Badass Birthday
Today, in 1638, in some long, fancy-schmancy, hyphenated place in France, King Louis XIV was born.
His full name was Louis-Dieudonne de France. He became king in 1643 at the age of 5. He reigned until 1715, 72 years, 110 days. He is the longest reigning monarch in the history of the world.
That's reason enough to make him a badass. But also...
He was nickname The Sun King, because, as the universe revolved around the sun (or so it was thought at the time), the world, and especially France, was said to revolve around Louis XIV. He built the Palace of Versailles, and having been there once myself, I can say it is truly breathtaking. Just an enormous, opulent, decadent, over the top...well, Palace. Rivals even Polt's Palace, it does.
As an absolute monarch, he refused any ministers, ruling on his own due to the Divine Right Of Kings. As a strict Catholic, he enacted the Edict of Nantes in 1685 which took rights away from French Protestants, forcing over 200,000 of them to flee the country. He expanded the Eastern borders of France through war with the Hapsbourgs and took on a hostile European coalition in the War Of Spanish Succession to get his grandson on the Spanish Throne.
He has six children with his wife, but on only, a son, lived to adulthood. That son died before Louis XIV, but he had a son who would later become King Louis XV. He had more than a dozen illegitimate children ro various woman.
In addition to the above mentioned conflicts, he was nearly constantly at war: The War Of Devoltion 1667, The Dutch War (1672-1678), The War Of The Reunions (1683-1684), The Nine Years War (1688-1697), and as noted above The War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714).
He died of gangrene 4 days before his 77th birthday. And he died a total badass, flaws and all.
POLT
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