Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ended abruptly in 1610 when he was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic when his coach be-
came stuck in traffic along rue de la Ferronnerie, south of Les Halles.
Arguably France's best-known king of this or any other century, Louis XIV (r
1643-1715), aka 'Le Roi Soleil' (the Sun King), ascended the throne at the tender age of
five. He involved the kingdom in a series of costly, almost continuous wars with Holland,
Austria and England, which gained France territory but nearly bankrupted the treasury. State
taxation, imposed to refill the coffers, caused widespread poverty and vagrancy, especially
in cities. In Versailles, Louis XIV built an extravagant palace and made his courtiers com-
pete with each other for royal favour, thereby quashing the ambitious, feuding aristocracy
and creating the first centralised French state. In 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes.
Paintings by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in the Royal Chapel at Versailles evoke the idea that
the French king was chosen by God and is thus his lieutenant on earth - a divinity the
'Sun King' believed in devoutly.
From Revolution to Republic
During the so-called Age of Enlightenment, the royal court moved back to Paris from Ver-
sailles and the city effectively became the centre of Europe. Yet as the 18th century pro-
gressed, new economic and social circumstances rendered the
ancien régime
dangerously
out of step with the needs of the country.
By the late 1780s, the indecisive Louis XVI and his dominating Vienna-born queen,
Marie-Antoinette, had alienated virtually every segment of society. When they tried to neut-
ralise the power of more reform-minded delegates at a meeting of the États-Généraux
(States-General) in Versailles from May to June 1789, the masses - spurred by the oratory
and inflammatory tracts circulating at places like the Café de Foy at Palais Royal - took to
the streets of Paris. On 14 July a mob raided the armoury at the Hôtel des Invalides for
rifles, seized 32,000 muskets, and stormed the prison at Bastille. Enter the French Revolu-
tion.
At first, the Revolution was in the hands of moderate republicans, the Girondins. France
was declared a constitutional monarchy and reforms were introduced, including the adop-
tion of the Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme and du Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of
Man and of the Citizen). But as the masses armed themselves against the external threat to
the new government - posed by Austria, Prussia and the exiled French nobles - patriotism
and nationalism mixed with extreme fervour and then popularised and radicalised the Re-
volution. It was not long before the Girondins lost out to the extremist Jacobins, who abol-
