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In: Biographies·History - European·History - Modern (1750+)
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #27056.
John S. C. Abbott’s “Louis XIV” is a nineteenth‑century scholarly biography that treats the Sun King as the central figure of a sweeping political and cultural narrative. The work opens with a stark moral appraisal of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, positioning Louis’s reign as a chain of “fiend‑like outrages” that ultimately sowed the seeds of the French Revolution. From there the text proceeds through a detailed, chapter‑by‑chapter itinerary, birth and childhood, court festivities, wars, and intimate intrigues, augmented by extensive engravings of royal palaces and battle scenes. Abbott’s introductory passages blend factual chronology with vivid description, offering the reader a sense of both the grandeur of Versailles and the darker undercurrents of despotism that he argues defined the era.
The voice is that of a learned Victorian historian, marked by formal diction, moralizing commentary, and a penchant for exhaustive detail. Abbott’s style reflects the era’s confidence in a single, authoritative narrative, while his frequent asides and moral judgments give the work a polemical edge. Readers who enjoy dense, source‑rich histories, particularly those interested in the political, architectural, and cultural dimensions of early modern France, will find this volume rewarding. It also appeals to scholars of historiography who wish to see how nineteenth‑century scholars framed the legacy of Louis XIV and the origins of the Revolution.
The opening · free to read
There are few chapters in history more replete with horrors than that which records the "Revocation of the Edict of Nantes." The facts given are beyond all possibility of contradiction. In the contemplation of these scenes the mind pauses, bewildered by the reflection forced upon it, that many of the actors in these fiend-like outrages were inspired by motives akin to sincerity and conscientiousness.
The thoughtful reader will perceive that in this long and wicked reign Louis XIV. was sowing the wind from which his descendants reaped the whirlwind. It was the despotism of Louis XIV. and of Louis XV. which ushered in that most sublime of all earthly dramas, the French Revolution.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
New Haven, Conn., 1870.
CONTENTS.
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