*When Louis XIII died in 1643 he had (with the help of Cardinal Richelieu) made France a wealthy and powerful nation.  However, he also left an heir who was not quite five when he became king.  Louis XIV's mother, and Cardinal Mazarin, actually ran the country.

*Louis XIV also inherited a civil war called the Fronde (meaning sling, as slings were used to break the windows of the Fronde's enemies).  Beginning in 1648, the common people, particularly the bourgeoisie, feared the loss of their traditional rights to growing royal power, and felt the brunt of the higher taxes required to pay for the 30 Years War. Later, nobles concerned about losing their power and priveleges joined in, become leaders of the Fronde.  The civil war ended in 1653, although it merged into a war with Hapsburg Spain that lasted until 1659.  As part of the treaty that ended the war with Spain, Louis was contracted to marry Maria-Theresa, daughter of King Philip IV (and Louis's first cousin (twice)).  However, the chaos of Fronde had a powerful effect on the French and their king.

*In 1648, the first year of the Fronde, the Parisian mob entered the royal palace and demanded to see their king.  The ten-year-old feigned sleep and was left alone, but shortly afterwards his mother took him and their court to safety outside the city.  While in exile, his mother had to sell her jewels to feed the family.  The five years of the Fronde left Louis with deep distrust of both the mob and the nobility.  Likewise, they left the French people with a desire for order, stability, and safety, and for that they turned to a strong monarchy.

*Cardinal Mazarin continued to lead France until his death in 1661, at which point 21-year-old Louis began to run his own country, vowing to serve as his own prime minister.  From his tutor, Bishop Boussuet, he had learnt that royal power is absolute (a notion that would have seemed largely foreign and tyranical during the middle ages when the king was merely primus inter pares), and that a true king ruled through divine right.  In course of time he would establish an absolute monarchy, and his motto would be "L'État, c'est moi" ("I am the State").

*When Louis took over, France was nearly bankrupt, and its people badly distrusted one another.  Louis set out to solve the first problem and exploit the other.

*In 1665, Louis appointed Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Controller-General of Finances.  Colbert devised new methods of taxation on import duties, salt, and land.  Although he allowed nobles and clergy their traditional exemptions from taxation, he ensured that the taxes on the Third Estate were collected more efficiently and effectively and honestly and that they were distributed as evenly as possible.  In a vast country, this was partly done through tax-farming, selling the right to collect taxes to minor officials.

*Colbert encouraged domestic manufactures and trade within the French Empire (including New France and Louisiana) by heavily taxing or outright forbidding the import of many foreign goods.  This was part of the theory of mercantilism, common in the 17th century, that buying goods from outside one's country would lead to a loss of a country's specie, and thus its wealth and influence. To protect France's mercantile interests, Colbert also supported the growth of the navy.

*Under Colbert, French industry grew, although he also saw to it that industries were firmly in the hands of a few trusted bourgeoisie who were granted monopolies, which kept them manageable but also discouraged advancement, as the common people could not easily rise to a position of wealth within the system.

*So successful was Colbert that Louis XIV never had to call the Estates-General to create new forms of taxation.  That suited the absolute monarch fine.

*Colbert made a real effort to collect money efficiently, spend money carefully, and improve France's economy.  This was fortunate, as the army spent money at least as quickly as Colbert could find it, particularly under the leadership of Francois, Marquis de Louvois.

*This was not entirely accidental.  Louis, knowing that France's kings had often occupied a precarious position, sought to play different factions off against one another.  To keep an eye on them, he gathered them together in his fabulous palace of Versailles, just outside Paris (which he had distrusted every since having to flee the Fronde at the age of five).

*Versailles had been a small village outside of Paris, where Louis XIII built a hunting lodge.  Between 1669 and 1682, Louis XIV built and occupied a grand palace with more than 2,000 windows, 700 rooms, 1250 fireplaces, 67 staircases and more than 1,800 acres of park.   The Hall of Mirrors alone (in a time when mirrors were extremely expensive, although also at a time when Colbert was encouraging the creation of a French glass industry (to break Venice's near-monopoly)) contains 357 mirrors.  It has been estimated that at certain points, 25% of the French government's income went towards maintaining the French royal family and the court at Versailles.

*So what went on at Versailles?  First, it was the home of the king, his wife, their children, the king's mistresses, most of the government's officials, and most of the nobility of France.  It was meant to glorify Louis XIV, who (both for his radiance and for the fact that France revolved around him) came to be known as the Sun King.

*Versailles did more than glorify Louis XIV.  It also gave him complete control of the leadership of the country (which, in turn, gave him control of the provinces beyond his direct reach—control strengthened by bribes for minor local officials).  Part of Louis's control came through the elaborate court rituals that he created to keep his nobles too busy trying to win his favour to try to conspire (or at least raise armies) against him.

*Nobles could not knock on the King's door.  They had to scratch at it with their left little finger.  To make the scratches more audible, many grew that one fingernail long.  Every morning (and evening) King Louis XIV was attended by favoured nobles who helped him dress and undress—each one had a specific task, such as handing him a wash cloth or shoe.  The ladies of the court likewise vied for the right to wait upon the queen.  There were rules for which foot to put forward or how high to raise one's hat when greeting a friend, acquaintance, or official of various ranks (relative to one's own) and whose cheek one could kiss (and whether one or both cheeks).  There were rules about what style of clothes, makes of cloth, length of various garments, and types of hats and shoes (Louis XIV supposedly invented high-heeled shoes because he was so short) people could wear (although such laws were not unusual in many places then).  Some people had the right to kneel on cushions at mass; other had to kneel on the floor.  Even nobles (like le Duc de Saint-Simon) who knew this was all ridiculous and meant to keep them in a state of dependence on the king still felt obliged to do it, because nobles who kept away from the court were denied any privileges the king could dispense.

*The king also created new nobles, nobles of the cloth (as opposed to nobles of the sword), rewarding loyal supporters and watering down the traditional nobility.  Many of the nobles of the cloth were Intendants, or royal officials.

*All this was done to centralise power and unify France.  Louis also issued numerous laws, including the Grand Ordinance of Civil Procedure, or Code Louis, of 1667, which attempted to unify and rationalised France's laws.  It would be the basis of all French laws until the Code Napoleon (which it also inspired).

*Louis also wanted to unify France religiously, making everyone Catholic (even though he had his disagreements with the pope, as Louis wanted no competition for the loyalty of his people).  In 1685, Louis expelled all Jews from France's colonies and, with the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoked the Edict of Nantes.   While Protestants were still allowed to believe as they wished, it was illegal to act as a Protestant in public.  500,000 Huguenots left France for the Dutch Netherlands, hurting France's economy (as the Protestant work ethic—the Calvinist struggle to prove their predestined justification through worldly success—had been one thing propelling French industry).

*France's economy was also hurt by numerous wars, as Louis tried to use France's wealth to win prestige and territory.

*Between 1667 and 1681, France fought wars to win territory in the Spanish and Dutch Netherlands and in Alsace, part of which had been given to France in the Peace of Westphalia, but Louis wanted it all.  He was partly successful, gaining the southern parts of the Spanish Netherlands and Strasbourg, all of which are still part of France (although Alsace would prove to be a cause of at least three later wars).

*Louis's revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the subsequent persecution of the Huguennots upset many of his neighbours, as did the growth of French power during the Franco-Dutch wars and Louis's support for the Ottoman Turks' advances into central Europe, only stopped at the Siege of Vienna in 1683.

*Consequently, the Holy Roman Emperor (and archduke of Austria), the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, Brandenburg-Prussia, Bavaria, the Palatinate, Portugal, Saxony, Spain, and the United Provinces of the Netherlands formed the League of Augsburg against him in 1686, and when England joined in 1689 it was renamed the Grand Alliance.  This was a mighty alliance of Protestants and Catholics, united by a fear and loathing of France.

*Fearing that the Holy Roman Empire, after a successful war against the Turks (during which the Empire expanded into the Balkans), might turn against France, Louis made a pre-emptive strike across the border into the Rhineland, beginning the War of the League of Augsburg (or the Nine Years War or the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of English Succession, as it coincided with the Glorious Revolution, or, in America, as King William's War).

*The War was fought primarily in Europe, where it was largely a war of sieges, but it was also fought in the Caribbean, North America, and Ireland.  The war ended in 1698 with the Treaty of Ryswick (Netherlands), which allowed the French to keep some gains in Germany, but returned lands captured in the Low Countries and Spain.  The Holy Roman Emperor gained power in central Europe, and Spain grew weaker and less stable.

*Spain's instability plunged Europe into war again in 1701. In 1700s, King Charles II of Spain died and left his possessions to Louis XIV's grandson Prince Philip of France (now Philip V of Spain), as Louis's wife had been a Spanish princess.  The possibility of a personal union between France and Spain (and all their colonies in the New World) was too much for Europe, especially as the Austrian Hapsburgs had a good claim to the throne as well through their descent from Charles V's brother, and the War of the Spanish Succession (known as Queen Anne's War in America) began.

*Most of the fighting was in France, Spain, and the Low Countries, although there was some in the Empire and in the New World.  For the most part, the sides were the same as during the War of the League of Augsburg, and the two great leaders of the Grand Alliance were John Churchill (later Duke of Marlborough) and Prince Eugene of Savoy. 

*The War ended with the Peace of Utrecht in 1714, which recognised Philip V as King of Spain (a position still held by a Bourbon, King Juan Carlos), but gave most other Spanish Hapsburg possessions away (Austria got the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia; Savoy got Sicily; Britain got Gibraltar (which it still has) and Minorca).  Philip V began to centralise Spain's government, much as Louis had that of France, although he allowed parts of Spain that had supported him (like Spanish Navarre and the Basque Country) to keep greater autonomy.  France's borders did not change much, although it did give up land in the New World to Britain, particularly Acadia in Canada (whence the Acadians went to Louisiana and are now called Cajuns).

*After the War, Spain was definitely a second-rate European power, but it and France maintained a strong alliance throughout the 1700s.  The Peace of Utrecht also established the idea of a Balance of Power in Europe, as countries allied together to keep any one nation from growing too strong.

*Louis XIV died in 1715 (another date sometimes given as the beginning of Modern History, or at least a separation from Early Modern History) just short of the age of 77, after 72 years of rule.  He had outlived all his children and grandchildren (except the King of Spain, who, according to the Treaty of Utrecht, could not accept the throne of France), so he was succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis XV, who, like his predecessor, became king at the age of 5.