Preindustrial Europe: Science, the Economy, and Political Reorganization 303might be called the first modern army. It was given am-
ple opportunity to prove itself.
In the early years of his reign, Louis’s foreign policy
was aggressive and, in the best French tradition, anti-
Habsburg. His invasion of the Spanish Netherlands in
1667–68 brought him into conflict with the Dutch re-
public, which he tried to destroy in a bitter war that
lasted from 1672 to 1679. Faced with almost certain de-
struction, the Dutch overthrew their government and
made William III of Orange (1650–1702) stadtholder.
Holland saved itself by flooding the countryside, and
William’s diplomacy brought Spain, Sweden, Branden-
burg, and the Holy Roman Empire into the war. France
fought them all to a standstill, but the alliance was a
precursor of things to come.
Emboldened by the favorable terms he had negoti-
ated at the Peace of Nijmegen (1679), Louis then tried
to annex all territories that had ever belonged to
France, whether in the Netherlands, Italy, the Pyrenees,
or the Rhineland. Hostility to the Holy Roman Empire
made him the only Christian prince to oppose the lib-
eration of Hungary from the Turks (1682–99), though
it was at last achieved with the assistance of Eugene of
Savoy (1663–1736), a prince who had been raised at
his court and who became one of his most formidable
enemies. At the same time, Louis’s revocation of the
Edict of Nantes and expulsion of the Huguenots in
1685 alienated Europe’s Protestants. Many believed that
he aimed at nothing less than French hegemony, and
by 1689 nearly all of Europe had turned against him.
For the rest of his life he followed a basically defensive
policy, but it was too late. In the War of the League of
Augsburg (1689–97), Louis fought a powerful Anglo-
Dutch coalition while France suffered through one of
the worst economic depressions in its history. In the
War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), his armies
were consistently defeated by an allied army com-
manded by John Churchill, duke of Marlborough
(1650–1722). Not even France could sustain such bur-
dens indefinitely, and when the Sun King died in 1715,
the country was in a severe, if temporary, decline.French Absolutism: A Model for Reform
The power of Louis XIV was not unlimited. Within
France, his intentions were subject to modification by
local privilege and by the rulings of the parlements,supe-
rior courts that could determine the validity of royal
edicts under law. Moreover, neither he nor his succes-
sors were able to solve basic problems of credit and fi-
nance. Until the revolution of 1789, the kings of France
were forced to borrow against tax revenues, which
were then farmed out to the creditors. Tax farming by
private individuals was not only inefficient but also
woefully corrupt and left no room for the sophisticated
financial practices being devised by Louis’s Dutch and
English rivals.
In spite of these shortcomings and of the uneven
success of Louis’s foreign policy, the France of Louis
XIV became a model for other princes. From Spain to
the Urals, they copied his court etiquette, his system of
military and administrative organization, and even the
architectural style of Versailles, which became the pat-
tern for dozens of palaces and country estates. The lastIllustration 16.5
Versailles.This view of the west
front of Louis XIV’s palace shows only a
portion of the whole, but it provides a
sense of the grandeur that Louis and his
architects, Louis Le Vau and Jules
Hardouin-Mansart, were attempting to
convey as they created a magnificent
stage set for the politics of the Sun King.