Louis XIV: good king, bad king, other?

[LightSpectra]

France became top dog in Europe after the Franco-Dutch war. They picked up several regions in the East, as well as the establishment of the colonial empire under Louis XIV. Even his enemies and opponents of royal France complimented him (including Voltaire and Napoleon). The legal system was improved, the bureaucracy was reformed, and the arts flourished under the "Sun King".

On the other hand, the Nine Years' War and the War of Spanish Succession were both extremely expensive for France (both in financial and human costs), and neither ended up being particularly beneficial. It has also been argued that his conquests were unsustainable, so collapse under his successor (Louis XV) was inevitable.

So, would you say that Louis XIV deserves the praise he gets, or is he overrated?

 

[Dachs]

Colbert is overrated.

 

[Icaria909]

He doesn't deserve complete blaime or praise. History of civilizations works like this: 1. ruler saves money 2. successor spends money on culture or war and becomes known as great 3. huge debt mounts and successor faces economic crisis or political fragmentation. THis rule works for Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Russia, Byzantine Empire, etc.... Louis XIV just happened to have inhereted enough money to try and become great, but he failed because few of his wars really made a lasting impression on France except for the loss of human life and capital.

Louis XIV is a decent ruler, not to be known as the great ruler like augustus, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Lincoln, etc, but to be known as a failed idealist who never was able to provide very much tangible benefit to his people. He doesn't deserve the blame hes recieved, but he doesn't deserve any praise either.

 

[Dachs]

Louis XIV was many things, but he was not an idealist. He got his gloire early and spent the rest of his reign defending it.

 

[Icaria909]

I am sorry, you are right. maybe idealist was not the correct word for the intended meaning of the word i was looking for. But none the less, Louis XIV doesn't deserve praise or blame.

 

[EnlightenmentHK]

He doesn't deserve complete blaime or praise. History of civilizations works like this: 1. ruler saves money 2. successor spends money on culture or war and becomes known as great 3. huge debt mounts and successor faces economic crisis or political fragmentation. THis rule works for Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Russia, Byzantine Empire, etc.... Louis XIV just happened to have inhereted enough money to try and become great, but he failed because few of his wars really made a lasting impression on France except for the loss of human life and capital.

Doesn't always work like that. In fact much of the time it doesn't. Many of the wars those countries/empires fought were effectively self-financed, heavy profit ventures after all the plunder is considered. (War was damned near a business during certain eras of the Roman Empire for instance) Culture could be a great wealth generator as well. (cultural projects employ a bunch of labor, the culture itself attracts great people to the city/realm, it builds prestige and spreads influence)

Some of those empires you mentioned lasted for centuries. They did not fragment after every major war or massive building project. In fact many times they came out stronger after those 'spending sprees'.

What you stated does happen, but its hardly 'the rule' of history.

 

[philippe]

reading on the effects his taxes had on his subjects in his crown domain, and the futile cost of hte many wars he was involved, i don't think you can call him a good ruler.

 

[EnlightenmentHK]

reading on the effects his taxes had on his subjects in his crown domain, and the futile cost of hte many wars he was involved, i don't think you can call him a good ruler.

According to his Wiki entry, he's pretty much a god. So at the very least he has one fanboy.

 

[Agent327]

France became top dog in Europe after the Franco-Dutch war. They picked up several regions in the East, as well as the establishment of the colonial empire under Louis XIV. Even his enemies and opponents of royal France complimented him (including Voltaire and Napoleon). The legal system was improved, the bureaucracy was reformed, and the arts flourished under the "Sun King".

On the other hand, the Nine Years' War and the War of Spanish Succession were both extremely expensive for France (both in financial and human costs), and neither ended up being particularly beneficial. It has also been argued that his conquests were unsustainable, so collapse under his successor (Louis XV) was inevitable.

So, would you say that Louis XIV deserves the praise he gets, or is he overrated?

Le Roi Soleil's expansionist policy left France with a budget deficit that ultimately led to Louis XVI losing his head in the French Revolution. (In a similar fashion Felipe II ruined the state of Spain with his Catholic crusade plans; France recovered through revolution, Spain did not, remaining financially and politically bankrupt.)


According to Wikipedia:

Louis' numerous wars effectively bankrupted the State (though it must also be said that France was able to recover in a matter of years), forcing him to incur large State debts from various financiers and to levy higher taxes on the peasants as the nobility and clergy had exemption from paying these taxes and contributing to public funds. Yet, it must be emphasized that it was the State and not the country which was impoverished. The wealth and prosperity of France, as a whole, could be noted in the writings of the social and political thinker and commentator Montesquieu in his satirical epistolary novel, Lettres Persanes. While the work mocks and ridicules French political, cultural and social life, it also portrays and describes the wealth, elegance and opulence of France between the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and Louis XIV's death.[citation needed]
Growth of France under Louis XIV (1643–1715)

On the whole, nevertheless, Louis XIV strengthened the power of the Crown relative to the traditional feudal elites, marking the beginning of the era of the modern State, and placed France in the predominant and preeminent position in Europe, giving her ten new provinces and an overseas empire, as well as cultural and linguistic influence all over Europe. Even with several great European alliances opposing him, he continued to triumph and to increase French territory, power and influence. As a result of these military victories as well as cultural accomplishments, Europe would admire France, her power, culture, exports, values and way-of-life. The French language would become the lingua franca for the entire European elite as faraway as Romanov Russia; various German princelings would seek to copy his mode of life to their great expense. Europe of the Enlightenment would look to Louis XIV's reign as an example, studying his strategic use of power, emulating his elegance, and admiring his successes.

So, although he expanded France in territory, his greatest - because lasting - achievement was cultural, rather than political, gaining him praise from the likes of Voltaire, Leibniz and Napoleon; even De Gaulle still referred to the gloire of France as something noteworthy (though he made no reference to Louis XIV when mentioning it).

 

[Evie]

While Louis XIV certainly had some noteworthy successes, much of what he had he owned to the extensive groundwork laid-out in the first half of the century by Richelieu then Mazarin, that elevated France to the rank of arbiter of Europe after the thirty years war.

 

[LightSpectra]

I understand that he left the state bankrupt, but Napoleon himself would understand the financial matters of France than anybody else I'd think, and his praise of Louis XIV was endless.

 

[Dachs]

Napoleon himself would understand the financial matters of France than anybody else I'd think

wut

No...just no. Napoleon know anything about finances? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

[Agent327]

Anyone commanding an army in the field (and getting confronted with logistics) will understand finance. And if you ever read anything close to a biography of Napoleon you wouldn't react in such a way; his entire career was finance-driven.

 

[innonimatu]

Le Roi Soleil's expansionist policy left France with a budget deficit that ultimately led to Louis XVI losing his head in the French Revolution. (In a similar fashion Felipe II ruined the state of Spain with his Catholic crusade plans; France recovered through revolution, Spain did not, remaining financially and politically bankrupt.)

Blaming Louis XIV for the french revolution nearly one century later, or Philip II for the downfall of the Spanish Empire some two centuries later, is like blaming Augustus for the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire...

 

[Sharwood]

Anyone commanding an army in the field (and getting confronted with logistics) will understand finance. And if you ever read anything close to a biography of Napoleon you wouldn't react in such a way; his entire career was finance-driven.

Napoleon had absolutely no grasp of economics. His Continental System kind of proved that. Still, he did understand finance better than many of his predecessors, but that isn't saying much.

As for Napoleon's understanding of logistics: He lived off the country he was fighting in. He was notorious for using as few supply lines as possible, thus rendering any attempt to cut them inneffective. Backfired in Russia.

 

[Dachs]

Anyone commanding an army in the field (and getting confronted with logistics) will understand finance. And if you ever read anything close to a biography of Napoleon you wouldn't react in such a way; his entire career was finance-driven.

Napoleon had absolutely no grasp of economics. His Continental System kind of proved that. Still, he did understand finance better than many of his predecessors, but that isn't saying much.

As for Napoleon's understanding of logistics: He lived off the country he was fighting in. He was notorious for using as few supply lines as possible, thus rendering any attempt to cut them inneffective. Backfired in Russia.

Sharwood pretty much said it. Sure, he may have had a concept of how stuff works, and he did have some interest in getting the same kind of low interest rates as did the nation of shopkeepers across la Manche, but his state's economy was in large part based, somewhat like Hitler's but to a far lesser degree, on a mostly incompetent plundering of Europe and the benefits taken therefrom.

And besides, if he had understood economics and finance, he wouldn't have lauded Colbert and Louis nearly so much as he did, which was the point.

Blaming Louis XIV for the french revolution nearly one century later, or Philip II for the downfall of the Spanish Empire some two centuries later, is like blaming Augustus for the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire...

Sort of. But Colbert's financial system, virtually unchanged, was the cause of many of the problems that gave Necker et al a huge headache in the 1780s.

 

[sydhe]

I'd say generally a good king with a great deal of administrative talent, which was actually a bit of a problem because his government really required a Louis XIV to run it. He made several major mistakes, notably the revocation of the Edict of Nantes which led to the Grand Alliance against him. (And who his France fought to a draw, which was no mean achievement.) France suffered some bad defeats during the War of the Spanish Succession, but France and Spain still managed to keep most of the territories they were fighting for. (France came close to disaster from 1704 - 08 but recovered a lot by the end of the war.)

As for the French Revolution, the country had 75 years to recover its finances. I'd put a lot more blame on Louis XV's 59 years of not doing that much at all and letting the government stagnate. And he and Louis XVI had their share of expensive wars.

 

[Verbose]

I'd say generally a good king with a great deal of administrative talent, which was actually a bit of a problem because his government really required a Louis XIV to run it. He made several major mistakes, notably the revocation of the Edict of Nantes which led to the Grand Alliance against him. (And who his France fought to a draw, which was no mean achievement.) France suffered some bad defeats during the War of the Spanish Succession, but France and Spain still managed to keep most of the territories they were fighting for. (France came close to disaster from 1704 - 08 but recovered a lot by the end of the war.)

As for the French Revolution, the country had 75 years to recover its finances. I'd put a lot more blame on Louis XV's 59 years of not doing that much at all and letting the government stagnate. And he and Louis XVI had their share of expensive wars.

Pretty much agree with this.

For starters some of Ancien Régime France's problem stemmed from the system Richelieu already built.

Within this system Louis XIV made things work. The whole discussion of economics, understanding or lack off, at least for the 17th c., needs to be supplemented with the observation that finances have rarely been an end in itself to most societies (a view possibly coming into fashion again today), and with the monarchies of Europe solidifying in the 17th c. the sole purpose of having decent finances for a state was to allow the monarch of said state to play international politics. And international politcs at this time to an overwhelming degree meant war, war, and more war; just like Louis did it. He might be scolded for not being a ahead-of-his-times-visionary, but given his position and the times, his grasp of things was amazing.

From the perspective of the other 17th c. monarchies Louis XIV was the guy getting it all right, harnesseing the wealth and power of France and funneling it through the royal administration, at the beck and call of... himself.

His poor cousin across the Channel, Charles, totally paled beside Louis and his magnificicent will to power and ability to get it. Charles was pretty unsuccessfully trying to run an unruly place with lots of bloody commoners getting up to their own devices, getting ahead, leading to a situation that, the from a 17th c. pov of monarchical politics, was essentially the world turned upside down; a country with a lot of wealth, but a poor king.

That said, the way the court at Versailles swelled under Louis of course also set his successors up for some pretty tricky problems. The sinecures were endless and it was a gigantic scheme to buy loyalty and redistrubute the wealth of France to the aristocracy, often for little gain to the state itself. As for Louis XIV court functions, my personal favourite is the "Capitan des petits chiens de Sa Majesté", "Captain of His Majesty's little dogs".

The deal cut already under Richelieu was that in order to have a career in the expanding national administration, you had to be a titled aristocrat. That was the bone thrown to France's wealthy and powerful nobles to get them on board the project of centralising power to the royal administration; they got the privilege in order to accept being part of that project, and could then use its resources. That is, if you as an aristocrat had any kind of inclination and ambition to actually work. If you just wanted to loaf around, you got money regardless.

The end result was a constant need to somehow manage to prune the bloated court and administration under Louis XIV's successors. The tricky bit was to do it in such a fashion it didn't actually make the aristos dangerous to the royal power again. Which meant it took a while. Only Louis XVI actually managed to trim the worst of the excess fat for real iirc, but then the Revolution rolled around, and this time it wasn't made by the usual suspects, the aristos, and the jig was up for the French absolute monarchy and the aristocracy alike.