Louis XIV and Versailles
The Sun King builds Versailles, centralises power and makes France the dominant power and culture of Europe, at a heavy price in war and debt.
- The Fabrication of Louis XIV — Peter Burke, Yale University Press (1992)
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of France — Colin Jones, Cambridge University Press (1994)
Louis XIV became king at four in 1643 and reigned for 72 years. As a boy he lived through the Fronde (1648–53), a series of revolts by nobles and judges that taught him to distrust both. Ruling personally from 1661, he built a state run by loyal ministers such as Colbert, who promoted manufactures, a navy and colonies.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of France — Colin Jones, Cambridge University Press (1994)
- France — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1682 he moved the court to Versailles, where the great nobles were drawn into an elaborate ritual of rank around the king. Peter Burke has shown how carefully the image of the “Sun King” was manufactured through art, architecture, medals and ceremony.
- The Fabrication of Louis XIV — Peter Burke, Yale University Press (1992)
The costs were heavy. Louis fought almost continuously, and by his death in 1715 France was deeply in debt and many peasants had suffered famine, notably in 1693–94 and 1709. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove out many Protestants. The debt and an unreformed tax system would help bring down the monarchy seventy years later.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of France — Colin Jones, Cambridge University Press (1994)
- The Fabrication of Louis XIV — Peter Burke, Yale University Press (1992)
Why it matters today
The taste for grandeur, a centralised state run from Paris, the Académie française guarding the language, French as the language of elegance: much of what outsiders think of as "French" took its form under Louis XIV. So did the habit of expecting the state to lead and to dazzle. Versailles is still where presidents receive foreign leaders when they want to impress.