The Importance of Hair

Appearances are important to kings and queens. They expend considerable effort and spend vast sums on their surroundings and themselves to exude the aura of majesty. The word “majestic” is not applied to the pedestrian.

Few kings spent more time or money on their appearances than Louis XIV, a subject of my new book Raising the Sun. He can be accused of acting out of vanity. Who among us exempts themselves from any pressure to look a certain way in public? Louis’ public displays of wealth, fashion and extravagance, however, comprised part of larger vision he held of monarchy, one instilled in him by his mother, Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, Louis’ godfather, mentor and first advisor. After Louis XIII died when Louis XIV was four, Anne and Mazarin faced an insurrection led by opportunistic members of Le Parlement de Paris and power-hungry aristocrats, including Louis XIV’s Uncle Gaston le Duc d’Orléans and close cousin, the Prince de Condé. The civil war was called the Fronde and it nearly cost Louis and his mother their lives and positions.

Part of Anne and Mazarin’s strategy to battle the coup was elevating Louis and the status of the king. The more grandeur they infused in the throne, the more powerful they made the man holding it (Salic Law in France meant only men could wear the crown). As a result, Louis’ birthdays as a boy were national holidays, a trend that continued throughout his life. His thirteenth birthday stood out in particular. That date attained his “majority” and was officially recognized as old enough to wield power instead of his mother acting as regent, A major ceremony was conducted in the Palais de Justice in front of le Parlement, whereby Louis’ mother officially ended her regency and Louis stepped into a position of authority. At the time, Louis had reddish brown hair, like his mother, which flowed to his shoulders. It added to handsome figure he cut for the powers that be, whom he needed to impress at that critical moment in the life of his reign.

The Fronde ended around the time of Louis’ fourteenth birthday. Louis never forgot the treachery, however. That early trauma combined with his mother and Mazarin’s effort to elevate him to near godlike status had a deep impact on the outward impressions he wanted to convey. Therefore, losing his hair in his late teens must have struck him as something that exposed weakness. It is no surprise then that Louis would resort to wigs to cover up his follicle challenges. And not just any wigs, Louis being Louis, he had massive, ornate wigs. The more luxuriant the better.

As with so many of Louis’ habits, wearing ornate wigs caught on. People wanted to emulate him and not just around the French court or just in France. A noteworthy copycat was Louis’ first cousin, Charles II of England. Charles spent most of his teens and early twenties in exile in France waiting out the Glorious Revolution that killed his father. Charles, influenced by Louis, brought the elaborate wigs back to England with him in the Restoration.

Elaborate wigs remained a fashion for the better part of the next two centuries. They got more elaborate over the years. First powder was added and then decorations. Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XIV’s great-great-great-grandson Louis XVI, wore wigs that were famous for their height (three feet tall) and the jewelry bedecking them.

Name another person whose sense of vanity influenced fashion for two centuries.

https://thebookofeveryone.com/blog/bizarre-history-giant-powdered-wig/