Louis XIV of France

King of France and of Navarre from 1643 to 1715 (1638-1715)

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Lived 1638–1715, aged 77France

France PoliticiansPolitician

Wikipedia
145 languages
Cross-language footprint
Global rank
#248
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Era
1638–1715
Aged 77
Awards
3
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-07-17

Seventy-two years on the throne — the longest reign of any sovereign monarch in history. He built Versailles, bent the nobility to his will, and made absolutism itself look like architecture.

Biography

About

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 o…

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