text: **Personal reign and reforms**
  
  **Coming of age and early reforms**
  
  Louis XIV was declared to have reached the age of majority on the 7th of September 1651. On the death of 
  Mazarin, in March 1661, Louis personally took the reins of government and astonished his court by declaring 
  that he would rule without a chief minister: "Up to this moment I have been pleased to entrust the government 
  of my affairs to the late Cardinal. It is now time that I govern them myself. You [secretaries and ministers] 
  will assist me with your counsels when I ask for them. I request and order you to seal no orders except by my 
  command . . . I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport . . . without my command; to render 
  account to me personally each day and to favor no one".[33] Capitalizing on the widespread public yearning 
  for peace and order after decades of foreign and civil strife, the young king consolidated central political 
  authority at the expense of the feudal aristocracy. Praising his ability to choose and encourage men of talent, 
  the historian Chateaubriand noted: "it is the voice of genius of all kinds which sounds from the tomb of 
  Louis".[34] 