Louis XIV

“ Succeeding generations have remembered only the numerous victories, Europe defied, France for twenty years preponderant, and the incomparable splendor of the court of Versailles, with its marvels of letters and arts, which have given to the 17th century the name of the age of Louis XIV. It is for history to show the price which France has paid for her king's vain attempts abroad to rule over Europe, and at home to enslave the wills and consciences of men. ”

“ It was really the foundation of the styles that followed, and a great many people look upon the periods of Louis XIV, the Regency, Louis XV and Louis XVI as one great period with variations, or ups and downs—the complete swing and return of the pendulum.
Louis XIV was a man with a will of iron and made it absolute law during his long reign of seventy-two years. His ideal was splendor, and he encouraged great men in the intellectual and artistic world to do their work, and shed their glory on the time. ”

“ Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque, lived to his pose of heavy magnificence even in the furnishing and decorating of the apartments where he ruled as king and where he lived as man. Sumptuous splendour, expressed in heavy design, in deep colouring, with much red and gold, these were the order of the day, and best expressed the reign.
But with Philip as regent, and the young king but a baby, a gayer mood must creep into the articles of beauty [Pg 123] with which man self-indulgently decorates his surroundings. Pomp of a heavy sort had no place in the regent’s heart. ”

“ Louis XIV., the greatest king of the century, surrounded by a splendid court, escorted, like an Asiatic monarch, by a phalanx of gentlemen, cadets of noble houses, and plumed and gilded Swiss, accompanied the army. All this force and this greatness, enough to crush an empire, threatened a little country abandoned to itself, defended only by twenty-five thousand soldiers and by a Prince only twenty-two years of age, unprovided with munitions of war, torn by factions, infested by spies and traitors. War is declared; the splendid army of the great king begins its triumphal march; Europe looks on. ”

“ Louis XIV had just suffered a cruel blow, not only in his deepest affections, but in his dignity as sovereign, by the declarations of obscure and infamous criminals made before the Chambre Ardente. The very throne of France was befouled by them. Colbert and Louvois were for a moment in dire alarm. The all-powerful monarch, aided by his two great ministers, believed that he had buried in unfathomable darkness the terrible story of his shame and grief. ”

“ As you see, all is linked, enchained together; each cause produces its effect; the prodigality of Louis XIV is the consequence of the avarice of Colbert."
"Remember, Florestan," said Louis, sadly, "that while this great king, whose memory I have always abhorred, was ruining the country by his insolent prodigalities, the heavily-taxed people were living in atrocious servitude to provide for the bold ostentations of Louis XIV, his mistresses and their children. And what misery still exists in our days! Ah! if you knew what a life of wretchedness Mariette has endured! ”

“ When Louis XIV. laid down, one September day in the year 1715, the crown which he had worn with such splendour for more than seventy years, his sceptre fell into the hands of his nephew Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who for eight years ruled France as Regent, and as guardian of the child-King, the fifteenth Louis.
Seldom in the world's history has a reign, so splendid as that of the Sun-King, closed in such darkness and tragedy. The disastrous war of the Spanish Succession had drained France of her strength and her gold. ”

“ It was the peculiarity of the government of Louis XIV., arising from this fortuitous, but to him fortunate combination of circumstances, that it united the distinctions of rank, family attachments, and ancient ideas of feudal times, with the vigour and efficiency of monarchical government, and the lustre and brilliancy of literary glory. Such a combination could not, in the nature of things, last long; it must soon work out its own destruction. ”

“ CHAPTER III IF the splendor of Karl’s achievements dazzled even Peter, to the rest of the world it was indeed overwhelming.
This monarch, still in the first flower of his youth, found himself in a position unique in the history of the modern world.
Louis XIV had begun his reign by conquests perhaps as considerable, but his victories had been won by proxy; his cause was not so fine nor his behavior so remarkable, and his vanity had taken a form more ordinary, his pride had assumed the proportions to which men are most accustomed. ”

“ THE WARS OF LOUIS XIV AMBITIOUS DESIGNS OF LOUIS XIV How unwise it may be to concentrate all authority in the hands of one man is shown by the melancholy record of the wars of Louis XIV. To aggrandize France and gain fame for himself, Louis plunged his country into a series of struggles from which it emerged completely exhausted. ”

“ THE BASIS OF LOUIS XIV.'s POWER.—The basis of the absolute power of Louis XIV. was laid by Cardinal Richelieu during the reign of Louis XIII. (see p. 580) . Besides crushing the political power of the Huguenots, and thereby vastly augmenting the security and strength of the royal authority, the Cardinal succeeded, by various means,—by annulling their privileges, by banishment, confiscations, and executions,—in almost extinguishing the expiring independence of the old feudal aristocracy, and in forcing the once haughty and refractory nobles to yield humble obedience to the crown. ”

“ Their scandal filled all Europe; stupefied France, shook the state, and without doubt drew upon the King those maledictions under the weight of which he was pushed so near the very edge of the precipice, and had the misfortune of seeing his legitimate posterity within an ace of extinction in France. These are evils which became veritable catastrophes and which will be long felt.
Louis XIV., in his youth more made for love than any of his subjects— being tired of gathering passing sweets, fixed himself at last upon La Valliere. The progress and the result of his love are well known. ”

“ Louis XIV., without being strictly handsome, had agreeable features and a fine presence, which his pride and self-consciousness knew very well how to make the most of. He had grown from the mere youth into a dignified, courtly young manhood, and the want of knowledge and defective bringing up were fairly well concealed by “the divinity which doth hedge a king.” It certainly always enfolded Louis XIV. “Ah, my dear cousin,” cried Queen Christina of Sweden, when she first saw him, “some one told me you were not good-looking! ”

“ It was a political idea as popular in the seventeenth century as that of democracy is to-day. And Louis XIV was its foremost personification. Suave, dignified, elegant in manners and speech, the French king played his part well; he appeared to have been born and divinely appointed to the kingly calling.
For a king, Louis worked hard. He was conscientious and painstaking. Day after day he reviewed the details of administration. Over all things he had a watchful eye. Systematically he practiced what he termed the "trade of a king." "One reigns by work and for work," he wrote his grandson. ”

“ The rule of Louis XIV, both in its splendor and its wastefulness, its strength and its oppression, its genius and its pride, had well prepared the way for what should follow. Not only had French culture extended over Europe, but the French language had grown everywhere to be the tongue of polite society, of the educated classes. ”

“ The happy combination of the right man in the right country at the right moment is very rare in History. Louis XIV was a realisation of this ideal, as far as France was concerned, but the rest of Europe would have been happier without him.
The country over which the young king was called to rule was the most populous and the most brilliant nation of that day. Louis came to the throne when Mazarin and Richelieu, the two great Cardinals, had just hammered the ancient French Kingdom into the most strongly centralised state of the seventeenth century. ”

“ A weak, hypochondriac prince, putting his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin, after assassinating the favorites of his mother, he possessed no other merit than that of allowing himself to be governed by Richelieu. Louis XIV., with a proud genius and true kingly qualities, united gallantry to bigotry, and we shall have occasion to see that in his strange compromises with his conscience, the more scandal he occasioned to his court by his licentiousness, the more he made it a point to edify it by his severity against the Reformed. ”

“ As Louis XIV. made war continually the result was the same as in Spain under Philip II.: depopulation and bankruptcy within the kingdom and the coalitions of Europe without.
In 1660 France was predominant in Europe; but she aroused no jealousy except in the house of Habsburg, enfeebled and divided against itself. It was sufficient to remain faithful to the practical policy of Henry IV., of Richelieu and of Mazarin: that of moderation in Foreign policy
of Louis XIV. strength. This Louis XIV. very soon altered, while yet claiming to continue it ”

“ He is supposed by many to have been a son of Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham, and consequently a half-brother of Louis XIV., and a co-heir to the throne of France. If so, it would appear, that, while Louis XIV. was luxuriating amid the splendors of the palace of Versailles, his brother was suffering the miseries of exile, or languishing in a dungeon, shut out not only from the outward world, but from all intercourse with mankind. But other writers think him to have been some less remarkable person. ”

“ None lead this double life more emphatically than those who are seated upon thrones.
Though this historic sketch contains allusions to all the most important events in the reign of Louis XIV., it has been the main object of the writer to develop the inner life of the palace; to lead the reader into the interior of the Louvre, the Tuileries, Versailles, and Marly, and to exhibit the monarch as a man, in the details of domestic privacy.
This can more easily be done in reference to Louis XIV. than any other king. ”

“ Thus endowed, and thus disposed, he is made for a régime which, for ten hours a day, brings men together; natural feeling in accord with the social order of things renders the drawing room perfect. The king, at the head of all, sets the example. Louis XIV had every qualification for the master of a household: a taste for pomp and hospitality, condescension accompanied with dignity, the art of playing on the self-esteem of others and of maintaining his own position, chivalrous gallantry, tact, and even charms of intellectual expression. ”

“ Louis XIV. considered the “office of king” grand, noble, delightful, “for he felt himself worthy of acquitting himself well in all matters in which he engaged.” “The ardor we feel for glory,” he used to say, “is not one of those feeble passions which grow dull by possession; its favors, which are never to be obtained without effort, never, on the other hand, cause disgust, and whoever can do without longing for fresh ones is unworthy of all he has received.” ”

“ In the memorable conversation in which Louis XIV. avowed to his mother that he was no longer master of his passions, Anne of Austria had warned him that he was "too intoxicated with his own grandeur." [140] She spoke truly; the infatuation had been rapid. The excuse for the King was the fact that the entire world shared in his self-admiration. It is not our plan to give any account of the internal government, or of diplomatic action, which relates to the early attempts of Louis XIV., so fruitful in great results and so glorious for himself. We limit ourselves to [171] stating the fact. ”

“ The glories of the age of Louis XIV were the climax of a set of ideas that instantly afterward lost alike their grace, their usefulness, and the firmness of their hold on the intelligence of men. A dignified and venerable hierarchy, an august and powerful monarch, a court of gay and luxurious nobles, all lost their grace because the eyes of men were suddenly caught and appalled by the awful phantom, which was yet so real, of a perishing nation. Turn from Bossuet's orations to Boisguillebert's Détail de la France ”

“ It is King Louis XIV.‘s distinction and heavy, burden in the eyes of history that it is, impossible to tell of anything in his reign without constantly recurring to himself. He had two ministers of the higher order, Colbert and Louvois; several of good capacity, such as Seignelay and Torcy; others incompetent, like Chamillard; he remained as much master of the administrators of the first rank as if they had been insignificant clerks; the home government of France, from 1661 to 1715, is summed up in the king’s relations with his ministers. ”

“ When the King said, “I recommend you all to be united,” I thought he alluded to me and my son’s daughter; and I said, “Yes, Monsieur, you shall be obeyed.” He turned towards me, and said in a stern voice, “Madame, you thought I spoke of you. No, no; you are a sensible person, and I know you; it is to the Princesses, who are not so, that I speak:”
Louis XIV. proved at his death that he was really a great man, for it would be impossible to die with more courage than he displayed. For eight days he had incessantly the approach of death before his eyes without betraying fear or apprehension ”