Name: Louis XIV (Louis de Bourbon)

Age: 76 years old

Height: 163

Activity: King of France and Navarre

Family status: was married

Louis XIV: biography

The reign of the French monarch Louis XIV is called the Great, or Golden Age. The biography of the Sun King is half made up of legends. A staunch supporter of absolutism and the divine origin of kings, he went down in history as the author of the phrase

“The state is me!”

The record for the duration of a monarch's stay on the throne - 72 years - has not been broken by any European king: only a few Roman emperors remained in power longer.

Childhood and youth

The appearance of the Dauphin, heir to the Bourbon family, in early September 1638 was met with jubilation by the people. The royal parents - and - waited for this event for 22 years, all this time the marriage remained childless. The French perceived the birth of a child, and a boy at that, as a mercy from above, calling the Dauphin Louis-Dieudonné (God-given).

The national rejoicing and happiness of his parents did not make Louis’s childhood happy. 5 years later, the father died, the mother and son moved to the Palais Royal, formerly the Richelieu Palace. The heir to the throne grew up in an ascetic environment: Cardinal Mazarin, the ruler’s favorite, took over power, including management of the treasury. The stingy priest did not favor the little king: he did not allocate money for the boy’s entertainment and studies, Louis-Dieudonné had two dresses with patches in his wardrobe, the boy slept on holey sheets.

Mazarin explained the economy by the civil war - the Fronde. At the beginning of 1649, fleeing the rebels, the royal family left Paris and settled in a country residence 19 kilometers from the capital. Later, the fear and hardships experienced were transformed into Louis XIV's love for absolute power and unheard-of extravagance.

After 3 years, the unrest was suppressed, the unrest subsided, and the cardinal who fled to Brussels returned to power. He did not relinquish the reins of government until his death, although Louis had been considered the rightful heir to the throne since 1643: the mother, who became regent for her five-year-old son, voluntarily ceded power to Mazarin.

At the end of 1659, the war between France and Spain ended. The signed Treaty of the Pyrenees brought peace, which sealed the marriage of Louis XIV and the Princess of Spain. Two years later, the cardinal died, and Louis XIV took the reins of power into his own hands. The 23-year-old monarch abolished the position of first minister, convened the Council of State and proclaimed:

“Do you think, gentlemen, that the state is you? The state is me.”

Louis XIV made it clear that from now on he did not intend to share power. Even his mother, whom Louis had been afraid of until recently, was given a place.

Beginning of reign

Previously flighty and prone to ostentation and carousing, the Dauphin surprised the court nobility and officials with his transformation. Louis filled in the gaps in his education - previously he could barely read and write. Naturally sane, the young emperor quickly delved into the essence of the problem and solved it.

Louis expressed himself clearly and concisely and devoted all his time to state affairs, but the monarch’s conceit and pride turned out to be immeasurable. All the royal residences seemed too modest to Louis, so in 1662 the Sun King turned a hunting lodge in the city of Versailles, 17 kilometers west of Paris, into a palace ensemble of unheard-of scale and luxury. For 50 years, 12-14% of the state’s annual expenditures were spent on its improvement.

For the first twenty years of his reign, the monarch lived in the Louvre, then in the Tuileries. The suburban castle of Versailles became the permanent residence of Louis XIV in 1682. After moving to the largest ensemble in Europe, Louis visited the capital for short visits.

The pomp of the royal apartments prompted Louis to establish cumbersome rules of etiquette that concerned even the smallest things. It took five servants for the thirsty Louis to drink a glass of water or wine. During the silent meal, only the monarch sat at the table; a chair was not offered even to the nobility. After lunch, Louis met with ministers and officials, and if he was ill, the entire Council was invited to the royal bedchamber.

In the evening, Versailles opened for entertainment. The guests danced, were treated to delicious dishes, and played cards, to which Louis was addicted. The palace salons bore names according to which they were furnished. The dazzling Mirror Gallery was 72 meters long and 10 meters wide. Colored marble, floor-to-ceiling mirrors decorated the interior of the room, thousands of candles burned in gilded candelabra and girandoles, causing the silver furniture and stones in the jewelry of ladies and gentlemen to burn with fire.

Writers and artists were favored at the king's court. Comedies and plays by Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille were staged at Versailles. On Maslenitsa, masquerades were held in the palace, and in the summer the court and servants went to the village of Trianon, annexed to the Versailles gardens. At midnight, Louis, having fed the dogs, went to the bedchamber, where he went to bed after a long ritual and a dozen ceremonies.

Domestic policy

Louis XIV knew how to select capable ministers and officials. Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert strengthened the welfare of the third estate. Under him, trade and industry flourished, and the fleet grew stronger. The Marquis de Louvois reformed the troops, and the marshal and military engineer Marquis de Vauban built fortresses that became a UNESCO heritage site. Comte de Tonnerre, Secretary of State for Military Affairs, turned out to be a brilliant politician and diplomat.

The government under Louis the 14th was carried out by 7 councils. The heads of the provinces were appointed by Louis. They kept the domains in readiness in case of war, promoted fair justice, and kept the people in obedience to the monarch.

Cities were governed by corporations or councils consisting of burgomasters. The burden of the fiscal system fell on the shoulders of the petty bourgeoisie and peasants, which repeatedly led to uprisings and riots. Stormy unrest was caused by the introduction of a tax on stamp paper, which resulted in an uprising in Brittany and in the west of the state.

Under Louis XIV, the Commercial Code (Ordinance) was adopted. To prevent migration, the monarch issued an edict, according to which the property of the French who left the country was taken away, and those citizens who entered the service of foreigners as shipbuilders faced the death penalty at home.

Government positions under the Sun King were sold and passed on by inheritance. In the last five years of Louis's reign, 2.5 thousand positions worth 77 million livres were sold in Paris. Officials were not paid from the treasury - they lived off taxes. For example, brokers received a duty on each barrel of wine - sold or purchased.

The Jesuits, the monarch's confessors, turned Louis into an instrument of Catholic reaction. Temples were taken away from their opponents, the Huguenots, and they were forbidden to baptize their children and get married. Marriages between Catholics and Protestants were prohibited. Religious persecution forced 200 thousand Protestants to move to neighboring England and Germany.

Foreign policy

Under Louis, France fought a lot and successfully. In 1667-68, Louis' army captured Flanders. Four years later, a war began with neighboring Holland, to whose aid Spain and Denmark rushed. Soon the Germans joined them. But the coalition lost, and Alsace, Lorraine and the Belgian lands were ceded to France.

Since 1688, Louis's series of military victories became more modest. Austria, Sweden, Holland and Spain, joined by the principalities of Germany, united in the League of Augsburg and opposed France.

In 1692, League forces defeated the French fleet in Cherbourg harbor. On land, Louis was winning, but the war required more and more funds. The peasants rebelled against increased taxes, and silver furniture from Versailles was melted down. The monarch asked for peace and made concessions: he returned Savoy, Luxembourg and Catalonia. Lorraine became independent.

Louis's War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 proved to be the most grueling. England, Austria and Holland again united against the French. In 1707, the allies, having crossed the Alps, invaded Louis's possessions with a 40,000-strong army. To find funds for the war, gold dishes from the palace were sent to be melted down, and famine began in the country. But the allied forces dried up, and in 1713 the French signed the Peace of Utrecht with the British, and a year later in Rishtadt with the Austrians.

Personal life

Louis XIV is a king who tried to marry for love. But you can’t erase the words from the song - kings cannot do this. 20-year-old Louis fell in love with the 18-year-old niece of Cardinal Mazarin, an educated girl, Maria Mancini. But political expediency required France to conclude a peace with the Spaniards, which could be sealed by the marriage ties between Louis and Infanta Maria Theresa.

In vain Louis begged the Queen Mother and the Cardinal to allow him to marry Mary - he was forced to marry an unloved Spanish woman. Maria was married to an Italian prince, and the wedding of Louis and Maria Theresa took place in Paris. But no one could force the monarch to be faithful to his wife - the list of Louis XIV’s women with whom he had affairs was very impressive.

Soon after his marriage, the temperamental king noticed the wife of his brother, the Duke of Orleans, Henrietta. To ward off suspicion, the married lady introduced Louis to a 17-year-old maid of honor. Blonde Louise de la Vallière limped, but was sweet and liked the ladies' man Louis. A six-year romance with Louise culminated in the birth of four offspring, of whom a son and daughter survived to adulthood. In 1667, the king distanced himself from Louise, giving her the title of duchess.

The new favorite - the Marquise de Montespan - turned out to be the opposite of La Vallière: a fiery brunette with a lively and practical mind was with Louis XIV for 16 years. She turned a blind eye to the affairs of the loving Louis. Two rivals of the marquise gave birth to a child for Louis, but Montespan knew that the ladies' man would return to her, who bore him eight children (four survived).

Montespan missed her rival, who became the governess of her children - the widow of the poet Scarron, the Marquise de Maintenon. The educated woman interested Louis with her sharp mind. He talked with her for hours and one day noticed that he was sad without the Marquise of Maintenon. After the death of his wife Maria Theresa, Louis XIV married Maintenon and was transformed: the monarch became religious, and not a trace remained of his former frivolity.

Death

In the spring of 1711, the monarch’s son, the Dauphin Louis, died of smallpox. His son, the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of the Sun King, was declared heir to the throne, but he also died a year later from a fever. The remaining child, the great-grandson of Louis XIV, inherited the title of Dauphin, but fell ill with scarlet fever and died. Previously, Louis gave the surname Bourbon to two sons whom de Montespan bore to him out of wedlock. In the will they were listed as regents and could inherit the throne.

A series of deaths of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren undermined Louis' health. The monarch became gloomy and sad, lost interest in state affairs, could lie in bed all day and became decrepit. A fall from a horse while hunting was fatal for the 77-year-old king: Louis injured his leg and gangrene began. He rejected the operation proposed by doctors - amputation. The monarch made his final orders at the end of August and died on September 1.

For 8 days they said goodbye to the deceased Louis in Versailles, on the ninth the remains were transported to the basilica of the Abbey of Saint-Denis and buried according to Catholic traditions. The era of Louis XIV's reign is over. King Sun reigned for 72 years and 110 days.

Memory

More than a dozen films have been made about the times of the Great Century. The first, The Iron Mask, directed by Allan Duon, was released in 1929. In 1998, he played Louis XIV in the adventure film “The Man in the Iron Mask.” According to the film, it was not he who led France to prosperity, but his twin brother, who took the throne.

In 2015, the French-Canadian series “Versailles” was released about the reign of Louis and the construction of the palace. The second season of the project was released in the spring of 2017, and filming of the third began in the same year.

Dozens of essays have been written about the life of Louis. His biography inspired the creation of the novels by Anne and Serge Golon.

• According to legend, the Queen Mother gave birth to twins, and Louis the 14th had a brother, whom he hid from prying eyes under a mask. Historians do not confirm that Louis has a twin brother, but they do not categorically reject it either. The king could hide a relative in order to avoid intrigue and not cause upheaval in society.
• The king had a younger brother, Philip of Orleans. The Dauphin did not seek to sit on the throne, being satisfied with the position he had at court. The brothers sympathized with each other, Philip called Louis “little daddy.”

• Legends were made about the Rabelaisian appetite of Louis XIV: the monarch in one sitting ate as much food as would be enough for the dinner of his entire retinue. Even at night, the valet brought food to the monarch.
• Rumor has it that, in addition to good health, there were several reasons for Louis’s exorbitant appetite. One of them is that a tapeworm (tapeworm) lived in the monarch’s body, so Louis ate “for himself and for that guy.” Evidence was preserved in the reports of court physicians.

• Doctors of the 17th century believed that a healthy intestine was an empty intestine, so Louis was regularly treated to laxatives. Not surprisingly, the Sun King visited the restroom 14 to 18 times a day, and stomach upset and gas were a constant occurrence for him.
• The court dentist of Dac believed that there was no greater breeding ground for infection than bad teeth. Therefore, he removed the monarch’s teeth with an unwavering hand until, by the age of 40, there was nothing left in Louis’s mouth. By removing the lower teeth, the doctor broke the monarch's jaw, and by pulling the upper ones, he tore out a piece of the palate, which caused a hole to form in Louis. For the purpose of disinfection, Daka cauterized the inflamed palate with a hot rod.

• At Louis's court, perfume and aromatic powder were used in huge quantities. The concept of hygiene in the 17th century was different from today: dukes and servants did not have the habit of washing. But the stench emanating from Louis became the talk of the town. One reason was unchewed food stuck in the hole the dentist made in the king's palate.
• The monarch loved luxury. In Versailles and other residences of Louis, there were 500 beds, the king had a thousand wigs in his wardrobe, and four dozen tailors sewed outfits for Louis.

• Louis XIV is credited with the authorship of high-heeled shoes with red soles, which became the prototype of the “Louboutins” glorified by Sergei Shnurov. 10-centimeter heels added height to the monarch (1.63 meters).
• The Sun King went down in history as the founder of the “Grand Maniere”, which characterizes the combination of classicism and baroque. Palace furniture in the style of Louis XIV is oversaturated with decorative elements, carvings, and gilding.

Part two

The time of Louis XIV in the West, the time of Peter the Great in the East of Europe

I. THE INTERNAL ACTIVITIES OF LOUIS XIV AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT

The era of Louis XIV

Portrait of Louis XIV as a young man. Artist C. Lebrun, 1661

With the name of Louis XIV, we imagine a sovereign who crossed the border separating the European autocrat from the Asian despot, who, according to the teachings of Hobbes, wanted to be not the head of the state, but its soul, before whom, consequently, the subjects were impersonal, soulless creatures, and the state , life-giving by the sovereign, imbued with him, like a body with spirit, of course, constituted one being with him. “The state is me!” - said Louis XIV. How could one of the French kings achieve such an idea of ​​his significance and, most importantly, not limit himself to one idea, but apply thought to action, and apply it without hindrance?

There is always some kind of popular movement, shock, revolution, exhausting the state body, wasting a lot of people’s strength, forcing society to demand calm, to demand a strong government that would deliver from the turmoil and allow it to rest and gather strength, material and moral. During the childhood of Louis XIV we see in France a strong and prolonged turmoil, which exhausted society and made it desire a strong government. This demand was the stronger the more fruitless the movement against the government turned out to be; people who wanted to limit royal power in order, in their words, to get the people out of an unbearably difficult situation - these people, worried, shouting and fighting, were unable to do anything to relieve the people. The movement, which at first assumed a very serious character, ended comically. Such an outcome of the movement, such disappointment regarding attempts at something new, at changes, discouraged them for a long time and even more so raised the importance of the old order, which they now turned to as the only means of salvation. Thus, the twenty-two-year-old king accepted power from the cold hands of Mazarin under the most favorable circumstances for power and, by his nature, was quite capable of taking advantage of these circumstances.

Louis XIV did not at all belong to those brilliant historical figures who create for their people new means of historical life, who leave posterity a rich legacy in ideas, people and material forces - a legacy that the people live on for centuries after them. On the contrary, Louis received a rich inheritance; it consisted of a country blessed by nature, of an energetic, spiritually strong people, in an extremely conveniently located and rounded state region, surrounded by weak neighbors: half-dead Spain, fragmented and therefore powerless Italy and Germany, Holland, insignificant in its military means; England was busy working out its government forms and could not influence the continent; on the contrary, its king allowed himself to submit to the influence of the powerful sovereign of France. In addition, the rich legacy of Louis XIV consisted of talented people: the military, administrative, literary celebrities with which the reign of Louis XIV shines were inherited, not found by him. But, taking advantage of the rich funds he inherited, Louis depleted them, did not create new ones, and left behind bankruptcy for France - not only financial bankruptcy, - money is an acquired thing - but, worst of all, bankruptcy in people. Louis did not have the main talent of sovereigns - to find and prepare people. Born power-hungry, he was brought up during the Fronde, when the royal power suffered such strong insults.

But the people who insulted the royal power were unable to do anything themselves, and with irritation, hatred for popular movements, for demagogues, the young king was combined with deep contempt for them - this is the feeling that the Fronda brought up in Louis. He was power-hungry, proud and energetic; he attributed popular movements to the fact that instead of the king, the first minister ruled, who could not inspire such respect, against whom it was easy to arm himself in word and deed, and therefore wanted to rule himself; but the longer he ruled, the more he got used to looking at himself not as the head, but as the soul of the state body, a life-giving principle, like the sun, with which he liked to compare himself - the more unpleasant people became for him, who were also the sun , shone with their own, unborrowed light; Educated people were especially unpleasant for Louis, because he was aware of a great lack of education in himself, and the feeling of the superiority of others over himself was unbearable for him. But his dislike for people who were strong, independent in character, position in society, talents and education is the reason that Louis could not replace celebrities who retired from the field with others and bequeathed to France bankruptcy in people.

Meanwhile, the splendor of his reign was such that it blinded his contemporaries and descendants, and Louis knew how to appear as a great king for his people: how did he manage to do this? We see that of the French kings, two were particularly distinguished by their national character - Francis I and Henry IV, but Louis XIV surpassed them in this regard. At the time being described, the main Western European peoples, by the nature of their activities, in relation to each other could be personified in this way: one is a very smart, active and businesslike person; he is constantly busy, and occupied exclusively with his immediate interests, he has managed his affairs perfectly, he has become terribly rich; but at the same time he is not sociable, keeps himself aloof, is clumsy, is not personable, does not arouse sympathy in others, takes part in common affairs only when his own benefits are involved, and even then does not like to act directly, but he makes others work for him, giving them money, just as a wealthy tradesman hires a recruit in his place: such is the Englishman, such is the English people. Another person is a very respectable, but one-sidedly developed, scientist, working hard with his head, but still unable, due to circumstances, to strengthen his body and therefore incapable of strong physical activity, without the means to repel the attacks of powerful neighbors, without the means to maintain his importance, to force respect its inviolability in the struggle of the strong is the German people. The third man, like the second, could not, due to circumstances, strengthen his body; but the southern, lively, passionate nature, in addition to studies in science and especially art, required practical activity. Not having ways to satisfy these needs at home, he often goes to strangers, offers them his services, and often his name shines in foreign lands with glorious exploits, extensive, glorious activity - such is the Italian people. The fourth man looks exhausted, but, as can be seen, he is of strong physique, capable of strong activity, and, indeed, he waged a long, fierce struggle for certain interests, and no one at that time was considered braver or more skillful than him. The struggle, in which he passionately immersed himself, exhausted his physical strength, and meanwhile the interests for which he fought weakened and were replaced by others for other people; but he did not stock up on other interests, was not accustomed to any other activities; exhausted and idle, he plunged into a long peace, at times frantically discovering his existence, restlessly listening to the calls of the new and at the same time drawn back by ingrained habits to the old - this is the Spanish people.

But more than all these four members of our society, the fifth one attracts attention to himself, for none of them is gifted with such means and does not use such efforts to arouse universal attention to himself as he does. Energetic, passionate, quick to ignite, capable of rapid transitions from one extreme to another, he used all his energy to play a prominent role in society, to attract everyone’s attention. Nobody says it better or better; he developed for himself such an easy, such a convenient language that everyone began to assimilate it for themselves, as a more social language than others. He has such a representative appearance, he is so beautifully dressed, he has such wonderful manners that everyone involuntarily looks at him, adopts his dress, hairstyle, and address. He became all about appearance; he doesn’t live at home; He is unable to attend to his household chores for a long time; starts to settle them - he will make a lot of mistakes, he will seethe, he will rage like a child set free, he will get tired, lose sight of the goal to which he began to strive, and, like a child, will allow himself to be led by someone. But no one listens so closely, no one looks so closely at everything that is happening in society, among others. Just where there is noise, movement - he is already there; if any banner rises somewhere, he is the first to carry this banner; if any idea is expressed, he will be the first to assimilate it, generalize it and carry it everywhere, inviting everyone to assimilate it; ahead of others in the common cause, in the general movement, leader, skirmisher both in the crusade and in the revolution, support of Catholicism and unbelief, keen and captivating, frivolous, fickle, often disgusting in his hobbies, capable of arousing strong love and strong hatred for himself - terrible French people!

Among the angular and constantly busy Englishman, the learned, hardworking, but not at all attractive German, the lively, but sloppy, scattered Italian, the silent, half-asleep Spaniard - the Frenchman moves tirelessly, talks incessantly, speaks loudly and well, although he boasts greatly, pushes, wakes up, gives no rest to anyone; others will begin the fight reluctantly, out of necessity - the Frenchman rushes into the fight out of love for the fight, out of love for glory; all his neighbors are afraid of him, everyone watches with intense attention what he is doing. Sometimes it seems that he calmed down, exhausted by the external struggle, and busied himself with his household chores; but these domestic activities do not last long, and the restless people again appear in the foreground and again agitate all of Europe. To play the most prominent role everywhere, to capture everyone’s attention, to attract everyone’s gaze, to make the strongest impression is the main goal of the Frenchman: hence the desire for appearance, for grace in manners, clothing, language, the skill of showing oneself and one’s goods with one’s face, hence the theatrical skill - the skill to play a role appropriate to the position. And so Louis XIV, a true Frenchman, knows how to play the role of a king with inimitable skill. Seduced by this masterful game, other sovereigns try in vain to imitate the great king; but no one is able to so enjoy the masterful acting, the masterful staging of the play, to applaud the great actor in such delight as the French themselves, experts and masters of the craft. Louis XIV, the full representative of his people, appeared in the eyes of the latter as a great king; there was a lot of brilliance and glory, France was given first place, and the most glory-loving people, passionate for brilliance, could not remain ungrateful to Louis, just as a century later they remained chained to the name of the man who covered France with glory, although the outcome of the activities of both was not at all corresponded to the beginning.

Fouquet and Colbert

Having accepted the reign with a firm decision never to let him out of his hands, to force everything to relate to himself, Louis XIV had to first of all face the phenomenon from which, as he well remembered, the Fronde had started - with a terrible financial disorder, with an extremely sad the state of the tax-paying class. Farmers suffered from the burden of taxes, which in 1660 reached up to 90 million, but not all of this money entered the treasury due to large arrears; They took everything from a peasant who could not pay taxes and finally threw him into prison, where hundreds of unfortunates died from poor conditions; merchants and industrialists complained about the high duties that were imposed on exported and imported goods. The chief financial manager was Nicholas Fouquet, a brilliant man and capable of deceiving an inexperienced person with his knowledge and abilities, but in essence a not at all serious person, whose attention was drawn not to improving finances by improving the situation of tax-paying people, but to using the income to maintain his advantageous position . Mazarin supported him as a man who knew how to get money at the first request of the minister, but how Fouquet got the money was of no concern to Mazarin. But besides the first minister, Fouquet tried to use government money to buy himself the favor and support of all influential people: it was believed that he gave away up to four million annually. Fouquet thought of seducing the king with brilliant projects, but Mazarin bequeathed to Louis another man, more reliable than Fouquet: it was Jean Baptiste Colbert.

Colbert was the son of a Reims merchant (born in 1619) and received a primary education, which was then considered sufficient for merchant children; He learned Latin at the age of 50, when he was already a minister; Not having time to study Latin at home, he took the teacher with him in the carriage and studied on the road. He soon quit trading and became a lawyer, then went into finance and was introduced to Mazarin by the minister Letellier. Mazarin took him as his manager, entrusted him with all his private affairs, but often used him in public affairs. Relying on the trust of the cardinal, Colbert decided to start a fight with the terrible Fouquet, who, in order to crush the enemy and his patron, decided to set in motion all his enormous means, and resort, if necessary, to a new Fronde, but at this very time Mazarin dies. Fouquet breathed freely, but they say that Mazarin, dying, said to the king: “Sire! I owe you everything, but I am settling accounts with Your Majesty by leaving Colbert to you.”

Louis, without apparently depriving Fouquet of his trust in the least, brought Colbert closer to him, who every evening proved to him the inaccuracy of the reports submitted to Fouquet in the morning. The king decided to get rid of Fouquet, but he had to be cunning, pretend, and prepare for a long time: the chief financial manager was so terrible! Finally, during Louis's journey to Brittany, Fouquet, who accompanied the king, was arrested in Nantes and taken to the castle of Angers. Louis announced that he was taking over the management of finances with the help of a council composed of honest and capable people; Marshal Villeroy was appointed chairman of the council by name, and Colbert did everything under the modest title of intendant; only in 1669 did he receive the title of Secretary of State with a department that united various departments: maritime, trade and colonies, administration of Paris, church affairs, etc. Famous figures usually have a historical sense, they know how to connect the present with the past, to connect their activities with the activities of glorious predecessors: so Colbert studied the activities of Richelieu and had deep respect for the famous cardinal. In council, when discussing important matters, he always turned to the memory of Richelieu, and Louis laughed at Colbert’s habit: “Well, now Colbert will begin: “Sire! This great Cardinal Richelieu and so on.”

Soon after Fouquet's arrest, the king established a commission of inquiry to uncover all the abuses that had crept into the financial administration since 1635. The decree establishing the commission stated that financial unrest, as the king was convinced, was the cause of all the misfortunes of the people, while a small number of people quickly acquired huge fortunes through illegal means, which is why the king decided to strictly punish the predators who were draining finances and ruining the provinces. A sixth of the fines were assigned to informers. People involved in the previous financial management offered 20 million so as not to start an investigation; Contrary to the opinion of the new financial council, Louis did not agree to this deal and gained great popularity among the lower strata of the population. Exhortations were read in churches: all the faithful were required to report financial abuses under pain of excommunication. Meanwhile, Fouquet's trial began: his papers contained not only political and love correspondence, which showed so many noble men and women in an unfavorable light, but also a plan for open indignation dating back to 1657, when he was awaiting arrest from Mazarin.

Louis, who, thanks to the impressions of the Fronde, was in a painful state at the word “indignation,” was terribly irritated and took too much part in the investigative matter for the king; moreover, for the first time, the young forces made short work of themselves in the struggle; Louis was pleased to show his power, his inexorable justice and together show the people that what they could not do by rebelling against the authorities, the authorities would do and free the people from the people who were eating up their property. Fouquet found numerous defenders: for him there was the judicial class, jealous of its independence and understanding the direction of the young king; for him were the courtiers, accustomed to Fouquet’s generosity and afraid of Colbert’s stinginess; for him there were people who benefited him, because his generosity did not always have selfish motives; there were writers, artists, women for him, starting with the Queen Mother; Turain and Condé were for him; finally, many of those who at first admired the strict measures of the king felt sorry for Fouquet, the kind, sympathetic Fouquet, in whose character there were no traits that were especially offensive - stinginess, arrogance, whose advantages and disadvantages were so national. But this revolt for Fouquet could only make Louis act more strongly against him.

Fouquet was transferred to the Bastille, before which one of his accomplices had already been hanged, and this was not the only victim of the terrible commission. Fouquet deftly defended himself before the court, placing all the blame on Mazarin. Finally, the matter was decided: the court sentenced Fouquet to eternal exile with confiscation of property, but the king, instead of mitigating the punishment, replaced the exile with eternal and severe imprisonment in a fortress. The commission continued its work, and the price of penalties reached a huge figure - 135 million.

Policy of Louis XIV

The government did not stop at uncovering and punishing financial abuses. In provinces remote from the government center, landowners living on their estates allowed themselves all kinds of violence against subjects their own (sujets), intimidated or bribed judges were on their side. In some countries serfdom still existed. In 1665, a commission was appointed in Clermont with the right to decide in the final instance all civil and criminal cases, punish abuses and offenses, and destroy bad customs. Fear attacked the landowners: some fled from France, others hid in the mountains, some began to cajole the peasants, humiliate themselves before them, and the peasants raised their heads and set no limits to their claims and hopes; in one area the peasants bought gloves for themselves and thought that they should no longer work and that the king had only them in mind. Since the landowners, who were especially distinguished by their violence, fled from France, 273 people were sentenced in absentia to death, to exile or to the galleys, their castles were destroyed, their estates were confiscated. One of them, Baron Senega, was convicted of collecting money from individuals and communities with an armed hand, obstructing the collection of royal revenues, demanding unauthorized work from peasants, breaking a church in order to use material for his house, and killing several people; The Marquis of Canillac kept 12 robbers, whom he called his twelve apostles, and collected ten taxes from the peasants instead of one. In the same year, according to Colbert's plan, a council of justice was established, at the opening of which Colbert turned to Louis XIV with an admonition to introduce the same laws, one measure and one weight throughout the kingdom; but this measure was not carried out. Regarding justice under Louis XIV, the mitigation of punishments for sorcerers is remarkable: in 1670, the Rouen parliament captured 34 sorcerers and condemned four to death; the royal council changed death to exile; Afterwards, the death penalty was withheld only for sacrilege, and sorcerers were ordered to be punished everywhere with exile, and the government threatened with severe punishment those people who deceived the ignorant and the gullible with imaginary magical actions.

Having freed the people from the violence of the powerful, they wanted to direct them to trade and industrial activity, to raise the means and well-being of France to a level with the means and well-being of the most prosperous states in Europe, namely Holland and England. In 1669, the famous decree on forests and water communications was issued, eight years prepared by Colbert in a commission of 22 members; the quality of the forests and the space they occupied were indicated, measures for preserving and multiplying forests, rules for cutting and selling were indicated: all these concerns had the main goal of preserving material for shipbuilding. The Languedoc Canal was dug to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea, and the Orleans Canal was dug to connect the Loire with the Seine. Colbert, like all statesmen of that time, started from the idea that peoples get rich from trade and manufacturing industry, and therefore set himself the task: to restore fallen and declining industries, to create new, all kinds of factory industries; to form a strong phalanx of merchants and industrialists, obedient to the rational direction from above, to ensure France's industrial triumph through order and unity of activity, to obtain the most durable and most beautiful quality in goods, and this they wanted to achieve by prescribing the same techniques to workers, which experts recognized as the best; to remove fiscal obstacles, to give France its due share in world maritime trade, to enable it to transport its own works, whereas hitherto this transport was in the hands of its neighbors, mainly the Dutch; enlarge and strengthen the colonies, force them to consume only the products of the mother country and sell their products only to the mother country; to maintain the trading power of France, create a military fleet on the most extensive scale.

For these purposes it was established West Indian a company to which the government ceded all French possessions in America and Africa for forty years, because the second supplied the first with black labor; was also established East Indian the company with permission to establish itself in Madagascar, with which they connected brilliant hopes, calling it African France; hopes were not realized, and the French colonies on the island soon disappeared, but the East India Company held on. New advantages for the French were demanded from the Porte, and through this Levantine trade was strengthened. In order to always have good sailors for warships, Colbert came up with the following remedy: all the sailors in the whole of France were taken and divided into three classes; one class served for a year on the royal ships, and two other years on the merchant ships, then the second and third class did the same, and finally the turn returned to the first class to serve on the royal ships, etc.; Under pain of cruel punishment, the French were forbidden to enter the military service of other states. To train naval officers, a company of midshipmen (a type of naval military school) was established. They hastened to take advantage of all the successes made in England and Holland regarding shipbuilding, and tried to surpass their neighbors in the gigantic size of their ships; in 1671 the number of warships extended to 196. In 1664 France was divided into three large commercial districts, and in each of them there were annual meetings of merchant deputies, chosen two from each seaside or trading city: the meetings were intended to consider the state of trade and industry and report the results of their observations to the king.

In 1664, Louis announced his intention to eliminate the dependence of his subjects on foreigners for manufactured goods, and the very next year factories appeared on all sides. The tariff of 1664 increased the export duty on rough materials and doubled the duty on manufactured goods imported from abroad in order to give French manufacturers cheap, raw goods and free them from the competition of foreign works; The rules of the old workshops were revised, new workshops were established, the length, width and quality of cloth and other woolen, silk and linen fabrics were determined by decree. The industry boomed quickly; the impetus given by the energetic government to the energetic and gifted people produced a strong and beneficial movement, despite the one-sidedness and unnecessary regulation. Contemporaries, the most averse to Louis XIV, could not help but do justice to this first, Colbert period of his reign: “Everything flourished, everything was rich: Colbert raised finances, maritime affairs, trade, industry, literature itself to a high level.” The closest descendants, for reasons that will be discussed later, were hostile to Colbert’s activities, but now, after a calm study of the matter, it is recognized that the goal of Colbert’s administration was to create a working people; he said that for him there is nothing more precious in the state of human labor.

Colbert. Portrait by C. Lefebre, 1666

“Sciences serve as one of the greatest decorations for the state, and it is impossible to do without them,” said Richelieu; Colbert did not say anything without first calling on the name of the famous cardinal; it is not surprising, therefore, that Louis XIV considered science and literature in general one of the greatest decorations for the throne. This decoration did not need to be created, like factories or a fleet: the talents were ready, it was only necessary to bring them closer to the throne, bring them into direct dependence on it with pensions, and in 1663 the first list of literary pensions was compiled, in which 34 writers were included; Corneille is called the first dramatic poet in the world, and Moliere is an excellent comic poet. The king declared himself the patron of the academy and gave its members the right to greet him on ceremonial occasions “on an equal footing with parliament and other higher institutions.” The Academy of Inscriptions and Literature began at this time as a court institution: Colbert formed next to himself a council of knowledgeable people who were supposed to compose inscriptions for monuments, medals, assign tasks to artists, draw up plans for celebrations and their descriptions, and finally, draft history of the present reign. In 1666, the Academy of Sciences was founded, although England warned in this regard, because the same institution, the famous Royal Society, was founded here back in 1662. The Academy of Painting and Sculpture, founded at Mazaria, received a new charter; Academy of Architecture founded in 1671.

The following year an observatory was established. Royal benefits were not limited to French writers; French envoys to foreign courts had to deliver to their court information about the writers who were most respected, and some of them were attracted to France by the offer of profitable positions, like the famous astronomers the Dutchman Huygens, the Italian Cassini, the Dane Roemer; others received pensions, some temporary gifts, others became secret agents of French diplomacy; the Danzig astronomer Hevelius lost his library in a fire: Louis XIV gave him a new one, and hymns of praise were heard throughout Europe in honor of the French king; Twelve eulogies were delivered to him in 12 Italian cities.

French literature of the era of Louis XIV

The development of sources of French history, which had previously begun under Richelieu, has now received a new revival. Stéphane Baluz, Colbert's librarian, publishes and explains many important historical acts; his most remarkable work is a collection of legislative monuments from the time of the Frankish kings (“Capitularia regum Francorum”, 1677); in 1667, the monk’s enormous activity began Mabillon, famous for publishing monuments and establishing rules on how to verify the reliability of historical sources. Carl Dufresne Ducange in 1678 published the “Dictionary of Medieval Latin,” necessary for understanding the monuments of this time, and then published a dictionary of the medieval Greek language. There is no history yet; materials for it are just being prepared, but some questions, especially irritating curiosity, are already beginning to be investigated, and here, of course, one can still only hear the babble of an infant science, which does not have the means to free itself from various extraneous influences, and above all from a falsely understood national feeling. We started with the question of the origin of the people. Just as in Russia, in the infancy of historical science, national feeling did not allow us to accept the clear testimony of the chronicler about the Scandinavian origin of the Varangians-Rus and forced us to interpret this evidence in favor of Slavic origin by all means, so in France at the time described, researchers did not want to recognize the Franks hostile Germans who conquered Gaul, but tried to prove that the Franks were a Gallic colony that settled in Germany and then returned to their former fatherland. The famous Herbelo also enjoyed the support of Colbert, who collected in lexical form many studies on the history and literature of the Mohammedan East (Oriental Library, Bybliotheque orintale).

But much more than the pensions for foreign and domestic writers and scientists, much more than the aforementioned works, the glory of Louis XIV and the spread of French influence in Europe were promoted by the formation of the French language and the enrichment of it with literary works. During the Renaissance, the still undeveloped French language and the young folk French literature had to be subjected to a strong pressure of alien elements; under their influence the language changed rapidly. Montaigne said about his experiments: “I am writing a book for a small number of people, for a small number of years: in order to make it more durable, it should be written in a stronger language. Considering the continuous change that our language has undergone until now, who can hope that it will last another 50 years in its present form? In my memory, he has changed by half.” Such anarchy gave rise to the need for rules: a lot of grammars appeared, discussions about spelling, pronunciation, and the origin of language. A strong struggle began between adherents of one system or another: some argued that it was necessary to write as they say (tete, onete, oneur), others demanded that the previous spelling be retained (teste, honneste, honneur); the opponents did not spare swear words, calling each other donkeys and boars; some suggested finishing the language, giving it forms that, in their opinion, it lacked (for example, the comparative degree: belieur, grandieur, and the superlative: belissime, grandissime). On the one hand, scholars and students were subject to the influence of Latin; on the other hand, the Italian language showed a strong influence due to the richness of its literature, due to the primacy that Italy had during the Renaissance, and finally, due to the fashion that prevailed at the French court.

Young French literature sank under the weight of these two influences; the poor peasant girl, as one writer put it, did not know what to do in the presence of noble, dressed-up ladies. But the people's pride could not bear the humiliation, the patriots rose up against alien influences that disarmed the language, a struggle began, and ridicule and satire became the skirmisher. Rabelais also laughed at a student who distorted his speech into Latin. “What is this fool talking about? - says Pantagruel. “It seems to me that he is forging some kind of devilish language.” “Sir,” one of the servants answers him, “this fellow considers himself a great orator precisely because he despises the ordinary French language.” It was more difficult for ridicule to cope with Italian influence, because it was supported by fashion, carried out by women, by the court; it was the influence of a living language, living brilliant literature, highly developed art. When the eighty-year-old Leonard da Vinci appeared at the court of Francis I, the delight of French society knew no bounds. With the arrival of Catherine de' Medici, Italian influence became dominant at court and from here penetrated other layers of society; French speech is riddled with Italian words in the most ridiculous way, introduced into it without any need. But soon satire began to scourge this absurdity too, with Hanry Etienne especially strongly advocating it (“Dialogue du francais italianise”). This struggle of French satire with Italian influence is also interesting for us because it resembles the struggle of Russian satire, the struggle of our Sumarokovs, Fonvizins and Griboyedovs with French influence; the techniques of French and Russian satirists are the same.

French patriotic satirists triumphed over alien influence, defended their language, which began to be formed, defined and, in turn, began to strive for dominance in Europe, thanks mainly to famous writers who gave it special grace in their works. The time was most favorable: Europe was striving for a final definition of its forms of life, striving to form a number of strong, independent nationalities, which, however, were supposed to live a common life; the independence of peoples, political and spiritual, required the development of separate folk languages ​​and literatures; but the common life of European peoples also required a common language for international and scientific relations. Until now, the Latin language was used for this; but the needs of a new society, new concepts and relationships required a new, living language, especially since the people of the Renaissance laughed at medieval Latin, which was nevertheless the product of new, living needs. Having declared medieval Latin to be an ugly phenomenon, scientists turned to Ciceronian Latin; for a short time it was possible to enslave peoples who were still young, with newborn languages ​​and literatures; but these peoples began to grow by leaps and bounds, and soon the swaddling clothes of alien speech, the speech of an obsolete people who had their own special system of concepts, unsuitable for new peoples, became narrow for them.

Thus, the Latin language could no longer serve as a language common to European peoples; a modern, living language was needed. The time of the Italian and Spanish languages ​​has passed; the literary activity of the peoples who spoke them ceased, their political significance weakened, and meanwhile France came to the fore; French was spoken by a representative of the most powerful state in Europe, this language was spoken at the most brilliant European court, which other courts sought to imitate, and most importantly, this language was finally formed, distinguished by ease, accessibility, clarity, accuracy, grace, which a whole a number of famous writers.

Moliere

Of these writers, we will focus only on those whose works clarify the state of their contemporary society - first of all, we will focus on Moliere. The Gauls, according to Cato, passionately loved to fight and make jokes; The French inherited these two passions from their ancestors, and not a single major event in their social life passed without them noticing a side in it that would feed their wit. Newborn French poetry, next to the love song (chanson), represented satirical poetry (sirvente). The clergy was subjected to strong attacks from satire: ridicule finds abundant food when people behave inappropriately to their age, sex, rank - therefore, in the Middle Ages, the writers of French folk songs found abundant food in the behavior of the then clergy, which was not at all consistent with Christian teaching, for the clergy, in the words of the songs, “I always wanted to take without giving anything, to buy without selling anything.” Satire defended among the people the cause of Philip the Fair against the pope and the Templars; she crushed papal claims under Charles V; she laughed loudly at the great schism in the Western Church, when several popes argued over the throne of St. Peter. “When will this dispute end?” - the satire asked and answered: “When there is no more money.” She did not spare armed force, noticing in it boasting and violence instead of courage; did not spare the new monetary power, which began to compete with the power of the sword. Satire found the widest field for itself on the theatrical stage: it brought here all classes, all classes of society, and for its courage and cynicism it was often subjected to severe persecution; in addition, during the Renaissance she was dealt a blow by the desire to imitate ancient comedy: here the poor peasant girl had to give in to the noble lady. But cold imitations of Latin and then Spanish comedy could not last long on stage; French society demanded a living folk comedy, and Moliere appeared to satisfy this social need.

Moliere was a child of the people: the son of an upholsterer, a long-travelling actor, he became famous for the comedy “Precieuses ridicules” (1659), where he mocked artificiality, stiffness, quixoticism in feelings, relationships and language; This comedy was important as a protest against the false, unnatural, stilted in the name of truth, simplicity and life. Moliere acquired a patron in the famous Fouquet; but Fouquet’s fall did not harm him: he managed to gain the favor of Louis XIV himself. It is clear that the position of the comic poet during the reign of Louis was very difficult: he had to limit himself to depicting universal human weaknesses, but he could touch on the weak sides of modern French society very carefully, and only such weaknesses that the king wanted to laugh at. Louis XIV allowed Moliere to bring the marquises on stage in a funny way, because the king was not a fan of people who thought that they mattered besides him. But the danger for Moliere did not come from the king alone: ​​this was revealed when he put Tartuffe on stage, in which he presented a saintly person who allowed himself various vile things. A storm has arisen: the Archbishop of Paris issues a message against comedy; the first President of Parliament prohibits its representation in Paris; the famous preacher Bourdalou smashes her from the church pulpit; Louis is frightened, hesitates, allows, forbids, and finally allows the performance of the comedy again.

“Here is a comedy,” Moliere himself says about Tartuffe, “which caused a lot of noise, which was persecuted for a long time, and the people represented in it proved that they are more powerful in France than all those whom I have represented so far. Marquises, precieuses, cuckolds and doctors calmly tolerated being brought onto the stage and pretended to be enjoying their image along with everyone else. But the hypocrites were angry and found it strange that I dared to imagine their grimaces and mock the trade in which so many decent people are engaged. This is a crime for which they could not forgive me, and they armed themselves against my comedy with terrible rage. Following their laudable habit, they covered their interests with the interests of God, and “Tartuffe,” according to them, offends piety; the play is filled with wickedness from beginning to end, and everything in it is worthy of fire. I would not have paid attention to their words if they had not tried to arm people whom I respect against me, to attract truly well-intentioned people to their side. If they took the trouble to conscientiously examine my comedy, they would, without a doubt, find that my intentions are innocent and that there is no mockery in it of what is worthy of respect. These gentlemen suggest that you cannot talk about such things in the theater; but I ask them: on what do they base such an excellent rule? If the purpose of comedy is to correct human vices, then I see no reason why there should be privileged ones among the vices; and the vice in question harms the state more than any other. I am reproached for putting pious words into the mouth of my hypocrite; but how could I truly imagine the character of the hypocrite without this? “But, they say, in the fourth act he preaches a disastrous doctrine: but does this doctrine contain anything new?”

In his second address to the king about “Tartuffe,” Moliere speaks more frankly about the reasons that raised the storm: “It was in vain that I staged a comedy called “The Hypocrite” and dressed the character in the dress of a secular man, in vain I put on him a small hat, a long wig, a sword and lace all over the dress; It was in vain that I diligently excluded everything that could have given even the shadow of a pretext for finding fault with the famous originals of the portrait I painted: all this served no purpose.” These words contain the explanation of the whole matter: “Tartuffe” is a continuation of ancient satirical songs and theatrical performances that ridiculed the clergy, whose unworthy members were necessarily hypocrites. Moliere was afraid of one thing - to offend “the delicacy of the royal soul regarding religious objects,” as he himself puts it, and therefore dressed his abbot in secular dress; but the mask was not put on very tightly: everyone guessed what was going on, and those interested made a noise, all the more powerful because Moliere was known as a pupil of Gassandi, as a member of a small society of new epicureans who combined the desire for pleasure with disbelief, knew, therefore , that Moliere ridiculed hypocrisy not at all in the types of morality and religion, did not at all want to present in Tartuffe an atheist who put on a mask of religiosity, but simply wanted to laugh at his enemies, telling them: you are no better than us, you have the same passions and aspirations satisfy them, you are even worse than us, but you do your bad deeds on the sly, and shout against us in the name of the demands of your religion.

Moliere won the fight, because if his enemies, the originals of the portrait he drew in Tartuffe, took advantage of the delicacy of the royal soul regarding religious objects, then he found an even more sensitive side in the royal soul in order to induce Louis XIV to lift the ban on comedy. At the end it says: “Calm down: we live under a sovereign - the enemy of untruth, under a sovereign whose eyes penetrate into the depths of hearts, who cannot be deceived by all the art of hypocrites.”

Moliere had every right to say that the vice he introduced in Tartuffe harms the state more than any other. Indeed, a disguised person is the most dangerous member of society, which, for the correctness of all its relationships and functions, requires truth and openness. But a conscientious writer must approach hypocrisy with great caution, for often something completely different is mistaken for hypocrisy. There are people with higher aspirations, obedient to the call of religion, trying to conform their actions to its requirements, and these people, as people, do not always emerge victorious in the fight against temptations, they fall; they are unhappy from the consciousness of their fall and at the same time they still have the weakness to hide this fall from others by all means; but when they cannot hide it, then cries are heard from all sides: hypocrite! deceiver! Pharisee! The screams are heard all the louder because the crowd of small people is happy about the fall of a person leaving the row; his moral superiority pricked her, and she now triumphantly declares that this man is the same as everyone else, but only pretended to be the best, a saint, for selfish purposes. In a person, pure motives are so intertwined with impure ones that he himself can with great difficulty distinguish between them and determine the share of participation of one or the other in a certain act; hence the frequent mistakes of poets and historians in the presentation of characters - mistakes consisting in the desire to give unity to motives, to paint the character with one color: this is much easier, simpler, but the truth suffers, and the high goal of art is to tell us the truth about a person - is not achieved.

But at a time when in France so many talented people rushed to express the truth about a person in the most visual way, exposing a person acting before the eyes of spectators, and the need arose to combine two arts: the art of authorship and the art of stagecraft, at that very time there was a strong protest against this visual way of telling the truth about a person - against theater. Protest followed in the name of religion both from the Catholic clergy and from the Jansenists. Jansenist Nicol put it this way: “Comedy, say its defenders, is a representation of actions and words - what’s wrong with that? But there is a way to protect yourself from any misconception on this score - this is to consider comedy not in a chimerical theory, but in practice, the performance of which we witness. We must consider what kind of life the actor leads, what the content and purpose of our comedies are, what effect they have on those who represent them and on those who are present at their performance, and then examine whether all this has any connection to the life and feelings of a true Christian. A spectacle cannot exist without an artist; ordinary and moderate feelings will not amaze; Thus, the senses are not only deceived by appearances, but the soul is attacked from all sensitive sides.”

Of course, we cannot agree with the stern Jansenist that a true depiction of a person with his passions can have a corrupting effect on a person; but, on the other hand, we cannot help but admit that there is a significant amount of truth in his words: for example, he had every right to point out the immoral life of actors who were also writers of plays; could such people be expected to have moral goals in mind? Opponents of the theater could especially point out what the theater did to the women who devoted themselves to it - in what form did this example of women's labor, women's social activity appear? Opponents of the theater had the right to assert that the high importance of the theater is maintained only in theory, but in practice the theater serves as entertainment for the crowd, and often immoral entertainment, especially in comedy, where they tried to please the crowd with cynical antics, from which Moliere was not at all free.

The Jansenist Nicol, whose opinion on the theater we have given, belongs to the number of so-called moralists, insightful observers of the phenomena of the internal and external world, who set out the conclusions from their observations in the form of short notes of thoughts or rules. Nicolas's conclusions, like Pascal's, are imbued with a religious and moral view; it points to the imperfection of the phenomena of the internal and external world, but at the same time it calms and elevates the soul by indicating a higher, religious aspiration. But among the French moralists of the described time there is one, distinguished by subtlety in observations and often accuracy in conclusions and at the same time leaving the most bleak impression in the reader’s soul, because he shows only one dark side in a person, and for everything good, sublime, bad ones are sought out , petty, selfish motives; you hear the demon laughing at what a person is used to loving and respecting; the author “does not want to bless anything in all of nature.”

La Rochefoucauld

This author is the famous Duke of La Rochefoucauld, who took an active part in the Fronde movements. From these movements that ended in nothing, from this irritation without satisfaction, La Rochefoucauld brought forth a weary soul, filled with disbelief in the moral dignity of man; all people appeared to him in the form of heroes of the Fronde: “When great people fall under the burden of misfortune, it is revealed to us that we endure these misfortunes only thanks to the strength of our pride, and not thanks to the strength of our spirit, and that, excluding great vanity, heroes are made of such the same clay as other people. Contempt for wealth was among philosophers a secret desire to avenge their merits on an unjust fate by contempt for the benefits of which it deprived them. Hatred for favorites is nothing other than love for the favored; people who have not achieved favor console themselves with contempt for those who have achieved it. The love of justice in most people is nothing more than the fear of suffering injustice; what people call friendship is respect for each other’s interests, exchange of favors, communication in which pride always has in mind to win something. People would not live long in society if they did not deceive each other. Old people love to give good instructions in order to console themselves in the impossibility of giving bad examples. Constancy in love is always inconstancy: the heart gradually becomes attached to one or another quality of a person, and it turns out that constancy is inconstancy, which revolves in the same object. Virtue would not have gone so far if vanity had not accompanied it. Generosity despises everything in order to have everything. Why don't lovers and mistresses miss being together? Because they constantly talk about each other.” Contempt for the moral dignity of man naturally led to materialism, and La Rochefoucauld states among other things that “strength and weakness of the spirit are an incorrect expression: in essence it is a good or bad arrangement of the organs of the body”; or: “all passions are nothing more than different degrees of warmth of blood.”

Bossuet

Thus, the son of the Fronde, La Rochefoucauld, is the continuer of that dark trend to which Jansenism, with its Pascals and Nicolas, was a counteraction. But Jansenism was a disgraced phenomenon from the Western Church, which at the time described put up a more orthodox representative in France in the famous Bossuet. At the very height of the Fronde, when loud cries against the supreme power were heard in living rooms and on the streets, the young clergyman preached a strong sermon on the text “Fear God, honor the Tsar.” This young spiritual man was Bossuet. The Fronde subsided, the society tired of it caused a strong government, and Bossuet appears next to Louis XIV with the same text, which he develops not in one sermon, but carries through a whole series of works that bear the stamp of strong talent and therefore have a strong influence on society. Louis XIV does not want to limit himself only to his time, does not want to take advantage only of the well-known disposition of society in order to actually strengthen his power, to remove here and there various obstacles to it: in his early youth he witnessed strong excitement, witnessed how power fluctuated, bowed before the popular demands, heard the ominous word “republic”, and from the other side of the strait came terrible news that the throne had been overthrown and the king had died on the scaffold; Louis XIV in his youth lived through a terrible time, a terrible struggle, survived as an attentive spectator, a deeply interested participant; his feeling and thought were tense; he saw the danger closely and knew that in order to fight it, material force alone was not enough, and the subsidies that he gave to the English kings to counteract the liberal aspirations on the other side of the Strait were not enough - Louis was looking for other means, he wanted to draw up rules for himself and for his descendants , theory, science and contrast this teaching with another, which came from a dangerous island.

The theory of Louis XIV, formed under the impressions of the English Revolution and the French Fronde, echoes the English protective theories that emerged as a result of the desire to counteract revolutionary movements. Here are the grounds for this theory: “France is a monarchical state in the full sense of the word. The king here represents the whole nation, and every private person represents only himself before the king, therefore, all power is in the hands of the king and there can be no other authorities than those established by him. The nation in France does not constitute a separate body: it resides entirely in the person of the king. Everything that is in our state belongs to us undeniably. The money that is in our treasury and which we leave in the trade of our subjects should be equally protected by them. Kings are sovereign lords and have unlimited disposal of all property that is in the possession of both spiritual and secular people, depending on need.”

Bossuet reinforces this theory. “The law,” he says, “is at first a condition or a solemn agreement in which people, by the permission of sovereigns, determined what is necessary for the formation of society. This does not mean that the power of laws depends on the consent of peoples, but it only means that the wisest people from the people help the sovereign. The first power is paternal power in every family; then the families united in society under the rule of sovereigns, who replaced their fathers. In the beginning there were many small estates; the conquerors violated this agreement of peoples. Monarchy is the most common, oldest and most natural form of government. Of all monarchies, the best is hereditary. As for other forms of government, in general the state should remain in the form to which it is accustomed. Whoever intends to destroy the legitimacy of forms of government, whatever they may be, is not only a public enemy, but also an enemy of God. The sovereign's power is unlimited. The sovereign must not give an account to anyone in his orders. Sovereigns are from God and participate, in a sense, in divine independence. There is no other remedy against the power of the sovereign except the same power of the sovereign. Princes, however, are not exempt from obeying the laws (by right, but in fact no one can force them to obey the law). The power of the sovereign is subordinated to reason. A subject can disobey the sovereign only in one case: when the sovereign orders something against God (but even in this case, resistance must be passive). Subjects are obliged to pay tribute to the sovereign (i.e., the consent of the people is not needed to collect taxes). The sovereign must use his power to exterminate false religions in his dominions. Those who reject the right of the sovereign to use coercive measures in the matter of religion on the grounds that religion should be free are in an unholy error.”

Portrait of Bossuet. Artist G. Rigaud, 1702

Louis XIV at first did not go as far in this regard as Bossuet; around 1670 he wrote: “It seems to me that people who wanted to use violent measures against Protestantism did not understand the nature of this evil, produced in part by mental fever, which must be allowed to pass insensitively, and not set on fire by strong resistance, useless in the case when the ulcer is not limited to a certain number of people, but is widespread throughout the state. The best way to gradually reduce the number of Huguenots in France is not to burden them with any new severity, to respect the rights given to them by my predecessors, but not to concede anything more to them and to limit the very observance of the granted rights to the narrowest possible limits, which are prescribed by justice and decency. As for the favors that depend on me alone, I decided not to give them any: let it come to their minds from time to time whether it is in accordance with reason to voluntarily deprive them of benefits. I also decided to attract with rewards those who would be obedient, to inspire, if possible, the bishops to take care of their conversion; appoint to spiritual positions only people of proven piety, hard work, and knowledge, who are capable, by their behavior, of destroying in the Church those disorders that occurred as a result of the unworthy behavior of their predecessors.”

Louis tried at first to take strong measures against Protestantism, because this ulcer was widespread throughout the state; but there was another ulcer, limited to a small number of people, with which therefore there was no need to stand on ceremony, that was Jansenism. The Huguenot heresy was an old heresy; Louis was not to blame for the fact that his predecessors gave her rights; but Jansenism was a heresy nascent, in the words of Louis; the king's duty was to destroy it in the bud; The pope and the king ordered the heretics to come to their senses, but they did not obey. But if the Jansenists had strong enemies, then they also had strong patrons who wanted to keep gifted and energetic fighters in the Catholic Church through peaceful agreements. The Jansenist heretic Nicole zealously defended the dogma of transubstantiation against the Protestants.

The sad results of the movement along the downhill path of denial, the movement that began with Luther’s reform, alarmed more and more Protestants who wanted to remain Christians, but did not feel solid ground under them, and here Bossuet appears with his “Exposition of the Catholic Faith,” written with great talent and moderation. “It is possible,” says Bossuet, “to maintain consistency, to establish unity in terms of doctrine, when either one completely surrenders to the faith, like Catholics, or completely surrenders to human reason, like unbelievers; but when they want to mix both, they come to opinions, the contradictions of which indicate the obvious falsity of the matter.” Protestants were struck by the moderation with which the “Exposition of the Catholic Faith” was written. “This is not papal teaching,” the pastors shouted, “the pope will not approve it.” But dad had the prudence to approve. Protestants began to convert to Catholicism; A strong impression was made by Turenne's appeal; there were almost no people from noble families among the Huguenots.

In some places in the Auvergne, landowners also claimed jus primae noctis, and newlyweds had to pay off

In memory of the Grands-Jours, a medal was struck with the inscription: Provinciae ab injuriis potentiorum vindicatae: Provinces freed from the violence of the powerful.

March 26th, 2016

Louis XIV reigned for 72 years, longer than any other European monarch. He became king at the age of four, took full power into his own hands at 23 and ruled for 54 years. “The state is me!” - Louis XIV did not say these words, but the state has always been associated with the personality of the ruler. Therefore, if we talk about the blunders and mistakes of Louis XIV (the war with Holland, the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, etc.), then the assets of the reign should also be credited to him.

The development of trade and manufacturing, the emergence of the French colonial empire, the reform of the army and the creation of the navy, the development of the arts and sciences, the construction of Versailles and, finally, the transformation of France into a modern state. These are not all the achievements of the Century of Louis XIV. So what was this ruler who gave his name to his time?

Louis XIV de Bourbon, who received the name Louis-Dieudonné (“God-given”) at birth, was born on September 5, 1638. The name “God-given” appeared for a reason. Queen Anne of Austria gave birth to an heir at the age of 37.

For 22 years, the marriage of Louis's parents was barren, and therefore the birth of an heir was perceived by the people as a miracle. After the death of his father, young Louis and his mother moved to the Palais Royal, the former palace of Cardinal Richelieu. Here the little king was brought up in a very simple and sometimes squalid environment.

Louis XIV de Bourbon.

His mother was considered regent of France, but real power lay in the hands of her favorite, Cardinal Mazarin. He was very stingy and did not care at all not only about providing pleasure to the child king, but even about his availability of basic necessities.

The first years of Louis's formal reign included the events of a civil war known as the Fronde. In January 1649, an uprising against Mazarin broke out in Paris. The king and ministers had to flee to Saint-Germain, and Mazarin generally fled to Brussels. Peace was restored only in 1652, and power returned to the hands of the cardinal. Despite the fact that the king was already considered an adult, Mazarin ruled France until his death.

Giulio Mazarin - church and political leader and first minister of France in 1643-1651 and 1653-1661. He took up the post under the patronage of Queen Anne of Austria.

In 1659, peace was signed with Spain. The agreement was sealed by the marriage of Louis with Maria Theresa, who was his cousin. When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis, having received his freedom, hastened to get rid of all guardianship over himself.

He abolished the position of first minister, announcing to the State Council that from now on he himself would be the first minister, and no decree, even the most insignificant, should be signed by anyone on his behalf.

Louis was poorly educated, barely able to read and write, but had common sense and a strong determination to maintain his royal dignity. He was tall, handsome, had a noble bearing, and tried to express himself briefly and clearly. Unfortunately, he was overly selfish, as no European monarch was distinguished by monstrous pride and selfishness. All previous royal residences seemed to Louis unworthy of his greatness.

After some deliberation, in 1662 he decided to turn the small hunting castle of Versailles into a royal palace. It took 50 years and 400 million francs. Until 1666, the king had to live in the Louvre, from 1666 to 1671. in the Tuileries, from 1671 to 1681, alternately in the Versailles under construction and Saint-Germain-O-l"E. Finally, from 1682, Versailles became the permanent residence of the royal court and government. From now on, Louis visited Paris only on short visits.

The king's new palace was distinguished by its extraordinary splendor. The so-called (large apartments) - six salons, named after ancient deities - served as hallways for the Mirror Gallery, 72 meters long, 10 meters wide and 16 meters high. Buffets were held in the salons, and guests played billiards and cards.

The Great Condé greets Louis XIV on the Staircase at Versailles.

In general, card games became an uncontrollable passion at court. The bets reached several thousand livres at stake, and Louis himself stopped playing only after he lost 600 thousand livres in six months in 1676.

Also comedies were staged in the palace, first by Italian and then by French authors: Corneille, Racine and especially often Moliere. In addition, Louis loved to dance, and repeatedly took part in ballet performances at court.

The splendor of the palace also corresponded to the complex rules of etiquette established by Louis. Any action was accompanied by a whole set of carefully designed ceremonies. Meals, going to bed, even basic quenching of thirst during the day - everything was turned into complex rituals.

War against everyone

If the king were only concerned with the construction of Versailles, the rise of the economy and the development of the arts, then, probably, the respect and love of his subjects for the Sun King would be limitless. However, the ambitions of Louis XIV extended much beyond the borders of his state.

By the early 1680s, Louis XIV had the most powerful army in Europe, which only whetted his appetite. In 1681, he established chambers of reunification to determine the rights of the French crown to certain areas, seizing more and more lands in Europe and Africa.

In 1688, Louis XIV's claims to the Palatinate led to the whole of Europe turning against him. The so-called War of the League of Augsburg lasted for nine years and resulted in the parties maintaining the status quo. But the huge expenses and losses incurred by France led to a new economic decline in the country and a depletion of funds.

But already in 1701, France was drawn into a long conflict called the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis XIV hoped to defend the rights to the Spanish throne for his grandson, who was to become the head of two states. However, the war, which engulfed not only Europe, but also North America, ended unsuccessfully for France.

According to the peace concluded in 1713 and 1714, the grandson of Louis XIV retained the Spanish crown, but its Italian and Dutch possessions were lost, and England, by destroying the Franco-Spanish fleets and conquering a number of colonies, laid the foundation for its maritime dominion. In addition, the project of uniting France and Spain under the hand of the French monarch had to be abandoned.

Sale of offices and expulsion of the Huguenots

This last military campaign of Louis XIV returned him to where he started - the country was mired in debt and groaning under the burden of taxes, and here and there uprisings broke out, the suppression of which required more and more resources.

The need to replenish the budget led to non-trivial decisions. Under Louis XIV, the trade in government positions was put on stream, reaching its maximum extent in the last years of his life. To replenish the treasury, more and more new positions were created, which, of course, brought chaos and discord into the activities of state institutions.

Louis XIV on coins.

The ranks of opponents of Louis XIV were joined by French Protestants after the “Edict of Fontainebleau” was signed in 1685, repealing the Edict of Nantes of Henry IV, which guaranteed freedom of religion to the Huguenots.

After this, more than 200 thousand French Protestants emigrated from the country, despite strict penalties for emigration. The exodus of tens of thousands of economically active citizens dealt another painful blow to the power of France.

The unloved queen and the meek lame woman

At all times and eras, the personal life of monarchs influenced politics. Louis XIV is no exception in this sense. The monarch once remarked: “It would be easier for me to reconcile all of Europe than a few women.”

His official wife in 1660 was a peer, the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa, who was Louis’s cousin on both his father and mother.

The problem with this marriage, however, was not the close family ties of the spouses. Louis simply did not love Maria Theresa, but he meekly agreed to the marriage, which had important political significance. The wife bore the king six children, but five of them died in childhood. Only the first-born survived, named, like his father, Louis and who went down in history under the name of the Grand Dauphin.

The marriage of Louis XIV took place in 1660.

For the sake of marriage, Louis broke off relations with the woman he really loved - the niece of Cardinal Mazarin. Perhaps the separation from his beloved also influenced the king’s attitude towards his legal wife. Maria Theresa accepted her fate. Unlike other French queens, she did not intrigue or get involved in politics, playing a prescribed role. When the queen died in 1683, Louis said: “ This is the only worry in my life that she has caused me.».

The king compensated for the lack of feelings in marriage with relationships with his favorites. For nine years, Louise-Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc, Duchess de La Vallière, became Louis's sweetheart. Louise was not distinguished by dazzling beauty, and, moreover, due to an unsuccessful fall from a horse, she remained lame for the rest of her life. But the meekness, friendliness and sharp mind of Lamefoot attracted the attention of the king.

Louise bore Louis four children, two of whom lived to adulthood. The king treated Louise quite cruelly. Having begun to grow cold towards her, he settled his rejected mistress next to his new favorite - Marquise Françoise Athenaïs de Montespan. The Duchess de La Valliere was forced to endure the bullying of her rival. She endured everything with her characteristic meekness, and in 1675 she became a nun and lived for many years in a monastery, where she was called Louise the Merciful.

There was not a shadow of the meekness of her predecessor in the lady before Montespan. A representative of one of the most ancient noble families in France, Françoise not only became the official favorite, but for 10 years turned into the “true queen of France.”

Marquise de Montespan with four legitimized children. 1677 Palace of Versailles.

Françoise loved luxury and did not like counting money. It was the Marquise de Montespan who turned the reign of Louis XIV from deliberate budgeting to unrestrained and unlimited spending. Capricious, envious, domineering and ambitious, Francoise knew how to subjugate the king to her will. New apartments were built for her in Versailles, and she managed to place all her close relatives in significant government positions.

Françoise de Montespan bore Louis seven children, four of whom lived to adulthood. But the relationship between Françoise and the king was not as faithful as with Louise. Louis allowed himself hobbies besides his official favorite, which infuriated Madame de Montespan.

To keep the king with her, she began to practice black magic and even became involved in a high-profile poisoning case. The king did not punish her with death, but deprived her of the status of a favorite, which was much more terrible for her.

Like her predecessor, Louise le Lavalier, the Marquise de Montespan exchanged the royal chambers for a monastery.

Time for repentance

Louis's new favorite was the Marquise de Maintenon, the widow of the poet Scarron, who was the governess of the king's children from Madame de Montespan.

This king's favorite was called the same as her predecessor, Françoise, but the women were as different from each other as heaven and earth. The king had long conversations with the Marquise de Maintenon about the meaning of life, about religion, about responsibility before God. The royal court replaced its splendor with chastity and high morality.

Madame de Maintenon.

After the death of his official wife, Louis XIV secretly married the Marquise de Maintenon. Now the king was occupied not with balls and festivities, but with masses and reading the Bible. The only entertainment he allowed himself was hunting.

The Marquise de Maintenon founded and directed Europe's first secular school for women, called the Royal House of Saint Louis. The school in Saint-Cyr became an example for many similar institutions, including the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg.

For her strict disposition and intolerance to secular entertainment, the Marquise de Maintenon received the nickname the Black Queen. She survived Louis and after his death retired to Saint-Cyr, living the rest of her days among the pupils of her school.

Illegitimate Bourbons

Louis XIV recognized his illegitimate children from both Louise de La Vallière and Françoise de Montespan. They all received their father's surname - de Bourbon, and dad tried to arrange their lives.

Louis, Louise's son, was already promoted to French admiral at the age of two, and as an adult he went on a military campaign with his father. There, at the age of 16, the young man died.

Louis-Auguste, son from Françoise, received the title of Duke of Maine, became a French commander and in this capacity accepted the godson of Peter I and Alexander Pushkin's great-grandfather Abram Petrovich Hannibal for military training.

Grand Dauphin Louis. The only surviving legitimate child of Louis XIV by Maria Theresa of Spain.

Françoise Marie, Louis's youngest daughter, was married to Philippe d'Orléans, becoming Duchess of Orléans. Possessing the character of her mother, Françoise-Marie plunged headlong into political intrigue. Her husband became the French regent under the young King Louis XV, and Françoise-Marie's children married the scions of other European royal dynasties.

In a word, not many illegitimate children of ruling persons suffered the same fate that befell the sons and daughters of Louis XIV.

“Did you really think that I would live forever?”

The last years of the king's life turned out to be a difficult ordeal for him. The man, who throughout his life defended the chosenness of the monarch and his right to autocratic rule, experienced not only the crisis of his state. His close people left one after another, and it turned out that there was simply no one to transfer power to.

On April 13, 1711, his son, the Grand Dauphin Louis, died. In February 1712, the Dauphin's eldest son, the Duke of Burgundy, died, and on March 8 of the same year, the latter's eldest son, the young Duke of Breton, died.

On March 4, 1714, the Duke of Burgundy's younger brother, the Duke of Berry, fell from his horse and died a few days later. The only heir was the 4-year-old great-grandson of the king, the youngest son of the Duke of Burgundy. If this little one had died, the throne would have remained vacant after the death of Louis.

This forced the king to include even his illegitimate sons in the list of heirs, which promised internal civil strife in France in the future.

Louis XIV.

At 76 years old, Louis remained energetic, active and, as in his youth, regularly went hunting. During one of these trips, the king fell and injured his leg. Doctors discovered that the injury had caused gangrene and suggested amputation. The Sun King refused: this is unacceptable for royal dignity. The disease progressed rapidly, and soon agony began, lasting for several days.

At the moment of clarity of consciousness, Louis looked around those present and uttered his last aphorism:

- Why are you crying? Did you really think that I would live forever?

On September 1, 1715, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, Louis XIV died in his palace at Versailles, four days short of his 77th birthday.

Louis XIV reigned for 72 years, longer than any other European monarch. He became king at the age of four, took full power into his own hands at 23 and ruled for 54 years. “The state is me!” - Louis XIV did not say these words, but the state has always been associated with the personality of the ruler. Therefore, if we talk about the blunders and mistakes of Louis XIV (the war with Holland, the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, etc.), then the assets of the reign should also be credited to him.

The development of trade and manufacturing, the emergence of the French colonial empire, the reform of the army and the creation of the navy, the development of the arts and sciences, the construction of Versailles and, finally, the transformation of France into a modern state. These are not all the achievements of the Century of Louis XIV. So what was this ruler who gave his name to his time?

Louis XIV de Bourbon.

Louis XIV de Bourbon, who received the name Louis-Dieudonné (“God-given”) at birth, was born on September 5, 1638. The name “God-given” appeared for a reason. Queen Anne of Austria gave birth to an heir at the age of 37.

For 22 years, the marriage of Louis's parents was barren, and therefore the birth of an heir was perceived by the people as a miracle. After the death of his father, young Louis and his mother moved to the Palais Royal, the former palace of Cardinal Richelieu. Here the little king was brought up in a very simple and sometimes squalid environment.

His mother was considered regent of France, but real power lay in the hands of her favorite, Cardinal Mazarin. He was very stingy and did not care at all not only about providing pleasure to the child king, but even about his availability of basic necessities.

The first years of Louis's formal reign included the events of a civil war known as the Fronde. In January 1649, an uprising against Mazarin broke out in Paris. The king and ministers had to flee to Saint-Germain, and Mazarin generally fled to Brussels. Peace was restored only in 1652, and power returned to the hands of the cardinal. Despite the fact that the king was already considered an adult, Mazarin ruled France until his death.

Giulio Mazarin - church and political leader and first minister of France in 1643-1651 and 1653-1661. He took up the post under the patronage of Queen Anne of Austria.

In 1659, peace was signed with Spain. The agreement was sealed by the marriage of Louis with Maria Theresa, who was his cousin. When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis, having received his freedom, hastened to get rid of all guardianship over himself.

He abolished the position of first minister, announcing to the State Council that from now on he himself would be the first minister, and no decree, even the most insignificant, should be signed by anyone on his behalf.

Louis was poorly educated, barely able to read and write, but had common sense and a strong determination to maintain his royal dignity. He was tall, handsome, had a noble bearing, and tried to express himself briefly and clearly. Unfortunately, he was overly selfish, as no European monarch was distinguished by monstrous pride and selfishness. All previous royal residences seemed to Louis unworthy of his greatness.

After some deliberation, in 1662 he decided to turn the small hunting castle of Versailles into a royal palace. It took 50 years and 400 million francs. Until 1666, the king had to live in the Louvre, from 1666 to 1671. in the Tuileries, from 1671 to 1681, alternately in the Versailles under construction and Saint-Germain-O-l"E. Finally, from 1682, Versailles became the permanent residence of the royal court and government. From now on, Louis visited Paris only on short visits.

The king's new palace was distinguished by its extraordinary splendor. The so-called (large apartments) - six salons, named after ancient deities - served as hallways for the Mirror Gallery, 72 meters long, 10 meters wide and 16 meters high. Buffets were held in the salons, and guests played billiards and cards.

The Great Condé greets Louis XIV on the Staircase at Versailles.

In general, card games became an uncontrollable passion at court. The bets reached several thousand livres at stake, and Louis himself stopped playing only after he lost 600 thousand livres in six months in 1676.

Also comedies were staged in the palace, first by Italian and then by French authors: Corneille, Racine and especially often Moliere. In addition, Louis loved to dance, and repeatedly took part in ballet performances at court.

The splendor of the palace also corresponded to the complex rules of etiquette established by Louis. Any action was accompanied by a whole set of carefully designed ceremonies. Meals, going to bed, even basic quenching of thirst during the day - everything was turned into complex rituals.

War against everyone

If the king were only concerned with the construction of Versailles, the rise of the economy and the development of the arts, then, probably, the respect and love of his subjects for the Sun King would be limitless. However, the ambitions of Louis XIV extended much beyond the borders of his state.

By the early 1680s, Louis XIV had the most powerful army in Europe, which only whetted his appetite. In 1681, he established chambers of reunification to determine the rights of the French crown to certain areas, seizing more and more lands in Europe and Africa.

In 1688, Louis XIV's claims to the Palatinate led to the whole of Europe turning against him. The so-called War of the League of Augsburg lasted for nine years and resulted in the parties maintaining the status quo. But the huge expenses and losses incurred by France led to a new economic decline in the country and a depletion of funds.

But already in 1701, France was drawn into a long conflict called the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis XIV hoped to defend the rights to the Spanish throne for his grandson, who was to become the head of two states. However, the war, which engulfed not only Europe, but also North America, ended unsuccessfully for France.

According to the peace concluded in 1713 and 1714, the grandson of Louis XIV retained the Spanish crown, but its Italian and Dutch possessions were lost, and England, by destroying the Franco-Spanish fleets and conquering a number of colonies, laid the foundation for its maritime dominion. In addition, the project of uniting France and Spain under the hand of the French monarch had to be abandoned.

Sale of offices and expulsion of the Huguenots

This last military campaign of Louis XIV returned him to where he started - the country was mired in debt and groaning under the burden of taxes, and here and there uprisings broke out, the suppression of which required more and more resources.

The need to replenish the budget led to non-trivial decisions. Under Louis XIV, the trade in government positions was put on stream, reaching its maximum extent in the last years of his life. To replenish the treasury, more and more new positions were created, which, of course, brought chaos and discord into the activities of state institutions.

Louis XIV on coins.

The ranks of opponents of Louis XIV were joined by French Protestants after the “Edict of Fontainebleau” was signed in 1685, repealing the Edict of Nantes of Henry IV, which guaranteed freedom of religion to the Huguenots.

After this, more than 200 thousand French Protestants emigrated from the country, despite strict penalties for emigration. The exodus of tens of thousands of economically active citizens dealt another painful blow to the power of France.

The unloved queen and the meek lame woman

At all times and eras, the personal life of monarchs influenced politics. Louis XIV is no exception in this sense. The monarch once remarked: “It would be easier for me to reconcile all of Europe than a few women.”

His official wife in 1660 was a peer, the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa, who was Louis’s cousin on both his father and mother.

The problem with this marriage, however, was not the close family ties of the spouses. Louis simply did not love Maria Theresa, but he meekly agreed to the marriage, which had important political significance. The wife bore the king six children, but five of them died in childhood. Only the first-born survived, named, like his father, Louis and who went down in history under the name of the Grand Dauphin.

The marriage of Louis XIV took place in 1660.

For the sake of marriage, Louis broke off relations with the woman he really loved - the niece of Cardinal Mazarin. Perhaps the separation from his beloved also influenced the king’s attitude towards his legal wife. Maria Theresa accepted her fate. Unlike other French queens, she did not intrigue or get involved in politics, playing a prescribed role. When the queen died in 1683, Louis said: “ This is the only worry in my life that she has caused me.».

The king compensated for the lack of feelings in marriage with relationships with his favorites. For nine years, Louise-Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc, Duchess de La Vallière, became Louis's sweetheart. Louise was not distinguished by dazzling beauty, and, moreover, due to an unsuccessful fall from a horse, she remained lame for the rest of her life. But the meekness, friendliness and sharp mind of Lamefoot attracted the attention of the king.

Louise bore Louis four children, two of whom lived to adulthood. The king treated Louise quite cruelly. Having begun to grow cold towards her, he settled his rejected mistress next to his new favorite - Marquise Françoise Athenaïs de Montespan. The Duchess de La Valliere was forced to endure the bullying of her rival. She endured everything with her characteristic meekness, and in 1675 she became a nun and lived for many years in a monastery, where she was called Louise the Merciful.

There was not a shadow of the meekness of her predecessor in the lady before Montespan. A representative of one of the most ancient noble families in France, Françoise not only became the official favorite, but for 10 years turned into the “true queen of France.”

Marquise de Montespan with four legitimized children. 1677 Palace of Versailles.

Françoise loved luxury and did not like counting money. It was the Marquise de Montespan who turned the reign of Louis XIV from deliberate budgeting to unrestrained and unlimited spending. Capricious, envious, domineering and ambitious, Francoise knew how to subjugate the king to her will. New apartments were built for her in Versailles, and she managed to place all her close relatives in significant government positions.

Françoise de Montespan bore Louis seven children, four of whom lived to adulthood. But the relationship between Françoise and the king was not as faithful as with Louise. Louis allowed himself hobbies besides his official favorite, which infuriated Madame de Montespan.

To keep the king with her, she began to practice black magic and even became involved in a high-profile poisoning case. The king did not punish her with death, but deprived her of the status of a favorite, which was much more terrible for her.

Like her predecessor, Louise le Lavalier, the Marquise de Montespan exchanged the royal chambers for a monastery.

Time for repentance

Louis's new favorite was the Marquise de Maintenon, the widow of the poet Scarron, who was the governess of the king's children from Madame de Montespan.

This king's favorite was called the same as her predecessor, Françoise, but the women were as different from each other as heaven and earth. The king had long conversations with the Marquise de Maintenon about the meaning of life, about religion, about responsibility before God. The royal court replaced its splendor with chastity and high morality.

Madame de Maintenon.

After the death of his official wife, Louis XIV secretly married the Marquise de Maintenon. Now the king was occupied not with balls and festivities, but with masses and reading the Bible. The only entertainment he allowed himself was hunting.

The Marquise de Maintenon founded and directed Europe's first secular school for women, called the Royal House of Saint Louis. The school in Saint-Cyr became an example for many similar institutions, including the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg.

For her strict disposition and intolerance to secular entertainment, the Marquise de Maintenon received the nickname the Black Queen. She survived Louis and after his death retired to Saint-Cyr, living the rest of her days among the pupils of her school.

Illegitimate Bourbons

Louis XIV recognized his illegitimate children from both Louise de La Vallière and Françoise de Montespan. They all received their father's surname - de Bourbon, and dad tried to arrange their lives.

Louis, Louise's son, was already promoted to French admiral at the age of two, and as an adult he went on a military campaign with his father. There, at the age of 16, the young man died.

Louis-Auguste, son from Françoise, received the title of Duke of Maine, became a French commander and in this capacity accepted the godson of Peter I and Alexander Pushkin's great-grandfather Abram Petrovich Hannibal for military training.

Grand Dauphin Louis. The only surviving legitimate child of Louis XIV by Maria Theresa of Spain.

Françoise Marie, Louis's youngest daughter, was married to Philippe d'Orléans, becoming Duchess of Orléans. Possessing the character of her mother, Françoise-Marie plunged headlong into political intrigue. Her husband became the French regent under the young King Louis XV, and Françoise-Marie's children married the scions of other European royal dynasties.

In a word, not many illegitimate children of ruling persons suffered the same fate that befell the sons and daughters of Louis XIV.

“Did you really think that I would live forever?”

The last years of the king's life turned out to be a difficult ordeal for him. The man, who throughout his life defended the chosenness of the monarch and his right to autocratic rule, experienced not only the crisis of his state. His close people left one after another, and it turned out that there was simply no one to transfer power to.

On April 13, 1711, his son, the Grand Dauphin Louis, died. In February 1712, the Dauphin's eldest son, the Duke of Burgundy, died, and on March 8 of the same year, the latter's eldest son, the young Duke of Breton, died.

On March 4, 1714, the Duke of Burgundy's younger brother, the Duke of Berry, fell from his horse and died a few days later. The only heir was the 4-year-old great-grandson of the king, the youngest son of the Duke of Burgundy. If this little one had died, the throne would have remained vacant after the death of Louis.

This forced the king to include even his illegitimate sons in the list of heirs, which promised internal civil strife in France in the future.

Louis XIV.

At 76 years old, Louis remained energetic, active and, as in his youth, regularly went hunting. During one of these trips, the king fell and injured his leg. Doctors discovered that the injury had caused gangrene and suggested amputation. The Sun King refused: this is unacceptable for royal dignity. The disease progressed rapidly, and soon agony began, lasting for several days.

At the moment of clarity of consciousness, Louis looked around those present and uttered his last aphorism:

- Why are you crying? Did you really think that I would live forever?

On September 1, 1715, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, Louis XIV died in his palace at Versailles, four days short of his 77th birthday.

Louis, who survived the wars of the Fronde in his childhood, became a staunch supporter of the principle of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings (he is often credited with the expression “The State is I!”), He combined the strengthening of his power with the successful selection of statesmen for key political posts. The reign of Louis - a time of significant consolidation of the unity of France, its military power, political weight and intellectual prestige, the flowering of culture, went down in history as the Great Century. At the same time, the long-term military conflicts in which France participated during the reign of Louis the Great led to increased taxes, which placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the population, and the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, which called for religious tolerance within the kingdom, led to the emigration of 200 thousand Huguenots from France.

Biography
Childhood and young years

Louis XIV came to the throne in May 1643, when he was not yet five years old, so, according to his father's will, the regency was transferred to Anne of Austria, who ruled in close tandem with the first minister, Cardinal Mazarin. Even before the end of the war with Spain and the House of Austria, the princes and high aristocracy, supported by Spain and in alliance with the Parisian Parliament, began unrest, which received the general name Fronde (1648-1652) and ended only with the subjugation of the Prince de Condé and the signing of the Pyrenees Peace (7 November 1659).

In 1660, Louis married the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa of Austria. At this time, the young king, who grew up without sufficient upbringing and education, did not yet show great expectations. However, as soon as Cardinal Mazarin died (1661), the next day Louis XIV assembled the Council of State, at which he announced that he intended to rule himself from now on, without appointing a first minister. So Louis began to independently govern the state, a course the king followed until his death. Louis XIV had the gift of selecting talented and capable employees (for example, Colbert, Vauban, Letelier, Lyonne, Louvois). Louis elevated the doctrine of royal rights to a semi-religious dogma.

Thanks to the works of the talented economist and financier J.B. Colbert, much was done to strengthen state unity, the welfare of representatives of the third estate, encourage trade, develop industry and the fleet. At the same time, the Marquis de Louvois reformed the army, unified its organization and increased its fighting strength. After the death of King Philip IV of Spain (1665), Louis XIV declared French claims to part of the Spanish Netherlands and retained it in the so-called War of Devolution. The Peace of Aachen, concluded on May 2, 1668, gave French Flanders and a number of border areas into his hands.

War with the Netherlands

From this time on, the United Provinces had a passionate enemy in Louis. Contrasts in foreign policy, state views, trade interests, and religion led both states to constant clashes. Louis in 1668-71 masterfully managed to isolate the republic. Through bribery, he managed to distract England and Sweden from the Triple Alliance and win Cologne and Munster to the side of France. Having brought his army to 120,000 people, Louis in 1670 occupied the possessions of the ally of the Estates General, Duke Charles IV of Lorraine, and in 1672 crossed the Rhine, within six weeks conquered half of the provinces and returned to Paris in triumph. The breakdown of dams, the emergence of William III of Orange in power, and the intervention of European powers stopped the success of French weapons. The Estates General entered into an alliance with Spain and Brandenburg and Austria; The empire also joined them after the French army attacked the Archbishopric of Trier and occupied the 10 imperial cities of Alsace, already half connected to France. In 1674, Louis confronted his enemies with 3 large armies: with one of them he personally occupied Franche-Comté; another, under the command of Conde, fought in the Netherlands and won at Senef; the third, led by Turenne, devastated the Palatinate and successfully fought the troops of the emperor and the great elector in Alsace. After a short interval due to the death of Turenne and the removal of Condé, Louis appeared in the Netherlands with renewed vigor at the beginning of 1676 and conquered a number of cities, while Luxembourg devastated Breisgau. The entire country between the Saar, Moselle and Rhine was turned into a desert by order of the king. In the Mediterranean, Duquesne prevailed over Reuther; Brandenburg's forces were distracted by a Swedish attack. Only as a result of hostile actions on the part of England, Louis concluded the Peace of Nimwegen in 1678, which gave him large acquisitions from the Netherlands and the entire Franche-Comté from Spain. He gave Philippsburg to the emperor, but received Freiburg and retained all his conquests in Alsace.

Louis at the height of his power

This moment marks the apogee of Louis's power. His army was the largest, best organized and led. His diplomacy dominated all European courts. The French nation has reached unprecedented heights with its achievements in the arts and sciences, in industry and commerce. The Versailles court (Louis moved the royal residence to Versailles) became the subject of envy and surprise of almost all modern sovereigns, who tried to imitate the great king even in his weaknesses. Strict etiquette was introduced at court, regulating all court life. Versailles became the center of all high society life, in which the tastes of Louis himself and his many favorites (Lavaliere, Montespan, Fontanges) reigned. The entire high aristocracy sought court positions, since living away from the court for a nobleman was a sign of opposition or royal disgrace. “Absolute without objection,” according to Saint-Simon, “Louis destroyed and eradicated every other force or authority in France, except those that came from him: reference to the law, to the right was considered a crime.” This cult of the Sun King, in which capable people were increasingly pushed aside by courtesans and intriguers, was inevitably going to lead to the gradual decline of the entire edifice of the monarchy.

The king restrained his desires less and less. In Metz, Breisach and Besançon, he established chambers of reunion (chambres de réunions) to determine the rights of the French crown to certain areas (September 30, 1681). The imperial city of Strasbourg was suddenly occupied by French troops in peacetime. Louis did the same with regard to the Dutch borders. In 1681, his fleet bombarded Tripoli, in 1684 - Algeria and Genoa. Finally, an alliance was formed between Holland, Spain and the emperor, which forced Louis to conclude a 20-year truce in Regensburg in 1684 and refuse further “reunions”.

Domestic policy

The central administration of the state was carried out by the king with the help of various councils (conseils):

Council of Ministers (Conseil d`Etat) - considered issues of special importance: foreign policy, military affairs, appointed the highest ranks of regional administration, resolved conflicts of the judiciary. The council included state ministers with lifelong salaries. The number of one-time council members has never exceeded seven people. These were mainly the secretaries of state, the controller general of finance and the chancellor. The king himself presided over the council. Was a permanent council.

Council of Finance (Conseil royal des finances) - considered fiscal issues, financial issues, as well as appeals against commissary orders. The council was created in 1661 and at first it was chaired by the king himself. The council consisted of the chancellor, the controller general, two state councilors and the intendant for financial affairs. Was a permanent council.

Postal Council (Conseil des depeches) - dealt with general management issues, such as lists of all appointments. Was a permanent council.

The Trade Council was a temporary council established in 1700.

The Spiritual Council (Conseil des conscience) was also a temporary council in which the king consulted with his confessor about filling spiritual positions.

State Council (Conseil des parties) - consisted of state advisers, intendants, in the meeting of which lawyers and petition managers took part. In the conventional hierarchy of councils was lower than the councils under the king (Council of Ministers, Finance, Postal and others, including temporary ones). It combined the functions of the cassation chamber and the highest administrative court, a source of precedents in the administrative law of France at that time. The Council was chaired by the Chancellor. The council consisted of several departments: on awards, on matters of land holdings, salt tax, noble affairs, coats of arms and on various other issues, depending on the need.

The Grand Council (Grand conseil) was a judicial institution consisting of four presidents and 27 councilors. He considered issues regarding bishoprics, church estates, hospitals, and was the final authority in civil matters.
The Chancellor is a permanent highest dignitary with a legal education. Was responsible for keeping the Great Seal of France. He headed the Grand Chancellery, which issued patents (lettre de provision), presided over the “Council of State” and had the right to preside over any higher court. Chancellors were appointed from the highest ranks of Parliament. The position belonged to the highest crown ranks in France.

Secretaries of State - There were four main secretarial positions (for foreign affairs, for the military department, for the naval department, for the “reformed religion”). Each of the four secretaries received a separate province to manage. The posts of secretaries were for sale and, with the permission of the king, they could be inherited. Secretarial positions were very well paid and powerful. Each subordinate had his own clerks and clerks, appointed at the personal discretion of the secretaries.

There was also the post of Secretary of State for the Royal Household, which was a related one, held by one of the four Secretaries of State. Adjacent to the positions of secretaries was often the position of controller general. There was no precise division of positions.

State Councilors are members of the State Council. There were thirty of them: twelve ordinary, three military, three clergy and twelve semester. The hierarchy of advisors was headed by the dean. The positions of advisers were not for sale and were for life. The position of adviser gave a title of nobility.

Governance of provinces

The provinces were usually headed by governors (gouverneurs). They were appointed by the king from the noble families of dukes or marquises for a certain time, but often this post could be inherited with the permission (patent) of the king. The duties of the governor included: keeping the province in obedience and peace, protecting it and maintaining it in readiness for defense, and promoting justice. Governors were required to reside in their provinces for at least six months a year or be at the royal court, unless otherwise permitted by the king. The governors' salaries were very high.

In the absence of governors, they were replaced by one or more lieutenant generals, who also had deputies, whose positions were called royal viceroys. In fact, none of them ruled the province, but only received a salary. There were also positions of chiefs of small districts, cities, and citadels, to which military personnel were often appointed.

Simultaneously with the governors, intendants (intendants de justice police et finances et commissaires departis dans les generalites du royaume pour l`execution des ordres du roi) were in charge of administration in territorially separate units - regions (generalites), of which there were in turn 32 and whose boundaries were not coincided with provincial boundaries. Historically, the positions of intendants arose from the positions of petition managers, who were sent to the province to consider complaints and requests, but remained for constant supervision. The length of service in the position has not been determined.

Subordinate to the intendants were the so-called subdelegates (elections), appointed from employees of lower institutions. They had no right to make any decisions and could only act as rapporteurs.
Within the state, the new fiscal system meant only an increase in taxes and taxes for the growing military needs, which fell heavily on the shoulders of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie. A particularly unpopular dish was the salt gabelle, which caused several riots throughout the country. The decision to impose a stamp tax in 1675 during the Dutch War sparked a powerful Stamp Rebellion in the rear of the country in western France, most notably in Brittany, supported in part by the regional parliaments of Bordeaux and Rennes. In the west of Brittany, the uprising developed into anti-feudal peasant uprisings, which were suppressed only towards the end of the year.

At the same time, Louis, as the “first nobleman” of France, spared the material interests of the nobility that had lost its political significance and, as a faithful son of the Catholic Church, did not demand anything from the clergy.

As the intendant of finances of Louis XIV, J. B. Colbert, figuratively formulated: “Taxation is the art of plucking a goose so as to get the maximum number of feathers with a minimum squeak.”

Trade

In France, during the reign of Louis XIV, the first codification of trade law was carried out and the Ordonance de Commerce - Commercial Code (1673) was adopted. The significant advantages of the Ordinance of 1673 are due to the fact that its publication was preceded by very serious preparatory work based on reviews from knowledgeable persons. The chief worker was Savary, so this ordinance is often called the Savary Code.

Migration:

On issues of emigration, the edict of Louis XIV, issued in 1669 and valid until 1791, was in force. The Edict stipulated that all persons who left France without special permission from the royal government would be subject to confiscation of their property; those who enter foreign service as shipbuilders are subject to the death penalty upon returning to their homeland.

“The bonds of birth,” said the edict, “connecting natural subjects with their sovereign and fatherland are the closest and most inseparable of all that exist in civil society.”

Government positions:

A specific phenomenon of French public life was the corruption of government positions, both permanent (offices, charges) and temporary (commissions).

A person was appointed to a permanent position (offices, charges) for life and could only be removed from it by a court for a serious violation.

Regardless of whether an official was removed or a new position was established, any person suitable for it could acquire it. The cost of the position was usually approved in advance, and the money paid for it also served as a deposit. In addition, the approval of the king or a patent (lettre de provision) was also required, which was also produced for a certain cost and certified by the king’s seal.

To persons holding one position for a long time, the king issued a special patent (lettre de survivance), according to which this position could be inherited by the official’s son.

The situation with the sales of positions in the last years of Louis XIV's life reached the point that in Paris alone 2,461 newly created positions were sold for 77 million French livres. Officials mainly received their salaries from taxes rather than from the state treasury (for example, slaughterhouse overseers demanded 3 livres for each bull brought to the market, or, for example, wine brokers and commission agents who received a duty on each purchased and sold barrels of wine).

Religious politics

He tried to destroy the political dependence of the clergy on the pope. Louis XIV even intended to form a French patriarchate independent from Rome. But, thanks to the influence of the famous Moscow bishop Bossuet, the French bishops refrained from breaking with Rome, and the views of the French hierarchy received official expression in the so-called. statement of the Gallican clergy (declaration du clarge gallicane) of 1682 (see Gallicanism).

In matters of faith, Louis XIV's confessors (the Jesuits) made him an obedient instrument of the most ardent Catholic reaction, which was reflected in the merciless persecution of all individualistic movements within the church (see Jansenism).

A number of harsh measures were taken against the Huguenots: churches were taken away from them, priests were deprived of the opportunity to baptize children according to the rules of their church, perform marriages and burials, and perform divine services. Even mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants were prohibited.

The Protestant aristocracy was forced to convert to Catholicism so as not to lose their social advantages, and restrictive decrees were used against Protestants from among other classes, ending with the Dragonades of 1683 and the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. These measures, despite severe penalties for emigration forced more than 200 thousand hardworking and enterprising Protestants to move to England, Holland and Germany. An uprising even broke out in the Cevennes. The king's growing piety found support from Madame de Maintenon, who, after the death of the queen (1683), was united to him by secret marriage.

War for the Palatinate

In 1688, a new war broke out, the reason for which was the claims to the Palatinate made by Louis XIV on behalf of his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans, who was related to Elector Charles Ludwig, who had died shortly before. Having concluded an alliance with the Elector of Cologne, Karl-Egon Fürstemberg, Louis ordered his troops to occupy Bonn and attack the Palatinate, Baden, Württemberg and Trier.

At the beginning of 1689, French troops horribly devastated the entire Lower Palatinate. An alliance was formed against France from England (which had just overthrown the Stuarts), the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and the German Protestant states.

The Marshal of France, the Duke of Luxembourg, defeated the allies on July 1, 1690 at Fleurus; Marshal Catinat conquered Savoy, Marshal Tourville defeated the British-Dutch fleet on the heights of Dieppe, so that the French for a short time had an advantage even at sea.

In 1692, the French besieged Namur, Luxembourg gained the upper hand at the Battle of Stenkerken; but on May 28, the French fleet was defeated at Cape La Hogue.

In 1693-1695, the advantage began to lean towards the allies; in 1695 the Duke de Luxembourg, a student of Turenne, died; in the same year a huge war tax was needed, and peace became a necessity for Louis. It took place in Ryswick in 1697, and for the first time Louis XIV had to confine himself to the status quo.

War of the Spanish Succession

France was completely exhausted when, a few years later, the death of Charles II of Spain led Louis to war with the European coalition. The War of the Spanish Succession, in which Louis wanted to reconquer the entire Spanish monarchy for his grandson Philip of Anjou, inflicted lasting wounds on Louis's power. The old king, who personally led the struggle, held himself in the most difficult circumstances with amazing dignity and firmness. According to the peace concluded in Utrecht and Rastatt in 1713 and 1714, he retained Spain proper for his grandson, but its Italian and Dutch possessions were lost, and England, by destroying the Franco-Spanish fleets and conquering a number of colonies, laid the foundation for its maritime dominion. The French monarchy did not have to recover from the defeats of Hochstedt and Turin, Ramilly and Malplaquet until the revolution itself. It was suffering under the weight of debts (up to 2 billion) and taxes, which caused local outbursts of discontent.

Last years.

Thus, the result of Louis's entire system was the economic ruin and poverty of France. Another consequence was the growth of opposition literature, especially developed under the successor of the “great” Louis.

The family life of the elderly king at the end of his life did not present a completely rosy picture. On April 13, 1711, his son, the Grand Dauphin Louis (born in 1661), died; in February 1712 he was followed by the Dauphin's eldest son, the Duke of Burgundy, and on March 8 of the same year by the latter's eldest son, the young Duke of Breton. On March 4, 1714, the younger brother of the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke of Berry, fell from his horse and was killed to death, so that, in addition to Philip V of Spain, there was only one heir left - the four-year-old great-grandson of the king, the second son of the Duke of Burgundy (later Louis XV).

Even earlier, Louis legitimized his two sons from Madame de Montespan, the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse, and gave them the surname Bourbon. Now, in his will, he appointed them members of the regency council and declared their eventual right to succession to the throne. Louis himself remained active until the end of his life, firmly supporting court etiquette and the appearance of his “great century,” which was already beginning to fall. He died on September 1, 1715.

In 1822, an equestrian statue (based on Bosio's model) was erected to him in Paris, on the Place des Victories.

Marriages and children

Louis the Great Dauphin (1661-1711)

Anna Elizabeth (1662-1662)

Maria Anna (1664-1664)

Maria Teresa (1667-1672)

Philip (1668-1671)
Louis-François (1672-1672)

Ext. connection Louise de La Baume Le Blanc (1644-1710), Duchess de La Vallière

Charles de La Baume Le Blanc (1663-1665)

Philippe de La Baume Le Blanc (1665-1666)

Marie-Anne de Bourbon (1666-1739), Mademoiselle de Blois

Louis de Bourbon (1667-1683), Comte de Vermandois

Ext. connection Françoise-Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart (1641-1707), Marquise de Montespan

Louise-Françoise de Bourbon (1669-1672)

Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine (1670-1736)

Louis-César de Bourbon (1672-1683)

Louise-Françoise de Bourbon (1673-1743), Mademoiselle de Nantes

Louise-Marie de Bourbon (1674-1681), Mademoiselle de Tours

Françoise-Marie de Bourbon (1677-1749), Mademoiselle de Blois

Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse (1678-1737)

Ext. connection (in 1679) Marie-Angelique de Scoray de Roussil (1661-1681), Duchess of Fontanges

Ext. connection Claude de Vines (c.1638-1687), Mademoiselle Desoillers

Louise de Maisonblanche (c.1676-1718)

The history of the nickname Sun King

At the age of twelve (1651), Louis XIV made his debut in the so-called “ballets of the Palais Royal,” which were staged annually during carnivals.

The Baroque carnival is not just a holiday and entertainment, but an opportunity to play in a kind of “upside-down world.” For example, the king became a jester, an artist or a buffoon for several hours, while at the same time the jester could well afford to appear in the guise of a king. In one of the ballet productions, which was called “Ballet of the Night,” young Louis had the opportunity to appear before his subjects for the first time in the form of the Rising Sun (1653), and then Apollo, the Sun God (1654).

When Louis XIV began to rule independently (1661), the genre of court ballet was put at the service of state interests, helping the king not only create his representative image, but also manage court society (as well as other arts). The roles in these productions were distributed only by the king and his friend, the Comte de Saint-Aignan. Princes of the blood and courtiers, dancing next to their sovereign, depicted various elements, planets and other creatures and phenomena subject to the Sun. Louis himself continues to appear before his subjects in the form of the Sun, Apollo and other gods and heroes of Antiquity. The king left the stage only in 1670.

But the emergence of the nickname of the Sun King was preceded by another important cultural event of the Baroque era - the Carousel of the Tuileries in 1662. This is a festive carnival cavalcade, which is something between a sports festival (in the Middle Ages these were tournaments) and a masquerade. In the 17th century, Carousel was called “equestrian ballet”, since this action was more reminiscent of a performance with music, rich costumes and a fairly consistent script. At the Carousel of 1662, given in honor of the birth of the first-born of the royal couple, Louis XIV pranced in front of the audience on a horse dressed as a Roman emperor. In his hand the king had a golden shield with the image of the Sun. This symbolized that this luminary protects the king and with him the whole of France.

According to the historian of the French Baroque F. Bossan, “it was on the Grand Carousel of 1662 that, in a way, the Sun King was born. His name was given not by politics or the victories of his armies, but by equestrian ballet.”