The Influence Of King Louis XIV

Louis XIV was arguably the most influential king in the history of France, constructing a new modern system. The achievements of his reign such as making France the cultural capital of Europe cannot be ignored (Judge I). Louis’s inheritance of absolutism and his successes in developing an absolute monarchy had been the objective of French kings before him, but his newly powerful government and state-building policy was undeniably comprehensive (Church IX). He established many reforms, such as changing the country’s economic system, though after decades of war, France was left in a financial crisis (Rowlands 239). Thus, it is important to take a look at the reign of Louis XIV, because his reign indisputably made an extensive impact on world

Despite the latter, Louis XIV undoubtedly was able to effectively solidify France as an absolutist state and played a crucial role in molding the world today (Lewis 3). Unlike his predecessors, Louis was able to centralize the government and society, exercising his power in an innovative way, and there are two foundations of the way he did this. One is the symbolic projection of the power, focusing on aspects such as courtly life, rituals, and his patronage of the arts, and the other more conventional way being the power he used to build up the political and economic atmospheres, and the structures of the government. Collectively, this combination of the symbolic and structural exercise of power made France the model example of absolutism and marked the pinnacle of French power; yet, there is still a sense of limitations to his power, as there is this question of myth or reality, and if Louis XIV’s reality was not as romantic as it is made out to be. Louis XIV summoned the construction of the Palace of Versailles, which became the prime institution of cultural and political activity in Europe. Housing around three thousand people and the home of both the French government and royal court, it became a symbol of Louis XIV’s absolutist political gains, holding total power over the state and the culture

His government was the first government in Europe that presented itself as a power sure of its position and built to be definitive and progressive, and he maintained personal control over foreign affairs, regarding foreign policy as the essence of his function as a king (Hatton 3). Louis XIV brought upon the first modern army in reforming the French army, bringing France further into the modern age. This period of flourishing for France also witnessed aggressive wars, which Louis XIV took for purposes of international prestige, military glory, and the extension of his frontiers (Church IX). Though, his desire for more territory put France through impoverishment, with wars such as the War of Spanish Succession, pushing France into debt and slowly inducing the French Revolution (Rowlands