Succession problems and the degraded health of the king darken the end of his reign. In 1711, his son Louis de France (the Grand Dauphin) died of smallpox at the age of 49. The following year, his grandson who had become a dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy (29 years old) and his second son (5 years old) died during an epidemic of measles. The dolphin had already lost his eldest in 1705, he only had one son left, the future Louis XV.
French branch
Louis XV, the great-grandson of Louis XIV succeeded him in 1722 after the regency of his uncle, Philippe d'Orléans
As for the other, the Duke of Berry, he died in 1714 following a fall from his horse. Apart from the King of Spain, the only legitimate male descendant of Louis XIV was the Duke of Anjou, younger son of the Duke of Burgundy and his great-grandson. Born in 1710, he is a little boy of fragile health. As only a small number of princes of the blood remained in other branches, Louis XIV decided to strengthen the royal family by giving, in his will of 1714, the right of succession to the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse, two illegitimate sons he had by Madame de Montespan. This decision violated the basic laws of the kingdom, which had always excluded illegitimate children from the throne, and was met with often scandalized misunderstanding. It seems that the king was in fact ready to contradict the old laws of succession to remove from the throne his nephew Philippe d'Orléans, a potential successor and of whom he was very suspicious. But it was ultimately his "official" great-grandson and grandson of the Grand Dauphin, the Duke of Anjou, aged five, who became king under the name of Louis XV, the regency being exercised during his minority, by the Duke of Orleans, nephew and son-in-law of Louis XIV.
Spanish branch
The second son of the Grand Dauphin became King of Spain in 1700 under the name of Philippe V. He renounced his rights to the succession to the throne of France at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, by the Treaty of Utrecht. Louis XIV thus realized his dream of putting a member of the Bourbon dynasty (his grandson in this case) on the throne of Spain. Despite numerous overthrows followed by restoration, the House of Bourbon retains the crown of Spain until our time. The current King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, is thus a descendant of Louis XIV.
The Last Days
Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715 at 8:15 a.m., the day before his 77th birthday, of senile gangrene in his leg, surrounded by his courtiers, after dying for two or three days. His last advice to the future King Louis XV was not to imitate him in his taste for buildings, to relieve the misery of his people, "which I regret not having done", and to live in peace. with his neighbours. He even confessed:"I loved the war too much." On his deathbed, he also declared:“I am leaving, but the State will always remain. His reign lasted 72 years and 100 days (54 years of effective reign if we remove the period of regency from 1643 to 1661). He is buried, armed with the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, as the "Very Christian King" should be, in the Saint-Denis basilica. His disappearance does not seem to have aroused much emotion among the courtiers or among the people, weary of a long reign with a dark end. The Parliament of Paris broke his will the next day, September 2, opening an era of a strong comeback for nobles and parliamentarians. To most of his subjects, the aging sovereign had become an increasingly distant figure. The funeral procession of Louis XIV was even booed or jeered on the road to Saint-Denis. However, many foreign courts, even traditionally enemies of France, were aware of the disappearance of an exceptional monarch:the King of Saxony did not need any clarification of name when he solemnly announced to his ministers:"Gentlemen, the King is dead."