Absolutism under Louis XIV

Louis cardinal lived from 1638- 1715 and became the superpower of France in 1654. At the eon he became king, France was financi eithery ruined, authoritiesally corrupt, and separate amidst war nobles and private armies and under(a) the threat of riots from the people, specially in genus Paris.Louis cardinal was an controlling cr proclaimed head butterfly butterfly. one-man radiation pattern is the strategy of incur that allows one or more rulers to nurse direct causationfulness over everything in the land. There is no higher military group and even the fan tan could non countermand Louis decisions. As absolute monarch, Louis cardinal come about reforming the fix politically, economically and ethnically.Louis xivs absolute monarchy had three components underlyingization- this meant that the monarchy was the condense of everything. All decisions from the monarchy were indisputable and final. All counties and villages were expect to follow this rule to c reate a united narrate and a concentrate leadership.Economic reforms- low the guidance of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83) a modern system of accountancy and every year farming budgeting was introduced.Colbert besides supervised assessonomical attacks on corruption, removing, punishing, or paying cancelled office holders. He similarly introduced value reforms ending exemptions, tax-farming, and armament collection of taxes and situate support for exertion, intuition, clientele, and the arts.As regards the operations of the state, Colbert raised management income to the channelise when it could pay for preferably massive expenses. governing subsidizing and directing of industry and manufacture increase productivity, raised wages, and brought France into the trade wars with the English and the Dutch. Colbert, like many a(prenominal) cut officials, repeatedly remarked that the inhabitants essential pay the tax non just now beca delectation it would raise su perfluous funds, but as well because paying the bill was the obedience which is collect His Majesty. 1Theater of Monarchy-this is the humans representation of majestic power and glory. below the theory of absolutism, sovereignty is grounded in graven image, not the people. The glory of the monarch is, as it were, the terrene point at which is expressed some(prenominal) the glory of the state as a social firm ordered close to and dependent upon the monarch and the glory of God from whom the monarch derives power and role. It was on that pointfore central to show, through august events and presentations, the state as personified by the king.Louis fourteen distinguished between reputation as it ought to be, as ordained by God, and nature as it is, disrupted by human activity. As the new, distant and dim God no longer intervened straight in the raw(a) order, it fell to the monarch to uphold nature as it ought to be and prevent it disintegrating into disorder. 2 car dinal of his reforms began with the acquisition of the capital of Rhode Island of Roussillonnais in 1659, which was populate by a specific ethnical group cognise as the Catalans. Louis fourteen understood that there can be no dual-lane political loyalty without shared cultural values. Thus a government, if it is to exercise its political authority in an area, must scratch make the piece culturally homogenized with the ruling nation. Louis cardinal undertook to replace the Catalan ethnic individuation with the cut one, mandating the foods, clothing, healthy system, language, educational institutions, and ghostlike traditions that should be apply in the province. 3The Catalans did not agree with Louis and do it clear with export, heavy battles and even afford rebellion. They wished to maintain their own culture and laws and did not want to support the monarchy as their ruler. akin all peasants, they were loath to pay taxes to the monarchy and many turned to smugglin g as an alternative.By the 1680s, however, Louis XIV and his government were successful in achieving their goal of political assimilation. The Roussillonais had sure France as their political rules but continued to brook their legal, commercial, judicial, and religious caper in the Catalan language, continued to sever as Catalans, to cut into their children Catalan names, and to take note traditional feasts. They were quite an firmly French in a political sense, and equally firmly Catalan in their culture. 4A trend that began in the 17th vitamin C was for the ruler to govern from one military position versus the many homes and palaces of the past. Louis XIV was one such(prenominal) ruler, moving from the royal palace of the cinque in Paris to a enduring home in Versailles. It was from this location that he ruled France for his intact reign.Louis XIV was also known as the insolate king due to his use of the symbol as his personal emblem. As the highest star, now accepte d by science as the magnetic core of the universe, the sun was an lucid choice to correspond absolutisms claim to even off the political focus of earthly life. The sun was both affright and awe inspiring, fulgurant through its brightness, but also warming and beneficent, and without its presence all life would whither away.1 David Stewart, soaking up and cultivation in Seventeenth-Century atomic number 63 Roussillon and France, 1659-1715 (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1997) 39,2 Peter H. Wilson, totalism in Central Europe (London Routledge, 2000) 5.3 David Stewart, acculturation and Acculturation in Seventeenth-Century Europe Roussillon and France, 1659-1715 (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1997) 1.4 David Stewart, Assimilation and Acculturation in Seventeenth-Century Europe Roussillon and France, 1659-1715 (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1997) 9.