Louis XIV, also known as Le Gran Monarque and the Sun God, was not indeed such a good king for France. The reign of Louis XIV was hurtful in many ways to France and its people. First of all, Louis XIV financially destroyed France by doing things that he thought would help but just hurt France in the long run. Louis was constantly at war with another country, which not only hurt France financially, because wars were very expensive during that time, but it also depleted Franceáïs once massive army. He also persecuted the Huguenots and fifty thousand of them fled from France, many of them skilled and very well educated, which also hurt France. It seemed as if the way Louis XIV ruled France was to mainly help himself, and if he did want to make France greater, he failed to do so throughout his reign.
The things that Louis XIV did throughout his reign over France used up much of Franceáïs wealth.
Portrait of Louis XIV
Louis XIV, King of France, in 1661.
Louis XIV of FranceThe thing he did that hurt the most was building his palace and capitol at Versailles. This palace spanned across a third of a mile with hundreds of fountains and other great and expensive things were built in this palace. This took enormous amounts of money to build. His whole plan to keep the high nobility in one place and neutralize their political power with endless ceremonies and having them live a court life succeeded but was not worth all the money and time he had put into it. The money he used could have been put to better use to help the country, not only on himself and the high nobles. Also, during a time of famine, crop failure, and bitter cold, Louis raised the taxes immensely to stave off bankruptcy but brought about...