Arkansas has been a land under control of many different flags in its long history. From the early Native American tribes to the European colonial powers to the United States, each era has left an impact on the state. One of those figures to claim Arkansas was Louis XIV, king of France. He was the first French king to claim the state, an important moment in Arkansas History, and would greatly influence all of Europe.
The future Louis XIV was born in 1638 at the royal palace of his father, King Louis XIII, and his mother, Queen Anne. Born into ostentatious luxury and unlimited power, he wanted for nothing. In 1643, his father died after a prolonged illness. As the oldest surviving male heir, he became king while only four years old.
Since he was so young, a regency was declared by his father’s ministers. At such a young age, he could not begin to understand even the most basic functions of the government. Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who had been chief minister to Louis XIII and a senior official in the Roman Catholic Church, would retain his position and make decisions in the young king’s name. In spite of his church position, Mazarin was a veteran European politician and diplomat, known for his skills and his cunning far more than his faith. Louis XIV’s widowed mother doted on him.
Both his mother and Cardinal Mazarin made sure he grew up with the idea of the “divine right of kings,” a system of absolute and unquestioned power of the king that meant he answered only to God for his actions since God gave him the throne. It was a system that would allow corruption to inevitably work its way into the system and would leave him and his successors completely disconnected from the needs of his subjects.
In 1651, at age 18, he was allowed to rule but continued to have Mazarin at his side. Civil unrest had marked much of his childhood, and he was determined to restore order. After the death of Mazarin in 1661, he immediately embarked on a series of financial reforms to curtail embezzlement within his government.
“I am the state!” he once bellowed, declaring that France was his and his alone. He often referred to himself as the “Sun King,” styling himself as the source of all light and goodness and prosperity for his people. He stripped Protestants of their rights and their property, forcing many to flee and others to convert to Catholicism.
He became a great patron of the arts, and he commissioned dozens of works from some of the most famous artists of the seventeenth century. He founded the Royal Academy of Dance and the Academy of Opera, and along with his major building campaigns made France one of the most important centers of art in Europe for centuries afterward.
In the 1660s, he transformed his father’s hunting lodge outside Paris into the palace of Versailles, moving his official residence to the grounds in 1682. Versailles became an overwhelming display of wealth, with each room riddled with gold, silver, crystal, and exquisite displays of art. It included running water and hundreds of acres of expertly manicured gardens. The palace could hold thousands of guests and dignitaries. It became a model for other royal palaces across Europe.
France steadily expanded its power under his reign. Warfare was common, and France fought wars with Spain, England, and Holland. The New World was in the midst of a scramble for power between the European states. Under his father’s reign, France had established colonies along the St. Lawrence River Valley of what is now Canada and the Great Lakes region.
His influence spread even further with the efforts of French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet down the Mississippi River all the way to Arkansas in 1673. This claim was solidified with Robert Cavalier, Seuer de la Salle laying claim to all the Mississippi River and its tributaries in Arkansas in 1682. La Salle called the area Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV. The king’s government gave its blessing for La Salle’s plan to settle Louisiana. In 1685, La Salle and his party of colonists missed the mouth of the Mississippi River and went further west, landing on the coast of Matagorda Bay in Texas. Though Spain claimed the area, the Spanish were stretched thin and unable to enforce the claim. La Salle nevertheless established Fort St. Louis. The settlement proved to be a disaster and was wiped out by the neighboring Native American tribes by 1687. By this time, the trading post at Arkansas Post had been established at the White and Mississippi Rivers, marking the first European settlement in the state.
While Louis XIV welcomed the enlarged realm, he gave little thought to the strategic importance of the Mississippi River Valley and the claims on Texas. He made no further attempts to settle the Texas coast. Though Spain contested the French claim, France continued to claim portions of the Red River Valley and East Texas until the Louisiana Territory (including Arkansas) was sold to the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
He died in 1715 at the age of 76. Of his six children with his wife, he had outlived all of them. He had outlived most of his grandchildren. He had more than a dozen children out of wedlock with numerous mistresses, none of whom could be in line to the throne. Instead, his successor would be his five-year-old great-grandson, King Louis XV.
France had established itself as a major center of European diplomacy, culture, and politics under Louis XIV. It had cemented its position as a major military power and greatly expanded its influence in the Americas.
