Louis XIV, was, in his time, one of the most powerful men in the world. He had a huge impact on French history. He had lavish tastes, he was a control freak, he loved the arts and believed himself chosen by God to rule over millions of people. He was arguably one of the greatest Kings of France, certainly one of the most remembered. He was also a Machiavellian puppet master whose legacy is evident in the France of today, long after its citizens disposed of his heirs. He ruled for a very long time and he was a fascinating character who lived an incredible life, one of history’s most iconic monarchs for sure. Step back to 17th century France to explore the life and times of Louis XIV and discover the man behind the legend and the legacy that outlived him. Discover everything you want to know about Louis XIV – and more…
Little Louis
Louis was born in 1638 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye into the royal house of the Bourbons. He was a much-loved baby and was called Louis Dieudonné – the god given one, because after 23 years of marriage and four miscarriages, his parents King Louis XIII and Queen Anne had all but given up hope of having a healthy son. He was born with teeth, which was thought to be a sign of a great future. Later he was called Louis le Grand (Louis the Great) and Louis le Roi de Soleil, the Sun King.
Little Louis became a King at just four years old in 1643 when his father died. He was crowned in Reims Cathedral in Champagne. Because he was so young, his mother became regent until he was ready to take over. As her chief advisor she took a man called Cardinal Mazarin. He was not a humble man of God. He was an obsessive collector of valuable things and when he died, he was the richest man France had ever had at that point. The Queen and Mazarin spent money like it was going out of fashion, and when they tried to raise more money by getting government officials to give up their wages for four years, there was uproar.
You can’t keep taxing people and eroding their quality of life. There was inevitable pushback. So Cardinal Mazarin had his opponents arrested. Now this is a potted history of course but all these shenanigans led to rebellion by the nobles against the monarchy, it was known as the Fronde, a series of civil wars between 1648 and 1653. Queen Anne fled her home in Paris taking the young King with her. And for Louis who was 9 years old when it all kicked off, it was a terrifying time and deeply affected him, giving him a lifelong desire for absolute control and shaping his approach to monarchy. It also made him not want to live in Paris.
An absolute monarch
Mazarin had a firm pair of hands on the reins of power and wasn’t going to let them go if he could help it. It wasn’t until he died in 1661 that Louis, then 23 years old, was able to take total control. And he vowed that from now he would rule without a chief minister. Only he could issue orders. Only he could direct policy. He was after all he believed, the direct representative of God, who had chosen him to rule France.
He believed that he possessed miraculous healing powers. On major holidays he went around touching those infected with scrofula (also known as tuberculosis of the neck). Actually it wasn’t just him who thought he could cure sick people, everyone thought he could, but scrofula though horrible, couldn’t be cured, but also rarely killed, so when people didn’t die after being touched by the King they all went along with the theory that kings could cure. In 1680, Louis bestowed his royal touch on 1600 people in one day alone. It’s said that he touched and probably ‘healed’ about 350,000 people during his reign.
Louis associated himself with the Roman sun god, Apollo. He felt that as the world revolved around the sun, so France revolved around him, and that’s how the sun became his emblem.
By the time Mazarin died, Louis had been married for a year to his first cousin Marie Theresa of Spain. He had no love for her, it was a strategic alliance organised by the Cardinal, even though Louis was for a time in love with Mazarin’s niece Maria with whom he had a passionate affair. Louis remained married to Marie Theresa for 23 years and in that time they had six children, though only one survived to become an adult. Also during that time he had many mistresses and many more offspring including 5 children with the Duchess Louise de la Vallière, a lady in waiting to his wife, and 7 children with the Marquise de Montespan. No one knows how many children he had in total – at least 20 it is thought.
And no one actually knows for sure but it’s believed that he secretly married his last mistress Madame de Maintenon. She never changed her name though it’s said that those in the know called her Majesty in private, and she sat in the Queen’s place when travelling with the King.
If he really did marry her, it’s very out of character and shows a hidden side, as it must have been for love. He was only 44 years old when the marriage is said to have taken place after Queen Marie-Therese died in 1683. He could have made another strategic marriage, grown his power, had more royal children. But he didn’t. He also knew that if he married Madame de Maintenon openly, the nobles would rebel over it, and he’d worked so hard to gain control and establish absolute monarchy. Marrying for love would have seemed weak, plus she was of lesser rank. So he had a human side after all.
No-one greater
As a young man Louis had a busy social life and people thought he wouldn’t be serious about his responsibilities so they were surprised when he decided to really take control when Mazarin died. In fact he was tough as old boots, worked hard, played hard and was intelligent and cunning. Soon after he took power, he had one of his chief ministers arrested – Nicolas Fouquet, who had built the beautiful castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte near Paris. It was a much more beautiful chateau than anything Louis had and his jealousy made him angry. The charges of stealing from the king’s coffers were most likely made up. But it showed everyone that Louis was not to be trifled with, and it sent a message “ no one is more powerful than the King of France.”
Louis didn’t want a repeat of the terrible civil wars that took place during his childhood. He knew he had to deal with the pesky nobles, the peasants needed to know he was boss, not the local lords. With the help of his minister Jean Baptiste Colbert, he reformed the tax and administration of France which had been largely managed by the nobles who pocketed much of the money. With Colbert’s help, much more went to the royal coffers. Colbert was an incredible man, he increased commerce and trade, reduced imports, encouraged manufacturing in all areas from making silk to making cheese reducing France’s reliance of foreign industries. For instance when France was at war with the Dutch, and people still wanted Edam cheese, Louis and Colbert ordered cheese makers to make something like it – and Mimolette was born though it’s a very different colour and I think different taste! Colbert established regulations of production, new industries, founded the Academy of Sciences, the Paris observatory, the Royal Academy of Architecture. All of this enhanced the reputation of the King. Colbert employed people who weren’t nobles to deal with administration as they were easier to control and didn’t have family loyalty like the nobles did. The money poured in.
But Louis spent it just as fast as he banked it. He fought war after war. His foreign policy and military engagements reshaped European geopolitics And he expanded France’s territory. Louisianna in the US was named in his honour after it was claimed it for France in the 1680s. In 1803 it was sold to the US for $15 million. 828,000 square miles of land. A bargain!
A taste for the good life
Louis had expensive tastes. One of the ways he controlled the nobility was by moving them to Versailles and away from Paris and their own homes. At the former Versailles hunting lodge, Louis employed the creators of Vaux-le-Vicomte, the castle that had made him so jealous, to transform the lodge into one of the most beautiful palaces ever built. And then he made sure that if anyone wanted to be in favour with him, they lived in the palace or nearby where he could keep an eye on them. He spied on them, read their letters and kept them busy.
He commissioned lots of cultural and sporting events. During his reign his support of the arts was generous. He commissioned thousands of artworks, portraits and busts of himself. He founded the Académie Royale de Danse – he loved to dance and was trained by professional instructors. And he was very proud of his legs which were often a main feature in his portraits! He also founded the Académie d’Opéra. He employed thousands of craftspeople at Versailles to make statues, ornaments, furniture, mirrors and other decorative items.
In Paris, he established a police force, constructed broad boulevards, and installed street lighting. He also constructed Les Invalides, a military complex for soldiers and infirm veterans. He expanded The Louvre, and commissioned the Canal du Midi.
He was a busy King alright. He introduced meticulous routines into the daily lives of Versailles, controlling the nobles through a system of rituals, ceremonies and etiquette which distracted them and kept them from having time to think about opposing him or causing him trouble. Some etiquette rules were fairly odd. If the King wasn’t in residence and you passed his portrait you had to bow or curtsy to it. You weren’t allowed to knock on his door, you had to scratch it like a rat so as not to disturb him too much – apparently some courtiers grew out one of their fingernails long so they could scratch better! Only Louis and his immediate family could walk through a door without scratching first. You couldn’t sit unless you were approved, you had to stay on your feet all day, and since it was a full-time job getting noticed for being around, it was not an easy life for nobles who weren’t in with the king.
Rules of etiquette at Versailles
Every hour of the King’s day would be precisely organised with all the trappings of formality around it. Someone to hand him slippers, someone to empty his chamber pot, two people to take his night shirt off, someone to hand tie his neckcloth, someone else to adjust it, someone to hand him a mirror – there were numerous positions for the nobles to know their place. Watching the King perform his levée (waking up and getting dressed ceremony), or couchée (bedtime undressing ceremony), was the highlight of the day for nobles hoping to curry favour with the King.
Louis’s day was rigorously organised from morning to night. His day started at 08.30 when he was visited by doctors and then friends and nobles who attended while he washed, combed his hair, shaved dress and had a bowl of soup or a bit of bread dipped in wine for breakfast. And he drank coffee or hot chocolate. Only important servants were allowed to watch.
It’s thought around 100 people, all male, took part in getting the king ready in the morning! At 10 o’clock he crossed the palace to go to Mass, followed by crowds of people. After this he worked on state matters, he famously said “L’Etat c’est moi” – the state – it is me: meaning there is no one higher than me in France. Then he had lunch in his bedroom. In the afternoon he hunted, walked in the gardens, did more work, met with his mistresses.
Then at 10 o’clock at night he had dinner, the “Grand Couvert“. Nobility would be placed near the King, according to their importance and rank but to the side of the table so that everyone could have a clear view of Louis. Crowds would watch him eat – they were squeezed in. It was a show of his power. The soup and starters were followed by roasts and salads, then puddings and finally fruit. With each service a different procession of officers from the Services for the King’s Mouth, a team that looked after his household needs, carried the food in gold, silver or silver-gilt dishes. The best goldsmiths worked to produce new forms that would keep the food warm for longer. Glasses, which were ordinary items, were only provided upon request. Despite all this, the meal lasted less than an hour.
A whopping 324 people were involved in preparing the Sun King’s meals. Someone to take care of the table, tablecloth and bread, someone to take care of the candelabras and fruit. Someone to fold the napkins which would be made into extraordinary shapes. As the servants carried the food to and from the kitchens, they were escorted by guards. And it was etiquette that if you were walking in Versailles and the food headed for the royal table was carried past you, you had to bow or curtsy to the dish.
The king would eat up to 30 different dishes, washed down with wine and would pop some candied fruit in his pocket to eat on this way to bed!
Louis liked ice cream. A lot. He had two ice-houses built at Versailles. The ice was carved out of a frozen pond in winter and stored in the ice houses – not exactly hygienic but pretty amazing for the day when he served frozen ice balls on hot days. In fact this created a whole new trend as the poorer people got to hear about it and the practice of mixing cream, ice and fruit spread.
Louis imposed a strict dress code at Versailles, insisting on the finest materials so the nobles spent a small fortune money on outfits trying to outdo each other and impress the king, bankrupting themselves, instead of being able to pay soldiers to cause trouble. France became the capital of fashion, etiquette, and culture. The French love of the art de la table and art de vivre all stem from the rules that were put in place at Versailles.
Everything you want to know about Louis XIV
Louis was quite short at 5 feet 4 inches, and that had an impact on the fashion of the day. As a control freak he wanted to be taller so he wore high heeled shoes up to 5 inches high with buckles and ribbons. And he loved red heels for his shoes and made it a rule only he and select aristocrats could wear red heels. He made himself taller with big wigs, like, really big wigs. He had a room in the palace just for keeping wigs in. He started to lose his hair when quite young and that partly influenced his choice to wear wigs. He apparently had 48 wigmakers, and it took around 10 heads of hair to create a single wig. The rest of European aristocracy were influenced by Louis’ love of long flowing locks in a wig and the term “bigwig” was coined in England – meaning an important person – and we still use the phrase to this day!
Louis holds the record for the longest reigning monarch in the history of France – 72 years on the throne, despite not always enjoying the best of health. His doctors noted symptoms of diabetes, chronic inflammation, dental abscesses, boils, fainting spells, gout, dizziness, hot flushes and headaches. As he drew near the end of his life, he was in almost permanent pain. He outlived all of his immediate family including his surviving legitimate son. His legitimate grandsons had also died, meaning his heir was his five-year-old great grandson Louis, the Duke of Anjou, who coincidentally was to have the second longest reign in French history.
Louis XIV died in 1715, and his body was displayed for 8 days at the palace before being transported to the basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris, last resting place of French Kings and Queens. His death marked the end of an era, but the legacy of the Sun King lives on. Versailles stands as a monument to his reign, and his policies continue to influence French national identity. His reign epitomised the age of absolutism, leaving a mark on history that endures to this day.
Janine Marsh is the author of several internationally best-selling books about France. Her latest book How to be French – a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de vivre, is out now – a look at the French way of life. Find all books on her website janinemarsh.com
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