Louis XIV of France, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Louis XIV of France

King of France and Navarra, from 1643 to 1715

Date of Birth: 05-Sep-1638

Place of Birth: Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Île-de-France, France

Date of Death: 01-Sep-1715

Profession: monarch, actor, politician, art collector

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Louis XIV of France

  • Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi Soleil), was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715.
  • 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 growing centralisation of power.Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin.
  • An adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralised state governed from the capital.
  • 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 Louis' minority.
  • By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution. Louis 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. The Sun King surrounded himself with a dazzling constellation of political, military, and cultural figures such as Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Grand Condé, Turenne, Vauban, Boulle, Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Charpentier, Marais, Le Brun, Rigaud, Bossuet, Le Vau, Mansart, Charles, Claude Perrault, and Le Nôtre. During Louis' long reign, France was the leading European power, and it 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.
  • Warfare defined the foreign policy of Louis XIV, 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 create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military.

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