Louis XIV of France

He married Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660. It was a political marriage that resulted in the birth of six children of whom only one survived to adulthood. His wife died in 1683.

His second marriage was to Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon who was once his mistress.

He also had numerous mistresses and had fathered a number of children through them.

He was born as Louis Dieudonné on 5 September 1638, in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to King Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. Prior to his birth his mother had experienced four stillbirths, and thus he was regarded as a divine gift from God.

His father became gravely ill and died in 1643 and Louis Dieudonné ascended to the throne as King Louis XIV at the age of four years and eight months. He was extremely close to his mother who ruled as a regent on his behalf for the next few years.

Although it was his mother Anne who was the regent during the young King’s minority, the real power lay in the hands of the Chief Minister Cardinal Jules Mazarin. It was only after the chief minister’s death in 1661 that Louis XIV could begin his independent rule.

Coming to power in his 20s, the King quickly set about reforming France. He then announced to his subjects that he would rule independently without a chief minister, much to their astonishment.

He started implementing administrative and fiscal reforms, and took the first major step of appointing Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Controller-General of Finances in 1665. The treasury verged on bankruptcy in the 1660s and Colbert was successful in reducing the national debt through more efficient taxation.

He was also a patron of arts and culture and generously funded and commissioned various artists in different fields. He extended support to writers and visual artists like Molière, Racine, Pierre Mignard, Antoine Coysevox and Hyacinthe Rigaud, making their works famous throughout Europe. He founded the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661 and the Académie d'Opéra in 1669.

He wanted to claim the Spanish Netherlands and attacked the Habsburg-controlled Spanish Netherlands and the Franche-Comté in 1667. The conflicts became known as the War of Devolution and came to an end with the implementation of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

Louis XIV was famous for his love of wars. He ambitiously entered into the Franco-Dutch War in 1672, in an alliance with England and some Rhineland princes against the Dutch. By the end of the war France had gained control of the Franche-Comté and some cities in Flanders and Hainaut and emerged as an influential force in Europe.

The War of the Spanish Succession was the last major war he fought. He entered the war with the aim of securing Spanish Netherlands and dominating Spanish American trade at the expense of English and Dutch merchants. The war, however, proved too costly for France and severely depleted the country’s resources and led to King Louis XIV’s decline.