This is a
biography of the French Monarch during much of the 17th Century and
early 18th Century, Louis XIV. He is known for being the youngest
ever ruler of France, ascending the throne at the age of four (was also in the
news recently as to how Emmanuel Macron can’t beat that record).
The book started
with the premature death of his father, which led to Louis XIV being made the
King at the age of four with his mother acting as the regent. It then goes on
to talk about the initial turmoil in the empire, owing to the influence of
Cardinal Mazarin and then, moves on to the period where he officially attained
the throne after coming of age. His reign was filled with wars, be it the war
for gaining control over the Spanish Netherlands and his subsequent conquests
during the Spanish war of succession. The book also talks about his abilities
as a diplomat as to how he added more to his territory through negotiations and
marriages than by conquest. It also talks about the impact his second wife had
on his administration owing to her deep Catholic faith.
The book covered
nearly all aspects of Louis XIV’s life; his personal life, his conquests, his
role as a statesman, and the problems of hunger faced in his empire owing to
the wars that he waged. Considering the fact that they had to cover a reign of
nearly seven decades, it was concise and it fulfilled the objective of
imparting history in an hour.
The negative
aspect of the book is that it attempted to glorify him too much; he took a lot
of controversial decisions, such as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
thereby declaring non-Catholics as outlaws; the extent of turmoil it caused and
how France lost some of its top generals and academics was not given sufficient
attention. Moreover, some of his conquests were disastrous, such as his attempt
to annex the Spanish Netherlands or his subsequent attempt to annex Spain and
those wars caused more harm than good.
While I felt
that the book was informative, I felt that it was highly one sided and there is
always more than one side to history; considering that it is from a neutral
source, there was no need to go overboard in glorifying every single act of
his. I would award the book a rating of four.
Rating – 4/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
No comments:
Post a Comment