Louis XIV
Louis' parents were Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was the unexpected child of King Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, who had not had children in their 22-year marriage. He was christened Louis Dieudonné (literally, “gift of God”). In 1643, before his fifth birthday, his father died, and Louis inherited the throne of France. Because Louis XIV was too young to rule, his mother ruled France with Cardinal Mazarin, the Italian financier who had been the principal minister of Louis XIII. Mazarin had guided the nation through the later stages of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). In this war France struggled against the Habsburg dynasty that ruled Spain for military supremacy in Europe.