Foreign policies of louis xiv biography

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Louis XIV, king of France: Foreign Policy

Louis strove vigorously for supremacy in foreign affairs. His marriage (1660) to the Spanish princess Marie Thérèse served as a pretext for the War of Devolution (1667–68), which netted him part of Flanders, although the Dutch then moved against him with the Triple Alliance of 1668. Relations with the Dutch were exacerbated by commercial rivalry and in 1672 Louis, determined to crush Holland, began the third of the Dutch Wars, which depleted his treasury.

For the next ten years the king limited his policies to diplomacy. He set up “chambers of reunion” to unearth legal grounds for claims on a number of cities, which Louis promptly annexed. Fear of Louis's rapacity resulted in a European coalition (see Augsburg, League of; Grand Alliance, War of the), which confronted him when he attacked the Holy Roman Empire in 1688. This war ended with the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), through which Louis lost minor territories. Louis's last war, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), left France in debt and greatly weakened militarily; nevertheless, Louis's grandson retained the Spanish throne.

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Louis XIV (1638-1715)

Louis XIV, c.1701 ©Louis XIV, the 'Sun King', was king of France from 1643 to 1715 and widely held to be the greatest monarch of his age.

Louis was born on 5 September 1638 at St Germain-en-Laye. He became king at the age of four on the death of his father, Louis XIII. While Louis was a child, his mother, Anne of Austria, served as regent, assisted by Louis XIII's chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin.

Louis's early years were marked by a series of rebellions against his mother and Mazarin, which were known as the 'Fronde'. These created in him a lifelong fear of rebellion, and a dislike of Paris, prompting him to spend more and more time in Versailles, southwest of Paris. In 1660, he married Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain.

When Mazarin died in 1661, the 23-year-old Louis decided to rule without a chief minister. He regarded himself as an absolute monarch, with his power coming directly from God. He carefully cultivated his image and took the sun as his emblem. Between 1661 and 1689, he built a magnificent palace at Versailles and moved his government there from Paris in 1682.

In the early part of his reign, Louis worked with his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to tighten central control over the country, reviving the use o

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