Louis XIV: Sun King of France

hey there students and this lecture them to talk to you a little bit about louis xiv oh that's the sun king you say yeah that is the sun king you know that awesome you know who else knows that everybody yes you need to listen to this lecture let me teach you a little bit more about louis xiv to really understand louis xiv impact on france is an absolute monarch we need to look at the history of france which they had a tradition of Wheat Kings their symbol was the fleur-de-lis which is a lily flower and when you think about a lily flowers a symbol is that really fit for a king think about it it's like oh here's my symbol it's a flower whew now France had a tradition of Wheat Kings if we look here King Charles the seventh ooh really why do you have to know him you don't he was one of the kings of France during the Hundred Years War when the English were just destroying France for the most part of taking over half his country and unable to really do anything himself Charles calls on a teenage girl Joan of Arc who found a sword in a field that's like okay teenage girl help us and France had tons of forgettable kings I don't think I even know any of these guys names nice thing is I don't have to they're not important in fact some of them are almost comical this guy dude pants okay like it's a good thing how's anybody supposed to take you seriously dressed like that really louis xiii is yet another forgettable French monarch we might remember even more his first minister Cardinal Richelieu who was so important that he had a painting of him Mike hey get me like this oh now this now this yeah you know this guy's important I don't think Louie xiii has a picture like that now louis xiii had a problem he was childless they had stillborn in similar situation to Henry the eighth but instead of divorcing his wife louis xiii dedicated his whole country to the virgin mary and good for him the virgin mary delivered and within a year louie do you don't now I may have just lard that that's French I this is a history lecture not a lecture in the French language but Louie the god-given so they have this god-given son who arrives and he was very much a mama's boy as mama wanted a son so bad keep in mind that it was typical for aristocratic women back then not to pay a lot of attention to their kids to what somebody else raised them but Louis got a lot of attention from his mother and even more so once his father died she was the only one left so Louise father died when Louie was four years old and so Louie became king very very early now of course you're not gonna let a four-year-old make decisions for your country and of Austria Louie's mother was the regent while Louie was younger but then again most of the decisions are being made by Cardinal Mazarin who was the chief minister of france during Louie's minority during coracle Mazarin 's ministry the biggest problem france faced was the Fronde which is French for slang and this was a revolt of nobles and Parisian townspeople while Louie was younger now Louie was kind of kept out of the details of this but he knew something was going on and when Louie won he was resolved to never let this happen again Louie was going to be a different kind of King Louie was going to be the type of King that would not be rebelled against the type of King that would be so big that no one would ever think about challenging him kind of like Hobbes Leviathan or a figure that big for his symbol Louie wasn't going to be satisfied with a flower instead Louie chose the sign is his symbol and decided that he would be known as the Sun King now of course the Sun is over everything the Sun is something that we can all look at and admire not just something that grows out of ground you can pick your girlfriend or something like that the Sun inspires awe now where did this come from Louie was actually when he was younger a ballet dancer and in one of the ballets that he was in he played the Greek Sun god Apollo nice a little bit of Louie trivia for you so not only is he the Sun but this also symbolizes a sort of godlike magnificence that Louie seeks to project one of Louie's most famous quotes uh is lata says moi hope I said that right but in English that means I am the state so Louie wasn't going to be like his father and just go huntin and chase women Louie was going to go hunting and chase women and rule to be the king personally Louie didn't appoint a first minister per se Louie was his own first minister and he would make the final decisions one of the most famous sayings associated with Louie is Boone rah hula UF wah I may have just slaughtered that again it's French but in English it means one king one wall one faith yeah yeah 21 laughs like so I'm going to go into very quickly how Louie pursued each of these goals first of all the goal of one King Louie made sure that these Nobles who'd been very powerful in France knew who was boss he made Nobles attend to him at Versailles you see in this picture here one of Louie's nobles who is ascending this really grand staircase and he is bowing to Louie who is at the top of the staircase awaiting and Louie made sure that he was always surrounded with splendor a and majesty and these nobles had to attend him regularly at Versailles so anyone who was anybody was supposed to be there where Louie was wearing the most stylish clothes and spending all kinds of money to stay current with latest fashions to gamble to show off and to compete for Louie's favor now let's say there was a noble who decided hey I don't have to go over there I'm not gonna go make a fool of myself there at Versailles well when he needed a favor Louie would be like huh who I don't know that guy he never comes to see me and so if you it was good for you you better go over there and do what Louie says and Louie would in order to tick off these old Nobles the sword Nobles Louie created a whole bunch of robe Nobles he gave away these offices that came with noble titles actually he didn't give them away he sold them and this is how Louie came up with a source of independent revenue Louie came up with all of this money that he got by selling titles and this is what paid for Louie's Moors now the thing is that this is kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul because the nobles that were being created they pay all this money up front and then they get all kinds of tax exemptions later so Louie's got a lot of money in his pocket but he's stealing from future generations and this is starting the process of financial ruin that is eventually going to lead to the French Revolution because of all of this money that Louise got coming in he never has to call the estates-general which was the French representative body that had to consent to taxation they were rendered unnecessary and never had to meet and in fact they would meet for about a hundred and seventy-five years not until 1789 which was the eve of the French Revolution next Louis ought to be one law in France one of the things that he did bring this bout was the code lui which was an effort to standardize walls throughout the nation Louie inherited a kingdom that was very much set in its ways locally northern France and southern France would have different ways of going about law and Louie said we need to have all the same across the whole French nation and so while this is not as famous as the Napoleonic Code that followed later he is really kind of setting Napoleon up this is kind of the building blocks of the Napoleonic Code so Louis deserves a bit of credit here finally Louis saw for there to be one faith in France now Louie's grandfather Henry the fourth issued the Edict of not or the Edict of Nantes whatever you want to call it it's a written test in en tes and the Edict of Nantes gave Huguenots some toleration allowed them to practice their religion in various places you can check out my video on the French Wars of Religion if you'd like now Henry had inherited a kingdom that was very divided about religion in fact Henry was a Huguenot of French Calvinists and he decided to convert to Catholicism Paris is worth the mass as he put it and Louie unlike Henry who is a politique and converted for political reasons Louie was a very devout Catholic and Louie decided hey the edict nots creates two faiths in this country I want one so Louie revokes the Edict of Nantes and decides that from now on Catholicism will be the only faith in free it's Louie wrote in the Edict of Fountainbleu witch rescinded the Edict of not that we have determined that we can do nothing better in order to wholly obliterate the memory of the troubles the confusion and the evils which the progress of this false religion has caused in this kingdom then entirely to revoke the said Edict of not this false religion now keep in mind that Louie although he's trying to get power I mean having one religion makes the monarch more powerful but keep in mind also that Louie considered himself a divine right monarch and Louis felt like he had an obligation to the souls of his people in order to make sure that they were practicing a religion that was false so don't discount Louie's religious motives here but keep in mind he's also got a power motive at work here in this picture you can see a French Huguenot temple being torn down outside of Paris as a result of the Edict of Fountainbleu and here is a Huguenot Church in Charleston South Carolina not too far from where I am and this was put there by some French Huguenots who left the country there was some emigration because of the Edict of Fountainbleu now let's not exaggerate not massive immigration I'm not speaking French I'm speaking English the English left their country in droves not the French but keep in mind that they're worse I'm French Huguenots who left France in order to practice their religion freely elsewhere now just because Louie is enforcing Catholicism as the one faith of France does it mean that Louie is going to bow down to the Pope after all he is King Louie embraces the concept of Gallic anism which says that the Pope is the spiritual leader of the church but the Pope cannot make decisions in France which affect the French body politic so therefore Louie should be able to have some input the Pope is not going to invade Louie's territory and act as a king inside France now Elken ISM comes from the word Gaul which was the Roman word for France so really this means the French church in some ways similar to the idea of Anglicanism but it still involves the French recognizing the religious authority of the Pope now of course the Pope wasn't too happy about this but then again Louie was a devout Catholic but above all he was king when Louie was alive he said lata Sanwa I am the state when he died his last words were I am leaving you but the state remains forever I'm going away and yes I was a big egomaniac who went war and all that kind of stuff and tried to consolidate my power but I also built a nation and so he says I'm leaving you but the state remains forever I didn't do this just for my ego I also did it for friends stay tuned for another lecture about louis xiv wars and also if you'd like more historical goodness feel free to subscribe to my channel so that i can prepare you for whatever exam you're taking i do some US history as well also be on the lookout for more videos i'll recommend a couple to you in just a bit until next time say I am the state

Channel: Tom Richey

Views: 452,306

Keywords: Louis XIV Of France (Monarch), Louis XIV AP Euro, french absolutism, ap euro absolutism, Absolute Monarchy (Form Of Government), Louis XIV, Tom Richey European History, AP Euro Review, roi Louis XIV, ap european history, louis xiv accomplishments

Id: IWQfb2vtxnA

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2013