Was Louis XIV the ideal and epitome of an absolute monarch?

>>577158
Oh yes. He's almost a caricature of absolutism.

>>577165
But couldn't you say without the nobles support he would have been powerless?

>>577183
He got the nobles support by crushing their rebellion and treating them like dogs after that...

"L'etat, cést moi"

yeah, i think he fits nicely.

>>577230
Ahhh the Frondes. People should really read up on that part of French History. The reaction to it led inexorably to the French Revolution.

>>577260
>l'etat
>cést

>>577283
It's also something he never actually said.

Is the actual definition of the word Absolutism even obtainable? or is it just something monarchs strive to achieve but never fully accomplished?

>>577400
I always thought of Absolutism as when the leader becomes the absolute nexus of all decision making in the government, although this seems harder to support with the increase of bureaucracy.

>>577388
can you prove it? I recall he said this after the death of mazarin when asked about his government.

>>577260
"Je suis la revolution."

I honestly have no idea if this is how he said it, or how you even say that in Modern West German, but it is still about the coolest quote in history.

It really sums up Uncle Ozzie's view of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Absolute monarchy was the thesis that the revolution was the antithesis to. Through the clashing of the old and new ideas of absolute monarchy versus radical republicanism, it produced a synthesis. Napoleon stepped up to be that synthesis; the protector of the core ideas of the revolution, but an absolute monarch himself. And with that quote, "I am the revolution," Napoleon referenced the quote from the absolute monarch while intertwining it with the revolution itself.

>>577421
He's supposed to have said that to the members of the parliament of Paris, but it's not in its archives.

>>577158
Yes and no.

Many people believe by "Absolute Monarchy" that it is a King who own all power and can abuse it in any way that he sees fit.
If that's what you think by "Absolute Monarchy", then Louis XIV was far, far from it.

The idea of the King being more powerful than his vassals isn't new in France. It started with the capetians, and mostly took off with the War of Religion who wrecked France's political stability. The Third Estate (The bourgeois and rich commoners, mostly) desperatly wanted order and sought to justify one single man being able to stop the petty warfare between lords.

Louis XIV's genius was to turn theses lords into courtisans. Those who lived in their manors far from Paris had no prestige, no rewards, no honor. And those who lived in Versailles were in a golden cage, watched and controlled.

Still, you have to take some things in account :
-The King being the absolute monarch isn't good for the King. The King's life isn't a good life. Louis XIV was always watched, by everyone. When he woke up, when he washed, when he dressed, when he ate, he was always followed by nobles who just assisted like men on a theater. When his wife was giving birth, people were watching.
The King is the State, but this was never imagined to make the King powerful. It was imagined to make the State powerful.

-Louis XIV managed to ruin feudalism. He still had some problems with the pesty courts of justice (Parliaments) and he still had to do the Catholic Bishops' biddings.

>>577771
What do you think about the revisonist view that Louis simply worked within the already existing societal constraints and simply deployed the traditional powers of the french monarchy?

>>577797
Is it really revisionist? It's basically Tocqueville

>>577797
How is that revisionist? French absolute monarchy dates back to Philip Augustus. It's just taught in French schools as having been invented by Louis XIV in order to focus on one bad guy and attribute the Revolution to him (and because the Middle Ages get skipped entirely).

>>577158
He wasn't an absolute monarch he was he didn't have the tax making power

>>578198
Yes he did, it's rather that the nobility had the privilege of not being taxed. And those privileges were guaranteed by the Parliament, so you're correct in saying there was some limitation on his power. Still it wasn't much of a limitation, seeing as his successor Louis XV simply abolished the Parliament.

Unfortunately for himself though, Louis XVI then reinstated it.

>>578141
Are you French? Because you're wrong on both accounts there; LXIV is revered pretty much, while Middle Ages get some treatment (even if minor compared to the 18th). It might have changed in more modern PC curriculums though.

>>578233
What I learned about Louis XIV was Ancien Régime society (the three orders and oppression of the commoners by clergy and nobility), that he neutered the nobility by bringing them to Versailles but only so that he could have absolute power and be worshiped like a god-king, that he was a warmonger, that he was extremely unfaithful to his wife, that he supported the slave trade, and that he revoked the edict of Nantes (we had never learned about the edict of Nantes being proclaimed in the first place btw) and hunted down and persecuted Protestants.

And the only thing we learned about France in the Middle Ages was the Crusades (Christian soldiers massacring their way through mosques with blood up to their knees etc).

>>578141
>absolute monarchy dates back to Augustus

Yeah, not exactly.

Augustus was the first french King to be revered by all lords as King of France, and had a lot of power, but he was far from "absolute". Just to give you an idea, his son, Louis the Lion, had problems during his reconquest of the south : The knights of Champagne left him immediatly after 40 days of campaign as feudal traditions demanded.

The modern term of "Absolute Monarchy", as in one man representing the state, started during the XVIIth Century, with Richelieu and Louis XIII, and really took off with the Sun-King who managed to finally impose order on France.

>>578423
Absolute monarchy doesn't mean everyone is suddenly perfectly loyal. It just means the king is not bound by laws (from Latin absolvere).

And the king most certainly represented the state since he was its entire embodiment. The French state was only built as an extension of the king in the first place.

>>577158
Is there a reason why people don't talk about this guy much? He's one of my favorite historical figures and he's always shafted by his dimwitted successors or that Robespierre fag.

>>579976
It's not politically expedient for a gifted Catholic monarch of the modern era to be praised in the Anglo-Saxon world.

>>579976
It's hard for the modern man to empathize with him. He can gain the empathy of the french for being (probably) the greatest king of the country, and he does. But french nationalism is also very related with the revolution and the republic, making Louis a less perfect symbol.

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>>577158
You better back the fuck up, louie.

>>579989

Do French people even like him? I always got the impression that the secular society that came into being after the revolution and Napoleon kind of shat all over the idea of kings being cool.

I think Louis XIV was an absolute ruler, But he never pushed too far and most of what he did was in fact for the good of the people, what do you think would have happend if he had used his power for more personal gains? do you think the nobles would have rebelled against him?

Or was he just intelligent enough to know when to push his power and when not too.

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He is a true gentleman.

>>580198
I'm not French, but why wouldn't they? He expanded the borders of the kingdom, developed the country to an almost unprecedented degree since ancient times, was a huge patron of the arts and his name is synonymous with an entire political culture and an entire century in Europe. At the 17th century England was a clusterfuck, Germany was a minor power at best, Russia wasn't a thing in Europe yet; yet France had a constant and stable rule (peaceful too if you consider that war was not fought on French soil) under the Sun King. Hell, even commies ought to like him because muh state.

>>580452
> Germany was a minor power at best

Germany didn't exist as a unified state until 1871.

>>580198
>>580452
Well I'm french and I don't like him. I don't like napoleon either.
On ne peut régner innocemment.

>>580249
I think its greatest strenght was that unlike Napoleon he understood diplomacy. Look at the 9 years war, France is undefeated on every front, yet Louis XIV is able to understand he had to let go some of his conquests to secure the peace.

>>580198
He was the guy who make Molière famous and Versaille so he is see mostly positively.

>>580919
Napoleon reads like someone trying to play Europa Universalis for the first time.

"I won the war, that means I get to annex them right?"

>>581033
then moves a deathstack on a supply limit of 30 in the middle russian winter and loses half of his army before doing anything

Some people ITT don't manage to make the difference between absolute monarchy and autocracy.

Absolute monarchy refers to a monarchic regime whose rulers have concentrated all the power in its hand, taken from nobility and, to a lesser extent, from the clergy. That didn't mean the king is turned into an arbitrary despot. He was still bound to respect the Old Customs of the Realm.
In this regard, Louis XIV is a pretty perfect exemple of absolute monarchy.

Now if you want autocracy just take a look at Ivan IV of Russia. That's what autocracy is, everyone is a slave to the tsar(the gosoudar, master), actual slaves and nobility alike. He was not bound to any rules and crushed any sign of opposition violently.

>>577771
>The idea of the King being more powerful than his vassals isn't new in France. It started with the capetians
Not with the first Capetians. The first one to get some independance from his vassals was Louis VI, because he was the first one who ever was able to maintain a small professionnal army that made him less dependant on the ost.

>>580198
Who would like such a fucker ? He ruined France doing wars in every directions (even the famous soldiers' song "Auprès de ma blonde" speaks about giving away all the symbols of monarchy in order to retrieve a husband caught prisoner by the Dutch).
He revived the religious quarrels, and the subsequent exile of protestants impoverished France of many great artisans and savants.
He supported esclavagism in all its cruelty.
Even from a personnal point of view, he was a dick : remember of Nicolas Fouquet.
The end of his life ran under the sign of strenghtening biggotry and exhaustion of artistic forms, pompous and vain.

Well, for the anecdote, even today the most frequent styles of furniture (notwithstanding the effects of trends) go back to Louis XIII, but the Louis XIV style is omitted. Decadent.

It's not surprising that right after his death, the whole kingdom sprung in joy, with the Régence. After 72 years of a vainglorious reign following only the politics of grandeur, the State was ruined, the country bloodless. Vauban, a good source, wrote that next to 10 % of the people was reduced to mendicity and that the other parts weren't better, excepted a tiny minority. We have conserved popular songs of joy celebrating the death of the king. Following some stories, it was a true fair all alongside the road between Paris and Saint-Denis !