Louis XIV, whose great prestige earned him the title of "the Sun King," is the most famous of all the French kings. He ruled France in one of its most glorious periods, and remains to this day the supreme symbol of absolute monarchy. Now, in a brilliant new biography, Prince Michael of Greece has revealed a darker side to the Sun King. Drawing on detailed evidence from contemporary records, letters and memoirs, he explored the possibility that, underneath it all, this epitome of kingship was a shy, weak, unstable man of unexpected and intriguing complexity. Prince Michael assesses the continued and enduring influence of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis' mother, Anne of Austria, on the little boy who came to the throne at the age of five but who learned early on to hide his profound insecurity behind the ever more elaborate trappings of monarchy.