Royal history lessons

Voltaire twenty years to the death of Louis XIV. Fifteen years later, he began preparing the Age of Louis XIV, work to which he dedicated twenty years, with the purpose "to dismiss the multitude of small facts to reveal the extensive and only s' may the spirit that led them. "

So this is a huge undertaking, full of difficulties ("history is in part the story of the opinions of men"), which excites the highest point:

"This huge painting of a beautiful century turns my head."

Son of Louis XIII and great-grandfather Louis XV, Louis XIV was born September 5, 1638 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He died at Versailles on September 1, 1715, after fifty-four years of personal rule, "leaving his death two billion six hundred million of debt. "

Raised in ignorance and idleness ("Mazarin willingly suffered to be given to the king few lights"), he was twenty-three when he took over the government, appearing therefore perfectly anxious to accomplish constantly his king profession ("He imposed the law to work regularly with each of his ministers").

France, which at that time had twenty million inhabitants, will not only make war across Europe but dazzled by the brilliant successes in all areas, giving the Sun King at Versailles "an air of greatness which eclipsed all other courts of Europe. "

If the way religious issues were managed (persecution of the Jansenists and especially Protestants) calls severe criticism, and if the latter years of the reign, bereaved by private troubles and public calamities were almost tragic, Voltaire does not hide his admiration for Louis the Great, in the certainty that the seed "do not pronounce his name without respect and without the idea of ​​a century ever memorable."

With the exception of Descartes, which he refuses the vortices theory and philosophy which he said "almost all wrong" (because "instead of studying nature he wanted to guess"), Voltaire famous generously all great glories of the seventeenth century French, including Eagle of Meaux.

Who vaguely remembers boring history lessons find food for serious revisions in the Age of Louis XIV, written in a beautiful language, yet avoiding to get lost in the tangle of dynastic unions or dwell too much on the battlefields of endless wars.