Louis XIV: The Sun King
In 1661 the 23 year-old French king Louis the XIV had been on the throne for 18 years when his chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, died. Louis is reported to have said to his ministers, ‘It is now time that I govern my affairs myself. You will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them [but] I order you to seal no orders except by my command… I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport, without my command, and to render account to me personally each day’. So began the personal rule of Louis XIV, which lasted a further 54 years until his death in 1715. From his newly-built palace at Versailles, Louis was able to project an image of himself as the centre of gravity around which all of France revolved: it’s no accident that he became known as the Sun King. He centralized power to the extent he was able to say ‘L’etat c’est moi’: I am the state. Under his rule France became the leading diplomatic, military and cultural power in Europe.
Guests
- Catriona Seth
5 episodes
Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford -
Guy Rowlands No other episodes
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of St Andrews - Penny Roberts
3 episodes
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Warwick
Reading list
-
The State in Early Modern France
James B. Collins (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 2009) Google Books → -
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King
Lady Antonia Fraser (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2007) Google Books → -
Le Roi-Soleil et Dieu
Alexandre Maral (Perrin, 2012) Google Books → -
The Sun King
Nancy Mitford (Hamish Hamilton, 1966) Google Books → -
Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon
Lucy Norton (Prion Books, 1999) Google Books → -
Louis XIV
Jean-Christian Petitfils (Perrin, 2002) Google Books → -
Louis XIV
David Sturdy (Palgrave Macmillan, 1998) Google Books → -
Louis XIV: The Real King of Versailles
Josephine Wilkinson (Amberley, 2019) Google Books → -
Louis XIV
John B. Wolf (W. W. Norton, 1974 and other editions available) Google Books →
Related episodes
-
Frederick the Great
2 Jul, 2015 940 History of Europe -
Sovereignty
30 Jun, 2016 320 Political science -
The Carolingian Renaissance
30 Mar, 2006 940 History of Europe -
The French Revolution’s Legacy
14 Jun, 2001 940 History of Europe -
Montesquieu
14 Jun, 2018 320 Political science -
Eleanor of Aquitaine
28 Jan, 2016 940 History of Europe -
The Death of Elizabeth I
15 Oct, 2009 940 History of Europe -
Hobbes
1 Dec, 2005 320 Political science -
Marie Antoinette
9 Apr, 2020 940 History of Europe -
The Social Contract
7 Feb, 2008 320 Political science -
The Second Barons’ War
6 May, 2021 940 History of Europe -
Charisma
17 Mar, 2022 320 Political science -
Machiavelli and the Italian City States
9 Dec, 2004 320 Political science -
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
14 Oct, 2021 940 History of Europe -
The French Revolution’s reign of terror
26 May, 2005 940 History of Europe -
Marcus Aurelius
25 Feb, 2021 930 History of the Ancient World -
Rudolph II
31 Jan, 2008 940 History of Europe -
Bismarck
22 Mar, 2007 940 History of Europe -
The Concordat of Worms
15 Dec, 2011 340 Law -
Maria Theresa
22 Oct, 2020 940 History of Europe
Programme ID: m001m4v6
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001m4v6
Auto-category: 944.03 (History of France)