He was conscientious and painstaking.
Day after day he reviewed the details of administration. Over all
things he had a watchful eye. Systematically he practiced what he
termed the "trade of a king." "One reigns by work and for work," he
wrote his grandson.
No prince was more fortunate than Louis XIV in his personal advisers
and lieutenants. Not only were his praises proclaimed by the silver-
tongued Bossuet, but he was served by such men as Colbert, the
financier and reformer; Louvois, the military organizer; Vauban, the
master builder of fortifications; Conde and Turenne, unconquerable
generals; and by a host of literary lights, whom he patronized and
pensioned, and who cast about his person a glamour of renown. Louis was
hailed as the "Grand Monarch," and his age was appropriately designated
the Age of Louis the Fourteenth.
[Sidenote: Versailles and the Court of Louis XIV]
At Versailles, some twelve miles from Paris, in the midst of what had
been a sandy waste, the Grand Monarch erected those stately palaces,
with their lavish furnishings, and broad parks and great groves and
myriads of delightful fountains, which became Europe's pleasure center.
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