At the peace of Nimeguen Louis was in the zenith of his glory, as Napoleon was after the peace of Tilsit.  He was justly regarded as the mightiest monarch of his age, the greatest king that France had ever seen.  All Europe stood in awe of him; and with awe was blended admiration, for his resources were unimpaired, his generals had greatly distinguished themselves, and he had added important provinces to his kingdom, which was also enriched by the internal reforms of Colbert, and made additionally powerful by commerce and a great navy, which had gained brilliant victories over the Dutch and Spanish fleets.  Duquesne showed himself to be almost as great a genius in naval warfare as De Ruyter, who was killed off Aosta in 1676.  In those happy and prosperous days the Hotel de Ville conferred upon Louis the title of “Great,” which posterity never acknowledged.  “Titles,” says Voltaire, “are never regarded by posterity.  The simple name of a man who has performed noble actions impresses on us more respect than all the epithets that can be invented.”

After the peace of Nimeguen, in 1678, the King reigned in greater splendor than before.  There were no limits to his arrogance and his extravagance.  He was a modern Nebuchadnezzar.  He claimed to be the state. L’etat, c’est moi! was his proud exclamation.  He would bear no contradiction and no opposition.  The absorbing sentiment of his soul seems to have been that France belonged to him, that it had been given to him as an inheritance, to manage as he pleased for his private gratification.  “Self-aggrandizement,” he wrote, “is the noblest occupation of kings.”  Most writers affirm that personal aggrandizement became the law of his life, and that he now began to lose sight of the higher interests and happiness of his people, and to reign not for them but for himself.  He became a man of resentments, of caprices, of undisguised selfishness; he became pompous and haughty and self-willed.  We palliate his self-exaggeration and pride, on account of the disgraceful flatteries he received on every hand.  Never was a man more extravagantly lauded, even by the learned.  But had he been half as great as his courtiers made him think, he would not have been so intoxicated; Caesar or Charlemagne would not thus have lost his intellectual balance.  The strongest argument to prove that he was not inherently great, but made apparently so by fortunate circumstances, is his self-deception.

In his arrogance and presumption, like Napoleon after the peace of Tilsit, he now sets aside the rights of other nations, heaps galling insults on independent potentates, and assumes the most arrogant tone in all his relations with his neighbors or subjects.  He makes conquests in the midst of peace.  He cites the princes of Europe before his councils.  He deprives the Elector Palatine and the Elector of Treves of some of their most valuable seigniories.  He begins to persecute the Protestants.  He seizes Luxembourg and the principality which belonged to it.  He humbles the republic of Genoa, and compels the Doge to come to Versailles to implore his clemency.  He treats with haughty insolence the Pope himself, and sends an ambassador to his court on purpose to insult him.  He even insists on giving an Elector to Cologne.