Editing Louis XIV (section)

==Height of power==

===Centralisation of power===
[[File:Charles Le Brun - Louis XIV - WGA12539.jpg|left|thumb|Portrait of Louis{{Nbsp}}XIV (gray pastel on paper by [[Charles Le Brun]], 1667, [[Louvre|Louvre Museum]])]]
By the early 1680s, Louis had greatly augmented French influence in the world. Domestically, he successfully increased the influence of the crown and its authority over the church and aristocracy, thus consolidating absolute monarchy in France.

Louis initially supported traditional [[Gallicanism]], which limited [[Pope|papal]] authority in France, and convened an [[Assembly of the French clergy]] in November 1681. Before its dissolution eight months later, the Assembly had accepted the [[Declaration of the Clergy of France]], which increased royal authority at the expense of papal power. Without royal approval, bishops could not leave France, and appeals could not be made to the pope. Additionally, government officials could not be excommunicated for acts committed in pursuance of their duties. Although the king could not make ecclesiastical law, all papal regulations without royal assent were invalid in France. Unsurprisingly, the Pope repudiated the Declaration.<ref name="CatEn">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Louis XIV |encyclopedia=[[Catholic Encyclopedia]] |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09371a.htm |access-date=19 January 2008 |date=2007 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216230840/https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09371a.htm |archive-date=16 December 2021}}</ref>

[[File:Louis14-Versailles1685.jpg|thumb|Louis receiving the [[Doge of Genoa]] at [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] on 15 May 1685, following the [[Bombardment of Genoa]]. (''Reparation faite à Louis{{Nbsp}}XIV par le Doge de Gênes. 15 mai 1685'' by [[Claude Guy Halle]], Versailles.)]]

By attaching nobles to his court at Versailles, Louis achieved increased control over the French aristocracy. According to historian [[Philip Mansel]], the king turned the palace into:
:an irresistible combination of marriage market, employment agency and entertainment capital of aristocratic Europe, boasting the best theatre, opera, music, gambling, sex and (most important) hunting.<ref>Philip Mansel, ''King of the World: The Life of Louis{{Nbsp}}XIV'' (2020) cited in Tim Blanning, "Solar Power," ''The Wall Street Journal'', 17 October 2020, p. C9.</ref>
Apartments were built to house those willing to pay court to the king.<ref name="Saint-Simon">{{Cite book |last=Saint-Simon |first=Louis de Rouvroy, duc de |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-EM_AAAAYAAJ |title=The Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon on the Reign of Louis XIV. and the Regency |publisher=Chatto and Windus |date=1876 |volume=2 |location=London |pages=363, 365 |translator-last=St. John |translator-first=Bayle |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=13 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230713192807/https://books.google.com/books?id=-EM_AAAAYAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, the pensions and privileges necessary to live in a style appropriate to their rank were only possible by waiting constantly on Louis.<ref name=fordham/> For this purpose, an elaborate court ritual was created wherein the king became the centre of attention and was observed throughout the day by the public. With his excellent memory, Louis could then see who attended him at court and who was absent, facilitating the subsequent distribution of favours and positions. Another tool Louis used to control his nobility was censorship, which often involved the opening of letters to discern their author's opinion of the government and king.<ref name=Saint-Simon/> Moreover, by entertaining, impressing, and domesticating them with extravagant luxury and other distractions, Louis not only cultivated public opinion of him, but he also ensured the aristocracy remained under his scrutiny.

Louis's extravagance at Versailles extended far beyond the scope of elaborate court rituals. He took delivery of an [[African elephant]] as a gift from the king of Portugal.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |date=2009 |title=Elephant |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project |publisher=Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library |url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.944/--elephant?rgn=main;view=fulltext |access-date=1 April 2015 |last=Daubenton |first=Louis-Jean-Marie |orig-date=1755 |translator-first=Malcolm |translator-last=Eden}}</ref> He encouraged leading nobles to live at Versailles. This, along with the prohibition of private armies, prevented them from passing time on their own estates and in their regional power bases, from which they historically waged local wars and plotted resistance to royal authority. Louis thus compelled and seduced the old military aristocracy (the "nobility of the sword") into becoming his ceremonial courtiers, further weakening their power. In their place, he raised commoners or the more recently ennobled bureaucratic aristocracy (the "nobility of the robe"). He judged that royal authority thrived more surely by filling high executive and administrative positions with these men because they could be more easily dismissed than nobles of ancient lineage and entrenched influence. It is believed that Louis's policies were rooted in his experiences during the ''Fronde'', when men of high birth readily took up the rebel cause against their king, who was actually the kinsman of some. This victory over the nobility may thus have ensured the end of major civil wars in France until the French Revolution about a century later.

===France as the pivot of warfare===
[[File:De-La-Torre-Jean-Du-Mont--Mémoires MG 0958.tif|thumb|Louis{{Nbsp}}XIV]]

Under Louis, France was the leading European power, and most wars pivoted around its aggressiveness. No European state exceeded it in population, and no one could match its wealth, central location, and very strong professional army. It had largely avoided the devastation of the Thirty Years' War. Its weaknesses included an inefficient financial system that was hard-pressed to pay for its military adventures, and the tendency of most other powers to gang up against it.

During Louis's reign, France fought three major wars: the [[Franco-Dutch War]], the [[Nine Years' War]], and the [[War of the Spanish Succession]]. There were also two lesser conflicts: the [[War of Devolution]] and the [[War of the Reunions]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lynn|1999|p=46.}}</ref> The wars were very expensive but defined Louis{{Nbsp}}XIV's foreign policy, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled "by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique", Louis sensed that war was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime, he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military.{{Sfn|Nathan|1993|p=633}} By 1695, France retained much of its dominance but had lost control of the seas to England and Holland, and most countries, both Protestant and Catholic, were in alliance against it. [[Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban]], France's leading military strategist, warned Louis in 1689 that a hostile "Alliance" was too powerful at sea. He recommended that France fight back by licensing French merchant ships to privateer and seize enemy merchant ships while avoiding its navies:
:France has its declared enemies Germany and all the states that it embraces; Spain with all its dependencies in Europe, Asia, Africa and America; the Duke of Savoy [in Italy], England, Scotland, Ireland, and all their colonies in the East and West Indies; and Holland with all its possessions in the four corners of the world where it has great establishments. France has ... undeclared enemies, indirectly hostile, hostile, and envious of its greatness, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, Venice, Genoa, and part of the Swiss Confederation, all of which states secretly aid France's enemies by the troops that they hire to them, the money they lend them and by protecting and covering their trade.<ref>Quoted in {{Harvnb|Symcox|1974|pp=236–237}}</ref>

Vauban was pessimistic about France's so-called friends and allies:
:For lukewarm, useless, or impotent friends, France has the Pope, who is indifferent; the King of England [James{{Nbsp}}II] expelled from his country; the Grand Duke of Tuscany; the Dukes of Mantua, Modena, and Parma [all in Italy]; and the other faction of the Swiss. Some of these are sunk in the softness that comes of years of peace, the others are cool in their affections....The English and Dutch are the main pillars of the Alliance; they support it by making war against us in concert with the other powers, and they keep it going by means of the money that they pay every year to... Allies.... We must therefore fall back on privateering as the method of conducting war which is most feasible, simple, cheap, and safe, and which will cost least to the state, the more so since any losses will not be felt by the King, who risks virtually nothing....It will enrich the country, train many good officers for the King, and in a short time force his enemies to sue for peace.<ref>Quoted in {{Harvnb|Symcox|1974|pp=237, 242}}</ref>