Collection Louis de France | Sammlung M. Gluesing | Privatsammlung Dortmund, Allemagne, Germany

Collection
Louis de France

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Looking at the early modern France during the Ancien Régime from today's perspective, the controversial image we see is difficult to unify with our democratic society; in particular, the supremacy of the monarchy at that time seems like a strange relic.
Thus older historical research put these words into the mouth of Louis XIV: « l'État, c'est moi! » (I am the State) which became the absolutist principle and declaration representative of the time. The Sun King's successor, Louis XV, was seen as lazy and disinterested and his successor Louis XVI weak and suffering from lack of intelligence. The same historical research had his wife Marie-Antoinette proposing their starving people in times of famine eat cakes and « brioche ». Such claims, as well as the absolutist terms, have been refuted and proven false or at least questioned, but the mediated images persist over the centuries.

But who were these monarchs and their predecessors really? Despots? Unworldly aristocrats by the grace of God? Wasteful architects and ignorant exploiters without the necessary vision for the changing times? Classified as tyrants by the great revolution, glorified as martyrs during the Restoration, they are now often known only for the palaces, mistresses and wars they left had and left behind respectively. These different perspectives have severely distorted reality and renowned historians have been putting a lot of work and research toward reconstructing a more realistic and truthful picture.

The « Collection Louis de France » deals with historical sources mainly with from the history of the French Ancien Régime under the reign of the Bourbon kings of France and Navarre. It highlights the steady rise and abrupt decline of the houses of Valois and Bourbon from the Capetian dynasty (capétiens) which ruled and determined the policies of France, from 987-1789 (as a constitutional monarchy until 1792) and certainly had a major influence on the history of Europe and the rest of the world. It tries not to put the focus solely on the respective monarchs and their families but also takes into account individuals, various offices and operations, the court life of Versailles, historical facts and the more than thousand-year-long monarchy of France overall.
Completing the collection is a post-revolutionary section, dealing with the era after the fall of the first French Emperor Napoléon I, the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France in the years 1814-15 and 1830, and the last King of the French the so-called « Roi Citoyen » (citizen King) Louis-Philippe I from the house d'Orléans, ending with his removal from the throne in 1848 when France's monarchy ended for good.