Illustration depicting the visit of King Louis XIV of France to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1671. Artist: Sebastien Leclerc I (French, Metz 1637-1714). The illustration comes from the memoirs of Charles Perrault (1628-1703), who was later to find fame as the author of Mother Goose's Fairy Tales. Louis XIV (5 September 1638 - 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715.