change them. But meanings have also significant power over us. Nobody can escape their effect, including seemingly most powerful people we can think of. Louis XIV was certainly affected by meanings that he did not create, especially all the ideas about absolute monarchy that permeated his life. We cannot underestimate the role of meanings of monarchy in the way the Sun King chose to act, in the way he wanted to be seen by others, and in the way he was indeed seen. Meanings of monarchy was a source of his power, the reason why he was feared and admired. At the same time, not being in control of these meanings was a major aspect of his powerlessness.
Monarchy of the past – with its veneration of the King by his subjects and the King's attempts to craft his image according to certain standards – might seems almost barbaric to us today. We must realize that in the times of Louis XIV, "shared belief in monarchy and hierarchy... [was] as common... as enthusiasm for human rights today" (Chapter 15). It is easy to question these ideas now not because we are smarter than people of the past. These people lived in the world where ideas associated with monarchy were part of everyday life – not only of kings but also of all their subjects. People who supported monarchy might seem to have been blind in their fear and adoration, and monarchs of the past themselves might seem to have been the main cause of the persistence of veneration directed towards them. But their relationship with meanings was as paradoxical as our relationship with meanings today.
Louis XIV did not create the idea of monarchy, and he did not have much more control over it than his subjects. Part of his powerlessness was his inability to see how much not in charge of these meanings he was. It is known that, during the everyday evening ceremony of coucher, the Sun King would tell "his Premier Valet de Chambre to pass the bougeoir – a candle on a plate – to whomever he wished to favour that evening. As the King boasted in his memoirs, one of the most visible effects of his power was to give ‘an infinite value’ to something which in itself was nothing" (Chapter 13). The irony is that Louis thought he used his power by turning an ordinary candle into something special, a symbol of royal favor, which so many people craved. In fact, he was only able to do that because of the meanings of monarchy that, unbeknownst to the King, shaped his own existence.
After reading my essay, you might say that when one tries to see somebody as "not a bad person," there is a danger of starting to like them and then to diminish the harm that they have done. To that I can say, first of all, that one does not have to like somebody in order to acknowledge limits of their power. I can think of a few people who are far more controversial than Louis XIV and whom I do not quite like, and I do not need to force myself to like them in order to entertain an idea that there was a significant amount of powerlessness in their lives that could at least partially account for their decisions. If anything, if we insist on explaining society's problems by claiming that they are mainly caused by bad people, this might prevent us from properly understanding causes behind these problems and finding better solutions for them.
Now, after analyzing the life of one such clearly powerful person as Louis XIV in order to show his powerlessness, the next logical step would seem to do the opposite: to find an example of somebody powerless and to show how they did have certain power after all. This is something I need to consider, but I have my fears and reservations. It might seem acceptable (at least to some people) to take a famous figure like Louis XIV and push it off the pedestal . This might even feel like an entertaining and curious exercise in cognitive empathy. Going in the other direction, however, might be akin to taking a walk through a minefield. If I choose somebody who was extremely disadvantaged, even abused, and try to argue that they had some power after all, this will probably not be entertaining at all. In fact, some might find this exercise heartless and offensive. I probably will find it heartless myself. Luckily (for me), I would not be able to really do that for a simple reason that the most powerless people do not have historians writing heavy tomes about them. We just don't really known these people (actually, we don't know many details about most of the people who have lived on the Earth). For the purpose of continuing my exploration of power, I will need to find a solution for this conundrum. Stay tuned!
SOURCES:
Chateau de Versailles [official website]. (n.d.). Courtiers: The nobility surrounding the king.
Clarke, J. (2023). Cognitive empathy vs. emotional empathy. VerywellMind.
Dowding, K. (2011). Absolutism. In K. Dowding, ed., Encyclopedia of Power. Sage.
Mansel, P. (2020). King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV. University of Chicago Press.
Medscape. (2023). Scrofula.
Philip Mansel [official website]. (n.d.). About Philip Mansel.
Louis XVI made plenty of blunders as he was navigating life's pressures, complicated networks of personal and political relationships, his own needs, and what he saw as his responsibilities as a representative of the Bourbon Dynasty and the ruler of France. From our advantageous position as outside observers, we can theorize how some of these mistakes could have been avoided. But considering the complexity of cultural, political, and personal factors at play, avoiding them was not as easy for Louis as it might seem to us now. I am not arguing that there was no way to make different decisions. But I believe that we should be careful with an urge to claim that he could have made different choices if he really wanted to, because he had all the power he is known for. As a person who puts big emphasis on empathy, I believe that we should not get carried away by the conviction that "if only I had been in his place, I would have done so much better [because I am a good person and he was a bad person]." For what would it truly mean to be in Louis XIV's place?
It would mean not having a kind of childhood that many people today imagine and hope for their children. Instead, being Louis XIV would mean being born into a world of strange rigid rules, endless ceremonies, complicated and sometimes even toxic relationships, filled with serious responsibilities and pressures but without appropriate psychological support. Being Louis XIV would mean trying to navigate this world with the help of conflicting ideas provided by those he respected and loved: "you have special rights and power granted to you by God" but "you must ignore your needs if they do not benefit your dynasty and your country."
Being Louis XIV would mean to be a celebrity from the day you are born, and to gradually realize that you are at the same time feared and loved, hated and used by people around you. It would mean developing strategies of coping with those confusing circumstances without fully understanding how these strategies benefit you and how they can hurt you – or those around you. (Developing coping strategies that can later backfire is, actually, not uncommon. This happens to many people who have to navigate complicated circumstances. But not everybody has the power of a king – the power that would make downside of these coping strategies so visible and widely known).
Being Louis XIV would mean feeling the constant pressure to show and prove your power to the world. It would mean dealing with intrigues of the court and of your own family. It would mean realizing at some point that you cannot manage your country the way you think it needs to be managed, no matter how much hard work you put into it. Being Louis XIV would also mean realizing that in order to achieve your goals you often need to negotiate and give other people what they want from you (which might not always be in your best interests). It would mean having to admit that, despite all the power you supposedly have, you often cannot make people and institutions do what you want them to do.
Today, we have access to rich research on human psychology which can help us understand our own reactions and actions. We have therapists and meditation teachers to help us find peace with ourselves. (Even then, not everybody has access to these resources or knows how to use them.) But Louis XIV did not have any of that, so he was unable to understand what was going on in his heart and mind. He was given power by people around him, but nobody could explain to him how having this kind of power can impact one's personality. So, even though Louis had power to make decisions that had visible effect on numerous people, he did not have power to fully comprehend why he was making these decisions. Just as he did not quite understand himself, he also did not understand other people, despite all his knowledge about internal and international politics. This lack of understanding explains, in particular, why he miscalculated effects of his decisions related to wars and religion.
The goal of this essay was not to deny that Louis XIV had power but to acknowledge how this power coexisted with powerlessness. I also wanted to show different aspects of his powerlessness: not being able to control institutions or to make anybody do what he wanted them to do; not fully understanding reasons behind his own actions and reactions; not knowing how to predict or shape outcomes of his decisions. In each instance when Louis XIV did something what he seemingly wanted, it was because some other people wanted it as well. I believe that, in all his great mistakes and accomplishments, there was no instance where he would have been one against everybody, yet still being able to achieve his odds against all odds. He was able to do many things as a French monarch; but the monarchy, with all its privileges, rules, and responsibilities, was something he was born into, not single-handedly created. Monarchy depended on ideas and ideologies that Louis and most of his subjects did not know how to properly question.
As the name of my website suggests, I am especially interested in meanings – ideas and associations that our mind attaches to aspects of the world we live in. Meanings exist in our heads, and as human history suggests, they change over time due to people's interactions. Supposedly, people have power over these ideas: meanings do not change themselves, people change them. But meanings have also significant power over us. Nobody can escape their effect, including seemingly most powerful people we can think of. Louis XIV was certainly affected by meanings that he did not create, especially all the ideas about absolute monarchy that permeated his life. We cannot underestimate the role of meanings of monarchy in the way the Sun King chose to act, in the way he wanted to be seen by others, and in the way he was indeed seen. Meanings of monarchy was a source of his power, the reason why he was feared and admired. At the same time, not being in control of these meanings was a major aspect of his powerlessness.
Monarchy of the past – with its veneration of the King by his subjects and the King's attempts to craft his image according to certain standards – might seems almost barbaric to us today. We must realize that in the times of Louis XIV, "shared belief in monarchy and hierarchy... [was] as common... as enthusiasm for human rights today" (Chapter 15). It is easy to question these ideas now not because we are smarter than people of the past. These people lived in the world where ideas associated with monarchy were part of everyday life – not only of kings but also of all their subjects. People who supported monarchy might seem to have been blind in their fear and adoration, and monarchs of the past themselves might seem to have been the main cause of the persistence of veneration directed towards them. But their relationship with meanings was as paradoxical as our relationship with meanings today.
Louis XIV did not create the idea of monarchy, and he did not have much more control over it than his subjects. Part of his powerlessness was his inability to see how much not in charge of these meanings he was. It is known that, during the everyday evening ceremony of coucher, the Sun King would tell "his Premier Valet de Chambre to pass the bougeoir – a candle on a plate – to whomever he wished to favour that evening. As the King boasted in his memoirs, one of the most visible effects of his power was to give ‘an infinite value’ to something which in itself was nothing" (Chapter 13). The irony is that Louis thought he used his power by turning an ordinary candle into something special, a symbol of royal favor, which so many people craved. In fact, he was only able to do that because of the meanings of monarchy that, unbeknownst to the King, shaped his own existence.
After reading my essay, you might say that when one tries to see somebody as "not a bad person," there is a danger of starting to like them and then to diminish the harm that they have done. To that I can say, first of all, that one does not have to like somebody in order to acknowledge limits of their power. I can think of a few people who are far more controversial than Louis XIV and whom I do not quite like, and I do not need to force myself to like them in order to entertain an idea that there was a significant amount of powerlessness in their lives that could at least partially account for their decisions. If anything, if we insist on explaining society's problems by claiming that they are mainly caused by bad people, this might prevent us from properly understanding causes behind these problems and finding better solutions for them.
Now, after analyzing the life of one such clearly powerful person as Louis XIV in order to show his powerlessness, the next logical step would seem to do the opposite: to find an example of somebody powerless and to show how they did have certain power after all. This is something I need to consider, but I have my fears and reservations. It might seem acceptable (at least to some people) to take a famous figure like Louis XIV and push it off the pedestal . This might even feel like an entertaining and curious exercise in cognitive empathy. Going in the other direction, however, might be akin to taking a walk through a minefield. If I choose somebody who was extremely disadvantaged, even abused, and try to argue that they had some power after all, this will probably not be entertaining at all. In fact, some might find this exercise heartless and offensive. I probably will find it heartless myself. Luckily (for me), I would not be able to really do that for a simple reason that the most powerless people do not have historians writing heavy tomes about them. We just don't really known these people (actually, we don't know many details about most of the people who have lived on the Earth). For the purpose of continuing my exploration of power, I will need to find a solution for this conundrum. Stay tuned!
SOURCES:
Chateau de Versailles [official website]. (n.d.). Courtiers: The nobility surrounding the king.
Clarke, J. (2023). Cognitive empathy vs. emotional empathy. VerywellMind.
Dowding, K. (2011). Absolutism. In K. Dowding, ed., Encyclopedia of Power. Sage.
Mansel, P. (2020). King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV. University of Chicago Press.
Medscape. (2023). Scrofula.
Philip Mansel [official website]. (n.d.). About Philip Mansel.