François Bluche (17 September 1925 – 28 June 2018) was a French historian. He painted a largely positive portrait of Louis XIV in his biography, attributing to him substantial cultural and political achievements. Bluche saw Louis as a precursor to enlightened despotism and argued that his reign witnessed the birth of modern France. In his view both Louis' creation of a centralised, powerful monarchy and his wars of conquest benefited the French people. The book was translated into English by Mark Greengrass and published in 1990. Peter Burke labelled Bluche a "neo-traditionalist" who had written a "moderate but firm apologia for Louis XIV, a reaction against what the author calls the 'black legend' of the reign".