As France approached the turn of the 18th century, it entered a golden age where science, culture,
and arts flourished in the numerous institutions that Louis XIV had created such as the Academy of
Sciences, the Academy of Music, the Academy of Architecture,
the great Royal Opera of Versailles and above all, la Comédie Française
whose members to this day are renowned for their acting abilities. One of its founding members was
Molière, the famous French playwright who had the King himself among his many fans.
So much so that Louis took part in a few of his plays and when Molière suddenly died of illness
while performing a play, ironically named “Le Malade Imaginaire”, Louis XIV ordered
his body buried in a church in times where all actors were de facto excommunicated.
This period also marked further expansion of the Palais de Versailles,
building, among other things, perhaps its most famous room, the hall of mirrors. The reason
behind this was simply that Louis XIV’s court had become increasingly bigger as he had made
it mandatory for nobles to spend a part of the year in Versailles and in any case, one had to
if they hoped to impress the King and receive a prestigious job and the pension that went with it.
To that end, nobles spent frivolously to take part in the king’s numerous parties and follow
the latest fashion trends. The goal was to distinguish yourself,
get the attention and so, hopefully, the favors of the King, even if that meant getting into debt,
including the State which now spent 11% of its budget on the court alone,
the second highest expense of the government. As you can imagine, welfare was far behind.
From dust to dawn, court life followed the King’s tight schedule as they were forced to take part in
tedious rituals, including watching the king shave, dress, eat his breakfast or go to bed.
Apparently, this was such a big deal that nobles paid large sums to have the privilege
to take part in those ceremonies, with a keen interest, I presume, for the dressing part.
The goal of this affair was to constantly remind the nobles that they were there to serve the King,
and nothing else. As such, instead of plotting together, nobles plotted against each other
and Versailles soon gained a reputation as a place full of jealousy,
entitlement, and backstabbing. Something Louis XIV was all too aware of as he commented,
“Every time I give a vacant position, I make a hundred disgruntled and one ungrateful.”
But while these nobles bickered between each other and ruined themselves trying to keep the King’s
favors, Louis actively worked on consolidating his power by dismantling theirs. Giving regional
oversight of finances, commerce and justice to Intendants at the expense of local nobles. These
intendants were often lesser members of the nobility and haute-bourgeoisie who were loyal
to the King as their power and prominence came from his will alone. And soon enough,
much like the planets revolved around the Sun, France now revolved around the Sun King.
But with this absolutism came a staunch authoritarian shift as Louis XIV used
ample spies on his courtiers, firmly cracked down on dissidents and freedom of speech,
with the newly appointed royal censors banning hundreds of books, read all the mail of the
members of the court, and was not shy in imprisoning anyone who disagreed with him,
even on trivial matters, using a Lettre de Cachet, a letter that allowed the king to imprison anyone
without trial and reason. As a result, the infamous Bastille prison gained its reputation
as the symbol of French despotism as over 2,000 individuals were imprisoned throughout his reign,
or 43 yearly. A stark contrast to the 7 remaining prisoners when the Bastille was stormed in 1789.
Perhaps the most famous prisoner of the Bastille is the Man in the Iron Mask. A prisoner who
remained in custody for 34 years wearing a mask as to hide his identity. To this day, we still
don’t know who he was. Some speculate that it was in fact the King’s twin brother. Some are idiots.
For a long time, the most likely culprit was a certain Eustache Dauger de Cavoye,
but it was later discovered that he had been imprisoned by his family elsewhere. Nevertheless,
his mention allows me to segway to our next story for de Cavoye was involved in one of the greatest
scandals of the Sun King’s reign. A scandal that involves witchcraft, black magic, murders,
prominent members of the French aristocracy and the King’s own mistress - L’Affaire des Poisons!
This Affair started in 1675 when Madame de Brinvilliers was accused of conspiring
with her lover to poison her father and brothers in order to inherit their estates.
Indeed, back then, “inheritance powder” was an euphemism for poison. Having been found guilty,
Brinvilliers was tortured, beheaded and then burnt at the stake.
The trial was heavily sensationalised and as a result, paranoia gripped Versailles as courtiers,
and even the King, now feared that they had also been poisoned.
Thus ensued a crackdown on fortune tellers and alchemists suspected of selling divinations,
séances, aphrodisiacs and the aforementioned inheritance powders. The most famous of which
was “La Voisin”, a midwife who was accused by her own daughter of dealing with multiple
members of the French nobility including none other than the King’s own mistress,
Madame de Montespan! According to her daughter, Montespan, eager to become the King’s mistress,
had asked from her multiple love potions and had even agreed to take part in satanic rituals,
which, supposedly, included infant sacrifices.
In the end, the affair implicated 442 suspects, of which 218 were
jailed, 36 were executed,
including La Voison who was burnt at the stake for witchcraft, and 23
were exiled. Among those exiles was the Countess of Soissons. Her son, Eugène de Savoie,
stayed in France aspiring to become a great general - instead, Louis shunned him based
on his poor physique and his tarnished reputation following his mother’s disgrace.
Resentful, Savoie moved to Austria where he offered his allegiance to the Sun
King’s biggest rival, the Holy Roman Emperor. There, he would become one of the most successful
military commanders of his time and an unabating obstacle to France’s domination of Europe.
But Louis didn’t know that yet, and for the time being, he focused on consolidating his power
through religious persecution. A staunch Catholic and wishing for religious unity in his kingdom,
the Sun King hoped to convert the protestant population of France,
known as the Huguenots. At first, he offered financial incentives if they converted
but as this failed, he soon turned to violent means through his infamous Dragonnades. The
idea was to quarter the biggest assholes in the French army, presumably all from Paris,
with Huguenots families, giving them carte blanche to harass, torture, and steal from them in hopes
that they’ll be so annoyed by that that they’ll renounce their most firmly held spiritual beliefs.
Instead, the Huguenot simply left the country for the Netherlands, Germany, England, or even the
Americas. This trend was only exacerbated in 1685 when Louis signed the Edict de Fountainebleau,
which revoked the Edict de Nantes that his grandfather, Henry IV, had signed to promote
religious freedom and tolerance in France. That edict had put an end to the French religious
wars that had killed 3 million people. Soon after, Louis XIV gloated that of the 900,000
Protestants that resided in France, only a couple of thousands now remained.
Having dealt with his protestant issue, Louis XIV focused once more on war,
but after a few decades of reign, he was no longer the brash warrior he once was
and instead was preoccupied with consolidating France’s natural borders. To that end,
he ordered the construction of La Ceinture de Fer, a series of forts on the Northern border of France
much like an unfortunate line that would become relevant a few centuries later. The forts were
built by the great French engineer, Vauban, who loved building impenetrable forts just as much
as he loved to find ways to destroy them. This is probably why, while at first his forts seem
cool if not pleasant to behold, they soon became atrocities burdened by the architectural
equivalent of cancerous masses. The yearly cost of these fortifications? 8% of the state budget.
Louis also built up his navy with France’s production of war ships skyrocketing from 9 per
year to over 110, including the construction of such beasts of the seas as Foudroyante
or Terrible, who both held over 100 guns. And finally, his army reached disproportionate sizes,
making France the largest land army in Europe with 400,000 professional soldiers,
twice the size of France’s army today and almost six times what he had inherited from his father.
Needless to say, this was all very expensive and by the end
of the 17th century, France’s military budget was 50% of the state’s budget.
The Sun King would soon put this spending to good use as he entered the biggest conflict of his life
just yet. Hoping to consolidate his Northern border and take advantage of Austria’s constant
struggle with the Ottomans to gain influence on the German states while taking the lands that
he believed his wife was entitled to through her inheritance, Louis XIV prepared for war
once more. In the summer of 1687, the Sun King crossed the Rhine into the Palatinate. He was
hoping for a swift war where he could intimidate a few defenseless German princes into submission.
Instead, France soon faced the rest of Europe as La Grande Alliance retaliated against French
hegemony, turning this conflict into a long war of attrition that would span across the globe.
The nine years war.