Louis XIV was born in 1638 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He became King at the age of 5, on the death of his father, Louis XIII. Cardinal Mazarin was officially in charge of his political initiation, while his mother, Anne of Austria, took on the role of Regent. This was the time of the Fronde (1648-1653), the rebellion of the nobility and the people of Paris. The child, humiliated by the arrogance of the High and Mighty and threatened in his own capital, would remember. Better to establish himself, he moved the power and the court to Versailles, a sumptuous place admired throughout Europe. A portrait gallery enables us to browse through the younger years of the sovereign who led the monarchy to absolutism.