"only to the better-known and legitimised. Louis XIV of France Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (') or the Sun King ('), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who reigned as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. Starting on 14 May 1643 when Louis was 4 years old, his reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIV's France was a leader in"
"The Age of Louis XIV The Age of Louis XIV (""""Le Siècle de Louis XIV"""", also translated The Century of Louis XIV) is a historical work by the French historian, philosopher, and writer Voltaire, first published in 1751. Through it, the French 17th century became identified with Louis XIV of France, who reigned from 1643 to 1715. A letter in May 1732 is the first recorded mention of Voltaire's intent to write a history of the reign of Louis XIV. He stopped and resumed the project multiple times, expressing the fear that he might not live long enough to complete"
"on the road to modern history-writing"". The Age of Louis XIV The Age of Louis XIV (""""Le Siècle de Louis XIV"""", also translated The Century of Louis XIV) is a historical work by the French historian, philosopher, and writer Voltaire, first published in 1751. Through it, the French 17th century became identified with Louis XIV of France, who reigned from 1643 to 1715. A letter in May 1732 is the first recorded mention of Voltaire's intent to write a history of the reign of Louis XIV. He stopped and resumed the project multiple times, expressing the fear that he might"
"Louis XVIII of France Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as ""the Desired"" (le Désiré), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a period in 1815 known as the Hundred Days. He spent twenty-three years in exile, from 1791 to 1814, during the French Revolution and the First French Empire, and again in 1815, during the period of the Hundred Days, upon the return of Napoleon I from Elba. Until his accession to the throne of France, he held the"
"last French monarch, and the only one after 1774, to die while still ruling. He was interred at the Basilica of St Denis, the necropolis of French kings. The French line of succession upon the death of Louis XVIII in 1824. Louis XVIII of France Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as ""the Desired"" (le Désiré), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a period in 1815 known as the Hundred Days. He spent twenty-three years in exile, from 1791"
"and colony founded in 1642). Louis XIV, known as the ""Sun King"", reigned over France from 1643 until 1715 although his strongest period of personal rule did not begin until 1661 after the death of his Italian chief minister Cardinal Mazarin. Louis believed in the divine right of kings, which asserts that a monarch is above everyone except God, and is therefore not answerable to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or the Church. Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from Paris, sought to eliminate remnants of feudalism in France, and subjugated and weakened"
"the longest in European history. The reign of Louis XIV was so long that he outlived both his son and eldest grandson. He was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV. Louis XV was born on 15 February 1710 and was thus aged only five at his ascension, the third Louis in a row to become king of France before the age of thirteen (Louis XIII became king at 9, Louis XIV at almost 5 and himself at 5). Initially, the regency was held by Philip, Duke of Orléans, Louis XIV's nephew, as nearest adult male to the throne. This ""Regence"""
"Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. Named regent of France for Louis XV until Louis attained his majority on 15 February 1723, the period of his ""de facto"" rule was known as the Regency (1715–1723). He died at Versailles in 1723. He is also referred to as ""le Régent"". In March 1661, his father married his first cousin Princess Henrietta Anne of England, known as ""Madame"" at court. The marriage was stormy; Henrietta was a famed beauty, sometimes depicted as flirtatious by those at the court of Versailles. Nonetheless, the marriage produced three children: Marie Louise d'Orléans, future queen of"
"Louis XIV also revoked the Edict of Nantes, forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile. Under Louis XV, Louis XIV's great-grandson, France lost New France and most of its Indian possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, which ended in 1763. Its European territory kept growing, however, with notable acquisitions such as Lorraine (1766) and Corsica (1770). An unpopular king, Louis XV's weak rule, his ill-advised financial, political and military decisions as well as the debauchery of his court discredited the monarchy, which arguably paved the way for the French Revolution 15 years after his death. Louis XVI, Louis"
"concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given) and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent: ""Dauphin"". At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a"
"the aristocracy. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution. However, Louis XIV's long reign saw France involved in many wars that drained its treasury. His reign began during the Thirty Years' War and during the Franco-Spanish war. His military architect, Vauban, became famous for his pentagonal fortresses, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert supported the royal spending as much as possible. French dominated League of the Rhine fought against the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Saint Gotthard in 1664. The battle was won by the Christians, chiefly through the brave"
"King Louis XIV (1643–1715), France fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession. There were also two lesser conflicts: the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. The wars were very expensive but they defined Louis XIV's foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled ""by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique,"" Louis sensed that warfare was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to"
"France must be Catholic. Yet since religion could be changed, it could not be the basis for permanent exclusion from the throne. Louis XIV, grandson of Henry IV, was the longest-reigning king in European history. Louis XIV had only one son to survive to adulthood, the Dauphin Louis. The Dauphin, in turn, had three sons: Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Philip, Duke of Anjou, and Charles, Duke of Berry. In 1700, Charles II of Spain died. His heir, in accordance to cognatic primogeniture followed in Spain, would have been the Dauphin Louis. However, since the Dauphin was the heir to the"
"before dying of gangrene, with the monarch played by Jean-Pierre Léaud. The 15-year-old Louis XIV, as played by the Irish actor Robert Sheehan, is a major character of the short-lived historical fantasy series ""Young Blades"" from January to June 2005. George Blagden portrays Louis XIV in the Canal+ series ""Versailles"" which aired for three seasons from 2015. Despite the image of a healthy and virile king that Louis sought to project, evidence exists to suggest that his health was not that good. He had many ailments: for example, symptoms of diabetes, as confirmed in reports of suppurating periostitis in 1678,"
"1661 and it was expected that Louis would appoint another chief minister, as had become the tradition, but instead he shocked the country by announcing he would rule alone. For six years Louis reformed the finances of his state and built formidable armed forces. France fought a series of wars from 1667 onward and gained some territory on its northern and eastern borders. Maria Theresa died in 1683 and the next year he secretly married the devoutly Catholic Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon. Louis XIV began to persecute Protestants, undoing the religious tolerance established by his grandfather Henry IV, culminating"
"will find nothing in my will that should displease you. I commend the Dauphin to you, serve him as loyally as you have served me. Do your utmost to preserve his realm. If he were to die, you would be the master. [...] I have made what I believed to be the wisest and fairest arrangements for the well-being of the realm, but, since one cannot anticipate everything, if there is something to change or to reform, you will do whatever you see fit..."" Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715, and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson,"
"his long reign that officially started as a child in 1715; his active role began in 1722 and lasted to 1774. Louis XIV, with his eagerness for warfare, was gone, replaced by a small sickly child who was the last Bourbon survivor, and his death had the potential to throw France into another round of warfare. He was Louis XV and he lived until the 1770s. France’s main foreign policy decision-maker was Cardinal Fleury. He recognized that France needed to rebuild, so he pursued a peace policy. France had a poorly designed taxation system, whereby tax farmers kept much of"
"only five days. Louis' brother Philip then succeeded in pressing his claims to the crowns of France and Navarre. Louis is a major character in ""Les Rois maudits"" (""The Accursed Kings""), a series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon. He was portrayed by in the 1972 French miniseries adaptation of the series, and by Guillaume Depardieu in the 2005 adaptation. Louis X of France Louis X (4 October 1289 – 5 June 1316), called the Quarreler, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn (), was King of France from 1314 until his death (the twelfth from the House of Capet), succeeding"
"In the mid eighteenth century, the Bourbon monarchy had a faulty system for finance and taxation. Their lacking a national bank lead to them taking short-term loans, and ordering financial agents to make payments in advance or in excess of tax revenues collected. Louis XIV succeeded his father at four years of age; he would go on to become the most powerful king in French history. His mother Anne served as his regent with her favorite Jules, Cardinal Mazarin, as chief minister. Mazarin continued the policies of Richelieu, bringing the Thirty Years' War to a successful conclusion in 1648 and"
"Louis XV of France Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) on 15 February 1723, the kingdom was ruled by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal's death in 1743, at which time the young"
"having ruled France for 72 years. While often considered a tyrant and a warmonger (especially in England), Louis XIV was not in any way a despot in the 20th-century sense. The traditional customs and institutions of France limited his power and in any case, communications were poor and no national police force existed. Overall, the discontent and revolts of 16th- and 17th-century France did not approach the conditions that led to 1789. Events such as the Frondes were a naïve, unrevolutionary discontent and the people did not challenge the right of the king to govern nor did they question the"
"Charles VI of France Charles VI (3 December 1368 – 21 October 1422), called the Beloved () and the Mad ( or ""le Fou""), was King of France for 42 years from 1380 to his death in 1422, the fourth from the House of Valois. Charles VI was only 11 when he inherited the throne in the midst of the Hundred Years' War. The government was entrusted to his four uncles, the dukes of Burgundy, Berry, Anjou, and Bourbon. Although the royal age of majority was fixed at 14, the dukes maintained their grip on Charles until he took power"
"until the French Revolution about a century later. In 1648 France was the leading European power, and most of the wars pivoted around its aggressiveness. Only poverty-stricken Russia exceeded it in population, and no one could match its wealth, central location, and very strong professional army. It had largely avoided the devastation of the Thirty Years War. Its weaknesses included an inefficient financial system that was hard-pressed to pay for all the military adventures, and the tendency of most other powers to gang up against it. During the very long reign of King Louis XIV (1643 – 1715), France fought"
"and restored his French Empire. Louis XVIII fled, and a Seventh Coalition declared war on the French Empire, defeated Napoleon again, and again restored Louis XVIII to the French throne. Louis XVIII ruled as king for slightly less than a decade. The government of the Bourbon Restoration was a constitutional monarchy, unlike the ""Ancien Régime"", which was absolutist. As a constitutional monarch, Louis XVIII's royal prerogative was reduced substantially by the Charter of 1814, France's new constitution. Louis had no children, so upon his death the crown passed to his brother, Charles X. Louis XVIII was the last French monarch"
"during all the second half of the 10th century. Thus, the end of Louis IV's reign and the beginning of the rule of Lothair, wasn't the """"dark century of iron and lead"" [...] ""but rather"" [...] ""the last century of the Carolingian Europe"""". Louis IV's youngest surviving son Charles, known as ""Charles of Lower Lorraine"", settled on an island in the Zenne river in the primitive ""pagus"" of Brabant, where he erected a castrum in the town called ""Bruoc Sella"" or ""Broek Zele"", which later became Brussels. Louis IV of France Louis IV (September 920 / September 921 – 10"
"King Louis XIV of France in the Palace of Versailles. John Ernst became the only ruler of Nassau-Weilburg when his brother Frederick William Louis was killed in 1684 during the siege of Buda. His territories on the left bank of the Rhine were occupied by France and only returned after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. John Ernst had an important military career. In 1684 he commanded a Dragoon regiment in the service of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. In 1688, at the start of the Nine Years' War, he defended Koblenz. Later he participated in the Siege of Mainz (1689),"
"Style Louis XIV The Style Louis XIV, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established ""Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture"" (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) and the ""Académie royale d'architecture"" (Royal Academy of Architecture). It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major"
"Denis Basilica. Louis, Dauphin of France (son of Louis XV) Louis, Dauphin of France (4 September 1729 – 20 December 1765) was the elder and only son of King Louis XV of France and his wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska to survive to adulthood. He had a younger brother, Philippe, who died as a toddler. As a son of the king, Louis was a ""fils de France"". As heir apparent, he became Dauphin of France. However, he died before ascending to the throne. Three of his sons became kings of France: Louis XVI (reign: 1774–1792), Louis XVIII (reign: 1814–1815; 1815–1824) and"
"French Royal Army (1652–1830) The French Royal Army () served the Bourbon kings beginning with Louis XIV and ending with Charles X with an interlude from 1792 until 1814, during the French Revolution and the reign of the Emperor Napoleon I. After a second, brief interlude when Napoleon returned from exile in 1815, the Royal Army was reinstated. Its service to the direct Bourbon line was finished when Charles X was overthrown in 1830 by the July Revolution. When Louis XIV came to the French throne in 1661 he inherited a large but loosely organized force of about 70,000 men."
"Early modern France The Kingdom of France in the early modern period, from the Renaissance (""circa"" 1500–1550) to the Revolution (1789–1804), was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon (a Capetian cadet branch). This corresponds to the so-called ""Ancien Régime"" (""old rule""). The territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. The period is dominated by the figure of the ""Sun King"", Louis XIV (his reign of 1643–1715 being one of the longest in history), who managed"
"the Seven Years' War led to acute state financial crisis."". Ultimately, he wrote, Louis XV failed to overcome these fiscal problems, mainly because he was incapable of pulling together conflicting parties and interests in his entourage. Although aware of the forces of anti-monarchism threatening his family's rule, he did not do anything to stop them. A few scholars have defended Louis, arguing that his highly negative reputation was based on propaganda meant to justify the French Revolution. Olivier Bernier in his 1984 biography argued that Louis was both popular and a leader in reforming France. In his 59-year reign, no"
"In 1714, Maria Luisa died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis, a devastating emotional blow to her husband. The actions of Louis XIV heightened the fears of the English, the Dutch and the Austrians, among others. In February 1701, Louis XIV caused the ""Parlement"" of Paris (a court) to register a decree that if Philip's elder brother, the ""Petit Dauphin"" Louis, died without an heir, then Philip would surrender the throne of Spain for the succession to the throne of France, ensuring dynastic continuity in Europe's greatest land power. However, a second act of the French king ""justified a"
"Descendants of Louis XIV of France The descendants of Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), Bourbon monarch of the Kingdom of France, are numerous. Although only one of his children by his wife Maria Theresa of Spain survived past infancy, Louis had many illegitimate children by his mistresses. This article deals with the children of Louis XIV and in turn their senior descendants. She was born as Infanta María Teresa of Spain (also known as María Teresa of Austria, being paternal great-great-granddaughter of an Archduke of Austria), at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial. Maria was the daughter of Philip IV"