Louis XIV

Contemporary Review, Sept, 2004

Louis XIV. Anthony Levi. Constable. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii 391 pages. ISBN 1-84119-425-5. This biography of the Sun King follows on the heels of the author's highly praised study of Cardinal Richelieu. It seeks to discover 'what it felt like' to reign as Louis did, 'with the upbringing, power, wealth and prestige he was either given or achieved, over the creation of the culture of seventeenth-century France'.

Of all the Bourbon kings, Louis XIV remains the best known for his long reign (he succeeded in 1643 at the age of five and died in 1715), his extravagances and his building of Versailles. Historians have long debated how bad an effect his rule had on subsequent French history for in many ways his reign was a disaster and he was in himself hardly admirable. On his death he left a country nearing financial collapse, at odds with other European powers and militarily exhausted. His legacy lives on in the contemporary Frenchman's obsession with his country's gloire. How he reconciled his own 'half-belief in the extravagant quasidivine persona created for him' with his failures is one of the major themes of this biography. Behind Louis was contemporary French culture, a visual culture which relied on show. Prof. Levi is therefore really concerned with the 'inner man'--the 'real Louis' in popular parlance. Prof. Levi uses his vast knowledge of seventeenth-century French life to good effect in giving us another stunning biography. Yet the most amazing thing about Louis XIV is that such a man still fascinates: one might say that never has so much been made by so many of so little.