When Louis XIV ascended the throne of France in 1643, he was only five years old, and the Queen Mother served as regent. Her favorite, Cardinal Mazarin, became chief minister and the true ruler of France.
At the time, the Thirty Years' War was drawing to a close. To meet the needs of the war, Mazarin took advances from financiers in exchange for allowing them to collect taxes and receive state revenues. These tax farmers made enormous profits, provoking the jealousy of the nobility and the anger of the people.
After the provinces had been squeezed until the people were impoverished, the government planned to wring money from Paris's middle class and the judges of the Parlement of Paris. In April 1648, the court issued an edict suspending the salaries of judges in parlements across the country for four years, further intensifying the conflict.
In May 1648, encouraged by Prince Condé's great victory at the Battle of Lens, the Parlement of Paris joined with courts throughout the country. In the name of rectifying the government's abuses, they put forward twenty-seven proposals, declared the royal inspectors sent to the provinces unconstitutional, and demanded strict financial reform and guarantees of personal liberty. In August 1648, the Queen Mother and Mazarin ordered the arrest of P. Brussels and two other leaders of the movement. This act of violence immediately aroused the people's fury.
Thus, the Fronde erupted.
Both the young Louis XIV and his mother lived through it all. That was why he did not particularly like Paris, nor did he particularly like Parisians. After taking power, he began building the Palace of Versailles, intending to move the administrative center from Paris to Versailles, far from the place that had threatened both mother and son.
On January 5, 1649, Paris was celebrating Epiphany.