Louis XIV

Louis XIV became king of France in 1643 at the age of four, and reigned for seventy-two years, longer than any other European monarch. As a boy he lived through the Fronde, a series of revolts by nobles and courts, which left him determined to keep power in his own hands. After the death of his chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661, he ruled without a first minister. He took the sun as his emblem and moved his court to the vast palace he built at Versailles, where great nobles were kept busy with ceremony. His minister Colbert built roads, canals, industries and a navy, and Louis supported the writers Molière and Racine and founded academies of science and the arts. He fought a series of costly wars to expand France's borders. In 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had protected Protestants, and some two hundred thousand Huguenots fled the country. He died in 1715, and his great-grandson became Louis XV.

Faith: A Catholic king who revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)