Biographie Louis XIV. Linternaute.com > Biographie > Louis XIV Louis XIV Né à Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France) le 05/09/1638 ; Mort à Versailles (France) le 01/09/1715 Au cours d’un règne personnel de 54 ans, Louis XIV a su apporter à la France un immense prestige au sein de l’Europe.
Malgré les guerres et les crises financières, il s’est toujours efforcé de protéger et d’enrichir son royaume, tant sur le plan économique, géographique que culturel. Le "Roi-Soleil", grand monarque absolu, laisse le souvenir d’une France rayonnante, comme en témoigne le splendide château de Versailles. Biographie Louis XIV. Louis XIV of France. Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1643 until his death.[1] His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a major country in European history.[2] Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661 after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin.[3] An adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, which advocates the divine origin of monarchical rule, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital.
During Louis's reign, France was the leading European power and it fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession. There were also two lesser conflicts: the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions.