Louis XIV

Louis XIV by wolf, john. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780575000889.

Although Louis XIV was a vitally important figure in European history, he had found no satisfactory biographer until now. The memoirists, particularly Saint-Simeon, have "fixed" the traditional image of Louis so firmly it is difficult to see him in any other light. John B. Wolf, challenging the myths and biases, has based this important and fascinating biography on Louis own documents his diaries, decrees, and hundreds of the kings letters from the archives at Vincennes (heretofore almost unexploited). He presents the king as he appeared to his ministers, his diplomats, and his soldiers, rather than to the gossips of his court. We see Louis as a king earnestly seeking advice to help him govern wisely. The adulation that surrounded Louis, so often attributed to an egocentric megalomania, appears in a new light, as part of the mystique Louis needed to sustain the powers of his government. Here, too, the traditional picture often based upon Louis deathbed remark, "I have loved war too much," is reinterpreted. Louis did not love war more than other princes of his day, but once engaged in war he found he could not terminate the conflicts because of the frictions of time and space, and the unwillingness of his enemies to disengage on terms he could accept. Professor Wolf focuses on the problems of high politics and warm which intrigued Louis and were his instruments of power. Without ignoring the fact that Louis was also a son, husband, lover, and father -- as well as king -- he gives us a striking new image of Louis as "soldier administrator" and a vivid, accurate picture of the kings impact on the military machine after 1691, his part in the drama of war, and in the emergence of a new Europe.