Issues during the Reign of Louis XIV

Louis’s Early Wars

• wanted to secure France’s borders near the Netherlands, Spain, and the Hapsburg Empire

• The Dutch War (1667-1679)Louis took claim to the Spanish Netherlands based on his first wife’s claim to the area. William III of Orange will create an alliance with the HRE and Spain to neutralize Louis XIVminimal territorial adjustments

Louis’s Later Wars

• Nine Years’ War (1689-1697) – Louis went to war with the League of Augsburg (England, Spain, Sweden, Netherlands and major German states) and ended up having his expansion into Germany thwarted

• War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714) – war over who would succeed Charles II to the throne in Spain ends in a bloody stalemate with France able to keep their choice to the throne, Philip V, but loses Gibraltar

Louis’s Repression of Religion

• suppression of the Jansenists – religious order that came from the Roman Catholic Church opposed to the teachings of the Jesuits – during Louis’s reign, both he and the Popes banned Jansenism and forced its followers underground

• revocation of the Edict of Nantes – Huguenots were banned from certain professions, had churches and schools closed, ministers exiles and Protestant children baptized

Economic Policies

• Jean-Baptiste Colbert centralized the French economy by instituting mercantilism– Build up the nation’s supply of gold by exporting

goods to other lands• Colbert organized factories to produce

porcelains and luxury items.• Abolished internal tariffscreated Five Great

Farmslarge, custom-free regions

• French East India Companycreated by Colbert to compete with the Dutch in overseas trading

• Colbert helped turn France into the most powerful country in Europe through internal suppression and overseas expansion

Cultural Policies• The French Academy of Sciences is a learned

society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific researchthe forefront of scientific developments in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

• French Academy of ArtsDuring the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715) France produced some of her greatest works of art. He was a marvelous patron of the arts.

• In 1648 the king assisted the founding of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.

France after Louis XIV

• the Duke of Orleans, regent for five-year old Louis XV makes John Law financial manager of the kingdom

• Law organizes a monopoly on trading privileges in the French colony of Louisiana in North America – the Mississippi Bubble as it was called turns into a financial disaster and Law flees the country

• Parlement is reinstalled and becomes the center for popular resistance to royal authority for most of the century