The theories of government upon which the absolutism of Louis XIV was based received a classic expression in a celebrated book written by Bossuet (1627-1704), a learned and upright bishop of the time. Government, according to Bossuet, [Footnote: The statements of the arguments in favor of monarchy by divine right are taken from Bossuet's famous book, La politique tirée des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte.] is divinely ordained in order to enable mankind to satisfy the natural instincts of living together in organized society. Under God, monarchy is, of all forms of government, the most usual and the most ancient, and therefore the most natural: it is likewise the strongest and most efficient, therefore the best. It is analogous to the rule of a family by the father, and, like that rule, should be hereditary. Four qualities are referred by the eloquent bishop to such an hereditary monarch: (1) That he is sacred is attested by his anointing at the time of coronation by the priests of the Church—it is accordingly blasphemy and sacrilege to assail the person of the king or to conspire against him; (2) That he is to provide for the welfare of his people and watch over their every activity may be gathered from the fact that he is, in a very real sense, the father of his people, the paternal king; (3) His power is absolute and autocratic, and for its exercise he is accountable to God alone—no man on earth may rightfully resist the royal commands, and the only recourse for subjects against an evil king is to pray God that his heart be changed; (4) Greater reason is given to a king than to any one else—the king is an earthly image of God's majesty, and it is wrong, therefore, to look upon him as a mere man. The king is a public person and in him the whole nation is embodied. "As in God are united all perfection and every virtue, so all the power of all the individuals in a community is united in the person of the king."
[Sidenote: Louis XIV]
Such was the theory of what is called divine-right monarchy or absolutism. It must be remembered that it had been gaining ground during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until it was accepted practically by all the French people as well as by most of their Continental neighbors. Even in England, as we shall presently see,[Footnote: See below, pp. 263 ff.] the Stuart kings attempted, for a time with success, to assert and maintain the doctrine. It was a political idea as popular in the seventeenth century as that of democracy is to-day. And Louis XIV was its foremost personification. Suave, dignified, elegant in manners and speech, the French king played his part well; he appeared to have been born and divinely appointed to the kingly calling.
For a king, Louis worked hard. He was conscientious and painstaking. Day after day he reviewed the details of administration. Over all things he had a watchful eye. Systematically he practiced what he termed the "trade of a king." "One reigns by work and for work," he wrote his grandson.
No prince was more fortunate than Louis XIV in his personal advisers and lieutenants. Not only were his praises proclaimed by the silver- tongued Bossuet, but he was served by such men as Colbert, the financier and reformer; Louvois, the military organizer; Vauban, the master builder of fortifications; Condé and Turenne, unconquerable generals; and by a host of literary lights, whom he patronized and pensioned, and who cast about his person a glamour of renown. Louis was hailed as the "Grand Monarch," and his age was appropriately designated the Age of Louis the Fourteenth.
[Sidenote: Versailles and the Court of Louis XIV]
At Versailles, some twelve miles from Paris, in the midst of what had been a sandy waste, the Grand Monarch erected those stately palaces, with their lavish furnishings, and broad parks and great groves and myriads of delightful fountains, which became Europe's pleasure center. Thither were drawn the French nobility, who, if shorn of all political power, were now exempted from disagreeable taxes and exalted as essential parts of a magnificent social pageant. The king must have noblemen as valets-de-chambre, as masters of the wardrobe or of the chase or of the revels. Only a nobleman was fit to comb the royal hair or to dry off the king after a bath. The nobles became, like so many chandeliers, mere decorations for the palace. Thus, about Versailles gathered the court of France, and the leaders of fashion met those of brains.
[Sidenote: "The Age of Louis XIV">[
It was a time when French manners, dress, speech, art, literature, and science were adopted as the models and property of civilized Europe. Corneille (1606-1684), the father of the French stage; Molière (1622- 1673), the greatest of French dramatists; Racine (1639-1699), the polished, formal playwright; Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696), the brilliant and witty authoress of memoirs; La Fontaine (1621-1695), the popular rhymer of whimsical fables and teller of scandalous tales; and many another graced the court of Versailles and tasted the royal bounty. French became the language of fashion as well as of diplomacy— a position it has ever since maintained.
[Sidenote: "Rule of the Robe">[