Wolfgang Menzel 
Germany in the Age of Louis the Fourteenth 

THE century subsequent to the peace of Westphalia is distinguished as the age of Louis the Fourteenth, that monarch being the sun by which it was illumined, and whose splendor was reflected by all the courts of Europe. The first revolution against the middle ages was accomplished in him, by his subjection of the interests of the aristocratic and inferior classes beneath his despotic rule…