Louis XIV

The exile reigned.

Hartwell's pine table took its place in front of the fleur-de-lis strewn throne of Louis XIV.

Bouvines and Fontenoy were mentioned as though they had taken place on the preceding day, Austerlitz having become antiquated.

The altar and the throne fraternised majestically.

the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by bayonets, principles slaughtered by cannonades, France undoing by her arms that which she had done by her mind.

In addition to this, hostile leaders sold, soldiers hesitating, cities besieged by millions, no military, perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is surprised and invaded, but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame for some, glory for no one.

Such was this war made by the princes descended from Louis XIV, and conducted by generals who had been under Napoleon.

Its sad fate was to recall neither the Grand War nor grand politics.

But on the other hand, habits change, and Rome, as it is defined by lines drawn at the times of its greatest ascendancy, the city that is, enclosed by the walls of Aurelian, and including all the regiones of Augustus, an enclosure from which there could have been no reason for excluding half or more of its population, could have scarcely contained a million.

It would have packed very comfortably within the circle of the Grand Boulevard of Paris, the Paris that is, of Louis XIV, with a population of five hundred and sixty thousand.

And the Rome of today, were the houses that spread so densely over the once vacant Campus Martius, distributed in the now deserted spaces in the south and east, and the Vatican suburb replaced within the ancient walls, would quite fill the ancient limits, in spite of the fact that the population is under five hundred thousand.

But these are incidental doubts on a very authoritative opinion, and whatever their value, they do not greatly affect the significance of these new great cities, which have arisen all over the world, as if by the operation of a natural law, as the railways have developed.

And after all, the confusions of history, the use of words and titles when their meaning is changed, are so many tokens to remind us of the unity of successive generations and of the impossibility of any one of them building anew without regarding the foundations of their fathers.

All that is needed is to remember that the emperor of later times is a personage whose rights and functions can be profitably compared with those of Henry VIII of England or Louis XIV of France, not with Julius or Constantine, whose successor he professed himself to be.

Take away the rights of the emperor, said a law book of the 15th century in language which would have startled an old Roman legislator, and who can say, this house is mine, this village belongs to me.

But the princes and bishops, the counts and cities, who were glad enough to plead on their own behalf that their lands were held directly from the head of the empire, took care to allow him scarcely any real authority.

Chapter 10, Section 5.

Aims and Character of Richelieu, December 1642 to May 1643.

Unlike Louis XIV and Napoleon, Richelieu counts among those few French statesmen whose fortune mounted with their lives.

It is not difficult to discover the cause.

And I'm talking about trying to enhance the way we look.

I mean, let's go back to the time of Louis XIV, and that's back a few years.

He was considered to be a fancy dresser.

He wore very fancy clothes, but he also introduced the practice of wearing high heels for men because he was only five foot four inches, slightly above five foot four inches tall.

Thanks, Shirley.

Thanks for having me back.

Now, I don't know a lot about Louis XIV, but obviously he was concerned about the way he appeared.

But what we're seeing now, as I said in the intro, is something called looks maxing.

Nel 1780, a meno di un decennio dall'uragano rivoluzionario che avrebbe rovesciato l'Ancien Régime, la reggia di Versailles continuava a rappresentare l'epicentro scenografico del potere monarchico assoluto.

La discesa da una carrozza nobiliare nella vasta cour de marbre non costituiva un semplice arrivo cerimoniale, ma l'ingresso formale all'interno di una gabbia dorata concepita strategicamente da Luigi XIV per addomesticare l'aristocrazia di spada.

Spogliati dei loro feudi militari indipendenti, i pari del Regno erano stati trasformati in cortigiani dipendenti dai favori, dai titoli onorifici e dalle pensioni concesse dal sovrano.

Indossando marsine di velluto ricamato a filo d'oro, calze di seta bianca, scarpe con fibbia di strass e parrucche accuratamente incipriate di farina profumata, i gentiluomini varcavano i monumentali portali dorati incrociando lo sguardo impettito delle guardie svizzere, sfilando lungo le scalinate marmoree per posizionarsi nei saloni d'attesa secondo una gerarchia di precedenze codificata fin nei minimi dettagli gestuali.

They are revolutionists in theory, reactionists in practice.

The words of Louis XIV, I am the state, have been taken up as a motto by the American policeman.

One of the New York papers contains the following account.

In discharging some 70 prisoners in the Jefferson Market Police Court yesterday morning, the magistrate said to the police in charge of the cases, I am amazed that you men should bring these prisoners before me without a shred of evidence on which they can be held.

And France is basically the new superpower in the world at this point.

King Louis XIV, he is bound to start taking over the entire continent.

And he has become, he's also Catholic, and he has just become much more repressive and is persecuting Protestants everywhere.

The Dutch fear this because they have once been attacked by England and France together in the 1670s.

Quote-unquote.

Be that as it may, the man with whom the first speculations in France were connected, one who was a greater master of the art of manipulation than even law, was Samuel Bernard, the well-known financier of Louis XIV.

No wonder, then, that the Billets de Ménéant when they became merely bits of valueless paper, were nicknamed Bernardines.

And as for John Law, his knowledge of the mechanism of the stock exchange had been acquired in Amsterdam.