Hi students, Mr. Sheehy here. I'm going to talk to you guys a little bit about France in the 1700s and in particular focus on King Louis the 14th, aka the Sun King. So if you could take out your notes, the outline that I gave you in class, and if you turn to Roman numeral II, it says what was France like in the early 1700s.
All right. Early 1700s were dominated by King Louis XIV, who is going to rule France from 1661 to 1715, although you could technically make the argument that he was king as early as 1643. In 1643, his dad, Louis XIII, passed away. Louis XIV was five.
He technically was in charge, but the reality was that Cardinal Mazarin, M-A-Z-A-R-I-N, and his mom were running things. And he won't take over in practice until 1661. France, for a very long time, had a tradition of kings who ruled without any input from assemblies or parliaments. France is a situation that's very different from England. In England, obviously, we talked about the tradition of kings and parliaments going all the way back to 1215 in the Magna Carta.
But with France, there's a strong and long tradition of very strong monarchs who don't listen to parliaments or assemblies. And Louis is going to take that to another level during his reign. Now Cardinal Mazarin, when Louis was a young kid, was basically making the decisions. And Cardinal Mazarin was not very popular with the nobility of France.
In fact, there was a series of rebellions or riots that broke out between 1648 and 1653, known as the Fronde. And Louis was at that point known as the Boy King because he was just a young child. And there was a story of an instance in which a mob actually broke into the palace where he was staying.
And they demanded to see him. And basically he pretended to be asleep and eventually the mob left. But the frond, the rebellion, the riots, they had a huge effect on Louis. He never forgot the way he had been treated by the nobility. And he was adamant that when he was old enough...
to really take the full reins of government, he would create a situation in which he was fully in control and he was never threatened by the nobility again. His desire was to one day be the greatest absolute monarch in all of Europe. The Fronde also had a great effect on the common people of France. For many, many years after the Fronde, they will accept the oppressive laws of the king, particularly Louis XIV. because they were convinced that the alternative was much, much worse, the alternative being rebellion.
The rebellion unleashed a lot of chaos and disorder. So Louis is going to take over in practice really in 1661. He will become an absolute monarch in which he controls everything in France. He is seen as sort of the model of absolute monarchy throughout Europe. One of his nicknames was the Sun King. Which gives you a little bit of insight into Louis.
Louis loved to be flattered. He loved to be praised, loved statues of himself, pictures of himself. He was only about 5'4", 5'5", in height. He often wore high heels to increase his height and his stature because he attached a lot of importance to height. He also thought that high heels showed off his shapely calves.
And he was so fanatical about the power, the symbolism of height. That he actually made it a crime for anyone other than the privileged classes to actually wear high heels. So there are some people who believe that Louis created high heels.
He didn't. He just made it very fashionable to wear them. And of course, as you know, his nickname was the Sun King.
He believed that just like the sun radiated all power, he too radiated all power in France. Just like the sun, he was the center of France's solar system. And his beliefs in absolute monarchy are often summed up with the famous phrase, excuse me, in French, in which he says, I am the state. Now, in regards to the Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV, Louis was never a fan of France, excuse me, never a fan of Paris, of course a fan of France.
But he disliked Paris ever after the Fronde, and from then on he always was looking to get out. And eventually, when he was in charge, he insisted that an immense, massive palace be built in Versailles. And it's a palace that will take 30 years to build, over 35,000 people will work on it. Its cost is exorbitant.
We don't know exactly what the cost was. We can guess, but Louis didn't want anybody to know, so he had the records destroyed when he passed away. It was a palace that Louis believed not only glorified him, but also glorified France. He forced many, many members of the nobility, as many as he could, to live in Versailles with him at the Palace of Versailles.
In this way, he could keep an eye on the nobility and make sure they weren't causing any trouble. He could also control them. In fact, he basically made the nobility fight amongst each other to serve him.
So there were members of the nobility who would be there when he woke up in the morning to help him get dressed. There would be members of the nobility in the dining room there when he ate. There would be somebody who would be in charge of handing him his spoon, that sort of thing.
It was all about control. And Louis lived a very extravagant and lavish lifestyle. He spent a fortune to maintain a life of luxury. For example, every meal with Louis was a feast. Nearly 500 cooks, waiters, and other servants were working each day to satisfy his extravagant tastes.
So, as they say, for Louis, it truly was good to be king. In regards to economic affairs in France in the early late 1600s early 1700s Louis had a economic minister named Jean-Baptiste Colbert who was his finance minister and under the guidance of Colbert France was doing very well economically throughout the mid to late 1600s Colbert was able to achieve a favorable balance of trade for France meaning that they were exporting more than they were importing. They were making more money than they were spending.
So Colbert was a big believer in the system of mercantilism. They used tariffs or taxes on imports to protect French industry. And by 1683, France was the industrial leader of Europe. They were doing really well. But then unfortunately, Colbert passed away, and Louis became sort of his own finance minister.
And by 1685, Louis made the fateful decision to revoke the Edict of Nantes. And the Edict of Nantes, for several decades, had granted Huguenots, or French Protestants, religious toleration. It allowed them to practice their faith and to live in France. But Louis, in 1685, revoked it, which was very bad for the French economy, because that forced hundreds of thousands of skilled...
French Protestants to leave the country and they went to other countries in Europe and France is going to suffer economically as a result. Finally foreign affairs under Louis the 14th Louis fought numerous wars and Unfortunately gained only a small bit of territory for France What would happen was even though France had a very powerful army the other countries of Europe would unite to try and prevent France from becoming too powerful, to offset essentially France's military strength. And so in the end, Louis spent a lot of money, but didn't really gain much territory.
And when he dies, he leaves the country on the verge of bankruptcy. And many people in France were happy when they heard the news of Louis'passing because they were tired of his wars, they were tired of his taxation, and they were tired of his despotism. So, as you can see in your notes, there's a quote there on his deathbed. Louis XIV said to his great-grandson, the future Louis XV, My child, do not imitate me in the taste I have had for building or for war. Try, on the contrary, to be at peace with your neighbors.
Try to comfort your people, which unhappily I have not done. I'll see you guys in class. Next time up, we have a simulation on the French Revolution. Come ready.