Was Louis XIV an Absolute Monarch?

An absolute monarch is a ruler with complete power whose wealth and power has no limit. Most absolute monarchs believed in the Divine Right of Kings, which suggests that god is the one who appointed the king to be the ruler. Therefore it was more sinful for the people not to obey him or his rules. They also believed that only god can judge them. Absolute monarchs are above the law and had a strong military supporting them. 

One of the absolute monarchs would be Louis XIV. He was born on September 5th, 1638, son of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He became king of France in 1643 at the age of 4 because his father died, and started ruling at the age of 23 till 1715. He was also known as the Sun King. This essay will now prove why Louis XIV is an absolute monarch.

Louis XIV was an absolute monarch because he was in charge of all the decisions made within France no matter what they were about. For example, he once said "I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport . . . without my command; to render account to me personally each day and to favor no one." What was meant was that he was in charge of every single detail even signing passports, and no one can do that without the command of the Sun King. Also that everyone was to obey his rules, the decisions that he made were to be followed and no one was to interfere with any of his decisions. They all feared his consequences as he had absolute control.

One of the decisions that were made by Louis XIV was to weaken the nobility. He weakened them by making them less useful and replaced them with new nobles. For example Nicholas Fouquet, who was one of Louis XIV's super intendant of finances, was imprisoned and replaced after he began developing rapidly his wealth and power. "I had no intention of sharing my authority with them." A quote said by Louis XIV in which he meant to point out that he had no intention of giving any of his ministers big roles so they won't take any of his power or control over the country. He also had them living in there Versailles so he had more control over them, which proves that he did not have much trust for them.

In 1667, there were a numerous amount of reforms. The Civil law was reformed, the Criminal Law changed, and a Maritime and a Commercial Code were introduced in early 1670's. He also ignored the Estates General, destroyed its roots and passed the laws to show that his power was way more than that.

Louis XIV created a bureaucracy, which is an organization of non-elected officials of a government or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution. He enabled the servants to have more power than nobles through collecting taxes. The servants were told to be efficient, apolitical, impartial, impersonal, objective, creative and entrepreneurial. They also have been told to follow best practices, maximize results, carry out the public will, promote democratic value, and above all, to be "responsive and responsible".

One of the most known traits about Louis XIV is that he likes to show off his wealth and power and glorifies his monarchy. He glorifies his monarchy through arts like the painting "Louis XIV deviant Maastricht" painted by Pierre Mignard in 1673. He also creates the Versailles palace, hiring the best architect at the time, Louis Le Veu, to construct the building. He picked the worse place to build the Versailles which required a lot of power to get this done. He did not care about nature, which says a lot about his personality and his character.

Another thing that proves that Louis XIV, or the Sun King, was an absolute ruler was that he had a strong army supporting him and fighting numerous countries along France's borders to conquer them in desire of glory and fame, which always was against democracy, but as this essay stated before he passed rules and ignored them with ease. Spain was conquered by the Sun King in 1674 after a war won in 1668.

He had the longest reign in European history, from 1643 to 1715. Which proves that he can rule the country for as long as he wants and no one can stop him or else they will suffer consequences.

Louis XIV's childhood years were tough as he was a neglected child and was cared for by servants, his mother was responsible for that neglect. Which is a reason of why he grew up that way and had such a personality. He is an extremely impatient man, and loved being the center of attention a lot. He thought of himself as a symbol of the sun, as the sun is a star that shines and brings light and smiles to many people. This is how he viewed himself. He also liked showing off very much, whenever he had a party he invited about 3,000 guests including famous artists, ambassadors from all over town, etc. Louis loved and enjoyed the company of women very much, and gets what he wants no matter what the cost is; since he started ruling at a very young age he was used to that and feeling in control all the time. He made some bad decisions as a young adult sometimes, but no one could change his mind or get in his way.

To conclude, yes Louis XIV was an absolute monarch with a rule of 72 years that changed France till this day. He was in charge of all the decisions, and gave the important roles in the bureaucracy to the people of his choice, he passed the law, he conquered countries near France to show off his glory and power. He also had artists paint him paintings to show people that he was sent by god which made it more sinful for people to disobey him.