from such low levels of efficiency and this served to keep the infrastructure of the country underdeveloped. A French banking system was nearly impossible to develop because of economic instability and foreign influences like the Dutch who did have a stable economy. The structure of society was divided into the three estates, with the peasantry basically working to support the local community, including the clergy, seigneur, and the king. While the bourgeoisie did experience some increases in power and influence, under the rule of Louis XIV society basically remained the rural and peasant-based society it had traditionally been. As Goubert (288) makes clear, it was on the strength of the backs of these people on whose future France depended, before, during, and after the reign of Louis XIV “More important still, some seventeen or eighteen million Frenchmen were peacefully at work again in the fields and workshops, still using the same slow, age-old methods, still threatened by the same precarious conditions, but working with a dogged courage and craftsmanship which are beyond dispute. It was on these people that, when all was said and done, the future strength of the nation depended.”
The overall reign of Louis XIV, one spanning more than five decades, is difficult to judge or sum up in a phrase or paragraph. Suffice it to say, Louis XIV was the greatest autocratic monarch the French have ever been ruled by. His reign was marked by not only the blossoming of French civilization, but also by wars, conquests, and
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