Louis XIV 1638 - 1715.

Son of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, his mother became regent on the death of his father in 1643 when Mazarin was chief minister. Louis was proclaimed ‘of age’ in 1651 and in 1660 married the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain. After Mazarin’s death in 1661 he took over the government and began a long period of autocratic rule.

During his years of absolute power his army increased in number and efficiency and the security of borders with neighbouring countries was strengthened by some strategic land gains. Frances’ aggressive policy caused much consternation with other European countries and after 1700, France suffered a series of defeats and the country was impoverished by high taxation.

Louis’s religious orthodoxy was very strictly imposed and in 1685, he forced the conversion of Huguenots to Catholicism with the ‘Revocation of the Edict of Nantes’. Some 200,000 Huguenots fled the country illegally and many were killed. Even within the Catholic Church there were problems with the persecution of the ‘Quietists’ and ‘Jansentist’ and other so-called deviants.

On his death in 1715, Louis XIV left a number of economic, religious and political problems for his great grandson Louis XV. The positive side of his reign was the increase in literature and the arts, which were all based at the court of Versailles, and was rightfully called ‘Le Grand Siècle’.