Louis XIV., king of France, born at St Germain-en-Laye, 16th September 1638, succeeded his father, Louis XIII., in 1643. His mother, Anne of Austria, became regent, and Mazarin (q.v.) her minister. During the king's minority the discontented nobles, encouraged by Spain, sought to shake off the authority of the crown, and the civil wars of the Fronde (q.v.) arose. Peace was concluded in 1659; and in the following year Louis married the Infanta Maria Theresa, a princess possessing neither beauty nor other attractive qualities. Little was expected from the young king; his education had been neglected, and his conduct was dissolute; but on Mazarin's death in 1661 he suddenly assumed the reins of government, and from that time forth carried into effect with rare energy a political theory of pure despotism. His famous saying, 'L'état c'est moi' ('I am the state'), expressed the principle to which everything was accommodated. He had a cool and clear head, with much dignity and amenity of manners, great activity, and indomitable perseverance. The distress caused by the religious wars had created throughout France a longing for repose, which was favourable to his assumption of absolute power. He was ably supported by his ministers. Manufactures began to flourish under the royal protection. The fine cloths of Louviers, Abbeville, and Sedan, the tapestries of the Gobelins, the carpets of La Savonnerie, and the silks of Tours and Lyons acquired a wide celebrity. The wonderful talents of Colbert (q.v.) restored prosperity to the ruined finances of the country, and provided the means for war; whilst Louvois (q.v.) applied these means in raising and sending to the field armies more thoroughly equipped and disciplined than any others of that age.
On the death of Philip IV. of Spain Louis, as his son-in-law, set up a claim to part of the Spanish Netherlands; and in 1667, accompanied by Turenne (q.v.), he crossed the frontier with a powerful army, took many places, and made himself master of that part of Flanders since known as French Flanders, and of the whole of Franche Comté. The triple alliance—between England, the States-general of Holland, and Sweden—arrested his career of conquest. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) forced him to surrender Franche Comté. He vowed revenge against the States-general, strengthened himself by German alliances, and purchased with money the friendship of Charles II. of England. He seized Lorraine in 1670; and in May 1672 again entered the Netherlands with Condé and Turenne, conquered half the country in six weeks, and left the Duke of Luxembourg to lay it waste. The States-general formed an alliance with Spain and with the emperor, but Louis made himself master of ten cities of the empire in Alsace, and in the spring of 1674 took the field with three great armies, of which he commanded one in person, Condé another, and Turenne a third. Victory attended his arms; and, notwithstanding the death of Turenne and the retirement of the Prince of Condé from active service, he continued in subsequent years, along with his brother, the Duke of Orleans, to extend his conquests in the Netherlands, where, by his orders, and according to the ruthless policy of Louvois, the country was fearfully desolated. The peace of Nimeguen in 1678 left him in possession of fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands and of Franche Comté. He now established Chambres de Réunion in Metz, Breisach, and Besançon, packed courts of law, in which his own will was supreme, and which confiscated to him, as feudal superior in right of his conquests, territories which he wished to acquire, seignories belonging to the Elector Palatine, the Elector of Trèves, and others. He also, on 30th September 1681, made a sudden and successful attack on Strasburg, a free German city, the possession and fortification of which added greatly to his power on the Rhine. The acquisition thus made a treaty in 1684 confirmed to him.
Louis had now reached the zenith of his career. All Europe feared him; his own nation had been brought by tyranny, skilful management, and military glory to regard him with Asiatic humility, admiring and obeying; all remnants of political independence had been swept away; no Assemblies of the States or of the Notables were held; the nobles had lost both the desire and the ability to assert political power; the municipal corporations no longer exercised any right of election, but received appointments of officials from the court; the provinces were governed by intendants, who were immediately responsible to the ministers, and they to the king, who was his own prime-minister. Even the courts of justice yielded to the absolute sway of the monarch, who interfered at pleasure with the ordinary course of law, by the appointment of commissions, or withdrew offenders from the jurisdiction of the courts by Lettres de Cachet (q.v.), of which he issued about 9000 in the course of his reign. He asserted a right to dispose at his pleasure of all properties within the boundaries of his realm, and took credit to himself for gracious moderation in exercising it sparingly. The court was the very heart of the political and national life of France, and there the utmost splendour was maintained; and a system of etiquette was established which was a sort of perpetual worship of the king.
It was a serious thing for France and the world when Louis fell under the control of his mistress, Madame de Maintenon (q.v.), whom he married in a half-private manner in 1685, and who was herself governed by the Jesuits. One of the first effects of this change was the adoption of severe measures against the Protestants. When it was falsely reported to Louis that his troops had dragooned all heretics into conversion, he revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and then ensued a bloody persecution; whilst more than half a million of the best and most industrious of the inhabitants of France fled, carrying their skill and industry to other lands. Yet Louis was by no means willing to yield too much power to the pope; and, quarrelling with him concerning the revenues of vacant bishoprics, he convened a council of French clergy, which declared the papal power to extend only to matters of faith, and even in these to be dependent upon the decrees of councils.
The Elector of the Palatine having died in May 1685, and left his sister, the Duchess of Orleans, heiress of his movable property, Louis claimed for her also all the allodial lands; and from this and other causes arose a new European war. A French army invaded the Palatine, Baden, Württemberg, and Trèves in 1688. In 1689 the Lower Palatine and neighbouring regions were laid waste by fire and sword. This atrocious proceeding led to a new coalition against France. Success for a time attended the French arms, particularly in Savoy and at the battle of Steinkerk. Reverses, however, ensued; the war was waged for years on a great scale, and with various success; and after the French, under Luxembourg, had gained, in 1693, the battle of Neerwinden, it was found that the means of waging war were very much exhausted, and Louis concluded the peace of Ryswick on 20th September 1697. The navy destroyed, the finances grievously embarrassed, the people suffering from want of food, and discontent becoming deep and general, Louis placed the Count D'Argenson at the head of the police, and established an unparalleled system of espionage for the maintenance of his own despotism. The power of Madame de Maintenon and her clerical advisers became more and more absolute at the court, where scandals of every kind increased.
When the death of Charles II. of Spain took place, on 1st November 1700, it was found that Louis had obtained his signature to a will by which he left all his dominions to one of the grandsons of his sister, who had been Louis's queen. Louis supported to the utmost the claim of his grandson (Philip V.), whilst the Emperor Leopold supported that of his son, afterwards the Emperor Charles VI. But the power of France was now weakened, and the war had to be maintained both on the side of the Netherlands and of Italy. One bloody defeat followed another; Marlborough was victorious in the Low Countries, and Prince Eugene in Italy; whilst the forces of Louis were divided and weakened by the employment of large bodies of troops against the Camisards in the Cévennes, for the extinction of the last relics of Protestantism.
On the 11th April 1713 peace was concluded at Utrecht, the French prince obtaining the Spanish throne, but France sacrificing valuable colonies. A terrible fermentation now prevailed in France, and the country was almost completely ruined; but the monarch maintained to the last an unbending despotism. He died, after a short illness, 1st September 1715. He was succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis XV. His son, the dauphin, and his eldest grandson, the Duke of Brittany, had both died in 1711. Louis had a number of natural children, and he had legitimised those of whom Madame de Montespan was the mother; but the Paris parliament, which made no objection to recording the edict when required by him, made as little objection to annulling it when required by the next government. The 'works' of Louis XIV. (6 vols. Paris, 1806), containing his Instructions for his sons, and many letters, afford important information as to his character and the history of his reign. The reign of Louis XIV. is regarded as the Augustan age of French literature and art, and it can hardly be doubted that France has never since produced poets like Corneille and Racine in tragedy, or Molière in comedy, satirists like Boileau, or church orators and divines like Bossuet, Fénelon, Bourdaloue, and Massillon.
See Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XIV. (1740), the Mémoires of Saint-Simon (1788; in English, abridged, 1876); and other works by Gaillardin (6 vols. 1871-76), Cosnac (8 vols. 1874-81), Chéruel (4 vols. 1878-80), Michelet (3d ed. 1875), Michaud (1882-83), Chotard (1890), Du Causse de Nazell (1899), Pardoe (1886), Hassall (1895); for 'le style Louis Quatorze' in art, Geneva (1887).