Born in 1638, son of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, an infante of Spain, Louis XIV became king at the age of five on his father’s death. Too young to reign, power was exercised by his mother aided by the cardinal-minister Mazarin, a clever Italian politician and lover of art, who had considerable influence over the prince’s education. This period of the Regency was troubled by a revolt of the Greats and of Parliament, called the Fronde. Louis XIV, who was then about ten, would always remember this. In 1661, on Mazarin’s death, he announced that he would govern alone and removed the princes and high nobility from the royal council to surround himself with ministers that owed everything to him. For all his long reign he worked every day on the affairs of state because he loved what he called his “business of being king”.
From what his contemporaries said about him, we know that he was physically “taller than average” and very imposing due to his natural majestic bearing. Good at all corporeal exercises and an excellent dancer and horseman, he loved the arts, music and shows, which he took part in when young but tired of as he aged. A lover of glory, master of himself up to dissimulation, he was demanding of himself and of others.
In 1661 he married another infante of Spain, the queen Marie-Thérèse, and his descent was assured by the birth of a son, the Dauphin, who in his turn would have three sons. The queen died in 1683 and Louis XIV immediately married the marchioness of Maintenon in secret. He had previously had numerous lovers, among whom Mademoiselle de la Vallière and the marchioness of Montespan, who gave him many children.
On his deathbed, turning to the heir who would succeed him with the name of Louis XV and who was then, like him, only five years old, he reprimanded himself for having loved war too much. When he died in 1715, the kingdom of France was much enlarged but exhausted.