Jean Baptiste Colbert, his finance minister in the 1660s and 1670s. He equips Louis with a financial system that enables you to have a standing army of around 150,000 men - four to five times as much as back in the 1620s. This is a financial system which is basically contracted out to entrepreneurs and they take rake-offs. But how does he make them do it? I mean they are doing things where they are under his thumb. And this is where his appointment of people who knew how to manipulate and collect taxes is very important because tax revenue goes up and up.
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.
With
Catriona Seth
Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford
Guy Rowlands
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of St Andrews
and
Penny Roberts
Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Warwick
Producer: Luke Mulhall