Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Louis XIV: The Absolute Monarch

During the time of the 17th century, a new key term called Absolutism was created. Absolutism is a political theory holding that all power should be vested in one ruler/monarch or dictators. Therefore, an absolute monarch is a ruler who governs alone and is not controlled by laws or constitution. Absolutist monarchs consider themselves to be the “Divine Right of Kings” which meant that they were only answerable by God and could be judged by no one but God. An ideal example of an absolute monarch of that time period is Louis XIV who crowned king of France in 1643. There are many key points that show why he was considered an important absolute leader.
Louis XIV was widely known as “France’s Sun King” and had the longest reign in European history (1643- 1715). He brought absolute monarchy to its greatest height, established a court at Versailles and fought most of the other European countries in four wars. During this time period, leaders were allowed to rule for 6 years through democratic elections and only dictators (rulers with absolute power) were able to rule for such a long time. Louis XIV had complete power and dictatorship which is one reason why he was considered an absolute monarch.
The second reason why Louis XIV was considered an absolute monarch was because he was in charge of decision making.  At the age of twenty three, he entrusted the government of his affairs to the Late Cardinal and governed the secretaries and ministers of state. He clearly stated: “You [secretaries and ministers of state] will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them. I request and order you to seal no orders except by my command.” They had to obey his orders, advice him, follow his commandments and favor no one but him. This gave the government less democratic freedom because Louis XIV had complete power over them and everyone within the government and that’s why he was such a successful leader.
Louis XIV was able to weaken the nobility of his ministers by getting rid of the high and wealthy nobles and replacing them with nobles that came from new aristocratic families. Nicholas Fouquet, the superintendent of finances, began to show off his enormous wealth as well as luxury and ended up in imprisonment by Louis XIV. Louis XIV also made sure that the local government was increasingly placed under removable civil servants. Louis XIV feared that the high nobilities would overpower him any time and that’s why he relied on the new judicial nobilities because he knew they had no chance of seizing his power. This strategy was a great way for Louis XIV to establish royal power and authority in the provinces.
             By centralizing his power, Louis XIV was able to limit the legislative power which caused the parliament to lose their traditional rights.  The parliament weakened because Louis XIV banned them from creating laws as he started to reform the judicial structure and criminal procedures (1667-1669) by himself.  This shows that he was truly an absolute, dominating ruler.
            Louis XIV created a bureaucracy, which was an organization with administrators and non-elective government officials that were assigned fixed rules and tasks. The ministers could not make their own decisions but could only follow directions of the king. This also led to a more efficient way of taxation and the bureaucracy was one of the major keys to his huge accomplishments.
            With the abundant amount of money Louis XIV had, he glorified his monarchy by using arts and design. Louis XIV ordered paintings that showed his wealth and luxury. He also had extravagance sculptures showing how high and special he was. Finally, he ordered the building of the Versailles Palace. Louis XIV brought in the finest architectures and transformed the place (which was originally a hunting lodge) to a magnificent, luxurious palace with a fairy tale park around it. The palace of Versailles became one of the most classical and fashionable palace within Europe. Although this was a huge accomplishment in France, it took about 40,000 workers to build it. He was impatient and wanted the palace to be done as soon as possible, which meant that they would have to work all day and night. Louis XIV used sculptures, buildings and painting to show off his power and wealth.
Louis XIV also fought in the continental wars that were later called “War of Devolution”. Louis conquered Spanish territories claiming that his wife was to inherit them anyway rather than her half-brother, Charles II who inherited the Spanish throne. More wars were fought later on which expanded France borders even though the size of France was big enough. The purpose of the wars was to demonstrate how independent and powerful he was and to send out a strong image to everyone.
 A major aspect of Louis XIV’s life that strongly expresses freedom was his personality.  He was arrogant man with a large ego and also believed that his symbol/representation was a Greek god. Louis XIV didn’t like being told what to do and considered himself the “Sun King” since everything revolves around him just as the planets circles the sun. Ever since he took over the crown, he wished to become the most powerful reigning king of France. All these characteristics show that he had a great desire to become powerful and to leave a legacy.
Louis XIV was indeed a prefect epitome of an absolute monarch. He was in charge of decision making, centralized his power, glorified the monarchy and had total authority over the government. All of this proves that Louis XIV was a powerful, “God-given” dictator and that’s why he’s a great example of an absolute monarch.

10 comments:

  1. 198/200 - This is an excellent answer with almost perfect paragraph structure. Be careful when citing evidence to be clear where you get your information from. For example, where is your evidence that rulers were normally only allowed to rule for six years?

    T - be careful with choice of evidence.

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    Replies
    1. dont diss my manz like that before i give u a dafas

      Delete
    2. what's a dafas plz i need to know :)

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    3. Im tryna find out what the hek a dafas is too ;-;

      Delete
  2. niiiiiiiice haha maybe i WONT fail history now

    jk im screwed

    ReplyDelete