Synopsis
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966) is available to watch online on iFILM — a French historical film by Roberto Rossellini, originally made for French state television (ORTF).
Cardinal Mazarin is dying, and the young Louis is a king that no one at court takes seriously. Once Mazarin goes, Louis calls the council and announces he will govern without a first minister — alone. His ally in this is Colbert, a finance official who already knows who has been plundering the treasury. Colbert's formula is precise: let merchants profit, bind the nobility to Versailles with debt and ceremony, keep the urban poor employed. Jean-Marie Patte plays Louis before the legend — not the Sun King, but a young man working out the machinery of absolute rule.
Rossellini designed the film as an essay on statecraft, not a costume spectacle. Stream The Taking of Power by Louis XIV online on iFILM.
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