title: Dr. Dre

text: During the course of "2001"s popularity, Dr. Dre was involved in several lawsuits. Lucasfilm Ltd., the film company behind the Star Wars film franchise, sued him over the use of the THX-trademarked "Deep Note". The Fatback Band also sued Dr. Dre over alleged infringement regarding its song "Backstrokin'" in his song "Let's Get High" from the "2001" album; Dr. Dre was ordered to pay $1.5 million to the band in 2003. French jazz musician Jacques Loussier sued Aftermath for $10 million in March 2002, claiming that the Dr. Dre-produced Eminem track "Kill You" plagiarized his composition "Pulsion". The online music file-sharing company Napster also settled a lawsuit with him and metal band Metallica in mid-2001, agreeing to block access to certain files that artists do not want to have shared on the network.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Following the success of "2001", Dr. Dre focused on producing songs and albums for other artists. He co-produced six tracks on Eminem's landmark "Marshall Mathers LP", including the Grammy-winning lead single, "The Real Slim Shady". The album itself earned a Grammy and proved to be the fastest-selling rap album of all time, moving 1.76 million units in its first week alone. He produced the single "Family Affair" by R&B singer Mary J. Blige for her album "No More Drama" in 2001. He also produced "Let Me Blow Ya Mind", a duet by rapper Eve and No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani and signed R&B singer Truth Hurts to Aftermath in 2001.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dr. Dre produced and rapped on singer and Interscope labelmate Bilal's 2001 single "Fast Lane", which barely missed the Top 40 of the R&B charts. He later assisted in the production of Bilal's second album, "Love for Sale", which Interscope controversially shelved because of its creative direction. Dr. Dre was the executive producer of Eminem's 2002 release, "The Eminem Show". He produced three songs on the album, one of which was released as a single, and he appeared in the award-winning video for "Without Me". He also produced the D.O.C.'s 2003 album "Deuce", where he made a guest appearance on the tracks "Psychic Pymp Hotline", "Gorilla Pympin'" and "Judgment Day".


title: Dr. Dre

text: Another copyright-related lawsuit hit Dr. Dre in the fall of 2002, when Sa Re Ga Ma, a film and music company based in Calcutta, India, sued Aftermath Entertainment over an uncredited sample of the Lata Mangeshkar song "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai" on the Aftermath-produced song "Addictive" by singer Truth Hurts. In February 2003, a judge ruled that Aftermath would have to halt sales of Truth Hurts' album "Truthfully Speaking" if the company would not credit Mangeshkar.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 2002, Dr. Dre signed rapper 50 Cent to Aftermath in a joint venture between Interscope and Eminem's Shady Records. Dr. Dre served as executive producer for 50 Cent's commercially successful February 2003 debut studio album "Get Rich or Die Tryin'". Dr. Dre produced or co-produced four tracks on the album, including the hit single "In da Club". Eminem's fourth album since joining Aftermath, "Encore", again saw Dre taking on the role of executive producer, and this time he was more actively involved in the music, producing or co-producing a total of eight tracks, including three singles.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In November 2004, at the "Vibe" magazine awards show in Los Angeles, Dr. Dre was attacked by a fan named Jimmy James Johnson, who was supposedly asking for an autograph. In the resulting scuffle, then-G-Unit rapper Young Buck stabbed the man. Johnson claimed that Suge Knight, president of Death Row Records, paid him $5,000 to assault Dre in order to humiliate him before he received his Lifetime Achievement Award. Knight immediately went on CBS's "The Late Late Show" to deny involvement and insisted that he supported Dr. Dre and wanted Johnson charged. In September 2005, Johnson was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to stay away from Dr. Dre until 2008.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dr. Dre also produced "How We Do", a 2005 hit single from rapper the Game from his album "The Documentary", as well as tracks on 50 Cent's successful second album "The Massacre". For an issue of "Rolling Stone" magazine in April 2005, Dr. Dre was ranked 54th out of 100 artists for "Rolling Stone" magazine's list "The Immortals: The Greatest Artists of All Time". Kanye West wrote the summary for Dr. Dre, where he stated Dr. Dre's song "Xxplosive" as where he "got (his) whole sound from".


title: Dr. Dre

text: In November 2006, Dr. Dre began working with Raekwon on his album "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II". He also produced tracks for the rap albums "Buck the World" by Young Buck, "Curtis" by 50 Cent, "Tha Blue Carpet Treatment" by Snoop Dogg, and "Kingdom Come" by Jay-Z. Dre also appeared on Timbaland's track "Bounce", from his 2007 solo album, "Timbaland Presents Shock Value" alongside, Missy Elliott, and Justin Timberlake. During this period, the D.O.C. stated that Dre had been working with him on his fourth album "Voices through Hot Vessels", which he planned to release after "Detox" arrived.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Planned but unreleased albums during Dr. Dre's tenure at Aftermath have included a full-length reunion with Snoop Dogg titled "Breakup to Makeup", an album with fellow former N.W.A member Ice Cube which was to be titled "Heltah Skeltah", an N.W.A reunion album, and a joint album with fellow producer Timbaland titled "Chairmen of the Board".


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 2007, Dr. Dre's third studio album, formerly known as "Detox", was slated to be his final studio album. Work for the upcoming album dates back to 2001, where its first version was called "the most advanced rap album ever", by producer Scott Storch. Later that same year, he decided to stop working on the album to focus on producing for other artists, but then changed his mind; the album had initially been set for a fall 2005 release. Producers confirmed to work on the album include DJ Khalil, Nottz, Bernard "Focus" Edwards Jr., Hi-Tek, J.R. Rotem, RZA, and Jay-Z. Snoop Dogg claimed that "Detox" was finished, according to a June 2008 report by "Rolling Stone" magazine.


title: Dr. Dre

text: After another delay based on producing other artists' work, "Detox" was then scheduled for a 2010 release, coming after 50 Cent's "Before I Self Destruct" and Eminem's "Relapse", an album for which Dr. Dre handled the bulk of production duties. In a Dr Pepper commercial that debuted on May 28, 2009, he premiered the first official snippet of "Detox". 50 Cent and Eminem asserted in a 2009 interview on BET's "106 & Park" that Dr. Dre had around a dozen songs finished for "Detox".


title: Dr. Dre

text: On December 15, 2008, Dre appeared in the remix of the song "Set It Off" by Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall (also with Pusha T); the remix debuted on DJ Skee's radio show. At the beginning of 2009, Dre produced, and made a guest vocal performance on, the single "Crack a Bottle" by Eminem and the single sold a record 418,000 downloads in its first week and reached the top of the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart on the week of February 12, 2009. Along with this single, in 2009 Dr. Dre produced or co-produced 19 of 20 tracks on Eminem's album "Relapse". These included other hit singles "We Made You", "Old Time's Sake", and "3 a.m." (The only track Dre did not produce was the Eminem-produced single "Beautiful".).


title: Dr. Dre

text: On April 20, 2010, "Under Pressure", featuring Jay-Z and co-produced with Scott Storch, was confirmed by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre during an interview at Fenway Park as the album's first single. The song leaked prior to its intended release in an unmixed, unmastered form without a chorus on June 16, 2010; however, critical reaction to the song was lukewarm, and Dr. Dre later announced in an interview that the song, along with any other previously leaked tracks from "Detox"s recording process, would not appear on the final version of the album.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Two genuine singles – "Kush", a collaboration with Snoop Dogg and fellow rapper Akon, and "I Need a Doctor" with Eminem and singer Skylar Grey – were released in the United States during November 2010 and February 2011 respectively: the latter achieved international chart success, reaching number four on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and later being certified double platinum by the RIAA and the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). On June 25, 2010, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored Dr. Dre with its Founders Award for inspiring other musicians.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In an August 2010 interview, Dr. Dre stated that an instrumental album, "The Planets", was in its first stages of production; each song being named after a planet in the Solar System. On September 3, Dr. Dre showed support to longtime protégé Eminem, and appeared on his and Jay-Z's Home & Home Tour, performing hit songs such as "Still D.R.E.", "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang", and "Crack a Bottle", alongside Eminem and another protégé, 50 Cent. Sporting an "R.I.P. Proof" shirt, Dre was honored by Eminem telling Detroit's Comerica Park to do the same. They did so, by chanting "DEEE-TOX", to which he replied, "I'm coming!"


title: Dr. Dre

text: On November 14, 2011, Dre announced that he would be taking a break from music after he finished producing for artists Slim the Mobster and Kendrick Lamar. In this break, he stated that he would "work on bringing his Beats By Dre to a standard as high as Apple" and would also spend time with his family. On January 9, 2012, Dre headlined the final nights of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2012.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In June 2014, Marsha Ambrosius stated that she had been working on Detox, but added that the album would be known under another title . In September 2014, Aftermath in-house producer Dawaun Parker confirmed the title change and stated that over 300 beats had been created for the album over the years, but few of them have had vocals recorded over them.


title: Dr. Dre

text: The length of time that "Detox" had been recorded for, as well as the limited amount of material that had been officially released or leaked from the recording sessions, had given it considerable notoriety within the music industry. Numerous release dates (including the ones mentioned above) had been given for the album over the years since it was first announced, although none of them transpired to be genuine. Several musicians closely affiliated with Dr. Dre, including Snoop Dogg, fellow rappers 50 Cent, the Game and producer DJ Quik, had speculated in interviews that the album will never be released, due to Dr. Dre's business and entrepreneurial ventures having interfered with recording work, as well as causing him to lose motivation to record new material.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On August 1, 2015, Dre announced that he would release what would be his final album, titled "Compton". It is inspired by the N.W.A biopic, "Straight Outta Compton", and is a compilation-style album, featuring a number of frequent collaborators, including Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Xzibit and the Game, among others. It was initially released on Apple Music on August 7, with a retail version releasing on August 21. In an interview with "Rolling Stone", he revealed that he had about 20 to 40 tracks for "Detox" but he did not release it because it did not meet his standards. Dre also revealed that he suffers from social anxiety and due to this, remains secluded and out of attention.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On February 12, 2016, it was revealed that Apple would create its first original scripted television series for its then-upcoming Apple TV+ streaming service. Titled "Vital Signs", it was set to reflect Dre's life. He was also an executive producer on the show before the show's cancellation sometime in September 2018, due to an overly graphic concept of drugs, gun violence and sex. In October 2016, Sean Combs brought out Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and others on his Bad Boy reunion tour.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 2018, he produced four songs on "Oxnard" by Anderson .Paak. He was the executive producer on the album, as so its follow-up, 2019's "Ventura".


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dr. Dre was the executive producer of Eminem's 2020 release, "Music To Be Murdered By". He produced four songs on the album. He also produced two songs on the deluxe edition of the album, "Side B", and appeared on the song, "Gunz Blazing". On September 30, 2021, it was revealed that Dre would perform at the Super Bowl LVI halftime show alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In December 2021, an update for the video game, "Grand Theft Auto Online", predominantly featured Dre and added some of his previously unreleased tracks which was released as an EP, "The Contract", on February 3, 2022. Around this time, Dre announced he was collaborating with Marsha Ambrosius on "Casablanco", and with Mary J. Blige on an upcoming album. Later that year, Snoop Dogg announced that him and Dr. Dre are in the process of recording their new album, "Missionary". Snoop said the album will be released via Death Row and Aftermath.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On February 13, 2022, Dr. Dre performed at the Super Bowl LVI halftime show alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige, with surprise appearances from 50 Cent and Anderson. Paak. The performance was met with critical acclaim and is the first Super Bowl halftime show to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live). The show also won the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special and Outstanding Music Direction. The same year, he produced numerous songs including "The King and I", a collaboration between Eminem and CeeLo Green for the 2022 biopic, "Elvis," and a remix of Kanye West's song "Use This Gospel" for DJ Khaled's album "God Did".


title: Dr. Dre

text: In September 2022, it was reported that Dr. Dre will compose the original score for the upcoming animated series, "Death for Hire: The Origin of Tehk City". The show is created by Ice-T and Arabian Prince; based on the graphic novel of the same title, it features the voice talent of Ice-T, his wife Coco Austin, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, and Treach among others.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dr. Dre made his first on screen appearance as a weapons dealer in the 1996 bank robbery movie "Set It Off". In 2001, Dr. Dre also appeared in the movies "The Wash" and "Training Day". A song of his, "Bad Intentions" (featuring Knoc-Turn'Al and produced by Mahogany), was featured on "The Wash" soundtrack. Dr. Dre also appeared on two other songs "On the Blvd." and "The Wash" along with his co-star Snoop Dogg.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In February 2007, it was announced that Dr. Dre would produce dark comedies and horror films for New Line Cinema-owned company Crucial Films, along with longtime video director Phillip Atwell. Dr. Dre announced "This is a natural switch for me, since I've directed a lot of music videos, and I eventually want to get into directing." Along with fellow member Ice Cube, Dr. Dre produced "Straight Outta Compton" (2015), a biographical film about N.W.A.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 2006, Dre co-founded Beats Electronics with his partner, Jimmy Iovine. Its first brand of headphones were launched in July 2008. The line consisted of Beats Studio, a circumaural headphone; Beats Tour, an in-ear headphone; Beats Solo & Solo HD, a supra-aural headphone; Beats Spin; Heartbeats by Lady Gaga, also an in-ear headphone; and Diddy Beats. In late 2009, Hewlett-Packard participated in a deal to bundle Beats By Dr. Dre with some HP laptops and headsets. HP and Dr. Dre announced the deal on October 9, 2009, at a press event. An exclusive laptop, known as the HP ENVY 15 Beats limited edition, was released for sale October 22. In January 2014, Beats Music was introduced and launched as a streaming service. Then, in May, technology giant Apple purchased the Beats brand for $3.4 billion. The deal made Dr. Dre the "richest man in hip hop". Dr. Dre became an Apple employee in an executive role, and worked with Apple for years. As of 2022, it was found that Apple had subtracted $200 million from the deal after entertainer Tyrese Gibson revealed the news of the acquisition on social media a month before it was completed without the company's permission.


title: Dr. Dre

text: During May 2013, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine donated a $70 million endowment to the University of Southern California to create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation. The goal of the academy has been stated as "to shape the future by nurturing the talents, passions, leadership and risk-taking of uniquely qualified students who are motivated to explore and create new art forms, technologies, and business models." The first class of the academy began in September 2014.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In June 2017, it was announced that Dr. Dre has committed $10 million to the construction of a performing arts center for the new Compton High School. The center will encompass creative resources and a 1,200-seat theater, and is expected to break ground in 2020. The project is a partnership between Dr. Dre and the Compton Unified School District.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Beginning in 2009, Dr. Dre appeared in TV commercials that also featured his Beats Electronics product line. A 2009 commercial for the Dr Pepper soft drink had Dr. Dre DJing with Beats headphones and playing a brief snippet off the never-released "Detox" album. In 2010, Dr. Dre had a cameo in a commercial for HP laptops that featured a plug for Beats Audio. Then in 2011, the Chrysler 300S "Imported from Detroit" ad campaign had a commercial narrated by Dr. Dre and including a plug for Beats Audio.


title: Dr. Dre

text: An urban legend surfaced in 2011 when a Tumblr blog titled Dr. Dre Started Burning Man began promulgating the notion that the producer, rapper and entrepreneur had discovered Burning Man in 1995 during a music video shoot and offered to cover the cost of the event's permit from the Nevada Bureau of Land Management under an agreement with the festival's organizers that he could institute an entrance fee system, which had not existed before his participation. This claim was supported by an alleged letter from Dre to Nicole Threatt Young that indicated that Dre had shared his experience witnessing the Burning Man festival with her.


title: Dr. Dre

text: "Business Insider" mentions the portion of the letter where Dr. Dre purportedly states "someone should get behind this ... and make some money off these fools" and compares Dr. Dre's potential entrepreneurial engagement with Burning Man as a parallel to Steve Jobs' efforts to centralize and profit from the otherwise unorganized online music industry. According to "Salon", Dr. Dre's ethos seems to be aligned with seven of the ten principles of the Burning Man community: "radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy."


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dre is noted for his evolving production style, while always keeping in touch with his early musical sound and re-shaping elements from previous work. At the beginning of his career as a producer for the World Class Wreckin Cru with DJ Alonzo Williams in the mid-1980s, his music was in the electro-hop style pioneered by the Unknown DJ, and that of early hip-hop groups like the Beastie Boys and Whodini.


title: Dr. Dre

text: From "Straight Outta Compton" on, Dre uses live musicians to replay old melodies rather than sampling them. With Ruthless Records, collaborators included guitarist Mike "Crazy Neck" Sims, multi-instrumentalist Colin Wolfe, DJ Yella and sound engineer Donovan "The Dirt Biker" Sound. Dre is receptive of new ideas from other producers, one example being his fruitful collaboration with Above the Law's producer Cold 187um while at Ruthless. Cold 187 um was at the time experimenting with 1970s P-Funk samples (Parliament, Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton etc.), that Dre also used. Dre has since been accused of "stealing" the concept of G-funk from Cold 187 um.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Upon leaving Ruthless and forming Death Row Records in 1991, Dre called on veteran West Coast DJ Chris "the Glove" Taylor and sound engineer Greg "Gregski" Royal, along with Colin Wolfe, to help him on future projects. His 1992 album "The Chronic" is thought to be one of the most well-produced hip-hop albums of all time. Musical themes included hard-hitting synthesizer solos played by Wolfe, bass-heavy compositions, background female vocals and Dre fully embracing 1970s funk samples. Dre used a minimoog synth to replay the melody from Leon Haywood's 1972 song "I Wanna Do Somethin' Freaky to You" for the Chronic's first single "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" which became a global hit. For his new protégé Snoop Doggy Dogg's album "Doggystyle", Dre collaborated with then 19-year-old producer Daz Dillinger, who received co-production credits on songs "Serial Killa" and "For all My Niggaz & Bitches", The Dramatics bass player Tony "T. Money" Green, guitarist Ricky Rouse, keyboardists Emanuel "Porkchop" Dean and Sean "Barney Rubble" Thomas and engineer Tommy Daugherty, as well as Warren G and Sam Sneed, who are credited with bringing several samples to the studio.


title: Dr. Dre

text: The influence of "The Chronic" and "Doggystyle" on the popular music of the 1990s went not only far beyond the West Coast, but beyond hip-hop as a genre. Artists as diverse as Master P ("Bout It, Bout It"), George Michael ("Fastlove"), Mariah Carey ("Fantasy"), Adina Howard ("Freak Like Me"), Luis Miguel ("Dame"), and The Spice Girls ("Say You'll Be There") used G-funk instrumentation in their songs. Bad Boy Records producer Chucky Thompson stated in the April 2004 issue of "XXL" magazine that the sound of "Doggystyle" and "The Chronic" was the basis for the Notorious B.I.G.'s 1995 hit single "Big Poppa":


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 1994, starting with the "Murder was the Case" soundtrack, Dre attempted to push the boundaries of G-funk further into a darker sound. In songs such as "Murder was the Case" and "Natural Born Killaz", the synthesizer pitch is higher and the drum tempo is slowed down to 91 BPM (87 BPM in the remix) to create a dark and gritty atmosphere. Percussion instruments, particularly sleigh bells, are also present. Dre's frequent collaborators from this period included Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania natives Stuart "Stu-B-Doo" Bullard, a multi-instrumentalist from the Ozanam Strings Orchestra, Sam Sneed, Stephen "Bud'da" Anderson, and percussionist Carl "Butch" Small. This style of production has been influential far beyond the West Coast. The beat for the Houston-based group Geto Boys 1996 song "Still" follows the same drum pattern as "Natural Born Killaz" and Eazy E's "Wut Would U Do" (a diss to Dre) is similar to the original "Murder was the Case" instrumental. This style of production is usually accompanied by horror and occult-themed lyrics and imagery, being crucial to the creation of horrorcore.


title: Dr. Dre

text: By 1996, Dre was again looking to innovate his sound. He recruited keyboardist Camara Kambon to play the keys on "Been There, Done That", and through Bud'da and Sam Sneed he was introduced to fellow Pittsburgh native Melvin "Mel-Man" Bradford. At this time, he also switched from using the E-mu SP-1200 to the Akai MPC3000 drum kit and sampler, which he still uses today. Beginning with his 1996 compilation Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath, Dre's production has taken a less sample-based approach, with loud, layered snare drums dominating the mix, while synthesizers are still omnipresent. In his critically acclaimed second album, 2001, live instrumentation takes the place of sampling, a famous example being "The Next Episode", in which keyboardist Camara Kambon re-played live the main melody from David McCallum's 1967 jazz-funk work "The Edge". For every song on "2001", Dre had a keyboardist, guitarist and bassist create the basic parts of the beat, while he himself programmed the drums, did the sequencing and overdubbing and added sound effects, and later mixed the songs. During this period, Dre's signature "west coast whistle" riffs are still present albeit in a lower pitch, as in "Light Speed", "Housewife", "Some L.A. Niggaz" and Eminem's "Guilty Conscience" hook. The sound of "2001" had tremendous influence on hip-hop production, redefining the West Coast's sound and expanding the G-funk of the early 1990s. To produce the album, Dre and Mel-Man relied on the talents of Scott Storch and Camara Kambon on the keys, Mike Elizondo and Colin Wolfe on bass guitar, Sean Cruse on lead guitar and sound engineers Richard "Segal" Huredia and Mauricio "Veto" Iragorri.


title: Dr. Dre

text: From the mid-2000s, Dr. Dre has taken on a more soulful production style, using more of a classical piano instead of a keyboard, and having claps replace snares, as evidenced in songs such as Snoop Dogg's "Imagine" and "Boss' Life", Busta Rhymes' "Get You Some" and "Been Through the Storm", Stat Quo's "Get Low" and "The Way It Be", Jay-Z's "Lost One", Nas' "Hustlers", and several beats on Eminem's Relapse album. Soul and R&B pianist Mark Batson, having previously worked with The Dave Matthews Band, Seal and Maroon 5 has been credited as the architect of this sound. Besides Batson, Aftermath producer and understudy of Dre's, Dawaun Parker, who has named Q-Tip and J Dilla as his primary influences, is thought to be responsible for giving Dre's newest beats an East Coast feel.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Despite an occasional hint of trap about the beats and an intriguingly warped use of autotune in his Compton album song, "Darkside/Gone", his production seems to stand slightly apart from current trends in hip-hop like Eminem's song "Little Engine" with an ominous horrorcore beat — reminiscent of some of his works on Eminem's album Relapse - or the West Coast joint Lock It Up.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dr. Dre has said that his primary instrument in the studio is the Akai MPC3000, a drum machine and sampler, and that he often uses as many as four or five to produce a single recording. He cites 1970s funk musicians such as George Clinton, Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield as his primary musical influences. Unlike most rap producers, he tries to avoid samples as much as possible, preferring to have studio musicians re-play pieces of music he wants to use, because it allows him more flexibility to change the pieces in rhythm and tempo. In 2001 he told "Time" magazine, "I may hear something I like on an old record that may inspire me, but I'd rather use musicians to re-create the sound or elaborate on it. I can control it better."


title: Dr. Dre

text: Other equipment he uses includes the E-mu SP-1200 drum machine and other keyboards from such manufacturers as Korg, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Moog, and Roland. Dr. Dre also stresses the importance of equalizing drums properly, telling "Scratch" in 2004 that he "used the same drum sounds on a couple of different songs on one album before but you'd never be able to tell the difference because of the EQ". Dr. Dre also uses the digital audio workstation Pro Tools and uses the software to combine hardware drum machines and vintage analog keyboards and synthesizers.


title: Dr. Dre

text: After founding Aftermath Entertainment in 1996, Dr. Dre took on producer Mel-Man as a co-producer, and his music took on a more synthesizer-based sound, using fewer vocal samples (as he had used on "Lil' Ghetto Boy" and "Let Me Ride" on "The Chronic", for example). Mel-Man has not shared co-production credits with Dr. Dre since approximately 2002, but fellow Aftermath producer Focus has credited Mel-Man as a key architect of the signature Aftermath sound.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 1999, Dr. Dre started working with Mike Elizondo, a bassist, guitarist, and keyboardist who has also produced, written and played on records for female singers such as Poe, Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette, In the past few years Elizondo has since worked for many of Dr. Dre's productions. Dr. Dre also told "Scratch" magazine in a 2004 interview that he has been studying piano and music theory formally, and that a major goal is to accumulate enough musical theory to score movies. In the same interview he stated that he has collaborated with famed 1960s songwriter Burt Bacharach by sending him hip hop beats to play over, and hopes to have an in-person collaboration with him in the future.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dr. Dre has stated that he is a perfectionist and is known to pressure the artists with whom he records to give flawless performances. In 2006, Snoop Dogg told the website Dubcnn.com that Dr. Dre had made new artist Bishop Lamont re-record a single bar of vocals 107 times. Dr. Dre has also stated that Eminem is a fellow perfectionist, and attributes his success on Aftermath to his similar work ethic. He gives a lot of input into the delivery of the vocals and will stop an MC during a take if it is not to his liking. However, he gives MCs that he works with room to write lyrics without too much instruction unless it is a specifically conceptual record, as noted by Bishop Lamont in the book "How to Rap".


title: Dr. Dre

text: A consequence of his perfectionism is that some artists who initially sign deals with Dr. Dre's Aftermath label never release albums. In 2001, Aftermath released the soundtrack to the movie "The Wash", featuring a number of Aftermath acts such as Shaunta, Daks, Joe Beast and Toi. To date, none have released full-length albums on Aftermath and have apparently ended their relationships with the label and Dr. Dre. Other noteworthy acts to leave Aftermath without releasing albums include King Tee, "2001" vocalist Hittman, Joell Ortiz, Raekwon and Rakim.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Over the years, word of other collaborators who have contributed to Dr. Dre's work has surfaced. During his tenure at Death Row Records, it was alleged that Dr. Dre's stepbrother Warren G and Tha Dogg Pound member Daz made many uncredited contributions to songs on his solo album "The Chronic" and Snoop Doggy Dogg's album "Doggystyle" (Daz received production credits on Snoop's similar-sounding, albeit less successful album "Tha Doggfather" after Young left Death Row Records).


title: Dr. Dre

text: It is known that Scott Storch, who has since gone on to become a successful producer in his own right, contributed to Dr. Dre's second album "2001"; Storch is credited as a songwriter on several songs and played keyboards on several tracks. In 2006 he told "Rolling Stone":


title: Dr. Dre

text: Current collaborator Mike Elizondo, when speaking about his work with Young, describes their recording process as a collaborative effort involving several musicians. In 2004 he claimed to "Songwriter Universe" magazine that he had written the foundations of the hit Eminem song "The Real Slim Shady", stating, "I initially played a bass line on the song, and Dr. Dre, Tommy Coster Jr. and I built the track from there. Eminem then heard the track, and he wrote the rap to it." This account is essentially confirmed by Eminem in his book "Angry Blonde", stating that the tune for the song was composed by a studio bassist and keyboardist while Dr. Dre was out of the studio but Young later programmed the song's beat after returning.


title: Dr. Dre

text: A group of disgruntled former associates of Dr. Dre complained that they had not received their full due for work on the label in the September 2003 issue of "The Source". A producer named Neff-U claimed to have produced the songs "Say What You Say" and "My Dad's Gone Crazy" on "The Eminem Show", the songs "If I Can't" and "Back Down" on 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'", and the beat featured on Dr. Dre's commercial for Coors beer.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Although Young studies piano and music theory, he serves as more of a conductor than a musician himself, as Josh Tyrangiel of "Time" magazine has noted:


title: Dr. Dre

text: Although Snoop Dogg retains working relationships with Warren G and Daz, who are alleged to be uncredited contributors on the hit albums "The Chronic" and "Doggystyle", he states that Dr. Dre is capable of making beats without the help of collaborators, and that he is responsible for the success of his numerous albums. Dr. Dre's prominent studio collaborators, including Scott Storch, Elizondo, Mark Batson and Dawaun Parker, have shared co-writing, instrumental, and more recently co-production credits on the songs where he is credited as the producer.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Anderson .Paak also praised Dr. Dre in a 2016 interview with "Music Times", telling the publication that it was a dream come true to work with Dre.


title: Dr. Dre

text: It is acknowledged that most of Dr. Dre's raps are written for him by others, though he retains ultimate control over his lyrics and the themes of his songs. As Aftermath producer Mahogany told "Scratch": "It's like a class room in [the booth]. He'll have three writers in there. They'll bring in something, he'll recite it, then he'll say, 'Change this line, change this word,' like he's grading papers."


title: Dr. Dre

text: As seen in the credits for tracks Young has appeared on, there are often multiple people who contribute to his songs (although often in hip hop many people are officially credited as a writer for a song, even the producer).


title: Dr. Dre

text: In the book "How to Rap", RBX explains that writing "The Chronic" was a "team effort" and details how he ghostwrote "Let Me Ride" for Dre. In regard to ghostwriting lyrics he says, "Dre doesn't profess to be no super-duper rap dude – Dre is a super-duper producer". As a member of N.W.A, the D.O.C. wrote lyrics for him while he stuck with producing. Jay-Z ghostwrote lyrics for the single "Still D.R.E." from Dr. Dre's album "2001".


title: Dr. Dre

text: On December 15, 1981, when Dre was 16 years old and his then-girlfriend Cassandra Joy Greene was 15 years old, the two had a son named Curtis, who was brought up by Greene and first met Dre 20 years later. Curtis performed as a rapper under the name Hood Surgeon.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 1983, Dre and Lisa Johnson had a daughter named La Tanya Danielle Young. Dre and Johnson have three daughters together.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 1988, Dre and Jenita Porter had a son named Andre Young Jr. In 1990, Porter sued Dre, seeking $5,000 of child support per month. On August 23, 2008, Andre died at the age of 20 from an overdose of heroin and morphine at his mother's Woodland Hills home.


title: Dr. Dre

text: From 1987 to 1996, Dre dated singer Michel'le, who frequently contributed vocals to Ruthless Records and Death Row Records albums. In 1991, they had a son named Marcel.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In April 1992, after a verbal dispute with his engineer, Dre was consequentially shot four times in his leg.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 1996, Dre married Nicole (née Plotzker) Threatt, who was previously married to basketball player Sedale Threatt. They have two children together: a son named Truice (born 1997) and a daughter named Truly (born 2001).


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 2001, Dre earned a total of about US$52 million from selling part of his share of Aftermath Entertainment to Interscope Records and his production of such hit songs that year as "Family Affair" by Mary J. Blige. "Rolling Stone" magazine thus named him the second highest-paid artist of the year. Dr. Dre was ranked 44th in 2004 from earnings of $11.4 million, primarily from production royalties from such projects as albums from G-Unit and D12 and the single "Rich Girl" by singer Gwen Stefani and rapper Eve. "Forbes" estimated his net worth at US$270 million in 2012. The same publication later reported that he acquired US$110 million via his various endeavors in 2012, making him the highest–paid artist of the year. Income from the 2014 sale of Beats to Apple, contributing to what "Forbes" termed "the biggest single-year payday of any musician in history", made Dr. Dre the world's richest musical performer of 2015.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 2014, Dre purchased a $40 million home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles from its previous owners, NFL player Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen.


title: Dr. Dre

text: It was reported that Dre suffered a brain aneurysm on January 5, 2021, and that he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's ICU in Los Angeles, California. Hours after his admission to the hospital, Dre's home was targeted for an attempted burglary. He eventually received support from LeBron James, Martin Lawrence, LL Cool J, Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, 50 Cent, Ellen DeGeneres, Ciara, her husband Russell Wilson, T.I., Quincy Jones and others. In February, he was released with a following message on Instagram: "Thanks to my family, friends and fans for their interest and well wishes. I'm doing great and getting excellent care from my medical team. I will be out of the hospital and back home soon. Shout out to all the great medical professionals at Cedars. One Love!!"


title: Dr. Dre

text: On January 27, 1991, at a music industry party at the Po Na Na Souk club in Hollywood, Dr. Dre assaulted television host Dee Barnes of the Fox television program "Pump it Up!", following an episode of the show. Barnes had interviewed NWA, which was followed by an interview with Ice Cube in which Cube mocked NWA. Barnes filed a $22.7 million lawsuit in response to the incident. Subsequently, Dr. Dre was fined $2,500, given two years' probation, ordered to undergo 240 hours of community service, and given a spot on an anti-violence public service announcement on television. The civil suit was settled out of court. Barnes stated that he "began slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall near the stairway". Dr. Dre later commented: "People talk all this shit, but you know, somebody fucks with me, I'm gonna fuck with them. I just did it, you know. Ain't nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain't no big thing – I just threw her through a door."


title: Dr. Dre

text: In March 2015, Michel'le, the mother of one of Dre's children, accused him of subjecting her to domestic violence during their time together as a couple, but did not initiate legal action. Their abusive relationship is portrayed in her 2016 biopic "". Dre threatened a lawsuit against Lifetime, Sony Pictures and filmmakers of "Surviving Compton" in a cease and desist, but never ultimately took action.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Interviewed by Ben Westhoff for the book "Original Gangstas: the Untold Story of Dr Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap", Lisa Johnson stated that Dre beat her many times, including while she was pregnant. She was granted a restraining order against him.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Former labelmate Tairrie B claimed that Dre assaulted her at a post-Grammy party in 1990, in response to her track "Ruthless Bitch".


title: Dr. Dre

text: During press for the 2015 film "Straight Outta Compton", questions about the portrayal and behavior of Dre and other prominent figures in the rap community about violence against women – and the question about its absence in the film – were raised. The discussion about the film led to Dre addressing his past behavior in the press. In August 2015, in an interview with "Rolling Stone", Dre lamented his abusive past, saying, "I made some fucking horrible mistakes in my life. I was young, fucking stupid. I would say all the allegations aren't true—some of them are. Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really fucked up. But I paid for those mistakes, and there's no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again."


title: Dr. Dre

text: In a statement to "The New York Times" on August 21, 2015, exactly two weeks after his album, "Compton", was released, Dre again addressed his abusive past, stating, "25 years ago I was a young man drinking too much and in over my head with no real structure in my life. However, none of this is an excuse for what I did. I've been married for 19 years and every day I'm working to be a better man for my family, seeking guidance along the way. I'm doing everything I can so I never resemble that man again. ... I apologize to the women I've hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives."


title: Dr. Dre

text: In the 2017 film "The Defiant Ones", Dr. Dre explained about the Dee Barnes incident again, "This was a very low point in my life. I've done a lot of stupid shit in my life. A lot of things I wish I could go and take back. I've experienced abuse. I've watched my mother get abused. So there's absolutely no excuse for it. No woman should ever be treated that way. Any man that puts his hands on a female is a fucking idiot. He's out of his fucking mind, and I was out of my fucking mind at the time. I fucked up, I paid for it, I'm sorry for it, and I apologize for it. I have this dark cloud that follows me, and it's going to be attached to me forever. It's a major blemish on who I am as a man."


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dre's wife, Nicole Plotzker-Young, filed for divorce in June 2020, citing irreconcilable differences. In November 2020, she filed legal claims that Dre engaged in verbal violence and infidelity during their marriage. She also stated that he tore up their prenuptial agreement that he wanted her to sign out of anger. Dre's representative responded, calling her claims of infidelity and violence in their marriage "false". Before being released from the Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, he was ordered to pay Plotzker-Young $2 million in temporary spousal support. Between the spring and summer of the year, Dre was ordered by the Los Angeles County judge to pay his ex-wife over $300,000 a month in spousal support. The $2 million extension request was also dismissed, due to insufficient claims. In July 2021, Dr. Dre was ordered by the Los Angeles Superior Court Judge to pay an additional $293,306 a month to estranged wife in spousal support starting August 1 until she decides to remarry or "further order of the Court". Then, in August, the judge denied his wife's request for a protective order, due to her being afraid of Dre after a snippet leaked on Instagram of him rapping about the divorce proceedings and his possible brain aneurysm earlier that February; in this snippet, he called his wife a "greedy bitch". In mid-October, Dr. Dre was served more divorce papers, during his grandmother's funeral. That same month, Dre was officially deemed "single" by the judge. The financial owings in this case included expenses of Dre's Malibu, Palisades and Hollywood Hills homes, but not his stock in past ownership of Beats Electronics, prior to its sale to Apple in 2014. As of December 2021, the divorce proceedings have entered its final stages. On December 28, the divorce was settled with Dre keeping most of his assets and income due to the prenuptial agreement, although he would have to pay a 9-figure settlement within one year.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On June 28, 1992, hours before midnight, a barbecue grill and an overfill of charcoal caused Dre's Calabasas mansion to set on fire. Two firefighters who exhausted the fire were treated in the hospital for minor injuries. The fire caused over $125,000 in home damages.


title: Dr. Dre

text: Dre pleaded guilty in October 1992 in a case of battery of a police officer and was convicted on two additional battery counts stemming from a brawl in the lobby of the New Orleans hotel in May 1991.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In 1993, he was convicted of battery after an altercation with a man who stood outside the front porch of his Woodland Hills home in front of the musician's girlfriend. He claimed that Dre broke his jaw as a result.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On January 10, 1994, Dre was arrested after leading police on a 90 mph pursuit through Beverly Hills in his 1987 Ferrari. It was revealed that Dr. Dre had a blood alcohol of 0.16, twice the state of California's legal limit. The conviction violated the conditions of parole following Dre's battery conviction in 1993; he plead no contest and was sentenced to eight months in prison in September 1994. He was ordered to pay a $1,053 fine and attend an alcohol education program.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On October 30, 2015, Ruthless co-founder Jerry Heller filed suit against Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E's widow, Tomica Woods-Wright, director F. Gary Gray and Universal Pictures for defamation of character and copyright infringement over the biopic, "Straight Outta Compton". The lawsuit states that depictions of Heller in the film, portrayed by Paul Giamatti, were wrongfully taken from an autobiography he wrote about his involvement with Ruthless and N.W.A. The case was taken to court in June 2016 where a judge criticized the filing, saying that the film was "approved to portray these facts in "colorful and hyperbolic" terms". On September 2, 2016, Jerry Heller died of a car accident, preceded by a heart attack. However, his lawsuit kept on through his legal team and members of his estate. In October 2018, the lawsuit was dropped, costing Heller's estate $35 million for punitive and $75 million for compensatory damages.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On April 4, 2016, TMZ and the "New York Daily News" reported that Suge Knight had accused Dre and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department of a kill-for-hire plot in the 2014 shooting of Knight in club 1 OAK. Three months later, in July, Dre was reportedly detained by police after confronting a next-door neighbor in Malibu about a test drive. It was also alleged that he brandished a handgun on the neighbor, but no evidence would be linked and Dre was soon released.


title: Dr. Dre

text: On May 8, 2018, Dre lost a name trademark filing to a Pennsylvania gynecologist named Draion Burch, who previously filed a trademark petition in 2015 to use his nickname, Dr. Drai, which has the similar pronunciation. Then, on June 26, Dre and Jimmy Iovine were ordered to pay $25 million to former partner and creative designer Steven Lamar, who sued the two co-founders for $100 million in unpaid royalties for designing the early Beats headphone models. The lawsuit was filed in 2015 after news broke out of Apple's acquisition of the headphone brand a year prior.


title: Dr. Dre

text: In August 2021, Dr. Dre's oldest daughter LaTanya Young spoke out about being homeless and unable to support her four children. She is currently working for UberEats and DoorDash, and she also works at warehouse jobs. She is living in debt in her SUV while her children are living with friends. Dr. Dre has allegedly stopped supporting LaTanya financially since January 2020 because she has "spoken about him in the press".


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any sovereign in history whose date is verifiable. Although Louis XIV's France was emblematic of the age of absolutism in Europe, the King surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Bossuet, Colbert, Le Brun, Le Nôtre, Lully, Mazarin, Molière, Racine, Turenne, and Vauban.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister, the Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralised state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France; by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, he succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde during his minority. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured until the French Revolution. Louis also enforced uniformity of religion under the Gallican Catholic Church. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades, effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, as well as virtually destroying the French Protestant community.


title: Louis XIV

text: During Louis's long reign, France emerged as the leading European power and regularly asserted its military strength. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his reign, the kingdom took part in three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession. In addition, France also contested shorter wars, such as the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Warfare defined Louis's foreign policy and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by "a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique", he sensed that war was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime, he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. Upon his death in 1715, Louis XIV left his great-grandson and successor, Louis XV, a powerful kingdom, albeit in major debt after the thirteen-year-long War of the Spanish Succession.


title: Louis XIV

text: Significant achievements during his reign which would go on to have a wide influence on the early modern period well into the Industrial Revolution and until today, include the construction of the Canal du Midi, the patronage of artists, and the founding of the French Academy of Sciences.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given) and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent: "Dauphin". At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis's relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time. Contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is highly likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis' journal entries, such as:


title: Louis XIV

text: "Nature was responsible for the first knots which tied me to my mother. But attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood."


title: Louis XIV

text: It was his mother who gave Louis his belief in the absolute and divine power of his monarchical rule.


title: Louis XIV

text: During his childhood, he was taken care of by the governesses Françoise de Lansac and Marie-Catherine de Senecey. In 1646, Nicolas V de Villeroy became the young king's tutor. Louis XIV became friends with Villeroy's young children, particularly François de Villeroy, and divided his time between the Palais-Royal and the nearby Hotel de Villeroy.


title: Louis XIV

text: Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, when Louis XIV was four years old. In defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his son's behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Anne's political abilities was his primary rationale. He did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis XIII died on 14 May 1643, and on 18 May, Queen Anne had her husband's will annulled by the "Parlement de Paris" (a judicial body comprising mostly nobles and high clergymen). This action abolished the regency council and made Anne the sole Regent of France. Anne exiled some of her husband's ministers (Chavigny, Bouthilier), and she nominated Brienne as her minister of foreign affairs.


title: Louis XIV

text: Anne kept the direction of religious policy strongly in her hand until 1661; her most important political decisions were to nominate Cardinal Mazarin as her chief minister and the continuation of her late husband's and Cardinal Richelieu's policy, despite their persecution of her, for the sake of her son. Anne wanted to give her son absolute authority and a victorious kingdom. Her rationales for choosing Mazarin were mainly his ability and his total dependence on her, at least until 1653 when she was no longer regent. Anne protected Mazarin by arresting and exiling her followers who conspired against him in 1643: the Duke of Beaufort and Marie de Rohan. She left the direction of the daily administration of policy to Cardinal Mazarin.


title: Louis XIV

text: The best example of Anne's statesmanship and the partial change in her heart towards her native Spain is seen in her keeping of one of Richelieu's men, the Chancellor of France Pierre Séguier, in his post. Séguier was the person who had interrogated Anne in 1637, treating her like a "common criminal" as she described her treatment following the discovery that she was giving military secrets and information to Spain. Anne was virtually under house arrest for a number of years during her husband's rule. By keeping him in his post, Anne was giving a sign that the interests of France and her son Louis were the guiding spirit of all her political and legal actions. Though not necessarily opposed to Spain, she sought to end the war with a French victory, in order to establish a lasting peace between the Catholic nations.


title: Louis XIV

text: The Queen also gave a partial Catholic orientation to French foreign policy. This was felt by the Netherlands, France's Protestant ally, which negotiated a separate peace with Spain in 1648.


title: Louis XIV

text: In 1648, Anne and Mazarin successfully negotiated the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War. Its terms ensured Dutch independence from Spain, awarded some autonomy to the various German princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and granted Sweden seats on the Imperial Diet and territories to control the mouths of the Oder, Elbe, and Weser rivers. France, however, profited most from the settlement. Austria, ruled by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III, ceded all Habsburg lands and claims in Alsace to France and acknowledged her "de facto" sovereignty over the Three Bishoprics of Metz, Verdun, and Toul. Moreover, eager to emancipate themselves from Habsburg domination, petty German states sought French protection. This anticipated the formation of the 1658 League of the Rhine, leading to the further diminution of Imperial power.


title: Louis XIV

text: As the Thirty Years' War came to an end, a civil war known as the Fronde (after the slings used to smash windows) erupted in France. It effectively checked France's ability to exploit the Peace of Westphalia. Anne and Mazarin had largely pursued the policies of Cardinal Richelieu, augmenting the Crown's power at the expense of the nobility and the ". Anne interfered much more in internal policy than foreign affairs; she was a very proud queen who insisted on the divine rights of the King of France.


title: Louis XIV

text: All this led her to advocate a forceful policy in all matters relating to the King's authority, in a manner that was much more radical than the one proposed by Mazarin. The Cardinal depended totally on Anne's support and had to use all his influence on the Queen to temper some of her radical actions. Anne imprisoned any aristocrat or member of parliament who challenged her will; her main aim was to transfer to her son an absolute authority in the matters of finance and justice. One of the leaders of the Parlement of Paris, whom she had jailed, died in prison.


title: Louis XIV

text: The ', political heirs of the disaffected feudal aristocracy, sought to protect their traditional feudal privileges from the increasingly centralized royal government. Furthermore, they believed their traditional influence and authority was being usurped by the recently ennobled bureaucrats (the ', or "nobility of the robe"), who administered the kingdom and on whom the monarchy increasingly began to rely. This belief intensified the nobles' resentment.


title: Louis XIV

text: In 1648, Anne and Mazarin attempted to tax members of the '. The members refused to comply and ordered all of the king's earlier financial edicts burned. Buoyed by the victory of (later known as ') at the Battle of Lens, Mazarin, on Queen Anne's insistence, arrested certain members in a show of force. The most important arrest, from Anne's point of view, concerned Pierre Broussel, one of the most important leaders in the ".


title: Louis XIV

text: People in France were complaining about the expansion of royal authority, the high rate of taxation, and the reduction of the authority of the Parlement de Paris and other regional representative entities. Paris erupted in rioting as a result, and Anne was forced, under intense pressure, to free Broussel. Moreover, on the night of 9–10 February 1651, when Louis was twelve, a mob of angry Parisians broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king. Led into the royal bed-chamber, they gazed upon Louis, who was feigning sleep, were appeased, and then quietly departed. The threat to the royal family prompted Anne to flee Paris with the king and his courtiers.


title: Louis XIV

text: Shortly thereafter, the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia allowed Condé's army to return to aid Louis and his court. Condé's family was close to Anne at that time, and he agreed to help her attempt to restore the king's authority. The queen's army, headed by Condé, attacked the rebels in Paris; the rebels were under the political control of Anne's old friend Marie de Rohan. Beaufort, who had escaped from the prison where Anne had incarcerated him five years before, was the military leader in Paris, under the nominal control of Conti. After a few battles, a political compromise was reached; the Peace of Rueil was signed, and the court returned to Paris.


title: Louis XIV

text: Unfortunately for Anne, her partial victory depended on Condé, who wanted to control the queen and destroy Mazarin's influence. It was Condé's sister who pushed him to turn against the queen. After striking a deal with her old friend Marie de Rohan, who was able to impose the nomination of as minister of justice, Anne arrested Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, and the husband of their sister Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, duchess of Longueville. This situation did not last long, and Mazarin's unpopularity led to the creation of a coalition headed mainly by Marie de Rohan and the duchess of Longueville. This aristocratic coalition was strong enough to liberate the princes, exile Mazarin, and impose a condition of virtual house arrest on Queen Anne.


title: Louis XIV

text: All these events were witnessed by Louis and largely explained his later distrust of Paris and the higher aristocracy. "In one sense, Louis' childhood came to an end with the outbreak of the Fronde. It was not only that life became insecure and unpleasant – a fate meted out to many children in all ages – but that Louis had to be taken into the confidence of his mother and Mazarin on political and military matters of which he could have no deep understanding". "The family home became at times a near-prison when Paris had to be abandoned, not in carefree outings to other chateaux but in humiliating flights". The royal family was driven out of Paris twice in this manner, and at one point Louis XIV and Anne were held under virtual arrest in the royal palace in Paris. The Fronde years planted in Louis a hatred of Paris and a consequent determination to move out of the ancient capital as soon as possible, never to return.


title: Louis XIV

text: Just as the first ' (the ' of 1648–1649) ended, a second one (the ' of 1650–1653) began. Unlike that which preceded it, tales of sordid intrigue and half-hearted warfare characterized this second phase of upper-class insurrection. To the aristocracy, this rebellion represented a protest for the reversal of their political demotion from vassals to courtiers. It was headed by the highest-ranking French nobles, among them Louis' uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans and first cousin Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, known as '; Princes of the Blood such as Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, and their sister the Duchess of Longueville; dukes of legitimised royal descent, such as Henri, Duke of Longueville, and François, Duke of Beaufort; so-called "foreign princes" such as Frédéric Maurice, Duke of Bouillon, his brother Marshal Turenne, and Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse; and scions of France's oldest families, such as François de La Rochefoucauld.


title: Louis XIV

text: Queen Anne played the most important role in defeating the Fronde because she wanted to transfer absolute authority to her son. In addition, most of the princes refused to deal with Mazarin, who went into exile for a number of years. The "" claimed to act on Louis' behalf, and in his real interest, against his mother and Mazarin.


title: Louis XIV

text: Queen Anne had a very close relationship with the Cardinal, and many observers believed that Mazarin became Louis XIV's stepfather by a secret marriage to Queen Anne. However, Louis' coming-of-age and subsequent coronation deprived them of the ' pretext for revolt. The ' thus gradually lost steam and ended in 1653, when Mazarin returned triumphantly from exile. From that time until his death, Mazarin was in charge of foreign and financial policy without the daily supervision of Anne, who was no longer regent.


title: Louis XIV

text: During this period, Louis fell in love with Mazarin's niece Marie Mancini, but Anne and Mazarin ended the king's infatuation by sending Mancini away from court to be married in Italy. While Mazarin might have been tempted for a short period of time to marry his niece to the King of France, Queen Anne was absolutely against this; she wanted to marry her son to the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain, for both dynastic and political reasons. Mazarin soon supported the Queen's position because he knew that her support for his power and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain from a strong position and on the Spanish marriage. Additionally, Mazarin's relations with Marie Mancini were not good, and he did not trust her to support his position. All of Louis' tears and his supplications to his mother did not make her change her mind. The Spanish marriage would be very important both for its role in ending the war between France and Spain, because many of the claims and objectives of Louis' foreign policy for the next 50 years would be based upon this marriage, and because it was through this marriage that the Spanish throne would ultimately be delivered to the House of Bourbon (which holds it to this day).


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis XIV was declared to have reached the age of majority on 7 September 1651. On the death of Mazarin, in March 1661, Louis assumed personal control of the reins of government and astonished his court by declaring that he would rule without a chief minister: "Up to this moment I have been pleased to entrust the government of my affairs to the late Cardinal. It is now time that I govern them myself. You [he was talking to the secretaries and ministers of state] will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them. I request and order you to seal no orders except by my command . . . I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport . . . without my command; to render account to me personally each day and to favor no one". Louis was able to capitalize on the widespread public yearning for law and order, that resulted from prolonged foreign wars and domestic civil strife, to further consolidate central political authority and reform at the expense of the feudal aristocracy. Praising his ability to choose and encourage men of talent, the historian Chateaubriand noted: "it is the voice of genius of all kinds which sounds from the tomb of Louis".


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis began his personal reign with administrative and fiscal reforms. In 1661, the treasury verged on bankruptcy. To rectify the situation, Louis chose Jean-Baptiste Colbert as Controller-General of Finances in 1665. However, Louis first had to neutralize Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, in order to give Colbert a free hand. Although Fouquet's financial indiscretions were not very different from Mazarin's before him or Colbert's after him, his ambition was worrying to Louis. He had, for example, built an opulent château at Vaux-le-Vicomte where he entertained Louis and his court ostentatiously, as if he were wealthier than the king himself. The court was left with the impression that the vast sums of money needed to support his lifestyle could only have been obtained through embezzlement of government funds.


title: Louis XIV

text: Fouquet appeared eager to succeed Mazarin and Richelieu in assuming power, and he indiscreetly purchased and privately fortified the remote island of Belle Île. These acts sealed his doom. Fouquet was charged with embezzlement. The "Parlement" found him guilty and sentenced him to exile. However, Louis altered the sentence to life imprisonment and abolished Fouquet's post.


title: Louis XIV

text: With Fouquet dismissed, Colbert reduced the national debt through more efficient taxation. The principal taxes included the "aides" and "douanes" (both customs duties), the "gabelle" (a tax on salt), and the "taille" (a tax on land). The "taille" was reduced at first; financial officials were forced to keep regular accounts, auctioning certain taxes instead of selling them privately to a favoured few, revising inventories and removing unauthorized exemptions (for example, in 1661 only 10 per cent from the royal domain reached the King). Reform proved difficult because the "taille" was levied by officers of the Crown who had purchased their post at a high price: punishment of abuses necessarily lowered the value of the post. Nevertheless, excellent results were achieved: the deficit of 1661 turned into a surplus in 1666. The interest on the debt was reduced from 52 million to 24 million livres. The "taille" was reduced to 42 million in 1661 and 35 million in 1665; finally the revenue from indirect taxation progressed from 26 million to 55 million. The revenues of the royal domain were raised from 80,000 livres in 1661 to 5.5 million livres in 1671. In 1661, the receipts were equivalent to 26 million British pounds, of which 10 million reached the treasury. The expenditure was around 18 million pounds, leaving a deficit of 8 million. In 1667, the net receipts had risen to 20 million pounds sterling, while expenditure had fallen to 11 million, leaving a surplus of 9 million pounds.


title: Louis XIV

text: To support the reorganized and enlarged army, the panoply of Versailles, and the growing civil administration, the king needed a good deal of money. Finance had always been the weak spot in the French monarchy: methods of collecting taxes were costly and inefficient; direct taxes passed through the hands of many intermediate officials; and indirect taxes were collected by private concessionaries, called tax farmers, who made a substantial profit. Consequently, the state always received far less than what the taxpayers actually paid.


title: Louis XIV

text: The main weakness arose from an old bargain between the French crown and nobility: the king might raise taxes without consent if only he refrained from taxing the nobles. Only the "unprivileged" classes paid direct taxes, and this term came to mean the peasants only, since many bourgeois, in one way or another, obtained exemptions.


title: Louis XIV

text: The system was outrageously unjust in throwing a heavy tax burden on the poor and helpless. Later, after 1700, the French ministers who were supported by Louis' secret wife Madame De Maintenon, were able to convince the king to change his fiscal policy. Louis was willing enough to tax the nobles but was unwilling to fall under their control, and only towards the close of his reign, under extreme stress of war, was he able, for the first time in French history, to impose direct taxes on the aristocratic elements of the population. This was a step toward equality before the law and toward sound public finance, but so many concessions and exemptions were won by nobles and bourgeois that the reform lost much of its value.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis and Colbert also had wide-ranging plans to bolster French commerce and trade. Colbert's mercantilist administration established new industries and encouraged manufacturers and inventors, such as the Lyon silk manufacturers and the Gobelins manufactory, a producer of tapestries. He invited manufacturers and artisans from all over Europe to France, such as Murano glassmakers, Swedish ironworkers, and Dutch shipbuilders. In this way, he aimed to decrease foreign imports while increasing French exports, hence reducing the net outflow of precious metals from France.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis instituted reforms in military administration through Michel le Tellier and the latter's son François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois. They helped to curb the independent spirit of the nobility, imposing order on them at court and in the army. Gone were the days when generals protracted war at the frontiers while bickering over precedence and ignoring orders from the capital and the larger politico-diplomatic picture. The old military aristocracy (the "Noblesse d'épée", or "nobility of the sword") ceased to have a monopoly over senior military positions and rank. Louvois, in particular, pledged to modernize the army and re-organize it into a professional, disciplined, well-trained force. He was devoted to the soldiers' material well-being and morale, and even tried to direct campaigns.


title: Louis XIV

text: Legal matters did not escape Louis' attention, as is reflected in the numerous "Great Ordinances" he enacted. Pre-revolutionary France was a patchwork of legal systems, with as many legal customs as there were provinces, and two co-existing legal traditions— customary law in the north and Roman civil law in the south. The "Grande Ordonnance de Procédure Civile" of 1667, also known as the "Code Louis", was a comprehensive legal code attempting a uniform regulation of civil procedure throughout legally irregular France. Among other things, it prescribed baptismal, marriage and death records in the state's registers, not the church's, and it strictly regulated the right of the "Parlements" to remonstrate. The "Code Louis" played an important part in French legal history as the basis for the Napoleonic code, from which many modern legal codes are, in turn, derived.


title: Louis XIV

text: One of Louis' more infamous decrees was the "Grande Ordonnance sur les Colonies" of 1685, also known as the "Code Noir" ("black code"). Although it sanctioned slavery, it attempted to humanise the practice by prohibiting the separation of families. Additionally, in the colonies, only Roman Catholics could own slaves, and these had to be baptised.


title: Louis XIV

text: The death of his maternal uncle King Philip IV of Spain, in 1665, precipitated the War of Devolution. In 1660, Louis had married Philip IV's eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, as one of the provisions of the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees. The marriage treaty specified that Maria Theresa was to renounce all claims to Spanish territory for herself and all her descendants. Mazarin and Lionne, however, made the renunciation conditional on the full payment of a Spanish dowry of 500,000 écus. The dowry was never paid and would later play a part persuading his maternal first cousin Charles II of Spain to leave his empire to Philip, Duke of Anjou (later Philip V of Spain), the grandson of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa.


title: Louis XIV

text: The War of Devolution did not focus on the payment of the dowry; rather, the lack of payment was what Louis XIV used as a pretext for nullifying Maria Theresa's renunciation of her claims, allowing the land to "devolve" to him. In Brabant (the location of the land in dispute), children of first marriages traditionally were not disadvantaged by their parents' remarriages and still inherited property. Louis' wife was Philip IV's daughter by his first marriage, while the new king of Spain, Charles II, was his son by a subsequent marriage. Thus, Brabant allegedly "devolved" to Maria Theresa, giving France a justification to attack the Spanish Netherlands.


title: Louis XIV

text: During the Eighty Years' War with Spain, France supported the Dutch Republic as part of a general policy of opposing Habsburg power. Johan de Witt, Dutch Grand Pensionary from 1653 to 1672, viewed them as crucial for Dutch security and against his domestic Orangist opponents. Louis provided support in the 1665-1667 Second Anglo-Dutch War but used the opportunity to launch the War of Devolution in 1667. This captured Franche-Comté and much of the Spanish Netherlands; French expansion in this area was a direct threat to Dutch economic interests.


title: Louis XIV

text: The Dutch opened talks with Charles II of England on a common diplomatic front against France, leading to the Triple Alliance, between England, the Dutch and Sweden. The threat of an escalation and a secret treaty to divide Spanish possessions with Emperor Leopold, the other major claimant to the throne of Spain, led Louis to relinquish many of his gains in the 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis placed little reliance on his agreement with Leopold and as it was now clear French and Dutch aims were in direct conflict, he decided to first defeat the Republic, then seize the Spanish Netherlands. This required breaking up the Triple Alliance; he paid Sweden to remain neutral and signed the 1670 Secret Treaty of Dover with Charles, an Anglo-French alliance against the Dutch Republic. In May 1672, France invaded the Republic, supported by Münster and the Electorate of Cologne.


title: Louis XIV

text: Rapid French advance led to a coup that toppled De Witt and brought William III to power. Leopold viewed French expansion into the Rhineland as an increasing threat, especially after their seizure of the strategic Duchy of Lorraine in 1670. The prospect of Dutch defeat led Leopold to an alliance with Brandenburg-Prussia on 23 June, followed by another with the Republic on 25th. Although Brandenburg was forced out of the war by the June 1673 Treaty of Vossem, in August an anti-French alliance was formed by the Dutch, Spain, Emperor Leopold and the Duke of Lorraine.


title: Louis XIV

text: The French alliance was deeply unpopular in England, who made peace with the Dutch in the February 1674 Treaty of Westminster. However, French armies held significant advantages over their opponents; an undivided command, talented generals like Turenne, Condé and Luxembourg and vastly superior logistics. Reforms introduced by Louvois, the Secretary of War, helped maintain large field armies that could be mobilised much more quickly, allowing them to mount offensives in early spring before their opponents were ready.


title: Louis XIV

text: The French were forced to retreat from the Dutch Republic but these advantages allowed them to hold their ground in Alsace and the Spanish Netherlands while retaking Franche-Comté. By 1678, mutual exhaustion led to the Treaty of Nijmegen, which was generally settled in France's favour and allowed Louis to intervene in the Scanian War. Despite military defeat, his ally Sweden regained much of what they had lost under the 1679 treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau and Lund imposed on Denmark-Norway and Brandenburg.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis was at the height of his power, but at the cost of uniting his opponents; this increased as he continued his expansion. In 1679, he dismissed his foreign minister Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne, because he was seen as having compromised too much with the allies. Louis maintained the strength of his army, but in his next series of territorial claims avoided using military force alone. Rather, he combined it with legal pretexts in his efforts to augment the boundaries of his kingdom. Contemporary treaties were intentionally phrased ambiguously. Louis established the Chambers of Reunion to determine the full extent of his rights and obligations under those treaties.


title: Louis XIV

text: Cities and territories, such as Luxembourg and Casale, were prized for their strategic positions on the frontier and access to important waterways. Louis also sought Strasbourg, an important strategic crossing on the left bank of the Rhine and theretofore a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire, annexing it and other territories in 1681. Although a part of Alsace, Strasbourg was not part of Habsburg-ruled Alsace and was thus not ceded to France in the Peace of Westphalia.


title: Louis XIV

text: Following these annexations, Spain declared war, precipitating the War of the Reunions. However, the Spanish were rapidly defeated because the Emperor (distracted by the Great Turkish War) abandoned them, and the Dutch only supported them minimally. By the Truce of Ratisbon, in 1684, Spain was forced to acquiesce in the French occupation of most of the conquered territories, for 20 years.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis' policy of the "Réunions" may have raised France to its greatest size and power during his reign, but it alienated much of Europe. This poor public opinion was compounded by French actions off the Barbary Coast and at Genoa. First, Louis had Algiers and Tripoli, two Barbary pirate strongholds, bombarded to obtain a favourable treaty and the liberation of Christian slaves. Next, in 1684, a punitive mission was launched against Genoa in retaliation for its support for Spain in previous wars. Although the Genoese submitted, and the Doge led an official mission of apology to Versailles, France gained a reputation for brutality and arrogance. European apprehension at growing French might and the realisation of the extent of the dragonnades' effect (discussed below) led many states to abandon their alliances with France. Accordingly, by the late 1680s, France became increasingly isolated in Europe.


title: Louis XIV

text: French colonies multiplied in Africa, the Americas, and Asia during Louis' reign, and French explorers made important discoveries in North America. In 1673, Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette discovered the Mississippi River. In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, followed the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and claimed the vast Mississippi basin in Louis' name, calling it "Louisiane". French trading posts were also established in India, at Chandernagore and Pondicherry, and in the Indian Ocean at Île Bourbon. Throughout these regions Louis and Colbert embarked on an extensive program of architecture and urbanism meant to reflect the styles of Versailles and Paris and the 'gloire' of the realm.


title: Louis XIV

text: Meanwhile, diplomatic relations were initiated with distant countries. In 1669, Suleiman Aga led an Ottoman embassy to revive the old Franco-Ottoman alliance. Then, in 1682, after the reception of the Moroccan embassy of Mohammed Tenim in France, Moulay Ismail, Sultan of Morocco, allowed French consular and commercial establishments in his country. In 1699, Louis once again received a Moroccan ambassador, Abdallah bin Aisha, and in 1715, he received a Persian embassy led by Mohammad Reza Beg.


title: Louis XIV

text: From farther afield, Siam dispatched an embassy in 1684, reciprocated by the French magnificently the next year under Alexandre, Chevalier de Chaumont. This, in turn, was succeeded by another Siamese embassy under Kosa Pan, superbly received at Versailles in 1686. Louis then sent another embassy in 1687, under Simon de la Loubère, and French influence grew at the Siamese court, which granted Mergui as a naval base to France. However, the death of Narai, King of Ayutthaya, the execution of his pro-French minister Constantine Phaulkon, and the Siege of Bangkok in 1688 ended this era of French influence.


title: Louis XIV

text: France also attempted to participate actively in Jesuit missions to China. To break the Portuguese dominance there, Louis sent Jesuit missionaries to the court of the Kangxi Emperor in 1685: Jean de Fontaney, Joachim Bouvet, Jean-François Gerbillon, Louis Le Comte, and Claude de Visdelou. Louis also received a Chinese Jesuit, Michael Shen Fu-Tsung, at Versailles in 1684. Furthermore, Louis' librarian and translator Arcadio Huang was Chinese.


title: Louis XIV

text: By the early 1680s, Louis had greatly augmented French influence in the world. Domestically, he successfully increased the influence of the crown and its authority over the church and aristocracy, thus consolidating absolute monarchy in France.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis initially supported traditional Gallicanism, which limited papal authority in France, and convened an Assembly of the French clergy in November 1681. Before its dissolution eight months later, the Assembly had accepted the Declaration of the Clergy of France, which increased royal authority at the expense of papal power. Without royal approval, bishops could not leave France, and appeals could not be made to the Pope. Additionally, government officials could not be excommunicated for acts committed in pursuance of their duties. Although the king could not make ecclesiastical law, all papal regulations without royal assent were invalid in France. Unsurprisingly, the pope repudiated the Declaration.


title: Louis XIV

text: By attaching nobles to his court at Versailles, Louis achieved increased control over the French aristocracy. According to historian Philip Mansel, the king turned the palace into:


title: Louis XIV

text: Apartments were built to house those willing to pay court to the king. However, the pensions and privileges necessary to live in a style appropriate to their rank were only possible by waiting constantly on Louis. For this purpose, an elaborate court ritual was created wherein the king became the centre of attention and was observed throughout the day by the public. With his excellent memory, Louis could then see who attended him at court and who was absent, facilitating the subsequent distribution of favours and positions. Another tool Louis used to control his nobility was censorship, which often involved the opening of letters to discern their author's opinion of the government and king. Moreover, by entertaining, impressing, and domesticating them with extravagant luxury and other distractions, Louis not only cultivated public opinion of him, but he also ensured the aristocracy remained under his scrutiny.


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis's extravagance at Versailles extended far beyond the scope of elaborate court rituals. He took delivery of an African elephant as a gift from the king of Portugal. He encouraged leading nobles to live at Versailles. This, along with the prohibition of private armies, prevented them from passing time on their own estates and in their regional power bases, from which they historically waged local wars and plotted resistance to royal authority. Louis thus compelled and seduced the old military aristocracy (the "nobility of the sword") into becoming his ceremonial courtiers, further weakening their power. In their place, he raised commoners or the more recently ennobled bureaucratic aristocracy (the "nobility of the robe"). He judged that royal authority thrived more surely by filling high executive and administrative positions with these men because they could be more easily dismissed than nobles of ancient lineage and entrenched influence. It is believed that Louis's policies were rooted in his experiences during the "Fronde", when men of high birth readily took up the rebel cause against their king, who was actually the kinsman of some. This victory over the nobility may thus have ensured the end of major civil wars in France until the French Revolution about a century later.


title: Louis XIV

text: Under Louis, France was the leading European power, and most wars pivoted around its aggressiveness. No European state exceeded it in population, and no one could match its wealth, central location, and very strong professional army. It had largely avoided the devastation of the Thirty Years' War. Its weaknesses included an inefficient financial system that was hard-pressed to pay for its military adventures, and the tendency of most other powers to gang up against it.


title: Louis XIV

text: During Louis's reign, France fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession. There were also two lesser conflicts: the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. The wars were very expensive but defined Louis XIV's foreign policy, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled "by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique," Louis sensed that war was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. By 1695, France retained much of its dominance but had lost control of the seas to England and Holland, and most countries, both Protestant and Catholic, were in alliance against it. Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, France's leading military strategist, warned Louis in 1689 that a hostile "Alliance" was too powerful at sea. He recommended that France fight back by licensing French merchants ships to privateer and seize enemy merchant ships while avoiding its navies:


title: Louis XIV

text: Louis decided to persecute Protestants and revoke the 1598 Edict of Nantes, which awarded Huguenots political and religious freedom. He saw the persistence of Protestantism as a disgraceful reminder of royal powerlessness. After all, the Edict was the pragmatic concession of his grandfather Henry IV to end the longstanding French Wars of Religion. An additional factor in Louis' thinking was the prevailing contemporary European principle to assure socio-political stability, "cuius regio, eius religio" ("whose realm, his religion"), the idea that the religion of the ruler should be the religion of the realm (as originally confirmed in central Europe in the Peace of Augsburg of 1555).


title: Louis XIV

text: Responding to petitions, Louis initially excluded Protestants from office, constrained the meeting of synods, closed churches outside of Edict-stipulated areas, banned Protestant outdoor preachers, and prohibited domestic Protestant migration. He also disallowed Protestant-Catholic intermarriages to which third parties objected, encouraged missions to the Protestants, and rewarded converts to Catholicism. This discrimination did not encounter much Protestant resistance, and a steady conversion of Protestants occurred, especially among the noble elites.


title: Louis XIV

text: In 1681, Louis dramatically increased his persecution of Protestants. The principle of "cuius regio, eius religio" generally had also meant that subjects who refused to convert could emigrate, but Louis banned emigration and effectively insisted that all Protestants must be converted. Secondly, following the proposal of René de Marillac and the Marquis of Louvois, he began quartering dragoons in Protestant homes. Although this was within his legal rights, the "dragonnades" inflicted severe financial strain on Protestants and atrocious abuse. Between 300,000 and 400,000 Huguenots converted, as this entailed financial rewards and exemption from the "dragonnades".


title: Louis XIV

text: On 15 October 1685, Louis issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, which cited the redundancy of privileges for Protestants given their scarcity after the extensive conversions. The Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the Edict of Nantes and repealed all the privileges that arose therefrom. By his edict, Louis no longer tolerated the existence of Protestant groups, pastors, or churches in France. No further churches were to be constructed, and those already existing were to be demolished. Pastors could choose either exile or secular life. Those Protestants who had resisted conversion were now to be baptised forcibly into the established church.


title: Louis XIV

text: Historians have debated Louis' reasons for issuing the Edict of Fontainebleau. He may have been seeking to placate Pope Innocent XI, with whom relations were tense and whose aid was necessary to determine the outcome of a succession crisis in the Electorate of Cologne. He may also have acted to upstage Emperor Leopold I and regain international prestige after the latter defeated the Turks without Louis' help. Otherwise, he may simply have desired to end the remaining divisions in French society dating to the Wars of Religion by fulfilling his coronation oath to eradicate heresy.


title: Louis XIV

text: Many historians have condemned the Edict of Fontainebleau as gravely harmful to France. In support, they cite the emigration of about 200,000 highly skilled Huguenots (roughly one quarter of the Protestant population, or 1% of the French population) who defied royal decrees and fled France for various Protestant states, weakening the French economy and enriching that of Protestant states. On the other hand, there are historians who view this as an exaggeration. They argue that most of France's preeminent Protestant businessmen and industrialists converted to Catholicism and remained.


title: Louis XIV

text: What is certain is that reaction to the Edict was mixed. Even while French Catholic leaders exulted, Pope Innocent XI still argued with Louis over Gallicanism and criticized the use of violence. Protestants across Europe were horrified at the treatment of their co-religionists, but most Catholics in France applauded the move. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that Louis' public image in most of Europe, especially in Protestant regions, was dealt a severe blow.


title: Louis XIV

text: In the end, however, despite renewed tensions with the Camisards of south-central France at the end of his reign, Louis may have helped ensure that his successor would experience fewer instances of the religion-based disturbances that had plagued his forebears. French society would sufficiently change by the time of his descendant, Louis XVI, to welcome tolerance in the form of the 1787 Edict of Versailles, also known as the Edict of Tolerance. This restored to non-Catholics their civil rights and the freedom to worship openly. With the advent of the French Revolution in 1789, Protestants were granted equal rights with their Roman Catholic counterparts.


title: Louis XIV

text: The Nine Years' War, which lasted from 1688 to 1697, initiated a period of decline in Louis's political and diplomatic fortunes. It arose from two events in the Rhineland. First, in 1685, the Elector Palatine Charles II died. All that remained of his immediate family was Louis's sister-in-law, Elizabeth Charlotte. German law ostensibly barred her from succeeding to her brother's lands and electoral dignity, but it was unclear enough for arguments in favour of Elizabeth Charlotte to have a chance of success. Conversely, the princess was clearly entitled to a division of the family's personal property. Louis pressed her claims to land and chattels, hoping the latter, at least, would be given to her. Then, in 1688, Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, Archbishop of Cologne, an ally of France, died. The archbishopric had traditionally been held by the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, but the Bavarian claimant to replace Maximilian Henry, Prince Joseph Clemens of Bavaria, was at that time not more than 17 years old and not even ordained. Louis sought instead to install his own candidate, Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, to ensure the key Rhenish state remained an ally.


title: Louis XIV

text: In light of his foreign and domestic policies during the early 1680s, which were perceived as aggressive, Louis's actions, fostered by the succession crises of the late 1680s, created concern and alarm in much of Europe. This led to the formation of the 1686 League of Augsburg by the Holy Roman Emperor, Spain, Sweden, Saxony, and Bavaria. Their stated intention was to return France to at least the borders agreed to in the Treaty of Nijmegen. Emperor Leopold I's persistent refusal to convert the Truce of Ratisbon into a permanent treaty fed Louis's fears that the Emperor would turn on France and attack the Reunions after settling his affairs in the Balkans.


title: Louis XIV

text: Another event Louis found threatening was England's Glorious Revolution of 1688. Although King James II was Catholic, his two Anglican daughters, Mary and Anne, ensured the English people a Protestant succession. But when James II's son James Francis Edward Stuart was born, he took precedence in succession over his sisters. This seemed to herald an era of Catholic monarchs in England. Protestant lords called on the Dutch Prince William III of Orange, grandson of Charles I of England, to come to their aid. He sailed for England with troops despite Louis's warning that France would regard it as a provocation. Witnessing numerous desertions and defections, even among those closest to him, James II fled England. Parliament declared the throne vacant, and offered it to James's daughter Mary II and his son-in-law and nephew William. Vehemently anti-French, William (now William III of England) pushed his new kingdoms into war, thus transforming the League of Augsburg into the Grand Alliance. Before this happened, Louis expected William's expedition to England to absorb his energies and those of his allies, so he dispatched troops to the Rhineland after the expiry of his ultimatum to the German princes requiring confirmation of the Truce of Ratisbon and acceptance of his demands about the succession crises. This military manoeuvre was also intended to protect his eastern provinces from Imperial invasion by depriving the enemy army of sustenance, thus explaining the preemptive scorched earth policy pursued in much of southwestern Germany (the "Devastation of the Palatinate").


title: Louis XIV

text: French armies were generally victorious throughout the war because of Imperial commitments in the Balkans, French logistical superiority, and the quality of French generals such as Condé's famous pupil, François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, duc de Luxembourg. His triumphs at the Battles of Fleurus in 1690, Steenkerque in 1692, and Landen in 1693 preserved northern France from invasion.


title: Louis XIV

text: Although an attempt to restore James II failed at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, France accumulated a string of victories from Flanders in the north, Germany in the east, and Italy and Spain in the south, to the high seas and the colonies. Louis personally supervised the captures of Mons in 1691 and Namur in 1692. Luxembourg gave France the defensive line of the Sambre by capturing Charleroi in 1693. France also overran most of the Duchy of Savoy after the battles of Marsaglia and Staffarde in 1693. While naval stalemate ensued after the French victory at the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690 and the Allied victory at Barfleur-La Hougue in 1692, the Battle of Torroella in 1694 exposed Catalonia to French invasion, culminating in the capture of Barcelona. The Dutch captured Pondichéry in 1693, but a 1697 French raid on the Spanish treasure port of Cartagena, Spain, yielded a fortune of 10,000,000 livres.


title: Louis XIV

text: In July 1695, the city of Namur, occupied for three years by the French, was besieged by an allied army led by William III. Louis XIV ordered the surprise destruction of a Flemish city to divert the attention of these troops. This led to the bombardment of Brussels, in which more than 4,000 buildings were destroyed, including the entire city centre. The strategy failed, as Namur fell three weeks later, but harmed Louis XIV's reputation: a century later, Napoleon deemed the bombardment "as barbarous as it was useless."


title: Louis XIV

text: Peace was broached by Sweden in 1690. By 1692, both sides evidently wanted peace, and secret bilateral talks began, but to no avail. Louis tried to break up the alliance against him by dealing with individual opponents but did not achieve his aim until 1696 when the Savoyards agreed to the Treaty of Turin and switched sides. Thereafter, members of the League of Augsburg rushed to the peace table, and negotiations for a general peace began in earnest, culminating in the Peace of Ryswick of 1697.


title: Louis XIV

text: The Peace of Ryswick ended the War of the League of Augsburg and disbanded the Grand Alliance. By manipulating their rivalries and suspicions, Louis divided his enemies and broke their power.


title: Louis XIV

text: The treaty yielded many benefits for France. Louis secured permanent French sovereignty over all of Alsace, including Strasbourg, and established the Rhine as the Franco-German border (as it is to this day). Pondichéry and Acadia were returned to France, and Louis's "de facto" possession of Saint-Domingue was recognised as lawful. However, he returned Catalonia and most of the Reunions.