POLITICS IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE

POLITICS IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE

FRANCE AND ABSOLUTISM

FRANCIS I OF FRANCE

Francis I of France

Map of France under Francis I

Castle of Chambord

CARDINAL RICHELIEU

LOUIS XIV, THE SUN KING

Louis was initiated into the pleasures of sexuality by"...Madame de Beauvais, his mother's aristocratic laundress, who had bumped into the sixteen-year-old when he was coming out of the bath and had taken him to a sewing room, where she deflowered him. The no longer very fresh lady gave him gonorrhoea (...) Louis was sexually extraordinarily active. He was irresistible to women (after all, he was the king) and soon had the usual mistresses.(Wilkinson)

"Louis did everything to cause a stir. He threw the best parties; books describing them were devoured all over Europe. Versailles became the biggest and hippest palace in the world. A century later, monarchs all over Europe were still putting on imitations. The music at his court, the theatre, architecture, the French language - in almost every field Louis was seen by his contemporaries as the autocrat of good taste. (L. Panhuysen)