LOUIS
372
UUIS
was the arbiter of Europe: she had re-established
peace among the Powers of the North (Sweden, Bran-
denburg, Denmark, and Poland); she protected the
League of the Rhine, and her authority in Germany
was greater than the emperor's. At that period the
power of France, established upon the firmest founda-
tions, was perhaps less imposing, but was assuredly
more solid, than it iDecame during the most glorious
days of Louis XIV's personal government.
The n^emory of those dangers with which the par- liamentary Fronde and the Fronde of the nobles (1648-53) had threatened the power of the Crown per- suaded the young king that he must govern in aoso- lute fashion, reganlless of the still existing provincial relics and local rights. The nobility Ixjcame a court nobility and, the nobles instead of residing on their estates where they were influential, became mere ornaments of the Court. The Parliaments, which had hitherto used their right of registration (droU d^enre- aUiremerd) of edicts to revise, to some extent, the kings decrees, were trained to submission. The whole power of the State, represented in the provinces by intendants at once docile and energetic, was gath- ered up in the hands of the king, who consulted, in his council, certain assist-ants chosen by himself — Colbert, for finance and justice; Louvois, for war; Lionnc, for foreign affairs. Colbert (q. v.) desired that France should rule the sea. He did much to develop French colonial power; but before the end of the reign that power was to enter upon its period of decadence. Coll)ert*s plans, were inaeed, constantly embarrassed by the Continental wars which Louis undertook. No doubt, the king was forced into some of these wars: it was necessary to strengthen the French frontier at certain points. But his lust of fame, the flattery of his courtiers, and his desire to humiliate Europe led him to prefer the glories of war- fare to the wiser and more durable triumphs which a great maritime development would have secured for France. His European policy continued those of Richelieu and of Mazarin in the struggle against the House of Austria, but it differed, too, from the poli- cies of the two cardinals in being a jjolicy of religious creecl, confronting Protestantism in Holland and England.
The war against Spain (1667-68) undertaken to enforce the claim of the queen, Maria Theresa, to the sovereignty of the Low Countries {giterrc de d('vol'Ur- tion)f in which the king in person accomplished the conquest of Flanders and made a militarv promenade in Franche-Comt6; the Dutch War (1672-78), in which Louis distinguished himself by that passage of the Rhine, of which contemporary poets sang by the siege of Besan<^on, the definitive conquest of Franche- Comt^* (1674), and two campaigns in Flanders (1676- 78); the judiciary and police measures by virtue of which, without any declaration of war, he occupied Strasburg (1681), a free and imperial city, as well as several other places on the banks of the Rhine — all these brought Louis XIV to the apogee of his glory, the date of which is commonly assigned as the year 1685. But these very successes, the king's habit of not con- sidering himself bound by treaties, and the pride which led him to commemorate by insulting medals his triumplis over various nations, combined to arouse in Euroi>? a sort of uprising against France which found expression in numerous pamphlets, on the one hand, and, on the otlier, in diplomatic coalitions. The soul of these coalitions was the Protestant William of Orange. The Ix?ague of Augsburg, formerl in 1688 between the emperor, Spain, Holland, and Savoy, set on foot a war during which Louis himself, in 1691 and 1692, made two campaigns in Flanders. In spite of the victories of Luxembourg and Catinat the war was ruinous for Louis XIV, and ended in a peace less
gorious than those which had preceded it (Peace of yswick, 1697), forcing him to restore Lorraine and
all the cities of the empire outside of Alsaoe, and to
recognize William as ICmg of England. Thus, at the
opening of the eighteenth century, Louis stood face
to face with England, a Protestant power, a power
in which insteadf of the monarchy or Divine right
the Parliament held sway, and, lastly, a power al-
ready stronger on the sea than France was — three
circumstances which made the prestige of that nation
all the more galling to the King of France.
In consequence of the testament of Charies II, King of Spain, the Spanish Throne passed from the Halwburgs to the Bourbons. The Duke of Anjou, the king's grandson, became Philip V of Spain. Hence resulted the W^ar of the Spanish Succession, a long and ruinous war, and yet glorious, thanks to the triumphs of Vendome and Villars, though it brought France to the brink of destruction. At one time, in 1712, the king thought of placing himself at the head of his brave nobility, and burying himself beneath the ruins of his throne. The victory of Villara at Denain (1712) saved the country. The Treaties of Utrecht and Ba- den (1713 and 1714) maintained Philip V on the throne of Spain, but gave to the emperor Spain's ancient possessions in Italy, doomed the maritime power of France to destruction, and made a breach m her colonial power by the cession of Newfoumlland and Acadia to England, thus firmly establishing Eng- land in North America at the same time that she was established, at Gibraltar, in the Mediterranean.
The close of nis reign, saddened by these reverses and by financial catastrophes, also brought a series of personal griefs to Louis XIV: the death of the Dauphin (1711), of the Duke of Burgundy, the king's grandson, and the Duchess of Burgundy (1712), of their eldest son (1712), and of his other grandson, the Duke of Berry (1714). He left his throne to Louis XV, then five years of age, the son of the Duke of Burgundy. Thus did all the glories of the reign end in the dangers of a regency. Such as he was, Louis XIV left a great memory in the soul of France. Vol- taire calls the seventeenth century the Age of Louis XIV, Warriors like Turenne, Cond4, Luxembourg, Catinat, Vend6me, and Villars, navigators Hke Du- quesne, Trouville, and Duguay-Trouin, preachers like Bossuet, Boiudaloue, and Massillon, engineers like Vauban, architects like Perrault and Mansart, painters hke Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, sculptors like Puget, writers fike Comeille, Racine, Moli^re, Boileau, La Fontaine, La Bruy^re, F^nelon^ Madame de S^vign6, gave to France a glory by which Louis XIV profited, and the "M6moires" of Saint-Simon, in which the reverse of that glory is often exhibited, have rather enriched the history of the reign than damaged the prestige of the king.
LoriB XIV AND Reugion. — Louis XIV was mucli occupied with rcfigion and rcli^ous Questions. His reign is generally considered as ai\idea into two peri- ods: (1 ) that of libertinage, during which his heart was ruled by Mile de la Vallidre, Madame de Montespan, and other favourites; (2) that of devotion, coincioing with the influence of Madame de Maintenon, the widow of Scarron, who, when Maria Theresa died (31 July, 1683), secretly married the king, and who, for a quart<?r of a centuf\' assisted him in ruling the king- dom. The second of these two p>eriods was also that of the influence of Pi^rc Le Tellier (q. v.). This divi- sion is natural and accounts for certain developments of religious policv; but it must not be exa^eratcd. Even dunng his ix'riod of libertinage, Louis jQV took a jm?- sionate interest in religious questions: and durine his devout period, he never altogether abandoned those Gallican principles which incessantly exposed him to conflicts with Rome. Certain pamphlets, publisheii in the days of the Fronde, opposed to the doctrines of royal absolutism the old theological doctrine of the ori- gin and the rcsixjnsibilities of power. "Le Th^lo- gien Politique" declares that obedience is due only to
