X-Nico

22 unusual facts about Louis XIV of France


Bead Hill archaeological site

The Comte de Frontenac wrote to Louis XIV of France in the fall of 1674 that the Iroquois “have given their word not to continue the trade, which as I informed you last year, they had commenced to establish at Ganatsekwyagon, with the Ottawas, which would have absolutely ruined ours by the transfer of the furs to the Dutch.”

Captain Fracassa's Journey

A ramshackle theater company of Commedia dell'arte (Comedy of Art) is to roam vast and boundless territories to reach the court of Louis XIV.

Captain Pugwash

In this book, the King of Great Britain strongly resembles George I and the King of France resembles Louis XIV, suggesting that this story took place in 1714–15.

Conan Meriadoc

However, in the 17th century the Rohans used their supposed descent from Conan Meriadoc to seek status as "foreign princes" at the French court; King Louis XIV recognized their pedigree, but denied their foreign status.

Daniel Cronström

Daniel Cronström (1655–1719) was a Swedish architect working in the Late Baroque style influenced by the French style of Louis XIV.

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights

Together with his assistant Sophie Coubertin, a university student, he comes into possession of a map that leads to a hidden treasure of Louis XIV of France.

Duleek

The village’s four crosses and the lime tree on the village green are reminders of Duleek’s links to the struggle between William and James and to wider European unrest at the time of Louis XIV of France.

Ereğli, Konya

This was the first "Hittite" monument discovered in modern times (early 18th century, by the Swede Otter, an emissary of Louis XIV).

Isaac La Peyrère

La Peyrère also argued that Messiah would join with the king of France (that is, the Prince of Condé, not Louis XIV of France) to liberate the Holy Land, rebuild the Temple and set up a world government of the Messiah with the king of France acting as regent.

James D. St. Clair

The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.

José de la Borda

He was the second son of Pierre Laborde, an officer in the army of Louis XIV of France and Spaniard Magdalena Sanchez.

Louisbourg, Nova Scotia

The town's name was given by French military forces who founded the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1713 and its fortified seaport on the southwest part of the harbour, in honour of Louis XIV.

Mariage Frères

At this time, King Louis XIV and the French East India Company encouraged the exploration of distant lands in the search of exotic goods.

Marquetry

The craft was imported full-blown to France after the mid-seventeenth century, to create furniture of unprecedented luxury being made at the royal manufactory of the Gobelins, charged with providing furnishings to decorate Versailles and the other royal residences of Louis XIV.

Martinet

This sense of the word reputedly comes from the name of Jean Martinet, Inspector General of the army of Louis XIV and thus would be etymologically only by accident related to the earlier sense.

Mission creep

For instance, many of the wars of Louis XIV's France began with small limited goals, but quickly escalated to much larger affairs.

Moulage

Wax anatomical models were first made by Gaetano Giulio Zummo (1656–1701) who first worked in Naples, then Florence, and finally Paris, where he was granted monopoly right by Louis XIV.

Order of the Christian Charity

But, it was only during the reign of King Louis XIV of France, that, after the construction of the Hôtel des Invalides, one has really done something to care for the (military) casualties of the war.

Paul Barbă Neagră

He was awarded a first prize for the scenario of his film Versailles Palais-Temple du Roi Soleil ("Palace of Versailles, Temple of the Sun King") at the Festival International du Film d’Art (International Festival for Art Films).

Précieuses

The précieuses remembered through the filter of Molière's one-act satire of them in Les précieuses ridicules (1659), a bitter comedy of manners that brought Molière and his company to the attention of Parisians, after years of touring the provinces, and attracted the patronage of Louis XIV; it still plays well today.

Rigaudon

Traditionally, the folkdance was associated with the provinces of Vavarais, Languedoc, Dauphiné, and Provence in southern France, and it became popular as a court dance during the reign of Louis XIV (Little 2001).

Sankin-kōtai

King Louis XIV of France instituted a similar practice upon the completion of his Palace at Versailles, requiring the French nobility, particularly the ancient Noblesse d'épée (nobility of the sword) to spend six months of each year at the palace, for reasons similar to those of the Japanese shoguns.


1670 in music

October 14 – First performance of Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, a five-act comédie-ballet – a play intermingled with music, dance and singing – at the court of King Louis XIV of France.

Albera Massif

The Albera Range became the border between France and Spain following the Treaty of the Pyrenees, when Philip IV of Spain ceded a part of the Spanish kingdom to Louis XIV of France, dividing Northern Catalonia from Historical Catalonia.

Albrecht Konrad Finck von Finckenstein

He went into Dutch, then French war service, but resigned from French service when Louis XIV mobilized against Germany and destroyed Heidelberg and the Heidelberg Castle in 1689.

Alexander Rumyantsev

His wife survived him by 40 years, and entertained Saint Petersburg society with the stories of her acquaintance with Louis XIV, Madame de Maintenon, and the Duke of Marlborough.

Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche

His sister was Catherine Charlotte, (1639–1678), Princess of Monaco and one time mistress of Louis XIV of France.

Arnaud II de La Porte

His great-granduncle was Michel Richard Delalande, court composer to Louis XIV, his grandfather was First Commissary of the Marine Joseph Pellerin, his father Arnaud I de La Porte was First Commissary as well, and his uncle, Joseph Pellerin Jr. was Intendant of the Naval Armies, all under Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Charles de Lorme

Charles was the chief physician of three French kings, Henri IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV.

Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier

Montausier received from Louis XIV the order of the Saint Esprit, the government of Normandy, a dukedom, and in 1668 the office of governor of the dauphin, Louis le Grand Dauphin (1661-1711).

Château d'Oiron

After Pascal died, Charlotte Gouffier married Francois d'Aubusson, the duc de La Feuillade, who enhanced the castle with his wealth and connections to Louis XIV.

Château de Ferrette

In 1644, at the Treaty of Munster in Westphalia, the Emperor of Austria yielded the county of Ferrette to the King of France, Louis XIV, who gave it to his minister, Cardinal Mazarin, who offered it to his niece.

Duke of Fitz-James

Duke of Fitz-James (Fr.: duc de Fitz-James) is a title of nobility in the peerage of France that was created by Louis XIV of France in 1710 for James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick.

Duke of Saint-Aignan

Duke of Saint-Aignan (Fr.: duc de Saint-Aignan) was a title of nobility in the peerage of France created by Louis XIV of France for François de Beauvilliers in 1663.

Étienne Fourmont

In 1711 Louis XIV appointed Fourmont to assist a young Chinese (Arcadio Huang), in cataloging the French royal collection of works in Chinese and compiling a Chinese grammar.

Ettlingen

During the Nine Years' War the city was nearly completely burned to the ground by the troops of Louis XIV, but was nevertheless rebuilt in the following decades under Margravine Sibylle Auguste.

Francisco de Tutavilla y del Rufo, Duque de San Germán

He conquered in 1674 Bellegarde Fort, 42° 27′ 31″ N, 2° 51′ 33″ E, French since the Peace of the Pyrenees of 1659 between France and Spain, but it was taken back by the mercenary Troop Commander Frederick Schomberg, 1st Duke of Schomberg, (Heidelberg, Germany, 1615 - Battle of the Boyne, near Drogheda, Ireland, 1 July 1690 1690) on behalf of king Louis XIV of France.

Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy

Originally from Cambrai, they moved to Paris and were employed by King Louis XIV, particularly for the decoration of the palace and gardens at Versailles.

Henri Dumont

From 1652 he was harpsichordist at the court of the Duke of Anjou (Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, a brother of Louis XIV), and in 1660 he obtained that post to the young queen Marie-Thérése.

Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine

Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 31 March 1670 - Sceaux, 14 May 1736) was a legitimised son of the French king Louis XIV and his official mistress, Madame de Montespan.

Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Mademoiselle du Maine

Louise Françoise de Bourbon (4 December 1707 – 19 August 1743) was a grand daughter of Louis XIV of France and his mistress Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, better known as Madame de Montespan.

Marie d'Alençon

Through her eldest daughter Marie, Marie d'Alençon was the ancestress of Mary, Queen of Scots, kings Henry IV of France and Louis XIV of France, and Henrietta Maria of France, wife of Charles I of England.

Moritzburg Castle

The apartments contain examples of opulence in the lacquered and ornate furniture, such as the Augsburg-made silver furniture styled after Louis XIV's silver furniture at Versailles.

Musée des Plans-Reliefs

The construction of models dates to 1668 when François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois and minister of war to Louis XIV, began a collection of three-dimensional models of fortified cities for military purposes, known as 'plans-relief'.

Pierre Puget

His statue of Milo of Croton (Louvre) had been completed in 1682, Perseus and Andromeda (Louvre) in 1684; and Alexander and Diogenes (bas-relief, Louvre) in 1685, but, in spite of the personal favour which he enjoyed, Puget, on coming to Paris in 1688 to push forward the execution of an equestrian statue of Louis XIV, found court intrigues too much for him.

Pierre Victor, baron de Besenval de Brünstatt

Born at Solothurn, he was the son of Jean Victor de Besenval, colonel of the regiment of Swiss Guards in the pay of France, who was charged in 1707 by Louis XIV with a mission to Sweden to reconcile Charles XII with the tsar Peter the Great, and to unite them in alliance with France against England.

Princess Maria Theresia of Liechtenstein

In 1662 the town of Yvois in the Ardennes was raised by Louis XIV of France into a duchy in his favour, its name being changed at the same time to Carignano.

Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston

In September Preston presented a strongly worded memorial to the French king 'touching his seizing upon the citty of Orange, looking on it as done to himself’. In October 1683 the Earl of Sunderland by the king's commands gave Preston directions to let the ministers in France know 'what a very ill man Dr. Burnet was.'

Saint-Cyr-l'École

King Louis XIV of France, at the request of Madame de Maintenon, founded Maison royale de Saint-Louis, an institute for young ladies, which later became a military hospital.

Sully-sur-Loire

King Louis XIV, his mother Queen Anne of Austria and prime minister Cardinal Mazarin sought refuge in the château of Sully-sur-Loire in March 1652 after being driven out of Paris during the revolt of the French nobility known as the Fronde.

Victor Amadeus I, Prince of Carignano

Since he had lost the Château de Condé to Jean-François Leriget de La Faye when it was confiscated from his family by Louis XIV) on March 6, 1719, he established himself in the hôtel de Soissons, which he transformed, with his wife who had followed him there, into a "sumptuous gaming house" which for a time sheltered the economist John Law.