Louis XIV of France
Biography
Louis ruled personally from 1661 after Mazarin death, Létat cest moi attributed. Versailles, the hunting lodge turned palace, domesticated the nobility in gilded ritual. Revoked the Edict of Nantes 1685, driving out Huguenots. Wars, Devolution, Dutch, League of Augsburg, Spanish Succession, dominated Europe but exhausted France. 72 years the longest documented reign of any sovereign.
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