ABSTRACT
The reign of Louis XIV has generally been regarded as the epitome of royal absolutism in the seventeenth century. It is a story, like so many others, of mitigated disaster. To give its tragic elements the firm structure approved by the dramatists of his time, Louis would have needed to destroy himself amid the ruin of his state. Instead he lived to see slow deterioration and indecisive defeat. It was never apparent to him that the cost of the state, its monarchy, and its wars impoverished the country, still less that in the long run a state identified with too narrow a privileged élite would collapse. But he could hardly fail to see that the glory he so assiduously manufactured lost its magic. At the beginning of the reign the eulogies were unanimous. Ten years before its end Fènelon wrote:
Even the people … who have so much loved you, and have placed such trust in you, begin to lose their love, their trust, and even their respect. They no longer rejoice in your victories and conquests: they are full of bitterness and despair. They believe you have no pity for their sorrows, that you are devoted only to your power and your glory. 1
