Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV became King of France at four years old in 1643, but began personal rule only in 1661 after Cardinal Mazarin died. A believer in divine right, he corralled the aristocracy into his new Palace of Versailles to pacify them after the Fronde rebellions of his youth, centralized power, and enforced Catholic uniformity by revoking the Edict of Nantes and effectively destroying the Huguenot community through forced conversion or exile. War defined his foreign policy - the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession - driven by what contemporaries called "a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique." He expanded the French colonial empire, patronized Molière, Racine, Lully, and Le Brun in what became known as the Grand Siècle, founded the French Academy of Sciences, and built the Canal du Midi. He died in 1715, leaving his great-grandson a powerful kingdom drained by debt and decades of continuous fighting.