Louvois et louis xiv biography

His new function privileges also the ascent of the painter Pierre Mignard, who accedes to the title of First painter of the King after the death of Charles le Brun in Collection website. He supervised the decoration of the gardens by the sculptors of his time: Coysevox , Le Hongre, Tuby, Girardon. He also oversaw improvements to the City of Versailles and the Park , which he enclosed by building a km wall.

The Louvois period was also characterized by the predominance of engineering and hydraulic works. Indeed, one of Louvois's greatest achievements was to establish more closely integrated systems for paying and feeding the expanding armies. In large part Louvois's success in equipping France with such a well-ordered army by contemporary standards can be attributed to his extraordinary grasp of the minutiae of military administration and to his remarkable stamina for business.

In particular he paid unusual attention to the labyrinthine accounts of treasurers and entrepreneurs who supplied the logistical needs of the armies. He was also a strict disciplinarian who imprisoned two of his own sons, who were serving in the army, for insubordination, and he had a firm belief in the need to encourage godly behavior by officers.

Louvois's power, however, also rested upon the support of the monarch. Louis XIV appreciated the need to integrate the Le Tellier family into the court and the upper reaches of French society if they were to be able to deal successfully with the great nobility and the high command. Through promoting a succession of prestigious marriages from , and by endowing Louvois's cousins and sons with offices in the royal household, Louis XIV gave the family social respectability.

Louvois was possibly the most divisive figure of Louis XIV's reign and still remains controversial, not least for presiding over the persecution of Protestants and the devastation of the Palatinate. He was highly partisan, driving good officers out of service on grounds of divergent personal interests, and depriving people of the full exercise of their offices.

His reputation for ill-mannered brusqueness, and even occasional insolence to the king, was well established. He also encouraged Louis XIV in the pursuit of an aggressive foreign policy and, fatally for the king, he personally found it difficult to appreciate the interests of other powers, especially German princes and the duke of Savoy.

Moreover, Louvois had a relatively weak grasp of grand strategy, and his operational directions to commanders were sometimes sufficiently out of touch as to provoke open protests to the king from the generals in the field. In he was even sidelined by the king from operational discussions during the siege of Mons. Yet, for all this, Louvois was fiercely loyal to the ideal of a strong monarchy, and he was immensely efficient at transacting state business.

Just as important, Louvois was highly successful in the one thing that united all ministers and nobles of this era — securing the elevation of his dynasty. Portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud , See list. Basilica of Saint-Denis. Maria Theresa of Spain. Minority and the Fronde. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. August Learn how and when to remove this message. Further information: Franco-Spanish War — Personal reign and reforms. Coming of age and early reforms. Relations with the major colonies. Early wars in the Low Countries. Non-European relations and the colonies. Further information: French colonial empire and Orientalism in early modern France.

France as the pivot of warfare. Main article: Edict of Fontainebleau.

Louvois et louis xiv biography

Nine Years' War. Main article: Nine Years' War. Causes and conduct of the war. Main article: Peace of Ryswick. War of the Spanish Succession. Main article: War of the Spanish Succession. Causes and build-up to the war. Acceptance of the will of Charles II and consequences. See also: Louis XIV style. Evolution of royal portraiture. Line of succession in Ancestors of Louis XIV 8.

Antoine of Navarre [ ] 4. Henry IV of France [ ] 9. Jeanne III of Navarre [ ] 2. Marie de' Medici [ ] Joanna of Austria [ ] 1. Louis XIV of France Philip II of Spain [ ] 6. Philip III of Spain [ ] Anna of Austria [ ] 3. Anne of Austria Margaret of Austria [ ] Maria Anna of Bavaria [ ]. Portals : Biography Catholicism Europe.

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Mansel, Philip. A History of Modern Europe 4th ed. Merryman, John Henry Stanford University Press. Montoya, Alicia DS Brewer. He ruled for 72 years , until his death in , making his reign the longest of any European monarch. By the time he died, he outlived his son and his grandson, leaving the throne to his young great-grandson Louis XV.

He came closer than any other French king to making the political theory of absolutism a reality. The Fronde had shown that the royal judges of the Parlement , the great nobles, the provincial political elites, and the common people could all pose threats to royal authority. Louis XIV would attempt to insure that none of these groups would be able to oppose the central government as they had during the Fronde.

During the early years of his reign, Louis XIV remained dependent on Mazarin , the minister who had loyally served his mother during the Fronde. As an adolescent, Louis XIV threw himself into the social whirl of the court and the pursuit of young women; he did not seem particularly serious about his political responsibilities. When Mazarin died in , everyone expected him to find a new principal minister to take on the burden of actually running the government.

There would be no equivalent to Sully, Richelieu, or Mazarin for the rest of his reign. Although Louis XIV tried to oversee all aspects of the government, he did rely on ministers for assistance in carrying out his policies. The fate of Fouquet had shown these men, however, that they could not aspire to personal dominance in the style of Richelieu and Mazarin.

Louis was careful to divide his favor among competing ministers and encourage rivalries among them, so that he would always be in a position to make the decisions that mattered. Colbert is remembered above all for his efforts to regulate the French economy. He believed that an organized effort was needed to allow France to surpass its rivals, particularly the Netherlands and England.