I'm still puzzled by how much taxation it could ring out of his subjects. How much more than it ever happened before on a different scale altogether? It is a bit puzzling. We don't have enough of the financial records to be absolutely sure of this. What we do know is that Jean Baptiste Colbert dismantles the networks of financiers that his predecessor, Nick LaFouquet, had run. He keeps a smaller group of financier under tighter control than ever before. The auditing system is more effective. When it does get to the king's coffers, they also have better protocols by the 1680s to make sure that it's spent more effectively than before.
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