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80 free Louis XIV trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Louis XIV trivia quiz covers the whole reign of the Sun King: the miracle baby born after two decades of childless marriage, the boy king stared at in bed by a Paris mob, the young man who took the reins of government himself, the builder of Versailles, the patron of Molière and Racine, the persecutor of the Huguenots, the warlord who fought the Dutch, the League and the Grand Alliance, and the old man who told his heir not to copy him. The easy questions cover the outline: his nickname, how long he reigned, his palace, the war-torn end of the reign and who succeeded him. The harder half is for people who have read Saint-Simon or watched Versailles twice: the unpaid Spanish dowry, the château that doomed a finance minister, the island he fortified, the names of his taxes, the city bombarded to save Namur, the disastrous raid on a Channel Island, the god he danced beside Apollo, the dance master who codified the five positions, his 1686 operation, and the Victorian dean who ate a piece of his heart. Every answer was checked against Louis XIV's encyclopaedia entry before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our French history, Versailles and Marie Antoinette quizzes next.
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Q 01By what nickname is Louis XIV best known?
The Sun King
He cultivated the image of le Roi Soleil as the centre of the universe 'without equal'.
Q 02How many years did he reign, the longest of any sovereign monarch in history?
72
He came to the throne in May 1643 and died in September 1715, four days short of his 77th birthday.
Q 03In which château was he born on 5 September 1638?
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
He was named Louis-Dieudonné, 'Louis the God-given'.
Q 04For how many years had his parents been married when he was born?
23
His mother had suffered four stillbirths, so contemporaries treated his birth as a miracle.
Q 05Who was his mother, who ruled as sole regent during his minority?
Anne of Austria
She had her husband's will annulled within days of his death so she could rule alone.
Q 06How old was he when he became king in May 1643?
Four
His dying father had tried to bind him to a regency council rather than trust his Spanish-born queen.
Q 07Which cardinal ran the government as chief minister until his death in 1661?
Mazarin
Many believed he had secretly married the queen mother and become the king's stepfather.
Q 08The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, negotiated during his minority, ended which war?
The Thirty Years' War
France gained Habsburg Alsace and recognition of its hold on Metz, Verdun and Toul.
Q 09What are the 1648–53 civil wars that twice drove the royal family out of Paris during his childhood called?
The Fronde
The experience left him with a lifelong distrust of Paris and the great nobles.
Q 10What did the twelve-year-old king do when a Paris mob entered his bedchamber in 1651?
Pretended to be asleep
The crowd gazed at him, were appeased and left quietly; the court fled the city soon after.
Q 11With which niece of his chief minister did the young king fall in love before she was married off in Italy?
Marie Mancini
His tears and pleading did not move his mother, who wanted a Spanish match.
Q 12Whom did he marry in 1660 under the terms of the Treaty of the Pyrenees?
Maria Theresa of Spain
She was his first cousin, the eldest daughter of Philip IV; when she died in 1683 he remarked that she had never caused him unease on any other occasion.
Q 13How large was the unpaid Spanish dowry Louis XIV used to void his wife's renunciation of her claims?
500,000 écus
Q 21His Code Noir of 1685 regulated what in the French colonies?
Slavery
It sanctioned the practice but forbade separating families, and allowed only Catholics to own slaves.
Q 22The 1667 War of Devolution was his attempt to seize territory in which region?
The Spanish Netherlands
He argued that Brabant's inheritance customs made the land 'devolve' to his wife.
Q 23With which English king did he sign the Secret Treaty of Dover in 1670, an alliance against the Dutch?
Charles II
The alliance was deeply unpopular in England, which made a separate peace in 1674.
The unpaid sum eventually helped deliver the Spanish throne to his grandson.
Q 14On taking personal control of government in March 1661, what did he astonish his court by announcing?
He would rule without a chief minister
He was 22 and consolidated central authority at the expense of the feudal aristocracy.
Q 15Which Superintendent of Finances did he have arrested in 1661 and imprisoned for life?
Nicolas Fouquet
The Parlement had sentenced him only to exile; the king made it life imprisonment.
Q 16At which opulent château did the doomed finance superintendent lavishly entertain the king, flaunting his wealth?
Vaux-le-Vicomte
He had also privately fortified the island of Belle Île, which sealed his fate.
Q 17Whom did he make Controller-General of Finances in 1665, turning the 1661 deficit into a surplus by 1666?
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
His mercantilist policies lured Murano glassmakers, Swedish ironworkers and Dutch shipbuilders to France.
Q 18What was the gabelle, one of the principal taxes of his reign?
A salt tax
The land tax was the taille, and only the 'unprivileged' classes paid direct taxes at all.
Q 19Michel le Tellier and his son the Marquis de Louvois reorganised which institution into a professional force?
The army
Faster spring mobilisation let French forces strike before opponents were ready.
Q 20His 1667 ordinance imposing uniform civil procedure across the kingdom later became the basis for what?
The Napoleonic Code
It also moved baptism, marriage and death records from the church's registers to the state's.
Q 24Which member of the 1668 Triple Alliance did he pay to stay neutral before invading the Dutch Republic?
Sweden
France invaded in May 1672 with support from Münster and Cologne.
Q 25Which 1678 settlement ended the Franco-Dutch War, largely in France's favour?
The Treaty of Nijmegen
France kept Franche-Comté but its two main aims, destroying the Dutch Republic and conquering the Low Countries, both failed.
Q 26Which Free Imperial City on the Rhine did he annex in 1681?
Strasbourg
The 1697 peace later confirmed French sovereignty over all of Alsace including the city.
Q 27La Salle claimed the Mississippi basin for France in 1682 and gave it what name in the king's honour?
Louisiane
Jolliet and Marquette had reached the Mississippi nine years earlier.
Q 28Embassies from which Asian kingdom were received at Versailles in 1684 and 1686?
Siam
French influence there ended with the 1688 execution of the pro-French minister Constantine Phaulkon.
Q 29To whose court in China did he send five Jesuit missionaries in 1685?
The Kangxi Emperor
He had received a Chinese Jesuit, Michael Shen Fu-Tsung, at Versailles the year before.
Q 30The king of which country sent him an African elephant as a gift?
Portugal
Versailles was described as a combination of marriage market, employment agency and entertainment capital.