Louis XIV

‘By the grace of God’– the curious life of the Sun King

The ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV is the first, chronologically speaking, of three larger-than-life rulers who shaped French history in the modern era. Like Napoleon and Charles de Gaulle, he created a well of glory and power which the French national imagination is still drawing on to this day. But who was this man who set the tone for a whole era, who established absolutism, who put on a show of pomp and splendour (in the form of his palace at Versailles) the like of which had never been seen before, who cruelly persecuted the Huguenots and who terrorised Europe with wars of unprecedented brutality? In his last book, Johannes Willms paints a fascinating portrait of the man whose words ‘L’état c’est moi’ have become immortal.

‘He was no longer himself, but always performed this persona, the “Sun King”.’ -Johannes Willms

*Insights into life at court under Louis XIV

*The Palace of Versailles – a symbol of his ostentatiousness

*To increase his fame, the Sun King waged thirty wars – by the end, France was bankrupt

*By a major expert on French history – Johannes Willms’s last book