The Decline of the Sun

Louis XIV's last decades witnessed the dimming of the Sun King's radiance. Military defeats, economic exhaustion, and personal tragedies transformed the magnificent monarch into an increasingly isolated and melancholy figure. The contrast between continuing ceremonial splendor and underlying decay epitomized the ancien régime's contradictions.

Personal losses devastated the aging king. The Grand Dauphin's death (1711) began a succession of tragedies that saw his grandson the Duke of Burgundy, that prince's wife and eldest son all die within two years. The king who had seemed divinely blessed in youth appeared cursed in age. The succession's passage to his two-year-old great-grandson created anxieties about another regency that recalled the Fronde's disorders.

Religious severity increased as Louis aged. The persecution of Jansenists intensified despite growing resistance. Court morals, once notoriously lax, faced strict regulation under Maintenon's influence. The king who had danced in ballets now spent hours in chapel. This religious turn, while personally sincere, alienated younger courtiers and created a somber atmosphere that contrasted with earlier gaiety.

Popular misery reached unprecedented levels during the reign's final years. The winter of 1709, with temperatures so cold that wine froze at the royal table, brought famine that killed hundreds of thousands. Peasant revolts, though brutally suppressed, revealed desperation that ceremonial magnificence could not mask. The contrast between Versailles's continuing splendor and provincial destitution became a commonplace of critical literature.