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.

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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 →

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Programme ID: m001m4v6

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001m4v6

Auto-category: 944.03 (History of France)