Louis XIV

Louis XIV was the French king whose long reign became a model of dynastic absolutism. He centralised court life at Versailles and fought repeated wars, including the War of Devolution, Dutch War and War of the Spanish Succession.

In Antonia Fraser’s Love and Louis XIV, Love and Louis XIV studies the women around Louis XIV and the role of intimacy, marriage, favour and court performance in the politics of Versailles. In Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, their rise through war, finance and espionage connects scientific discovery to the ambitions of Louis XIV and establishes the families whose descendants appear in Cryptonomicon. Other novels featuring Louis XIV include Neal Stephenson’s The Confusion, Neal Stephenson’s The System of the World, and Edward Rutherfurd’s Paris.