Death of Louis XIV
Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715 at Versailles, aged 76, after a reign of 72 years — the longest of any major European monarch. He left the French state with a debt estimated between 2 and 3 billion livres, debt service consuming the majority of annual revenue, and a population scarred by the catastrophic winter of 1709 in which an estimated 600,000 died of famine-related causes. His five-year-old great-grandson acceded as Louis XV under the regency of Philippe d'Orléans, who immediately dismantled several pillars of Ludovician absolutism: the polysynody system briefly replaced royal councils with noble-led councils, and John Law was invited to attempt a structural resolution of the debt crisis. Louis XIV's reign had made France the cultural and military hegemon of Europe but had transmitted to his successors a fiscal and structural crisis that none of them proved capable of resolving.
- Year: 1715 CE
- Category: Political
