Frosty Stuff

  Louis XIV’s successes would have been impossible without the brilliant workaholic he appointed to oversee the economy– Jean Baptiste Colbert . Exposing massive corruption under his predecessor, Colbert clawed back millions from bankers and arms manufacturers who had stolen from the government with complete impunity. The government was still too weak to collect taxes directly, however. Instead, “tax farmers”--private corporations that used violence to squeeze revenue from the common people–gave the government a fixed portion of what they could collect and kept the rest for themselves. Colbert made sure that tax farmers had to bid competitively to win the right to collect from a particular province, thus greatly increasing the government’s percentage of total revenue collected. In addition, the palace of Versailles (see Section 3) played a major role in the French economy. First of all, it consumed an average of 10% of the state budget during its construction (1661-1715), money that co

When he became king in an elaborate church ceremony in 1661, Louis’s formal relationship with God was solidified in the eyes of his people. Many believed that the king of France had healing powers. Visiting the Abbey of Saint Remi, Louis was met by 2500 people afflicted with scrofula, tuberculosis of the neck. “Louis touched each one, tracing the sign of the cross over every ravaged face with the open palm of his right hand. As he did so, he spoke the words, ‘God heals you, the king touches you.’... To be king meant that his subjects, high and low, saw Louis as a living God… with the necessary qualities to enable him to represent divine law and order in nature.” Along with his power over the government and armies of France, Louis was responsible for “the spiritual welfare of his people” and the defense of Catholicism.   During the ceremony that made him formally king, the bishop who officiated publicly urged Louis to crack down on French Protestants, whose rights were protected by the

The palace of Versailles personified Louis XIV’s vision of one absolute monarch dominating all of France. Nine miles outside of Paris, Versailles started as his father, Louis XIII ’s, hunting lodge. After his mother Queen Anne’s death, Louis XIV tired of Paris, with its sad memories of the Fronde (see Section 1) and of his beloved mother. He decided to expand Versailles into a semi-permanent court from which to rule France. Every detail of the palace was micromanaged by the king, who regularly visited the building site and demanded regular reports on progress. The palace featured a total of 1,840 rooms and some of the most famous architects, artists and gardeners in the world collaborated in its construction. Versailles was designed to be the most amazing place on Earth: “an art gallery; a year-round festival of music; a hunt and riding school… [being at Versailles] raised the status of musicians, writers and painters, and helped create new kinds of music, opera, ballets, and gardens

  One of Louis XIV’s first priorities upon taking full power as king was to take back all the powers his mother and Mazarin had given to the Parlements (see Section 1). In 1667, Parlements lost their power to approve royal decrees or even to remonstrate. Instead, they became part of an empty ceremony–the king would arrive, accompanied by a massive show of military force, and register his decrees at the Paris Parlement without even a peep of dissent. As a reward, Parlement leaders were paid massive bribes. He kept them around mostly as useful scapegoats–it was the Parlements, not the king, who would formally demand higher taxes and thus get blamed by the people. Through force and bribery, the king ruthlessly and systematically reduced the influence of the nobility and any other obstacle to his absolute power.  Louis XIV’s efforts to centralize power in France were greatly aided by the fact that nobles were highly unpopular. Western Europe was dominated by powerful families of nobles wh

Louis XIV (14th) was born into a family described by one historian as “a nest of vipers.” His father, Louis XIII (13th), had to combat plots to overthrow him from his brother (Gaston, the Duke of Orleans, who was involved in at least 6 separate conspiracies against the king), his wife, and even his mother.   Louis XIV’s childhood was scarred by a civil war known as the Fronde . His father had begun to weaken the power of France’s top nobles and soon clashed with a legal body known as the Parlements . The Parlements were a dozen high courts that occasionally reviewed the government’s decisions and had the power to temporarily block them until the king himself arrived personally to explain it to them. This is known as “remonstrating” with the king. Each major region had its own Parlement, with its own set of laws dating back to medieval or even Roman times, making France a confusing legal mess.  The makeup of the Parlements is key, since it was a hereditary body filled with the sons of