On 29 August a man who claimed to have a miracle cure, one Brun, was granted permission to approach the royal bed. He also commissioned "war artists" to follow him on campaigns to document his military triumphs. These actions enraged Britain and the Dutch Republic. Conseil royal des finances ("Royal Council of Finances") who was headed by the "chef du conseil des finances" (an honorary post in most cases)—this was one of the few posts in the council that was opened to the high aristocracy. The final phases of the War of the Spanish Succession demonstrated that the Allies could not maintain the Archduke Charles in Spain just as surely as France could not retain the entire Spanish inheritance for Philip V. The Allies were definitively expelled from central Spain by the Franco-Spanish victories at the Battles of Villaviciosa and Brihuega in 1710. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history. As supporting evidence, they cite the literature of the time, such as the social commentary in Montesquieu's Persian Letters. They helped to curb the independent spirit of the nobility, imposing order on them at court and in the army. All these events were witnessed by Louis and largely explained his later distrust of Paris and the higher aristocracy. They argue that most of France's preeminent Protestant businessmen and industrialists converted to Catholicism and remained.[63]. The one of his only son, the person supposed to become King as Louis XV after him, was particularly awful. Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) ruled as King of France and of Navarre from May 14 1643 until his death just prior to his seventy-seventh birthday. Execution of Louis XVI, 21 January 1793 - YouTube. [16] The most important arrest, from Anne's point of view, concerned Pierre Broussel, one of the most important leaders in the Parlement de Paris. [129][b][130], He did say, "Every time I appoint someone to a vacant position, I make a hundred unhappy and one ungrateful. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his reign, the kingdom took part in three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession. He was a king for 72 years. After a week of agonising pain, four days before his 77th birthday, Louis XIV died in Versailles just after 8.15 am on 1 September. He was a pious man who wanted to abandon the pompous and costly rites which accompanied the death and the funerals of monarchs. France established contact with Francis II Rákóczi and promised support if he took up the cause of Hungarian independence. "[8], It was his mother who gave Louis his belief in the absolute and divine power of his monarchical rule.[9]. The Death of Louis XIV La Mort de Louis XIV. Certainly, Rigaud was concerned with detail and depicted the king's costume with great precision, down to his shoe buckle.[102]. [108], Besides the official depiction and image of Louis, his subjects also followed a non-official discourse consisting mainly of clandestine publications, popular songs, and rumors that provided an alternative interpretation of Louis and his government. In peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. Louis XIV became king at the age of four. [3] The King surrounded himself with a variety of significant 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 Perrault, Claude Perrault, and Le Nôtre. The taille was reduced to 42 million in 1661 and 35 million in 1665; finally the revenue from indirect taxation progressed from 26 million to 55 million. [101], Rigaud's portrait exemplified the height of royal portraiture during Louis' reign. However, Louis first had to neutralize Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, in order to give Colbert a free hand. He begins to die, surrounded by loyal followers in the royal chambers. More challenging skills were required to perform this dance with movements very much resembling court behaviors, as a way to remind the nobles of the king's absolute power and their own status. In the general settlement, Philip V retained Spain and its colonies, while Austria received the Spanish Netherlands and divided Spanish Italy with Savoy. His reign from the age of 4 in 1643 up until his death at the age of 76 in 1715 makes him the longest-serving monarch not only in the history of France but in all Europe. [113] Orléans, however, had Louis' will annulled by the Parlement of Paris after his death and made himself sole regent. This is an incomplete list of Louis XIV's illegitimate children. [24] Louis was able to capitalize on the widespread public yearning for law and order, that resulted from prolonged foreign wars and domestic civil strife, to further consolidate central political authority and reform at the expense of the feudal aristocracy. [74] In exchange for financial compensation, France renounced its interests in the Electorate of Cologne and the Palatinate. [22], During this period, Louis fell in love with Mazarin's niece Marie Mancini, but Anne and Mazarin ended the king's infatuation by sending Mancini away from court to be married in Italy. He was a king for 72 years. "[131][132] Louis is recorded by numerous eyewitnesses as having said on his deathbed: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." Louis XIV, the Palace of Versailles, absolute monarchy… Why don’t we take a closer look at the emergence of the nation state in early modern France? People in France were complaining about the expansion of royal authority, the high rate of taxation, and the reduction of the authority of the Parlement de Paris and other regional representative entities. He had been king for 72 years, the longest reign in the history of France. Additionally, government officials could not be excommunicated for acts committed in pursuance of their duties. La Mort de Louis XIV. Upon returning from a hunting expedition, King Louis XIV feels a sharp pain in his leg. Louis XIV’s father Louis XIII put an end to this practice, which he considered unacceptably pagan. Fouquet was charged with embezzlement. 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. [89] The king was, at first, put off by her strict religious practice, but he warmed to her through her care for his children. [120], Nonetheless, Louis has also received praise. Pre-revolutionary France was a patchwork of legal systems, with as many legal customs as there were provinces, and two co-existing legal traditions—customary law in the north and Roman civil law in the south. The Fronde thus gradually lost steam and ended in 1653, when Mazarin returned triumphantly from exile. 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. Louis and Colbert also had wide-ranging plans to bolster French commerce and trade. The Queen also gave a partial Catholic orientation to French foreign policy. To remind the people of these triumphs, Louis erected permanent triumphal arches in Paris and the provinces for the first time since the decline of the Roman Empire. Private griefs were added to Louis’s public calamities. [82] With the Holy Roman Emperor and the petty German states, they formed another Grand Alliance and declared war on France in 1702. After 72 years on the throne, Louis died of gangrene at Versailles on 1 September 1715, four days before his 77th birthday. Marlborough and Eugene met again at the Battle of Oudenarde, which enabled them to invade France. But the pain was always in the same place, and shortly afterwards black marks appeared, indicating senile gangrene. This victory over the nobility may thus have ensured the end of major civil wars in France until the French Revolution about a century later. Conseil de Conscience ("Council of Conscience", concerning religious affairs and episcopal appointments). William and Mary were recognised as joint sovereigns of the British Isles, and Louis withdrew support for James II. The Death Of Louis XIV is a refinement of his last feature, Story Of My Death, which interpreted the 18th-century crisis of reason as a meeting between Casanova and Dracula; it’s more pointed, populated, and sumptuous, with a vein of humor that seemed mostly lost on the earlier film. Before this happened, Louis expected William's expedition to England to absorb his energies and those of his allies, so he dispatched troops to the Rhineland after the expiry of his ultimatum to the German princes requiring confirmation of the Truce of Ratisbon and acceptance of his demands about the succession crises. [31] The dowry was never paid and would later play a part persuading his maternal first cousin Charles II of Spain to leave his empire to Philip, Duke of Anjou (later Philip V of Spain), the grandson of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa. As a result of the fresh British perspective on the European balance of power, Anglo-French talks began, culminating in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht between Louis, Philip V of Spain, Anne, Queen of Great Britain, and the Dutch Republic. He was devoted to the soldiers' material well-being and morale, and even tried to direct campaigns. Birthplace: Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France Location of death: Versailles, France Cause of death: unspecified Rema. King Charles II ruled a vast empire comprising Spain, Naples, Sicily, Milan, the Spanish Netherlands, and numerous Spanish colonies. The threat of an escalation and a secret treaty to divide Spanish possessions with Emperor Leopold, the other major claimant to the throne of Spain, led Louis to relinquish many of his gains in the 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. He took delivery of an African elephant as a gift from the king of Portugal. While Mazarin might have been tempted for a short period of time to marry his niece to the King of France, Queen Anne was absolutely against this; she wanted to marry her son to the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain, for both dynastic and political reasons. Louis was at the height of his power, but at the cost of uniting his opponents; this increased as he continued his expansion. The earliest portrayals of Louis already followed the pictorial conventions of the day in depicting the child king as the majestically royal incarnation of France. He reputedly had more, but the difficulty in fully documenting all such births restricts the list only to the better-known and/or legitimised. His body was laid to rest in Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris. The Death of Louis XIV (French: La Mort de Louis XIV) is a 2016 historical drama film directed by Albert Serra and starring Jean-Pierre Léaud.Set in 1715, it depicts the final days of Louis XIV of France.The film had its world premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival … But his actions were certainly not read as disinterested. Louis XIV's only surviving legitimate grandson, Philip V, was not included in the line of succession due to having renounced the French throne after the war of the Spanish succession, which lasted for 13 years after the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700.[115]. This situation did not last long, and Mazarin's unpopularity led to the creation of a coalition headed mainly by Marie de Rohan and the duchess of Longueville. In 1660, Louis had married Philip IV's eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, as one of the provisions of the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees. "[71], Peace was broached by Sweden in 1690. The Frondeurs claimed to act on Louis' behalf, and in his real interest against his mother and Mazarin. It was headed by the highest-ranking French nobles, among them Louis' uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans and first cousin Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, known as la Grande Mademoiselle; Princes of the Blood such as Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, and their sister the Duchess of Longueville; dukes of legitimised royal descent, such as Henri, Duke of Longueville, and François, Duke of Beaufort; so-called "foreign princes" such as Frédéric Maurice, Duke of Bouillon, his brother Marshal Turenne, and Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse; and scions of France's oldest families, such as François de La Rochefoucauld. Based on the laws of primogeniture, France had the better claim as it originated from the eldest daughters in two generations. The Death of Louis XIV began as an instillation piece. was reported from at least the late 18th century. In 2015, 77 years later a few towns marked the 300th anniversary of the monarch’s death, for instance: Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Maisons … They often focused on the miseries arising from poor government, but also carried the hope for a better future when Louis escaped the malignant influence of his ministers and mistresses, and took the government into his own hands. [89] As governess, she was one of very few people permitted to speak to him as an equal, without limits. One of Louis' more infamous decrees was the Grande Ordonnance sur les Colonies of 1685, also known as the Code Noir ("black code"). [37], The French were forced to retreat from the Dutch Republic but these advantages allowed them to hold their ground in Alsace and the Spanish Netherlands, while retaking Franche-Comté. August 1715. Pastors could choose either exile or a secular life. The War of Devolution did not focus on the payment of the dowry; rather, the lack of payment was what Louis XIV used as a pretext for nullifying Maria Theresa's renunciation of her claims, allowing the land to "devolve" to him. [77] Indeed, in the event of war, it might be preferable to be already in control of the disputed lands. However, Louis was so pleased with the work that he kept the original and commissioned a copy to be sent to his grandson. Contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. It remained there undisturbed for about 80 years, until revolutionaries exhumed and destroyed all of the remains found in the Basilica.[112]. He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given)[6] and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent: Dauphin. Louis XIV - Louis XIV - Final years: In the War of the Spanish Succession the anti-French alliance was reactivated by William of Orange before his death. However, the burial of Louis XIII, the father of Louis XIV, broke with ancient traditions. [15], The Frondeurs, political heirs of the disaffected feudal aristocracy, sought to protect their traditional feudal privileges from the increasingly centralized royal government. After reigning for 72 years, Louis XIV was diagnosed with gangrene and the Sun King died at the Palace of Versailles on 1 September 1715. [65] Then, in 1688, Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, Archbishop of Cologne, an ally of France, died. However, French armies held significant advantages over their opponents; an undivided command, talented generals like Turenne, Condé and Luxembourg and vastly superior logistics. Louis' detractors have argued that his considerable foreign, military, and domestic expenditure impoverished and bankrupted France. [106] In 1661, Royal of the Academy was founded by Louis to further his ambition. The same day the king received his five-year-old great-grandson, the future Louis XV, to give him advice. During the Eighty Years' War with Spain, France supported the Dutch Republic as part of a general policy of opposing Habsburg power. Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1643 until his death. [84] In desperation, Louis ordered a disastrous invasion of the English island of Guernsey in the autumn of 1704 with the aim of raiding their successful harvest. The treaty yielded many benefits for France. The French monarchy reached its height during the 72-year long reign of Louis XIV (r. 1643, officially from 1661 to his death in 1715), also called the Sun King. [30] The marriage treaty specified that Maria Theresa was to renounce all claims to Spanish territory for herself and all her descendants. He established himself as an absolute ruler and created a model for absolutism (a form of government that was adopted by most European rulers and was a predominant political organization in Europe most of the 18th century), made France Europe’s leading political and military power, and increased trade and commerce. Versailles, August 1715. Impelled "by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique," Louis sensed that war was the ideal way to enhance his glory. Two quick notes. Majestic royal funerals were subject to ceremonial which was regulated like clockwork. On 5 April 1693, Louis also founded the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis (French: Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis), a military order of chivalry. Louis ruled through a number of councils: The death of his maternal uncle King Philip IV of Spain, in 1665, precipitated the War of Devolution. The Allies suffered a Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Malplaquet with 21,000 casualties, twice that of the French. It is notable as the first decoration that could be granted to non-nobles and is roughly the forerunner of the Légion d'honneur, with which it shares the red ribbon (though the Légion d'honneur is awarded to military personnel and civilians alike). His reign was the longest that ever lasted of any European Monarch. This military manoeuvre was also intended to protect his eastern provinces from Imperial invasion by depriving the enemy army of sustenance, thus explaining the preemptive scorched earth policy pursued in much of southwestern Germany (the "Devastation of the Palatinate"). The Greek sun god Apollo was immortal. An exhibition on the death and funeral of the Sun King, 300 years after his death. Louis secured permanent French sovereignty over all of Alsace, including Strasbourg, and established the Rhine as the Franco-German border (as it is to this day). Reforms introduced by Louvois, the Secretary of War, helped maintain large field armies that could be mobilised much quicker, allowing them to mount offensives in early spring before their opponents were ready. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is highly likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. On the morning of 1 September he died. Next, in 1684, a punitive mission was launched against Genoa in retaliation for its support for Spain in previous wars. With the relocation of the court to Versailles, the Louvre was given over to the arts and the public. The Death of Louis XIV, which unspools in chronological fashion, first sees various members of the court ask Louis to join their parties and gatherings, which he politely refuses. [111] His body was laid to rest in Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris. By the time of the Treaty of Ryswick, the Spanish succession had been a source of concern to European leaders for well over forty years. King Louis XIV died in 1715 just a few days before his 77th birthday. The film starts the with the realization that the King Louis is very ill, and ends with his death. [95] Louis established the Paris Foreign Missions Society, but his informal alliance with the Ottoman Empire was criticised for undermining Christendom.[96]. His uncle, the future. Louis XIV was called the "Sun King." He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. Among other things, it prescribed baptismal, marriage and death records in the state's registers, not the church's, and it strictly regulated the right of the Parlements to remonstrate. [80] Moreover, Louis's foreign minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de Torcy, pointed out that war with the Emperor would almost certainly ensue whether Louis accepted the partition treaties or Charles II's will. Among the better documented are Louise de La Vallière (with whom he had five children; 1661–67), Bonne de Pons d'Heudicourt (1665), Catherine Charlotte de Gramont (1665), Françoise-Athénaïs, Marquise de Montespan (with whom he had seven children; 1667–80), Anne de Rohan-Chabot (1669–75), Claude de Vin des Œillets (one child born in 1676), Isabelle de Ludres (1675–78), and Marie Angélique de Scorailles (1679–81), who died at age 19 in childbirth. Louis' wife was Philip IV's daughter by his first marriage, while the new king of Spain, Charles II, was his son by a subsequent marriage. He sometimes danced leading roles which were suitably royal or godlike (such as Neptune, Apollo, or the Sun). Louis' reign marked the birth and infancy of the art of medallions. A Regency Council had been created by the king to counteract the power of Philippe II of Orléans, Louis XIV’s nephew, who would be Regent until the future Louis XV came of age. But he could promise that Philip V would accept these terms, so the Allies demanded that Louis single-handedly attack his grandson to force these terms on him. Louis initially supported traditional Gallicanism, which limited papal authority in France, and convened an Assembly of the French clergy in November 1681. RedRobinBurgers. Moreover, Louis sent troops to the Spanish Netherlands to evict Dutch garrisons and secure Dutch recognition of Philip V. In 1701, Philip transferred the asiento (the right to supply slaves to Spanish colonies) to France, as a sign of the two nation's growing connections. Another tool Louis used to control his nobility was censorship, which often involved the opening of letters to discern their author's opinion of the government and king. It follows the Bourbon, Kings of France, and the Counts of Paris and Worms. Later, after 1700, the French ministers who were supported by Louis' secret wife Madame De Maintenon, were able to convince the king to change his fiscal policy. Only the "unprivileged" classes paid direct taxes, and this term came to mean the peasants only, since many bourgeois, in one way or another, obtained exemptions. Following these annexations, Spain declared war, precipitating the War of the Reunions. He recommended that France fight back by licensing French merchants ships to privateer and seize enemy merchant ships, while avoiding its navies: Vauban was pessimistic about France's so-called friends and allies: Louis decided to persecute Protestants and revoke the 1598 Edict of Nantes, which awarded Huguenots political and religious freedom. Over the course of four building campaigns, Louis converted a hunting lodge built by Louis XIII into the spectacular Palace of Versailles. By the winter of 1708–09, he was willing to accept peace at nearly any cost. The Parlement found him guilty and sentenced him to exile. The wound took more than two months to heal. [99] He had many ailments: for example, symptoms of diabetes, as confirmed in reports of suppurating periostitis in 1678, dental abscesses in 1696, along with recurring boils, fainting spells, gout, dizziness, hot flushes, and headaches. Louis and his wife Maria Theresa of Spain had six children from the marriage contracted for them in 1660. They were among the most significant means to spread royal propaganda prior to the construction of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. In his work, Rigaud proclaims Louis' exalted royal status through his elegant stance and haughty expression, the royal regalia and throne, rich ceremonial fleur-de-lys robes, as well as the upright column in the background, which, together with the draperies, serves to frame this image of majesty. 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