French historian Victor Duruy looked back to the early years of Louis XIV’s reign in France, and the king’s dream of being loved as a father to the nation for enlightened and selfless policies that narrowed the gap between rich and poor, and guaranteed a basic standard of living to every one of his subjects.

Victor Duruy contrasted Louis’s bright hopes at the beginning of his reign with the reality towards its close. France, as described by contemporary engineer Sebastien Vauban, was bankrupt: most of the people were in abject poverty, and few could help their neighbours. And since Vauban’s time, Louis’s war debts had consumed revenues formerly pledged to the relief of the poor.

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