Have you heard of the Egyptians, who thought that their kings were the god’s sons? France’s kings believed a different version of that story. They thought that the king of France was the owner of every little thing in France, down to the last ladybug. The king was sometimes known as “a visible divinity.” In 1638, France was one of the most powerful countries in Europe, and because the five-year old king was “visible divinity,” he ruled with no opposition.
Known as the Sun King, King Louis XIV sent away his board of advisors, announcing that he would rule his own kingdom by himself. The advisors were astonished! For almost a century, no French king had ever ruled without his advisors.
Louis XIV also had a gargantuan palace built for himself. After nearly fifty years of labor, the quarter-of-a-mile long palace was finished. It was called Versailles. One of the most famous rooms is called the Hall of Mirrors. In it, are seventeen large mirrors, each facing a tall window.
Louis XIV wrote in his memoirs, that he preferred fame to all else, even life. He lived a lavish life, and liked to act in ballets.
Louis XIV’s subjects fought over doing the small things for the king, such as handing him his clothes after a bath. They all wanted to be in the king’s favor, even if all it meant was a more ornately decorated chair at a dinner party, or special clothes reserved only for the king’s favorites. Louis XIV encouraged his subjects to spend a lot of money on rich and lavish things and to mind their courtly manners. This made the courtiers and subjects depend on the king, because they had spent all their money on other things.
While Louis XIV reigned, France was the most important and powerful country in Europe, but when he died, catastrophe was ready to strike. In fact, even while Louis XIV was alive, catastrophe struck. Many of his family members died, including Louis’s son and grandson. Some other European countries were bonding together to fight against France. Most of Louis’s reign had been spent trying to increase France’s borders. He had forced people to work hard and pay high taxes. Many men died in the wars that Louis started. “Anger was spreading through France-” Susan Wise Bauer said. “-Anger which would eventually destroy the French crown forever.”
In Germany, there were 300 little German states. But the people who lived in these states probably didn’t think of themselves as German. All the states were ruled by princes, and one of these princes, Prince Frederick, decided to make his two states into a kingdom.
One of the states, Brandenburg, was on the border of the Holy Roman Empire, so when he was in Brandenburg, Frederick had to obey the Holy Roman Emperor. But Frederick asked the Holy Roman Emperor if he could call himself “King of Prussia”, the other state, since Prussia was not in the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Emperor agreed, partly because Frederick had just helped him fight against Louis XIV. Frederick was now the King of Prussia. He also acted like he was the king of Brandenburg, and he entered this other state like a king would do, with cannons firing and bells ringing. Frederick’s acting like a king helped the people in his “kingdom” to think of themselves as citizens of Prussia.
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| The German Flag |
Susan Wise Bauer says, “Prussians learned to pay allegiance to an idea of a German kingdom, ruled by a German king.” This meant that instead of paying homage to a king, like King Louis XIV, the German people of Prussia learned to pay homage to the state of Prussia. In later generations, Frederick’s son, Frederick William, announced that Prussia and Brandenburg were all one country, Prussia, and his son, Frederick II, even added land to the kingdom. One day, this country that these men established would be the European country of Germany.
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