In that time, he transformed the monarchy, ushered in a golden age of art and literature, presided over a dazzling royal court at Versailles, annexed key territories and established his country as the dominant European power. When the king died on May 14, , 4-year-old Louis inherited the crown of a fractured, unstable and nearly insolvent France. Beginning in , their discontent erupted into a civil war known as the Fronde, which forced the royal family to flee Paris and instilled a lifelong fear of rebellion in the young king. A diplomatic necessity more than anything else, the union produced six children, of whom only one, Louis , survived to adulthood. He viewed himself as the direct representative of God, endowed with a divine right to wield the absolute power of the monarchy. Immediately after assuming control of the government, Louis worked tirelessly to centralize and tighten control of France and its overseas colonies. His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert , implemented reforms that sharply reduced the deficit and fostered the growth of industry, while his war minister, the Marquis de Louvois , expanded and reorganized the French army. Louis also managed to pacify and disempower the historically rebellious nobles, who had fomented no less than 11 civil wars in four decades, by luring them to his court and habituating them to the opulent lifestyle there.
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He became king in As of , he started reforming France. In he invaded the Spanish Netherlands. From — he engaged France in the Franco-Dutch War. In , he led a war between France and the Grand Alliance. By the s, Louis XIV generated public hostility. He died in Versailles, France, on September 1, Louis XIV had a brother named Philippe, who was two years younger.
Early life and marriage
In the latter years of his year rule, however, the succession of wars launched by the king ultimately took their toll on France and resulted in battlefield defeats, crippling debt, and famine. Citizens grew so disgruntled that they even jeered the diseased Louis XIV during his funeral procession. To learn more about the life of the "Sun King," check out these seven surprising facts about the longest-reigning monarch in French history.
His reign of 72 years and days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. Louis began his personal rule of France in , after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles , succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during his minority. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured until the French Revolution. He also enforced uniformity of religion under the Gallican Catholic Church. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades , effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, and virtually destroying the French Protestant community.
