preview

Compare And Contrast Louis Xiv And Peter The Great

Better Essays

During the XVII century, most of the European countries were ruled by more or less absolute Monarchy. Born in 1638, Louis XIV will have the longest reign out of all French ruler ( 72 years). A few years later, while Louis XIV’s reign was at his apogee, another important ruler of this era get to the throne: Peter the Great. Both of these rulers, known for being an absolute monarch, have been influenced by the traumatic event of their childhood. For Louis XIV, it was the insurrection of the nobility against the royal power, known as the Fronde; Forced to flee Paris, he will hold a grudge against this feudal power . As for Peter The Great, it was the rebellion led by his step-sister, after the death of his brother with whom he ruled as Tsar, that will influence his way of ruling the kingdom. As soon as Peter took the throne in 1682, and just after the death of his first minister the Cardinal Mazarin in1661 for Louis XIV, they both decided to rule alone and to establish an Absolute Monarchy. Defined by William Beik as being the fact that “ (…) the King derived his power from God and could exercise it without other constituted bodies having the rights to challenge them (…)”. If one applies this definition to both Louis’s XIV and Peter’s reign, without more research, it could indeed be said that both reigns were absolute. However, there is a difference of terminology between the two monarchs: Louis XIV was an absolute monarch but his sovereign power was limited by unwritten

Get Access