12.1.1 to 12.1.4

Louis XIV (1643-1715) (born 1638, ruled 1643-1715) inherited this power from his father and carried it further. He was styled the Grand Monarch, and his brilliant court at Versailles became the model and the despair of other less rich and powerful princes, who accepted his theory of absolute monarchy (L'état c'est moi ,"I am the state"). Until 1661 the government was largely in the hands of the wily Italian Cardinal Mazarin. At the cardinal's death Louis declared that he would be his own prime minister. From then on he worked faithfully at his "trade of a king." A passion for fame and the desire to increase French territory in Europe were the leading motives of Louis XIV. He neglected the opportunities to gain an empire in America and India and involved France in wars that ruined the country financially and paved the way for the outbreak of the French Revolution. His first war, fought from 1667 to 1668, was an attempt to enforce flimsy claims to part of the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium). His second (1672-78) was directed against "their High Mightinesses," the States-General of Holland, who had blocked his objective in the first contest. In spite of the great military power of France, the Dutch admiral De Ruyter twice defeated the fleets of the French and their English allies, and Louis XIV failed ingloriously in his attempt to conquer Holland. The third war (1689-97) also was directed chiefly against Holland, whose stadholder had by then become King William III of England. The German province of the Palatinate was terribly wasted, but the Peace of Ryswick brought only slight gains for France. Louis's last and greatest effort was the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13). In this conflict the English duke of Marlborough was the principal leader of the opposing European coalition. The right to seat his grandson Philip V on the throne of Spain was small compensation for the thousands of lives and the millions in treasure that the French king wasted in the struggle.