30 4Chapter 16
Hapsburg king of Spain, Charles II “the Bewitched” died
childless in 1700, and the final war of Louis’s reign was
waged to place a Bourbon on the Spanish throne. The
new ruler, Philip V (reigned 1700–46), began a process
of reform that by 1788 had created a near replica of
French administration. Austrian archduke Charles
(1685–1740), though he failed to gain the allegiance of
the Spanish in the War of the Spanish Succession, re-
ceived the Spanish Netherlands as a consolation prize
at the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. This territory, the
present-day Belgium, was incorporated into the Aus-
trian Empire as Hungary had been in 1699. After his
election as Charles VI in 1711, he began to reform the
far-flung Austrian administration on French lines.
Most of the German princes followed suit, though
it could be argued that Frederick Wilhelm I of Prussia
(1688–1740) had already carried reform beyond
anything achieved by Louis XIV. Set without geo-
graphic defenses in the midst of the North German
plain, Brandenburg-Prussia had been devastated in theIllustration 16.6
Louis XIV.This 1701 painting by
Hyacinthe Rigaud is an example of art as
political propaganda. This vision of the
king’s magnificence was painted on the
eve of the War of the Spanish Succes-
sion. Even at sixty-three, Louis was
proud of his legs and sensitive about his
height, hence the elevator shoes.