Louis, Dauphin of France (1 November 1661 – 14 April 1711), commonly known as le Grand Dauphin, was the eldest son of King Louis XIV and his spouse, Maria Theresa of Spain and heir apparent to the French throne. He became known as the Grand Dauphin after the birth of his own son, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the Petit Dauphin. He and his son died before his father and thus never became king. Instead, his grandson became King Louis XV at the death of Louis XIV, and his second son inherited the Spanish throne as Philip V through his grandmother, founding the Spanish Bourbon line.

Louis was born on 1 November 1661 at the Château de Fontainebleau, the eldest son of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain (who were double-first cousins to each other). As a Fils de France ("Son of France") he was entitled to the style of Royal Highness. He was baptised on 24 March 1662 at the chapel of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and given his father's name of Louis. At the ceremony, the Cardinal de Vendôme and the Princess of Conti acted as proxies for the godparents, Pope Clement IX and Henrietta Maria of England. The latter was Louis's great-aunt. It was for this occasion that Jean-Baptiste Lully composed the motet Plaude Laetare Gallia.

He was initially under the care of royal governesses, among them being Julie d'Angennes and Louise de Prie de La Mothe-Houdancourt. When Louis reached the age of seven, he was removed from the care of women and placed in a society of men. He received Charles de Sainte-Maure, as his governor and was tutored by the great French preacher and orator Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux, seemingly without acceptable results.

The Duke of Saint-Simon wrote in his Mémoires that the Monseigneur, who had neither vices nor virtues, was devoid of any wisdom and knowledge and "radically incapable of acquiring any" and that aside from being very lazy, he was without imagination or any capacity for thinking, as well as devoid of any taste, apathetic and "born to boredom". Saint-Simon, who for many years had placed all his hopes for a future enlightened government of France in the eldest son of the Grand Dauphin, admitted that on the day that the prince died, he had flashes of joy crossing his mind at the thought that he would soon be gone, both himself and France having all to gain from the unexpected death of the Grand Dauphin, adding that "to his extreme shame" he couldn’t help having fleeting moments of anxiety during that day at the thought that the sick prince might survive his illness.

Philippe Erlanger writes the following in his book about the life of Louis XIV:

Louis XIV secretly nursed the same suspicious jealousy of the Grand Dauphin that Louis XIII had once shown to himself. No prince could have been less deserving of such feelings.

The Monseigneur, as the heir to the throne was now known to have inherited his mother's docility and low intelligence. All his life he remained petrified with admiration of his formidable father and stood in fear of him even while lavish proofs of 'affection' were showered upon him. The best way for the Monseigneur to do someone an injury was to commend him to the royal favour. He knew it, and did not conceal it from his rare petitioners.

Louis XIV saw to it that his son's upbringing was quite the opposite of his own. Instead of a devoted mother and an affectionate and likeable tutor, the Dauphin had the repellent and misanthropic Duc de Montausier, who ruthlessly applied the same methods that had so disturbed Louis XIII. They annihilated his grandson.