All governments appeal to certain values to legitimise their authority. In the time of absolute monarchy in the 17th century, the values they appealed to were very different to the values contemporary politicians would refer to.
In France, Louis XIV was the embodiment of absolute monarchism. He became king in the 1640s but his mother ruled as his regent until the 1650s when he took over the running of the state. The iconography of the period was designed to magnify the importance of the king, so he was often shown as being taller or greater than his subjects.
Absolutism is the theory and practice of unlimited state power and authority, typically concentrated in the power of the monarch. During the 16th century, there was a great deal of political unrest in France and England, so this idea of an absolute monarch was created by thinkers such as Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes in the hopes that such power would bring stability.
Jacques Bossuet wrote a text designed to educate Louis' heir in politics and in this text he stated that the kings are established by God as His ministers, so that He can rule through them. Kings get their power from God, therefore their power was also absolute. This divine power makes the person of the king sacred.
During Louis' reign, he continued his father's project to centralise power in France. The immense palace of Versailles was built as a symbol of his accomplishment of this goal. There was much iconography depicting Louis as the centre of the court and state. Many rituals, particularly religious rituals were used to emphasise the king's divine right to rule.
During the regency of Louis' mother, the traditional aristocracy rose in revolt against this centralisation. This period was known as the Fronde. A kind of ideological war was fought within France, often via pamphlets, lambasting Mazarin, the chief minister of the king who was believed to be perverting the king's power. After the Fronde was crushed when he officially took over the rule of the state, Louis triumphantly entered Paris, reasserting his authority over the territory and the state as a whole.
The values of kingship had a lot to do with the monarch's perceived 'virtue'. Louis appealled to the philosophical tradition of viewing the 'prince' as an ideal person, with high moral values. He was represented as being on a par with classical heroes and was cast in the role of Alexander the Great in a play by the court writer Racine. This identification of Louis as one of the greatest conquerors of all time displayed his authority.
Louis' project of centralisation required a great deal of organisation. Louis had to create new positions, such as the intendants, who acted as representatives of the king in the different districts of France. His many wars required large tax revenues so his system of taxation was very important and new offices were created to help run it. As only the aristocracy could work for the government's administration, Louis allowed many people to buy into the aristocracy, creating a subset of nobles. There were the old families - noblesse d'épée - and the new - noblesse de robe.
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