41 King Louis XIV Facts For Kids To Learn About The French Ruler

Louis XVI, also known as the 'Sun King', was the French King.

During his reign, the French revolution took place. France also saw food and economic crisis during his time.

If you've ever visited the Palace of Versailles in France, you're aware of the power that King Louis XIV wielded. King Louis XIV reigned France from 1643 until he died in 1715, making him the longest-reigning monarch with fewer political and religious freedoms in European history.

Louis XVI, often known as 'The Sun King' and 'Louis the Great,' was a patron of the arts, music, literature, theater, and sports. He is famous for his quirky demeanor and his significant contribution to French history.

Facts About King Louis XIV

Let's start with some interesting facts about King Louis XIV and his family.

• The mother of King Louis XIV also served as a regent. After the death of Louis XIII, Louis XVI got the throne at a very young age of four years.
• It was customary for Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria, to serve as Queen Regent of France until her son reached the age of majority. On the other hand, Louis XIII appears to have doubts about his wife's competence to reign.
• To assuage Anne's disappointment, Louis XIII established a regency council to govern on his son's behalf, designating Anne as its president.
• In defiance of her husband's wishes, Anne arranged for the council's annulment and assumed the title of Queen Regent, supported by her top minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin of Italy.
• Because of Anne and Mazarin's radical tactics, the royal family was pushed out of Paris twice, creating Louis XIV an intense hatred of Paris and their citizens as he got older.
• Louis XVI used to believe that he was like God's representative. The parents of Louis XIV's named him Louis-Dieudonné, which means 'God's gift,' according to Christian culture. As if that wasn't bad enough, Mazarin also imprinted in him the belief that Kings are divinely chosen.
• Along with Greek and the Roman sun god Apollo, Louis XIV took the Sun as his emblem. In a royal court ballet, he even played Apollo. Louis XIV claimed that France revolved around him, just as the planets do around the Sun.
• He took away French Protestants' right to worship. When Henry IV, Louis XIV's grandfather, released the Edict of Nantes in 1598, he guaranteed French Protestants, called Huguenots, religious and political liberty. Louis XIV, a devout Catholic, lived by the phrase 'one monarch, one law, one faith.'
• As a result, Louis XIV repealed the Edict of Nantes in 1685, stripping the Huguenots of all formerly cherished freedoms and killing anybody who did not practice Catholicism. Even though Huguenot emigration was prohibited, Louis XIV's persecution resulted in 250,000 or more Huguenots abandoning France for more lenient countries in Europe or the American colonies.
• He has a state named after him in the United States. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a French explorer, planned to embark on a big expedition to Fort Crevecoeur in 1682. With a company of Frenchmen and Americans, La Salle paddled down the Mississippi River, passing through the Mississippi basin.
• La Salle took the land from the indigenous in the name of France and christened it La Louisiane for Louis XIV. The region did not become an American territory until 1803, when the United States purchased it.
• After his death, his heart was devoured. It is alleged that Louis XIV's heart became supper for the weird Englishman William Buckland about a century or two after his death. Buckland was a paleontologist and geologist with a strange ambition to munch his way through the animal world.
• He delivered the heart to him as he was dining with guests at a country residence in Oxfordshire, England. Buckland remarked, 'I have eaten many unusual things, but I have never eaten the heart of a monarch before,' and nonchalantly washed it down his throat before anybody could stop him, as per the raconteur Augustus Hare.

King Louis XIV's Timeline

Here is the timeline of King Louis XIV's life.

• 1643: He was made the young king at just four years old, as his father, King Louis XIII, died.
• 1654: Although King Louis is formally crowned as the new king of France, he does not have complete influence over the government due to his youth.
• 1661: When Cardinal Mazarin dies, King Louis XIV gains absolute power of France. He diminishes the aristocracy while strengthening the state.
• 1664: The participation of the French military in the Anglo-Dutch war, being on the Dutch side in a grand alliance, eliminated a lot of resources from the monarch of France.
• 1667: King Louis aimed to further increase the territorial expansion of France through the course of various attacks on the Spanish Netherlands.
• 1669: Cancellation of the Edict of Nantes by the king.
• 1682: King expressed his support for arts and bought many reforms for the prosperity of arts in the region.
• 1692: Louis XIV is formally crowned as the peace of Ryswick.
• 1698-1700: Partition treaties involving William I, Louis XIV, and the Dutch Republic to settle the Spanish succession issue.
• 1715: Death of Louis XVI

King Louis XIV's Characteristics

Louis XIV is remembered for fundamentally shifting the power balance in French politics by concentrating power in the monarchy and constructing a patronage and despotism system that lasted only until the French Revolution. After Mazarin died in 1661, Louis consolidated power in his own hands.

• He, like many others, was terribly insecure and afraid. He became king as a youngster and had to deal with a series of uprisings in his early years, which was one of the reasons that this crown prince chose to flee Paris and reside outside the capital at Versailles.
• Louis XVI was only 20 years old, and hence was very immature and lacked self-confidence.
• While Louis XVI wished to be a great king and assist his citizens, he was burdened by massive debt and growing resentment of a dictatorial government. For most of his presidency, his failure to adequately address substantial fiscal concerns would be a source of embarrassment.

Louis XVI and Versailles

• The abundance of wildlife in the area initially drew the monarchs of France to Versailles. Louis XIII, who reigned from 1601 to 1643, amassed land, erected a château, and went for hunting expeditions. Much of the terrain surrounding Versailles was unplanted at the time, enabling wild animals to thrive.
• Louis XIII's chateau was built as a little more than just a hunting lodge with enough space for the king to house there with a small entourage.
• Louis XIV and the courtiers were placed in the Louvre Palace,
• His successor Louis XIV, who was the 'Sun King,' chose the Sun as his emblem and believed in the centralized government structure to transform Versailles to make it the prime seat of the government of France even after his death.
• Louis XVI was the ruler of France for over 70 years, and during this time, he transformed Versailles by encircling the chateau of Louis XIII. He also made north and south buildings for ministers. Versailles was designed to amaze.
• "The most crucial message Louis XIV transmitted through Versailles' design was the ultimate power," noted Tea Gudek Snajdar, an art historian, museum docent, and Culture Tourist blogger based in Amsterdam. "He is an untouchable and distant absolute monarch. The Sun King's symbolism is undeniable in the building of Versailles.

King Louis XIV's Legacy

The last monarch of France was King Louis XVI. Treason led to his execution.

• He left a legacy as to how poor leadership can affect many people. The French Revolution was sparked by his conduct (or lack thereof), and he was executed as a result. At first, the French people adored and admired him.
• The Chief legacy of Louis XIV was a centralized and powerful France.
• Even though he was not superhuman in the idea that he would not have battled his position to the front if he was not of royal ancestry, le Roi Soleil gave his name to the most extraordinary period in French history. His beams reached every corner of Europe.
• Napoleon's Civil Code, widely regarded as his greatest legacy, ensured the dissemination of the French Revolution's ideas long after his reign ended.
• However, the people of Europe saw him as a figure of revolutionary change because of the picture he projected of himself.
• King Louis XVI believed in monarchy with absolute power. The 'doctrine' that royal families have a divine right to govern and defying such rulers is a sin.
• Throughout the seventeenth century, this concept was popular, and it was promoted by royalty, notably King Louis XIV himself. Legacy and power. When Louis XVI took control, he was confronted with many issues.
• Louis' uncertainty and conservatism caused some French citizens to see him as a representative of the Ancient Régime's perceived tyranny, and his popularity dwindled over time.
• After the demise of his father and older siblings, he became a French Dauphin, the grandson of Louis XV. In 1770, he married Marie Antoinette, Maria-Theresa of Austria's daughter, known as the royal couple. France was plagued with debts and destitute due to selfish fiscal policy and dominant power when Louis ascended to the throne.