The putative father of Louis XIV was Louis XIII, the reality was that Louis XIII failed to produce an heir to the throne of France through many women besides his Queen, which was a cause of concern not only for Louis XIII, his Queen and, most of all, the Pope.

The temporal head had to find means to beget an heir and a deus ex machina was invented. A Duke was interpolated into the conjugal bed of the King and Queen. Voila, two sons were born out of that unholy union. The elder one became Louis XIV and the second one became the Duke of Orleans.

The Pope, which means the Church, was fully in the know of this. The biological father’s functions were well performed and over. Therefore, this nameless Duke Sullun, was masked and detained in the high security dungeons- now called prisons.

In the Fifth year of Louis XIV, the King dies and Louis XIV being the Dauphin, is crowned the king. However, in view of his minority, his mother was made the Regent, who continued to rule France with the aid of a Cardinal ( I suppose). This arrangement continued for close to ten years and thereafter Louis assumes kingship and shifts his capital to Versailles.

The fact that his biological father was still alive was neither known nor suspected by Louis XIV.

When the Church manoeuvred to play the legitimacy card to keep the king in check, serendipitously he stumbles upon how his mother had, in satisfaction of her queenly duties, begotten him and his brother Philippe.

Louis, was a man who smelt a threat where such possibilities merely existed.

Upon discovery, he along with his brother poisoned their father and killed that Possibility from emerging as a Fact to threaten the good life they both had got used to.

This brutal act by Louis XIV doesn’t get highlighted in history, all because of the cardinal reason THE WINNER WRITES HISTORY – the loser’s version never gets the publicity.

I love to read this legitimisation of the illegalities of imposters and how they by doing good deeds perpetuate their names like Louis Le Grand‼️

History repeats itself constantly, only that the contemporaneous events do not have the feel of the exaltation of History.