ABSTRACT
Louis XIV was determined to make royal power absolute in practice, not just in the writings of political theorists. Louis XIV had no objection to his ministers enriching themselves within reasonable limits. Louis XIV made it clear that any noble family who wished for royal patronage for any favor, from command of an army to a favorable decision in a property case, had to come to his court. Both Louis XIV and Colbert saw clearly that writers, like artists and architects, could be pressed into service as propagandists for the king. Louis XIV continued building at Versailles throughout his long reign. When, in 1694, war overseas meant there was no money in France to pay workers on any royal project, the Swedish representative wrote gleefully home that poverty and unemployment are general and that one can really hire the very best craftsmen in the world for next to nothing.
