0:00

This is the BBC.

0:24

In

0:30

response, Louis was reported to have said to his remaining ministers,

0:45

So began the personal rule of Louis XIV, which

0:47

lasted a further 54 years until

0:49

his death in 1715. From

0:52

his newly built palace at Versailles, Louis

0:54

projected an image of himself as the centre

0:56

around which all of France revolved. He

0:59

became known as the Sun King. He

1:01

centralised party to the extent he was able

1:03

to say, L'etoir, c'est moi,

1:06

I am the state. Under

1:08

his rule, France became the leading diplomatic,

1:11

military and cultural power in Europe. Will

1:13

me to discuss Louis XIV, our Katrina

1:15

Seth, Marshall Poch, Professor of French Literature

1:18

at the University of Oxford, Guy Rowlands,

1:20

Professor of Early Modern History at the University of St

1:22

Andrews, and Penny Roberts, Professor

1:25

of Early Modern History at the University

1:27

of Warwick. Penny,

1:30

can you just tell us briefly something about his early

1:32

days?

1:33

Yes, so he's born in 1638. He's

1:36

the third Bourbon ruler of France,

1:39

so a relatively new dynasty. He

1:42

comes to the throne when he's only four years old,

1:45

and therefore, understanding

1:47

Louis' outlook is very

1:49

much that he was born to be king. He probably

1:52

doesn't remember a time when he wasn't king. And

1:55

therefore, his preparation is very

1:57

much around the importance of his

1:59

days. establishing that dynasty.

2:02

He was thought of as being a gift from God when

2:04

he was born, why was that? That's right,

2:06

he was known as Giordani,

2:07

the gift from God, and that was because he appeared

2:10

rather late in his

2:13

father's reign, and again this is about the importance

2:16

of dynasty, the importance of that dynastic succession.

2:18

So when he's born in 1638 towards

2:21

the end of, obviously, Louis the 13th's

2:23

reign, although they weren't aware of it then, but his

2:25

parents both in their 30s, so he was

2:27

long awaited, very well received,

2:30

a brother arrived soon afterwards to

2:32

shore up the dynasty further, but that was clearly very

2:35

crucial, and again a reflection of the

2:37

importance of establishing dynasty, as we'll

2:39

see later in the reign as well. How steady

2:41

was the family that he was born

2:43

into at that time, and what

2:45

did they make of him in the sense of,

2:47

no, how did they figure him out, but what did they decide to

2:50

do with him?

2:51

Well it was very much about, as

2:54

with all rulers, as with all kings,

2:56

as I say, establishing the dynasty, establishing

2:59

their health, establishing

3:01

the education, preparing

3:03

him for what would be to come, so

3:06

it was about ensuring that he had the right kind

3:08

of education, the right kind of surroundings, the

3:10

right kind of company, a mixture of

3:13

sort of classical education, but also

3:16

arts, so as we know later

3:18

in Louis' reign he is

3:20

a very accomplished dancer, for instance, the

3:22

importance of the culture of the court,

3:25

the fact that he was born into a divine right monarchy,

3:27

so the emphasis on that, which again is very

3:30

important in terms of cementing the place

3:32

of the Bourbons within

3:33

Europe more generally. So

3:36

the idea of being a divine right monarch,

3:38

well he's only four so he doesn't know what

3:40

he is with a bit of luck, but does

3:42

that begin to grow with him as he grows, that

3:45

is who you are?

3:45

Yes, I mean that's extremely well established

3:48

over a long period of time, and I think it's no coincidence

3:51

that he is called Louis, again

3:53

sort of with harking back to the French

3:55

monarchy, Saint Louis, and

3:57

the idea of that sort of divine. relationship

4:00

between the king and god that

4:02

isn't something to which all rulers can aspire

4:05

so it's well established.

4:06

Thank you. Guy Rolle has only inherited

4:09

the throne in 1643. What was France's position

4:11

in Europe?

4:14

Well France is in the middle of the most monumental

4:17

war in 1643. It had been at war

4:19

for eight years. Europe itself

4:21

had been raging with conflict since 1618 that's

4:23

a quarter of a century. So

4:26

what you have there's the situation at

4:28

the start of a royal minority, a regency

4:30

government, taking control of France

4:33

in the middle of the most raging war. It's

4:36

a war that has gone badly for France in the first

4:38

few years. It is now starting to go much

4:40

much better but France is now in

4:42

a race between bankruptcy

4:45

and achieving an acceptable peace both

4:47

in the Holy Roman Empire, Germany and

4:49

with Spain.

4:50

So can you just go a little

4:52

further into the civil wars that were going on? It's

4:55

easier to go along civil wars all over France at

4:57

the time. For several years France

4:59

is fairly peaceful internally but the tensions

5:02

come to the surface and in 1648 France

5:05

basically goes bankrupt and at that

5:07

point the Supreme Law Court of

5:09

France, the Paris Parliament decides

5:11

that it wants to intervene to alter the

5:13

way in which government is undertaken. That precipitates

5:16

a first civil war which is more of a standoff

5:19

around Paris between the Royal Government and

5:22

the leaders of civic society,

5:23

the Supreme Law Court. Basically

5:26

the Crown loses that particular battle.

5:29

In early 1649 they're forced into a humiliating

5:32

treaty with their own subject in which

5:34

they're forced to dismantle certain

5:36

aspects of the Royal Government and that

5:39

creates a power vacuum throughout much of

5:41

France.

5:42

That in turn causes a second set of civil

5:45

wars in various provinces

5:47

out there a long long way from Paris where

5:49

various grandees are trying to fill the

5:51

power vacuum. So what

5:54

effect does this have on his education? It's

5:56

very very disruptive. In January 1649

5:58

the...

5:59

royal family basically has to flee

6:02

Paris and it flees to the the palace

6:04

of Saint-Germain on Lait not too far to the

6:06

west of Paris nowadays but for

6:08

sanctuary and for safety. Do they scheme

6:11

to get back in it? How do they get back in power?

6:13

Very much. I mean you have to remember that

6:15

the person who's in charge of Louis' upbringing

6:18

is his mother. His mother is highly dependent

6:21

upon a man called Jules Mazarin, Cardinal

6:23

Mazarin, who is the chief minister at

6:25

this time. And Mazarin becomes

6:28

a hate figure but he is also

6:29

one of the greatest schemas in French

6:32

history. He has to get out of Paris because

6:34

they tried to mob him, don't they? Yes,

6:36

he's at very serious risk of losing his life

6:38

on numerous occasions. In fact he has to go into exile

6:41

on at least two occasions. The royal

6:43

family is in a situation where it's lost

6:45

its capital and it is having to mobilise

6:48

support out in the provinces, particularly

6:50

those provinces surrounding Paris. What

6:52

luck does it have? The luck it has is

6:54

that the grandees are so split amongst

6:57

themselves that the strongest

7:00

group is going to win, the strongest group being

7:02

the royal family itself and particularly

7:04

the immediate royal family. So

7:07

various princes of the blood go into

7:09

rebellion at different times and

7:11

this precipitates a really major civil

7:13

war from 1651 to 53 which devastates whole

7:17

swathes of central France, very much

7:19

on the same sort of scale that you got in Ireland in the

7:21

1640s which was pretty bad

7:24

until things settled down after Louis' coronation.

7:27

So he doesn't inherit a happy

7:29

place, a happy landscape does he Louis? No,

7:33

he doesn't inherit a happy landscape but

7:35

one of the things which the conflict does is

7:38

allow for a change in the way Paris

7:40

is exercised in France and

7:42

it's very much as a result of the front

7:45

that Louis will turn into what has been

7:47

called an absolute monarch. And

7:49

we need to say a little bit about what an absolute monarch

7:52

is, I think, and possibly to qualify

7:54

that term. An absolute monarch

7:56

is someone who is answerable only to himself

7:59

or in a way to the world. the case of the kings of France

8:01

answerable to God. And

8:04

that's very much the way the French monarchy

8:06

is presented after Louis

8:08

has been crowned in the Cathedral in

8:10

France. When French kings are crowned,

8:13

it's referred

8:17

to not as a coronation but as a sacre,

8:20

so a consecration, because

8:22

the most holy part of the ceremony is of course

8:24

the anointing and the anointing which

8:26

takes place thanks to holy oil which

8:29

it is said was sent down

8:29

from heaven by the Holy Spirit. So

8:32

Louis really does have

8:35

in his mind but also in the eyes of

8:37

those around him a direct

8:39

link to God. He is God's lieutenant

8:42

on earth. He takes this seriously

8:43

for the rest of his life. Louis

8:46

takes this seriously for the rest of his life. Do people around

8:48

him take it as seriously? People around him

8:50

take it seriously and another

8:52

important part of the coronation ceremony is

8:55

the symbolic union with France.

8:58

A ring is put on the king's finger

9:01

in order to unite him to France and

9:03

that is how he becomes this sort of he

9:06

is one with France, he is

9:08

France and in that respect his exercise

9:10

of power is seen by him but

9:12

also overall

9:13

generally as being

9:16

the expression of what France needs

9:18

and wants. Do we know what this 15

9:20

year old thought about this? What

9:23

we know is

9:25

not so much what he thought about it

9:28

but that there will be some disquiet

9:30

in various circles

9:33

over Louis' exercise

9:35

of power and that what

9:38

is presented as seamless and flawless

9:40

absolute power is in fact

9:43

moderated by not so

9:45

much by checks and balances that would be in a

9:47

constitutional monarchy but by the

9:49

fact that there are a number of privileges which remain

9:52

and a lot of these privileges are very long-standing

9:54

privileges.

9:55

Well corporations for instance will have privileges.

9:58

The Church has the privilege. of pointing

10:01

its own courts and using

10:03

canon law and so on. So there are cases

10:05

in which actually the king can be

10:08

overruled de facto. He's also an absolute

10:10

monarch, but not- In fact,

10:13

is he overruled? Well, he's

10:15

overruled in the sense that there are parallel circuits

10:18

of power in which he cannot intervene.

10:21

There's also, if we think of modern autocrats,

10:23

one of the great questions of modern autocrats is naming

10:25

their successor. That is a field in which

10:27

Louis has absolutely no power.

10:30

The fundamental laws of the realm, the

10:32

Louis-Fond-Dame-Mortale, decree that

10:35

his first son, or failing that, the first

10:37

son of his first son, et cetera, will

10:39

be his successor. He couldn't decide

10:42

in the way that some autocrats do to appoint

10:44

a favorite general or a nephew

10:47

and so on. So there are, in reality, some

10:49

limits to his absolute power. The reflection

10:52

at this stage is that France,

10:54

towards the end of his reign, became so powerful and

10:57

important, and he had a very bedraggled and uneasy

10:59

beginning in his hands, didn't it?

11:01

That's absolutely true, and France becomes

11:03

important, but France, very

11:06

much like, you know, we all love France, France

11:09

looks more important, possibly, than it really is.

11:11

The appearance is incredibly impressive,

11:14

but throughout,

11:15

there are, for instance, problems of

11:17

near bankruptcy, which, you know,

11:19

drag on through the whole of the 18th

11:22

century and contribute to the revolution

11:24

at the end of the 18th century. Thank

11:26

you. Penny Roberts, what did he have to

11:28

contend

11:28

with? We've talked about him being, and

11:31

you've qualified the idea of him being

11:33

an absent monarch. What constraints were

11:35

there?

11:35

Well, in theory, that's a great idea

11:38

for, actually, that everything has to be approved by the king,

11:40

but France is an extremely large country,

11:42

of course, with an extremely large population, very

11:45

difficult to govern. So everything has to

11:47

be delegated in terms of the king's authority.

11:50

Many things need to be negotiated. So

11:52

the reality of absolute power,

11:54

and actually, consultation is part of the understanding

11:57

of what an absolute ruler should do, supposed

12:00

to negotiate and consult with your people,

12:03

and there are various mechanisms for doing this,

12:06

and so there's a careful balance to

12:08

be shown between the

12:11

theory of Louis' power

12:13

and how it's expressed, how it's

12:15

demonstrated, how it's recognised,

12:18

and how people look at him as the fount

12:20

of power, and the way that

12:22

it needs to be exercised through his ministers,

12:25

through his officials like the Antondall, for instance,

12:27

in the provinces. So there are

12:29

various layers of restriction,

12:32

if you like, in terms of how he operates,

12:34

in terms of the polymer we mentioned already,

12:37

the law courts, the nobility of course

12:39

around Louis, and there's quite

12:42

a strong debate about the power

12:44

of the nobility during

12:46

his period, but it's actually about establishing

12:49

Louis as the focus of power, and

12:51

therefore, even though he may need to delegate

12:53

and consult, and actually, you know, for

12:55

instance, the provincial estates that vote taxation

12:57

and so on, that there has to be negotiation,

13:00

there may be carefully modified

13:02

threats from the Crown that if you don't do this, we're

13:04

going to remove your privileges, which is really

13:06

a revenue-raising exercise to some

13:08

degree, and it's kind of understood in both ways. So

13:11

it's about getting your power recognised as

13:13

much as an idea of exercising power

13:15

in such an untrammeled way that there are no checks

13:18

and balances upon it.

13:19

So from what you've said, from what Katrina said, I'm

13:21

turning to you now, it

13:23

was a heck of a task, it's been said it's a very

13:26

big country for the time, very big country,

13:29

and he's reaching out to all these people. How

13:31

does he manage it? With great difficulty,

13:34

but with enormous energy, he is absolutely

13:36

blessed with huge quantities of energy

13:38

for most of his life. I think

13:41

what Louis does is very

13:44

shrewdly make people realise that

13:46

he is the one who's the ultimate arbiter,

13:49

but he's not necessarily the one who's going to always

13:51

take all the decisions. And

13:53

so what he... What's the difference? Well,

13:56

ultimately, he is quite willing to allow

13:58

his ministers, his secretaries of state... to take all

14:00

sorts of decisions about small

14:02

details of logistics, of

14:06

judicial reform and that sort of thing. Though

14:08

ultimately he is always the one who will sign

14:10

off on the final product. If

14:12

it's for example a new codification of law.

14:15

I mean we're living in an era at this time when

14:17

people are becoming more and more obsessed with sovereignty.

14:20

And what they're also doing is they're breaking down

14:22

sovereignty into a whole series of sovereign

14:25

powers. And what really counts

14:27

is who ultimately has the

14:29

right to

14:29

exercise the sovereign powers. When you're saying sovereign

14:32

powers, can you give us two or three examples of that? Yes,

14:34

absolutely I can. In the case of

14:36

Louis XIV France the most important would

14:38

be the making of legislation.

14:40

The second most important. Is that in the parlement?

14:43

No, initially it's done in the King's Council. And

14:45

then it's sent to the parlement, the law courts for

14:47

registration. And he has quite

14:50

a battle in the 1660s to make them

14:52

simply register these laws as

14:54

he wants them registered. He

14:56

wins. He wins. It takes a decade and a half

14:59

for the message to get through but ultimately he

15:01

wins. But Louis' enormous energy

15:03

is something that nobody could have predicted in 1661. Everybody

15:07

expects that eventually he'll get bored,

15:10

he'll want to go off hunting and with his mistresses

15:12

much more. And sooner or later somebody else

15:14

will become Chief Minister and it doesn't

15:17

happen.

15:17

And that's entirely to do with his energy.

15:20

It is indeed.

15:21

And by that time he's

15:25

very well educated, well capable of taking

15:27

care of himself in debates with these people who

15:30

is telling to do things. It

15:32

strikes me as someone who's read a lot

15:34

of his correspondence as being extraordinarily well

15:36

informed. He makes sure that he's

15:38

very well informed and one of the ways he does

15:41

this is by not just listening to

15:43

his ministers and taking good counsel from

15:45

them. He also talks to lots of his

15:47

courtiers. He's very friendly with

15:50

lots of his grandees who

15:51

inhabit his court. And

15:53

so he always keeps multiple channels

15:56

of access open to him at all

15:58

times so he knows.

15:59

what is going on. Now let's turn

16:02

to the business of Versailles, Katrina.

16:05

Tell us what effect it had, that's it.

16:07

Versailles wasn't actually built by Louis XIV.

16:09

Versailles was built exactly 400 years ago

16:12

by his father and it's a hunting lodge initially.

16:15

It's, I think, a tribute to Louis'

16:18

vision that what was initially

16:20

simply a hunting lodge near forests

16:22

which were known to have, you know, very good prospects

16:25

for anyone who wanted to hunt, that it could become

16:27

the seat of power. And what

16:29

Louis does is he

16:31

creates this palace and

16:33

gardens which have a

16:35

complete decorative program which

16:38

is there to showcase his greatness. So

16:41

there is an iconographic program

16:44

which shows Apollo, the god

16:46

with whom he's often identified, the sun,

16:48

we can talk about Louis the Sun King, and

16:51

which is all there to show his greatness,

16:53

to magnify his greatness. He also

16:56

uses it as his palace and decides

16:58

to settle there because it allows

17:00

him to

17:01

move power and to concentrate it around

17:03

himself. Until then he'd lived

17:05

in Paris essentially and in

17:07

Paris in the Louvre which had been redecorated

17:10

and improved but what

17:12

he does is he says since I am the

17:14

real seat of power whoever

17:16

is interested in power must follow

17:19

me so where I am there is power.

17:21

And what that does is it splits the

17:24

political power, the state which

17:26

he represents, from for instance the economic

17:28

power of the merchants and so on who are

17:31

still in Paris. And

17:33

what Louis does is he makes

17:35

it impossible for there to be another front in a

17:37

sense in that he calls

17:39

upon any member of the nobility

17:42

who is interested in becoming

17:44

important to be near him.

17:47

So that means that all these noblemen

17:49

who were sort of you know feudal

17:52

or post-feudal lords in their provinces

17:54

actually have to rush up to Versailles

17:57

and Versailles becomes this huge

17:59

palace in which there are more and more rooms built

18:02

because there are more and more people who want to live

18:05

there because you want to be there at

18:07

all times. You want to be there as the king

18:09

goes to church, for instance. You want

18:11

to be able to stop him on the way past. You

18:13

want to be able to talk to him, to catch his eye

18:16

when he's looking for someone to

18:18

reward. And a lot of the

18:20

noblemen will accept absolutely

18:22

appalling conditions. You know, they'll be housed in

18:25

tiny little rooms, you know, above

18:27

the kitchens where it smells bad, with

18:29

no fireplace or no window.

18:32

And they'll do it why? Because

18:34

it is a way of progressing in society, of

18:36

hoping that you'll be given some form

18:39

of reward so you'll be allowed the command of a regiment,

18:41

for instance, or

18:42

so on. But that's a very important point, because in fact

18:44

people are not locked up in the gilded cage of

18:46

Versailles. They're there for certain months

18:48

of the year and people go on a sort of rotational

18:51

basis with service at court. So

18:53

the rest of the year they may be partly on their estates,

18:56

or they may actually be commanding those very regiments

18:58

that you've just described.

18:59

But he gave his nobles very menial

19:02

jobs, very menial

19:04

jobs, from his waking up to his

19:06

going to bed. Can you describe a few of those, please,

19:08

Denny?

19:09

The idea of being in

19:12

attendance to Louis's every

19:14

need meant that the

19:16

closer you were to the king and more to

19:18

those intimate moments of getting up, going

19:20

to bed, eating and doing other things. The

19:23

Asian public. And this was a

19:25

very important moment, of course, because if you were close

19:28

to the king at these moments, you had his ear, you

19:30

were able to benefit from

19:32

his patronage, you were able to make

19:35

use of him in that sense. So

19:37

I think it is a two way

19:39

understanding, but of course you're also at risk of

19:42

having his displeasure if you don't please

19:44

him in the way that's occurring for it. But it rained

19:47

my mind, there was a man who got a title because he held

19:49

the nightshirt. A really

19:50

menial servant should not go anywhere near

19:52

the king. The only people that should go

19:54

anywhere near the king's body are those people

19:56

of a very, very high status indeed.

19:59

Not because it's...

19:59

just you can trust them but

20:02

simply because that is the way the great chain

20:04

of being at this time actually works.

20:06

And I think part of the demeaning

20:08

of the nobility is the fact that this attracts

20:11

a great deal of satire about

20:13

them carrying out these menial tasks.

20:15

So there's a figure La Buieux who writes the

20:17

Cachaté about about Louis XIV's

20:20

court and he's talking about the courtiers

20:22

basically being slaves to the king. For

20:25

instance when Louis gets up

20:27

in the morning and has to get dressed

20:29

there will be a chain according to in

20:32

order for him to get his his nightshirt off

20:34

and put his shirt on there will be a chain of courtiers

20:36

by order of precedence who will be

20:38

passing the nightshirt along and the highest

20:41

ranking one in the room will

20:43

be the one who will hand him the night shirt. And so

20:45

for instance if suddenly

20:48

his brother were to walk in then the nightshirt

20:50

will be passed to his brother and his brother will pass

20:52

it to him. So the idea is that every

20:56

morning and the same

20:58

is true you know for his nightshirt but also for

21:01

his you know the candlestick he will have by

21:03

his bed and so on. So

21:05

it's very much

21:06

about showing people to

21:09

be important and what Louis does

21:11

very successfully is he uses

21:13

the vanity of his courtiers and

21:16

he markets that in a sense. It's that's

21:18

the way he trades on their vanity.

21:21

They all want they all aspire to be

21:23

recognized by being allowed to

21:25

do a to perform a task like that.

21:28

These are all exalted status

21:30

markers basically. Well nothing exalted

21:32

by passing a shirt along the line isn't it? Well

21:34

there is if depending upon who it's

21:37

to essentially. Is

21:38

the person next to God in the sense and important?

21:41

But we should remember this is very much part

21:44

of a world view in which hierarchy

21:47

is all important and your position

21:50

on that ladder of a hierarchy is

21:52

reflected in all sorts of behavior at all

21:55

sorts of times. Why did they put

21:57

up with it? The nobles? It's ingrained

21:59

in the

21:59

for hundreds of years. The thing that

22:02

you've got to get right is make sure that you're not offending

22:04

people by getting them to do the wrong thing

22:07

for you at the wrong level. And

22:09

that's what a number of kings had previously done,

22:11

involving favourites and jumped-up

22:14

valets who had been propelled into

22:16

great status at court.

22:18

Louis makes very, very sure that the

22:22

status that people have is internalised

22:24

in his mind so that he doesn't make

22:26

these sorts of mistakes. I don't

22:28

think any other ruler has ever managed to

22:31

retain so much in their minds

22:34

so that he can actually play the game properly

22:36

without offending people.

22:37

And you might be able to marry your daughter to

22:40

a nobleman who's rather higher placed in you because

22:42

you have the ear of the king. And your

22:45

son might be able to be given

22:47

a regiment, which is a prestigious regiment.

22:49

So it's all about making a

22:52

fortune for yourself, but also for your family and

22:54

ensuring that you are as close

22:57

as possible to the seat of

22:58

power. You come to Versailles or you

23:00

don't get this, that or the other.

23:02

Well, let's start with the military power.

23:05

He reformed this. Yes, I mean, it's

23:07

a really ramshackle machine that he inherits

23:09

from Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu at

23:11

the start of his reign. It's constantly breaking

23:13

down. There's enormous amounts of desertion

23:16

because basically they haven't got the

23:19

administrative system working

23:21

effectively. And what Louis does in

23:23

the course of the 1660s and 1670s, he

23:26

does two things. The first thing he does

23:28

is to try and make sure that every officer

23:31

has a commission signed personally

23:33

by the king so that they are much less

23:36

likely to look to the next noble

23:38

in command above them and instead have

23:40

a direct sense of loyalty to the king himself.

23:43

And that is a very good way of stopping whole

23:45

regiments going over into rebellion

23:48

by following rebellious princes of the

23:50

blood. What takes rather longer to

23:52

achieve is the recasting

23:55

of the administrative system. Now

23:56

what we have to remember is that the regiments

23:59

and the companies of the

23:59

Army are effectively franchises.

24:02

Officers are both combat specialists

24:05

and their administrators who run their own

24:07

finances and even inject their own finances

24:09

partly at least into their units.

24:12

And what you have to do is to improve the

24:14

system of pay and allowances

24:17

and career structures so that you will

24:19

be able to sustain this force

24:21

on a much bigger scale than before. And

24:23

this is where his appointment of people who knew

24:25

how to manipulate and collect taxes is very

24:28

important because the tax revenue

24:29

goes up and up. The tax revenue does go up

24:32

and up before it goes down and down in the last 10 to 15

24:34

years of the reign. But

24:36

fundamentally the foundations which are put into

24:38

place by Jean Baptiste Colbert, his finance

24:40

minister in the 1660s and 1670s, carry France through way into

24:45

the 18th century. What Colbert does

24:47

is he equips Louis

24:50

with a financial system that enables

24:53

you to have a standing army in peacetime

24:55

of around 150,000 men.

24:57

That is roughly four to five times

25:00

as much as back in the 1620s. And

25:03

the way you do this is that you are much more assiduous

25:06

at tackling corruption and breakoffs.

25:08

But how does he make them do it?

25:10

I mean they're doing things they didn't do before,

25:12

they're doing things where they're under his thumb,

25:16

they've had civil wars before, they've rebelled before

25:18

and won the rebellion, but they've fallen into line.

25:21

Yes and they've fallen to line as a result of ministers

25:24

incentivising them to behave

25:26

better. These are the finances. This

25:28

is a financial system which is basically

25:31

contracted out to entrepreneurs

25:34

and they take breakoffs. And what you've

25:36

got to try and do is keep the breakoffs to

25:38

a reasonable level. But you also

25:40

have

25:40

to make sure enough money's coming in from the taxpayer

25:43

in the first place. So what Colbert

25:45

does is he rebalances the tax system

25:47

so that the poor peasantry is not quite

25:50

carrying as much as it was before and

25:52

more is being carried by the trade and the commerce

25:55

sector in the form of what you might call early modern

25:57

VAT. Colbert once said

26:00

taxation is the art of plucking

26:02

the goose to get with the least amount

26:04

of hissing and what

26:06

Louis manages to do with Colbert is

26:08

generate a financial system over the course

26:11

of the reign that basically

26:13

sees rebellions and revolts dying out

26:16

because you're starting to force the elites

26:18

to cough up a bit more as well. I

26:21

think

26:21

if we can continue on

26:23

what Colbert does economically

26:25

to make Francis Finances sounder,

26:28

one of the things which I think casts a very long shadow

26:30

is that he develops exports,

26:33

Francis exports, and in particular in the luxury

26:35

sector. Yes, that turns out to be very

26:37

cunning. Why did he get there?

26:39

How did he get there? Well he got there

26:41

because his economic principles were quite

26:43

simple. He lives in a country which

26:46

basically has no gold mines to speak of

26:48

and he needs more gold and so his

26:50

theory was, and it's an accurate one under

26:52

the circumstances, that the only way he could increase

26:55

the gold in the realm was by

26:58

getting it from elsewhere. And how

27:00

could he get gold from elsewhere? Well obviously

27:03

you could hope to you know fight and win

27:05

battles and so on but you could also

27:08

peacefully export goods and

27:10

therefore it was a trade surplus and

27:13

one of the things the French were very good at for

27:15

instance was making tapestries in the Geblan

27:17

or in Beauvoir. These were hugely

27:20

sought after and one of

27:22

the things Golbert and Louis will

27:24

manage to do together is to

27:27

promote such industries. Can

27:29

we switch to another

27:31

big part of his rule,

27:34

the church?

27:35

Yes, the religious history of

27:38

the situation in France for the previous

27:41

hundred years is absolutely crucial to understanding

27:43

Louis's approach to the

27:46

position of religious minorities, particularly the Huguenots,

27:49

who've been very much weakened in the previous 50

27:51

years. So for instance

27:54

they didn't have the noble leadership that

27:56

they'd had before so they were in quite

27:58

a vulnerable position. Nevertheless,

28:00

and I think this goes along with thinking about how Louis

28:03

thought about his power, it was very important

28:06

for him to have a situation

28:08

in which his subjects looked to him as the ultimate authority.

28:10

Did the fact that he called himself a god, a divine

28:13

king, did that help or did they take it seriously

28:16

or what was going on there?

28:17

Well, the Huguenots had always expressed

28:20

loyalty to the divinely appointed ruler,

28:22

indeed Protestants and Catholics, had

28:24

the same belief system with regard

28:27

to the divine right of kings, as we know

28:29

of course the English case. So it's not

28:31

a case of them not having loyalty to the monarchy,

28:34

but of course it can always be portrayed that

28:36

they have alternative sources

28:38

of loyalty and also of course the idea

28:40

that they might align with Protestant powers elsewhere

28:42

in Europe. So there's always, and I think this

28:44

is a driver for many rulers, a

28:46

need to clamp down on religious minorities.

28:49

It's not only the Protestants in fact, but it's actually

28:51

groups within the Catholic Church as well that

28:54

Louis sees as generating an interest

28:56

in separate focuses of authority,

28:59

the Jansenists, the Quietists. Louis

29:01

is a supporter of the Jesuits, he has a Jesuit confessor,

29:04

the Jansenists and the Jesuits are very much at loggerheads. There's

29:06

also his relationship with the Papacy, which

29:08

is, and again this is quite traditional for French

29:11

kings, a bit fraught, because one of the issues

29:13

with the Papacy is that the Crown

29:16

is actually exercising its right

29:17

to bring in revenue from vacant bishoprics,

29:20

which the Papacy does not like. So the Pope

29:22

actually says he's not going to confirm Louis'

29:25

appointments to bishoprics unless he steps back from this. So there

29:27

is a bit of a power struggle there. And

29:30

I think with the Protestants we can't say that we actually won. He

29:33

won in the sense that he managed to get

29:35

them out of France, but France

29:37

as we know, because Britain

29:39

was one of the neighbouring countries which

29:41

benefited greatly from what's

29:44

called the Revocation de l'Édédonant. So

29:46

when

29:47

Louis denounced what

29:50

had been an agreement, an edict

29:53

promulgated by Henri Gattre,

29:55

which tolerated Protestants, and

29:57

the Protestants in France left in the United

29:59

States.

29:59

in their great majority and went to

30:02

Britain, went to Switzerland, went to

30:04

the Low Countries and so on and exported

30:07

their knowledge, their power.

30:09

And as we know, for instance,

30:11

if you walk around spittle fields in London,

30:14

there is incredible Huguenot heritage.

30:17

And economically, it was a disastrous decision

30:20

on Louis' part. Katrina, when did you

30:22

become known as a Sun

30:23

King, generally known as the Sun King? Louis

30:25

is known as the Sun King for much

30:28

of his reign. And it starts really when

30:30

he's born as the association with the Sun

30:32

because a medal is struck and

30:35

the medal is already depicting

30:37

him as a young Apollo. And

30:39

when Louis is 15- The God of the Sun

30:41

and mythology, yes. Apollo, the Sun

30:43

God. When he's 15,

30:46

Louis dances in a court ballet.

30:48

He's a very good dancer. And

30:50

he dances again, the role

30:52

of Apollo. And this will be seen as

30:54

a sort of symbol of

30:56

who he really is. And a number

30:59

of other court events, court

31:01

ballets, but also carousels, the carousel,

31:03

which mirrors the course of the

31:06

Sun etymologically, all

31:08

contribute to him being depicted as

31:11

Apollo and as the Sun King. And Louis

31:13

adopts as one

31:15

of the symbols of his power,

31:18

a Sun with the rays going out

31:20

from it. And it very much exemplifies

31:23

the way in which he sees his personal exercise

31:26

of power.

31:26

And that is not so much a pyramid

31:29

as the monarchy had been depicted

31:31

previously, but as the Sun with him at

31:33

the center and everything coming from

31:36

him and going out from him. It's worth

31:37

pointing out that many of these Sun images actually

31:40

have a face upon them. And that's important because

31:42

people think at this time in terms of the King's

31:45

gaze, which is ubiquitous. Going

31:47

into every corner of the realm, you don't know

31:49

whether the King is in fact paying attention to

31:52

you or watching you. He may well be doing

31:54

so, so you better be on good behavior.

31:56

So this was accepted by the population

31:58

as part of the way he ruled.

31:59

Yes, because the alternative has

32:02

been a hundred years of civil war feuding,

32:05

vengeance blood feuds, and it's

32:08

been a disaster for much of France.

32:10

Penny, Penny Roberts, his

32:13

official wife was Maria

32:15

Theresa of Spain. When

32:18

she died, he married one of his mistresses,

32:21

Fonsoise D'Ogbina, Madame de

32:23

Bateau.

32:24

Why did he choose? There'd been lots of mistresses.

32:27

Why did she choose her? She'd been a governor,

32:29

shouldn't she? Yes. A very strong

32:31

tradition, again, of a royal mistress

32:33

at the French court who has their own household,

32:36

which is extremely powerful. And this idea

32:38

we have of the mistress Antitre, so

32:41

it's the title of mistress at the court. Louis

32:43

had had a number of quite

32:45

well-established mistresses, and

32:48

Fonsoise D'Ogbina, Madame de

32:50

Manteau, as she becomes known, is

32:53

the last, if you like, because she

32:55

establishes herself as the queen,

32:58

not the queen, but the wife of the king. So

33:01

he's married to Maria Theresa in 1660, and

33:03

it is until

33:05

she dies in 1683 that

33:07

he's able to marry Madame de Manteau,

33:09

which is something unusual. Normally,

33:12

royal mistresses are established for a number of years, a number

33:14

of children are born, and

33:16

indeed, Louis goes on to legitimize some

33:18

of those illegitimate children, for dynastic

33:21

reasons, to make sure to shore

33:23

up the sort of situation

33:24

in terms of the monarchy. Yes, there

33:27

were a lot of illegitimate children who he

33:29

did legitimize, and it's

33:30

not too much bothered about it. Well,

33:33

I think people are bothered about it, but it's allowed

33:35

to happen, let's put it that way. I think it helps. Madame

33:37

de Montespo, who had been the mistress

33:40

who produced, in fact, seven children for

33:42

Louis, I think four of whom reached adulthood. And

33:45

Madame de Manteau was actually the governess of

33:48

those children, so that's how Louis gets to know her. And

33:51

the fact that the illegitimate children

33:54

are made legitimate is not so much, I think,

33:56

to shore up the dynasty, but it's to

33:58

put an extra layer of the

34:00

between the king and the

34:02

nobility. I don't think he ever imagines

34:04

that these children are ever going to rule. He

34:06

thinks he'll have a legitimate descendants but

34:09

the possibility is there and in a sense the threat

34:11

is there and de facto you

34:13

know the same happens nowadays

34:16

when there is a royal prince born in

34:18

the UK you'll have newspapers which will say ah

34:20

you know so where is X now in the

34:22

order of precedence and what this does is just knock

34:25

everybody down by a certain

34:27

number of pegs and it's another good way of saying

34:29

I can do

34:30

exactly what I want even though these

34:32

children are illegitimate in the eyes

34:34

of the church which is very important and therefore

34:37

theoretically could not have

34:39

the same rights as legitimate children.

34:41

But I think we have to remember that in the last years

34:43

of the reign there's a hecatomb of the

34:45

royal family they're just dying off and actually

34:48

in 1714 when the Duke Dumaine and the Comte

34:50

de Toulouse are written into the line of

34:52

succession there is a real concern

34:54

that it might well fall to one of their descendants

34:57

in due course after all eight or

34:59

nine hundred years earlier this entire

35:01

royal line had started with an illegitimate

35:03

man

35:04

so it is quite possible that it could happen

35:06

again I think the position of the illegitimate

35:09

children is helped greatly by these two men

35:11

Maine and Toulouse being extremely effective

35:13

administrators that Louis uses the

35:16

Comte de Toulouse becomes the grand admiral of France

35:18

and is one of the co-organizers of the Navy

35:21

and the Duke Dumaine becomes the

35:23

Colonel General of the Swiss forces in French service

35:26

vitally important mercenaries and

35:28

he also becomes the grandmaster of the artillery

35:30

and when you consider that stamped

35:32

on every single one of Louis's canon are the words

35:35

the last argument of the king I think

35:37

this sends out a very strong message as to how important

35:40

these illegitimate children actually are. Penne?

35:42

Yes and of course

35:43

he did have a legitimate

35:45

descendant there was the grand dauphin Louis also

35:48

grandsons and great-grandsons

35:52

and but the worst possible outcome for Louis

35:54

as Guy has mentioned is the fact that his his

35:56

line

35:57

dies before him. His son

35:59

dies as Guy does.

35:59

dies, then the son of his

36:02

son dies in a very

36:04

short space of time, in a matter of months in 1711,

36:08

1712, and so it lands on his great grandson

36:11

who again is a miner. Again we

36:13

have a situation in which a regency has to be established

36:15

and there's a danger of instability within

36:17

the monarchy. That's the worst possible outcome for

36:19

Louis, especially after such a long reign when he

36:21

thought you know he could establish. Because

36:24

by the time,

36:24

we just saw him right for one second here, by

36:26

the time we were going into his reign

36:28

and when he did this, he did that, he built

36:31

up France to be more powerful in a way

36:33

that it had not say never been, one doesn't,

36:35

I don't know that, but it was much more, much

36:37

more powerful than it had been when he took on the throne.

36:39

Yes, I mean France becomes

36:42

the most important power in Europe,

36:44

the most dominant power in Europe, which of course means

36:46

that it has many enemies as well, but

36:48

that's really, yes, I mean Louis really achieves what

36:50

he's setting out to do. Is

36:52

it basically to do with his direction

36:54

of his advisors and his determination to get

36:56

what he wanted?

36:57

I think that's certainly part of it and certainly

36:59

part of that is in the importance of appointing good advisors.

37:02

At the same time, very much lining

37:04

their own pockets, so again for ministers it's a great

37:06

position to be in.

37:07

Yeah, we call the ministers as they did at the

37:09

time, but we have to culturally think of them really

37:11

as the King's servants, the King's

37:14

administrators of his estate

37:16

in many ways. And what do you do with a good servant?

37:19

You reward a good servant. So

37:22

we mentioned earlier that people end

37:24

up marrying their daughters after dukes

37:26

and peers. Well several of the ministers are

37:29

allowed by Louis to marry their

37:31

daughters after dukes and peers, so

37:33

Louis is building up these ministers

37:36

at the same time as seeking their advice.

37:37

Guy, you've discovered

37:39

evidence that he lied to his own ambassadors. How

37:42

did he get away with that? Well, he gets

37:44

away with it because the ambassador is in Constantinople,

37:47

Istanbul, and believes every word

37:49

he's being told. I mean, they say

37:51

that, you know, a diplomat is an honest

37:53

man or woman sent abroad to lie for their

37:55

country. Well, you're much better at lying for your

37:57

country if you believe that you're telling the truth.

37:59

And so diplomats

38:03

abroad have very limited amounts

38:05

of information coming their way about

38:08

other parts of Europe and so they

38:10

are basically being told what

38:13

the king wants them to know from the hub

38:15

of Versailles.

38:16

Kachenna, what's your cultural

38:18

legacy?

38:19

He really is, I think, a man

38:21

who is genuinely fond of the arts and in that

38:23

respect Apollo the Sun God

38:26

who is also the God of the Arts is

38:28

a very good model

38:30

to use, to embody

38:33

in some ways his qualities. And

38:35

one of the aspects of Louis

38:38

Queter's legacy in the

38:41

arts, which is still I think very important

38:43

today, is the Comédie Française. If we just

38:45

take one example, there are quarrels

38:47

amongst the troops, the theatre

38:49

troops in Paris and

38:51

what does Louis do? He creates

38:53

a single troop and that becomes the

38:56

Déâtre Française, which is the current Comédie

38:58

Française. He loves the theatre, he

39:00

protects musicians too,

39:02

he likes music very much, he

39:05

organises court music, there's music for the army,

39:08

music for public ceremonies, music for the

39:10

church. And we know for instance...

39:12

He's particularly fond of Mollier and Racine.

39:14

He's fond of Racine and Mollier,

39:17

amongst composers he's fond of Lully

39:20

and de la Londe, for instance de la Londe writes

39:23

the Saint-Foniepole, the Soupy du Roi, so the music

39:25

specifically for the king's dinners.

39:27

And there's one of them which we know is of

39:30

the Saint-Fonie, the one the king particularly

39:32

likes, so he's actually expressing an opinion, showing

39:35

his taste and he's very much I think a

39:37

man of culture.

39:38

I think between the 1640s and 1670s

39:40

there's an enormous programme going on

39:42

to basically wrestle the mantle

39:45

of sort of civilisation core of

39:47

Europe from Italy and

39:49

to bring it to France, to make France the real

39:51

cultural hub of Europe. And

39:54

you know this... He succeeds. Yes

39:56

he does, very much if you just look at the taste

39:58

of the 18th century.

39:59

And if you look at the way in which, for example, the French

40:02

language becomes the international language of diplomacy,

40:04

partly through the ubiquity

40:06

of French diplomats in the 17th and 18th centuries, but

40:09

partly also because of the beauty

40:11

of the language, as it's seen at the time. English

40:14

and German are seen as barbaric languages

40:16

until well into the 19th century.

40:18

And culture is an extremely important projection

40:20

of power, both for internal

40:23

consumption and external consumption. So when

40:25

those come to the people, come to the court

40:27

from, you know, the ambassadors that we were talking about

40:29

as well, from other places, Louis' court

40:31

becomes the model for other

40:33

rulers to follow. Are we coming to the

40:35

end of our time now? But can

40:37

you each tell us what is political?

40:40

What is overall legacy has been? Should

40:42

we start with you, Katrina?

40:44

I think his overall legacy is

40:46

one which casts a very long shadow and it's the centralization

40:49

of power, which we tend to associate

40:52

with the Jacobins with much later regime.

40:55

But I think Louis is the one who really starts

40:57

concentrating power

40:58

and centralizing power. And France

41:00

still operates that way nowadays. More

41:03

immediately, I think, for the 18th century, Louis

41:05

XIV's legacy is a terrible one

41:08

for his successors. It is the hardest

41:10

political act in history to follow. And

41:13

neither of the men. Why? Because as

41:16

I said, it involves the amount of energy

41:18

and the devotion to

41:20

hoovering up material about

41:22

your courtiers, about your realm that that

41:25

neither of his two successors really seem

41:27

to have the same degree of aptitude

41:28

for. Péline?

41:30

Well, I think Louis establishes a really

41:32

important model for rulers to

41:34

follow and he exemplifies in the

41:36

end what majesty is seen to be. And we still,

41:39

in a sense, interpreted him in that way. So his

41:41

legacy is perfect in that

41:43

way. However, arguably, of

41:46

course, the foundations for all

41:48

that seem to be wrong with the Ancien regime,

41:51

as others come to see it, is

41:53

laid during his rule. Part

41:55

of the sort of basis, obviously,

41:58

of the cracking within the system.

43:47

of

44:00

empire, this is a way that these sorts of things

44:02

can be done. So he's, again, it's

44:05

probably a reflection of his energy

44:07

and his interest, I think, his real curiosity

44:10

about the world that he wants to sort of, but

44:13

also because of the need to expand

44:15

economically and

44:17

in order to compete as if you're going to establish yourself

44:19

as the most important sort of power

44:21

in your life. I know you answered this, but I wouldn't mind asking

44:23

it again. I'm still puzzled by how

44:26

much taxation he could

44:28

wring out of his subjects, how much

44:31

more

44:31

than it ever happened before on a different scale

44:34

altogether. It is a bit puzzling. Yeah. I mean,

44:36

we don't have enough of the financial records to be absolutely

44:38

sure of this. What we

44:40

do know is that Jean Baptiste Colbert

44:43

dismantles the networks

44:45

of financiers that his predecessor, Nicolas

44:48

Fouquet, had run, which had been basically

44:51

the money had just leaked everywhere in

44:53

that system. And he keeps a

44:55

smaller group of financiers under

44:57

tighter control than ever before. The

45:00

auditing system is more

45:01

effective. So it's not so much that

45:04

more taxation is being collected. It's

45:06

just that less of it's getting stuck

45:09

to sticky fingers on route before

45:11

it gets to the king's coffers. And

45:14

when it does get to the king's coffers, they also

45:16

have better protocols by the 1680s to

45:18

make sure that it's spent more effectively

45:20

than before. Well,

45:21

this is very important as well. I mentioned the

45:23

size of the population of France, something like 20

45:25

million in this period as compared

45:28

to

45:29

Spain is something like nine, I think

45:31

England, perhaps three. So

45:33

really, the sheer scale

45:36

of the taxation base. I think I should have put that in 20

45:38

million

45:38

in France, three in England, by the 90s. It's about seven or eight in

45:40

Great Britain as a whole, including the North American

45:42

colonies. But it's a third of the size

45:45

of France. And yet, for

45:47

all Louis' improvement of his fiscal system

45:49

during this period, I mean, Britain outstrips

45:52

him with a much smaller population

45:54

by the 1700s. And the reason

45:57

is because it's got effectively, parliamentary

45:59

sanctions. for taxation and more importantly

46:02

parliamentary sanction for credit and for

46:05

safeguarding credit instruments in

46:07

the way that France is still considered a bit of an arbitrary

46:09

country you can never quite guarantee you're gonna

46:11

get your money back.

46:12

I mean I know things have moved on but isn't

46:14

it the case also that the nobility in

46:16

France are not involving themselves in commerce

46:18

to the same extent as elsewhere I know by

46:21

the end of the reign they're being given greater

46:23

sort of you know approval

46:25

to do so but they're still being held back

46:28

and that's true in Spain to some extent as well but that's always

46:30

said to be one of the things is that they're not as

46:32

involved in commerce as they could be because of the idea

46:34

of derogation where it derogates

46:36

from your status as a noble.

46:38

And to the producer Luke. You'd

46:41

like a cup of tea? That would be very nice.

46:43

Happy minute one would be very nice. Happy minute if there's one available.

46:45

Thank you. Hello

46:47

I'm Jeremy Bowe in the BBC's

46:49

international editor. For nearly 40 years

46:52

I've been reporting from some of the most complex

46:55

and dangerous places in the world.

46:57

In my new 10-part series Frontlines

47:00

of Journalism I'm taking you to some of

47:02

the most difficult stories I've had

47:04

to cover. Six mortar rounds landed

47:06

in or around the graveyard. Get

47:09

a bit emotional about actually. To look at the obstacles

47:12

that get in the way of the truth and how journalists

47:14

like me navigate around them.

47:16

It is never definitive. We can have this argument.

47:19

Journalists tend to argue. Every word that

47:21

comes out of your mouth is a form of opinion.

47:23

If the world saw the

47:25

world would react.