My favourite Louis

I've just bought what is probably a rubbish novel based on Louis XI from a charity shop, whom I described to Anna as my favourite Louis when justifying this purchase (I use a version of this excuse a lot), not least because of his glorious nickname, the universal spider.

Of course I didn't actually mean that he is my favourite person called Louis, though he might be. I really meant my preferred French King called Louis. As Anna is away this week and I don't have a great deal to do, I think this bold statement could do with some qualification, so I thought I'd list them in order of preference. This doesn't quite work at the bottom as I get a bit hazy with some of the later Carolingians, but they didn't do much so that's probably best. I should stress though that this is personal preference list, not a greatness in history ranking, but merely the ones I most like to read about and it inevitably contains almost all my biases. I've excluded Louis XVII (because there is nothing to say) and the non-reigning claimants. Wikepedia's helpful list with helpful dates is here. Anyway:


1. The Universal Spider (XI) - as above

2. The Sun King (XIV), inevitably high

3. Louis the Fat (VI). Many of the middle kings had to shrewd rather than bombastic and while Louis VI had an excellent biography, he was a master at playing his rather limited hand well.

4. Louis XIII. Often sandwiched between his glorious son and brilliant father (who is my favourite French king of all), but he did well to consolidate after the assassination of his father could have blown the wars of religion open again. And bonus points for Dumas' classic being set in his reign

5. Louis the Pious (I). I think a much glossed over figure, but he held his father's Empire together and passed it on intact.

6. Louis XVIII gets this ranking largely because of his spectacular refusal to acknowledge reality in almost any way, dating his reign ignoring Napoleon, maintaining hardline reactionary views and succumbing to gout such that his body literally disintegrated: one evening in 1823, as his valets were removing the king’s shoes, a gouty toe accidentally came away with his sock. A triumph.

7. Saint Louis (IX). I've never warmed to the Saint, associating him with the diversion of the crusades to more tactical and pointless theatres of war and cannot supress a slight shimmer of pleasure when he dies in Tunis in the lands of the infidel. But there is a reason for him prominence

8. Louis XVI. I almost put his disastrous reign higher, but just couldn't in the end. Nonetheless, despite the sadness of the end of the ancien regime in France, he is personally interesting.

9. Louis XII. A kind of management consultant (bland, but quite effective) of the early modern period, he piggybacks effectively on other policies in Italy for example and pulls in Brittany for which credit muct be given

10. Louis the Young (VII). Sufficiently interesting to drive Eleanor of Aquitaine to his greatest rival, but insufficiently challenging to be a match for Henry II in other spheres

11. Louis VIII. Not really around for long enough, but played a pretty good game in consolidating to the south, though most of the work had been done by Philip Augustus

12. Louis X. Likewise a short reign, and triggered off the succession crisis. The most interesting thing about him was his son, who has the glorious distinction of being born after his father died thus leaving the entire French court on tenterhooks over the succession.

13. Louis XV. By contrast, a massive reign, but very dull, like much of the eighteenth century

14. Louis IV. Quite fun this one, with a good English background, but ultimately restricted in scope by the Capetians and others so a limited story to tell.

15. Louis V. Only makes it this high because he represents the end of the Carolingians, who by this time tended to die young and not trouble the body politic much. Louis V was the apogee of this development, by also managing not to leave an heir.

16. Louis III

17. Louis II. Truly rubbish with one of the worst epithets - the stammerer - of all medieval monarchs (save of course Henry the impotent)

Astute observers will note this is really a top ten with padding, but there are limits even to my desire to list things. I probably should have stuck to Henrys (for the record: IV, II, I, III - though I don' t think that's controversial)