The
following newsletter is part two of our series on Louis XV, the man and the
king. If you would like to read part one, please click on the following link
The
French Régence.
THE MINISTRY OF CARDINAL DE FLEURY
From 1726
until his death in 1743, Cardinal de Fleury ruled France with the king's assent.
It was the most peaceful and prosperous part of the reign of Louis XV, despite
some Parliamentarian and Jansenist unrest. After the financial and human losses
suffered at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, the rule of Fleury, generating
peace and order, is seen by historians as a period of "recovery" (French historians
talk of a gouvernement "réparateur"). It is hard to determine exactly what part
the king took in the decisions of the Fleury government, but it remains certain
that the king steadily supported Fleury against the intrigues of the court and
the conspiracies of the courtiers.
With the help of controllers-general of finances Michel Robert Le Peletier des
Forts (1726-1730) and above all Philibert Orry (1730-1745), Fleury stabilized
the French currency (1726) and eventually managed to balance the budget in 1738.
Economic expansion was also a central goal of the government: communications
were improved, with the completion of the Saint-Quentin canal (linking the Oise
and Somme rivers) in 1738, later extended to the Escaut River and the Low Countries,
and above all with the systematic building of a national road network. The body
of ponts et chaussées engineers, instituted by the central state, built modern
straight highways starting in Paris and reaching the far-away borders of France,
in the typical star pattern that is still the backbone of the National Highway
network of France today. By the middle of the 18th century, France had the most
modern and extensive road network in the world, with most of these highways
still used today by automobile traffic. Maritime trade was also stimulated by
the Bureau and the Council of Commerce, and the French foreign maritime trade
increased from 80 to 308 million livres between 1716 and 1748. However, rigid
Colbertist laws (prefiguring dirigisme) hindered industrial development.
The power of the absolute monarchy was demonstrated with the quelling of the
Jansenist and Gallican oppositions. The troubles caused by the convulsionaries
of the Saint-Médard graveyard in Paris (a group of Jansenists pretending that
miracles took place in this graveyard) were put to an end in 1732. On the other
hand, after the "exile" of 139 Parliamentarians in the provinces, the parlement
of Paris had to register the Unigenitus papal bull and was forbidden to hear
religious cases in the future.
Abroad, Fleury sought peace at all cost, averse as he was to wars. His peace
policy was based on an English alliance and the reconciliation with Spain. In
September 1729, at the end of her third pregnancy, the queen finally gave birth
to a male child, Louis, dauphin de France, who immediately became heir to the
throne. The birth of a long awaited heir, which ensured the survival of the
dynasty for the first time since 1712, was welcomed with tremendous joy and
celebrations in all spheres of French society, and indeed in most European courts.
The royal couple was at the time very united and in love with each other, and
the young king was extremely popular. The birth of a male heir also dispelled
the risks of a succession crisis and the likely war with Spain that would have
resulted.
In 1733, despite Fleury's peace policy, the king, won over by his secretary
of state for foreign affairs Germain Louis Chauvelin (1727-1737), intervened
in the War of the Polish Succession in an attempt to restore his father-in-law
Stanislaus Leszczynski on the Polish throne. France also hoped to secure the
long-coveted duchy of Lorraine from its duke Francis III, who was expected to
marry Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI's daughter, Maria Theresa, which would bring
Austrian power dangerously close to the French border. The half-hearted French
intervention in the east was unable to reverse the course of the war, and Stanislaus
could not recover his throne. In the west, however, French troops rapidly overran
Lorraine, and peace was restored as early as 1735. By the Treaty of Vienna (November
1738), Stanislaus was compensated for the loss of his Polish throne with the
duchy of Lorraine, which was scheduled to pass to France on his death (through
his daughter, the wife of Louis XV), while Duke Francis III of Lorraine was
made heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as a compensation for the loss of Lorraine.
The war cost very little to France, compared to the financial and human drains
of Louis XIV's wars, and was a clear success for French diplomacy. The acquisition
of Lorraine (effective in 1766 at Stanislaus' death) was to be the last territorial
expansion of France on the continent before the French Revolution.
Shortly after this favorable result, France's mediation in the war between the
Austrian empire and the Ottoman Empire led to the Treaty of Belgrade (September
1739) which ended the war in favor of the Ottoman Empire, a traditional ally
of France against the Habsburgs (since the early 16th century). As a result,
in 1740 the Ottoman Empire renewed the French capitulations, which marked the
supremacy of French trade in the Middle East. After all these successes, the
prestige of Louis XV, arbiter of Europe, was at its highest.
In 1740, the death of Emperor Charles VI and his succession by his daughter
Maria Theresa started the European War of the Austrian Succession. The old cardinal
de Fleury did not have enough energy left to oppose the war, and the king gave
in to the strong pressure of the anti-Austrian party at court: he entered the
war in 1741 by allying himself with Prussia. The war would last seven long years.
France was renewing the cycle of wars so typical of Louis XIV's reign. Fleury,
however, did not live to see the end of the war and died in January 1743. The
king, following at last the example of his predecessor Louis XIV, decided henceforth
to rule without a prime minister, thus starting his personal reign.
FIRTS
SIGNS OF UNPOPULARITY
At the death of his old tutor Fleury in 1743, the king was 33 years old. He
had experienced a few years of happiness with his devoted Polish queen, who
worshipped him as she worshipped God. A child was born almost every year. However,
the queen eventually tired of continual pregnancies, while the king tired of
the queen's unconditional love. Moreover, most of the queen's pregnancies produced
girls, which the king eventually resented. Out of ten children born of the queen,
there were only two sons, only one of whom survived, the dauphin. This did not
help dispel the concerns about the future of the dynasty brought about by the
repeated deaths of the early 1710s (read above). In 1734, for the first time,
the queen complained to her father about the king's infidelities. The king found
love with Madame de Mailly, then with her younger sister Madame de Vintimille,
then at her death with her younger sister Madame de Châteauroux, while the queen
took refuge in religion and charities.
The year after the death of Fleury saw the dramatic events of Metz (August 1744),
which left profound scars on the psyche of the king as well as on French political
life. The king, who had left Versailles for the front in order to take personal
command of his armies fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession, fell gravely
ill in Metz. The doctors thought death was imminent. The people, who still loved
him, gave him the royal nickname "Well-Beloved", and public prayers were held
all across France to ask God to save the king from a certain death. His mistress
Madame de Châteauroux, who had accompanied the king to the front, was forced
to leave to the boos of the public, while the queen hastily arrived in Metz.
Pressed by the dévot party, Msgr. de Fitz-James, First Chaplain (premier aumônier)
of the king, refused to give the king the absolution without a public confession
of his sins, in which the king appeared as an immoral person not worthy of the
name of Very Christian King (Rex Christianissimus, a traditional title of the
kings of France, who had inherited the role of protector of the Church and the
papacy from the Frankish Empire in the Middle Ages). The king's confession,
spread across the kingdom by the clergy, stunned the masses and tarnished the
prestige of the monarchy. The king had escaped death, but the sense of guilt
pushed him even further into adultery.
The Marquise de Pompadour, met in February 1745 at a lavish masked ball given
in honor of the dauphin's marriage, was the most famous mistress of the reign,
and the most honorable one. She was the daughter of a chief agent of the powerful
Pâris family of financiers who became embroiled in the intrigue that ousted
the Duke of Bourbon as head of the Regency council in favor of Cardinal de Fleury.
A beautiful woman, educated, cultured, intelligent, and sincerely attached to
the king, she nonetheless possessed one major shortcoming in the eyes of the
masses: she was a commoner, from the bourgeoisie, and even worse, a commoner
who meddled in royal politics. The public had generally accepted the mistresses
of Louis XIV, who, apart from Madame de Maintenon, were all chosen in the highest
spheres of the aristocracy and had absolutely no influence on the government.
But that the king may thus compromise himself with a commoner was felt to be
a profound disgrace. Soon there were hundreds of libels called poissonnades
(a word meaning something like "fish stew", a pun based on the Marquise de Pompadour's
family name, Poisson, which means "fish" in French), violently attacking the
Marquise and slandering her, such as shown in this example: "Daughter of leech,
and leech herself, Poisson ["Fish"], with an extreme arrogance, flaunts in this
château, without fear or dread, the substance of the people and the shame of
the King."
Despite the critics, the Marquise de Pompadour had an undeniable influence on
the flourishing of French arts during the reign of Louis XV, a reign that is
often considered the peak of French architecture and interior design (see: Louis
XV style). A patron of the arts, the Marquise amassed a considerable amount
of furniture and objet d'art in her various estates. She was responsible for
the tremendous development of the porcelain manufactory of Sèvres, which became
one of the most famous porcelain manufacturer in Europe, and her commands ensured
the living of artists and families of craftsmen for many years. She was also
a prominent patron of architecture, being responsible for the building of the
Place Louis XV (now called Place de la Concorde) and the École Militaire in
Paris, both built by her protégé Jacques-Ange Gabriel. The École Militaire,
for the creation of which she successfully lobbied the king, showed her commitment
to the training of officers from poor families of the aristocracy (one student
of the École Militaire, Napoléon Bonaparte, would later rise to fame). The Marquise
was a liberal at heart and she steadily defended the Encyclopédie against the
attacks of the Church. She was a supporter of the Philosophy of the Enlightenment,
and tried to win the king to its new ideas, albeit not quite as successfully
as she hoped. She was criticised for the lavish display of luxury in her various
estates, although her rich family of financiers in many instances gave money
to the government and saved the monarchy from bankruptcy. All her estates, which
she had bequeathed to the state, reverted to the crown at her death.
The Marquise de Pompadour was officially settled on the third floor (second
storey) of the Palace of Versailles, in small but cozy apartments that can still
be visited today. There, she organized fine suppers for the king, with chosen
guests, far from the pomp and etiquette of the court which the king detested.
The atmosphere in these private quarters was so relaxed that the king was said
to serve coffee during the suppers. She often entertained the king, trying to
relieve him from the state of boredom in which the court often plunged him.
The king, who liked a more bourgeois lifestyle than his forefather Louis XIV,
found in the private apartments of the Marquise de Pompadour, located above
his own office and bedchamber, the intimacy and reassuring feminine presence
of which he had been deprived during his childhood.
The Marquise de Pompadour, who was reportedly frigid and in frail health, was
no more than a friend after 1750. Although the sexual relationship stopped,
the Marquise remained the close confident and friend of the king until her death,
which is quite a feat in the history of royal mistresses. She, more than anyone
else, was adept at understanding the complex and demanding personality of the
king. After 1750, the king was mired in a series of short-lived love affairs
and sexual relationships, hiding his temporary conquests in a small mansion
at the Parc-aux-Cerfs ("Stags' Park"), the most famous of whom was Marie-Louise
O'Murphy. Legend later enormously exaggerated the events taking place at the
Parc-aux-Cerfs, contributing to the dark reputation still associated with Louis
XV's name today. The oft-mentioned womanizing of the king, however, was not
very different from that of many of his ancestors, such as kings Francis I or
Henry IV, known for their relentless pursuit of women, but nonetheless two of
the best remembered kings of France today, to say nothing of other European
monarchs such as Henry VIII of England.
FIRST
TRY AT REFORM
All these love affairs did not take the king away from the duties of his office,
but he lacked the inexhaustible energy of his great-grandfather Louis XIV. He
had gotten used to taking decisions based on Cardinal de Fleury's advice, and
to relying on him for the execution of government policies. During the 17 long
years of Fleury's government, the king had formed his judgment but had not forged
his will. Starting in 1743 with the death of Fleury, the king ruled alone without
a prime minister. He had read many times the instructions of Louis XIV: "Listen
to people, seek advice from your Council, but decide [alone]." Although he was
without a doubt more intelligent and cultured than his great-grandfather, Louis
XV lacked self-confidence. His political correspondence reveals his deep knowledge
of public affairs as well as the soundness of his judgment. However, the king
was often afraid of taking firm decisions, fearing that he might be wrong and
other people might be right. It was only when pushed to the limit, often when
it was too late, that he suddenly resolved to bold action, with a brutality
that stunned people.
Always supportive and friendly towards his ministers in appearance, his disgrace
fell suddenly without warning on the ministers that he felt dissatisfied with,
leading to his reputation of deviousness. It was very difficult for ministers
to decipher the king, or to know if their action was in agreement with what
he really thought. Usually, they were given great independence each in their
ministry, the king never really directing them, and they never received any
warning or sign of displeasure from the king, until there came the sudden disgrace.
Moreover, the king often acted without their knowing it, such as in the case
of the "Secret of the king" ("Secret du roi"), a secret diplomatic correspondence
between the king and the courts of the nations against which France was fighting
during the wars of the reign. Most of government work was conducted in committees
of ministers which met without the king. The king was sitting in the High Council
(Conseil d'en haut), created by Louis XIV, in charge of secrets of State regarding
religion, diplomacy, and war. There, he let various political factions oppose
each other and vie for influence and power: the dévot party, led by the Comte
d'Argenson, secretary of state for war, opposed the parti philosophique, which
supported the Enlightenment philosophy and was led by Machault d'Arnouville,
controller-general of finances.
The parti philosophique was supported by the Marquise de Pompadour, who acted
as a sort of minister without portfolio from the time she became royal mistress
in 1745 until her death in 1764. The Marquise was in favor of reforms. Supported
by her clan of financiers (Pâris-Duverney, Montmartel, etc.), she obtained from
the king the appointment of ministers (Bernis, secretary of state for foreign
affairs, in 1757), as well as their dismissal (Orry, controller-general of finances,
in 1745; Maurepas, secretary of state for the Navy, in 1749). On her advice,
the king supported the policy of fiscal justice designed by Machault d'Arnouville.
In order to finance the budget deficit, which amounted to 100 million livres
in 1745, Machault d'Arnouville created a tax on the twentieth of all revenues
which affected also the privileged classes (Edict of Marly, 1749). This breach
in the privileged status of the aristocracy and the clergy, normally exempt
from taxes, was a first in French history, although it had already been advocated
by visionary minds such as Vauban under Louis XIV. However, the new tax was
received with violent protest from the privileged classes sitting in the provincial
estates (états provinciaux) of the few provinces which still kept the right
to decide over taxation (most provinces had long lost their provincial estates
(états provinciaux) and the right to decide over taxation that came with it).
The new tax was also violently opposed by the clergy and by the parlements.
Pressed and eventually won over by his entourage at court, the king gave in
and exempted the clergy from the twentieth in 1751. Eventually, the twentieth
became a mere increase in the already existing taille, the most important direct
tax of the monarchy from which privileged classes were exempted. It was the
first defeat in the "taxation war" waged against the privileged classes.
As a result of these attempts at reform, the parlement of Paris, using the quarrel
between the clergy and the Jansenists as a pretext, addressed remonstrances
to the king (April 1753). In these remonstrances, the parlement, which was made
up of privileged aristocrats and ennobled commoners, proclaimed itself the "natural
defender of the fundamental laws of the kingdom" against the arbitrariness of
the monarchy.
Abroad, the policy of the king seemed inconsistent. The period was dominated
by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), which had started under Fleury.
The war pitted the French and Prussians against the Austrians, English, and
Dutch. The latter part of the war saw a series of major French victories: Battle
of Fontenoy (1745), Battle of Rocourt (1746), and Battle of Lawfeld (1747).
In particular, the Battle of Fontenoy, won by the Maréchal de Saxe, is considered
one of the most resounding French victories in history against the English,
and is still well remembered in France today. As a result of these victories,
France occupied the entire Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), at the
time the wealthiest area of Europe, and Louis XV was well on his way to fulfill
the old dream of France to establish the country’s northeastern border on the
Rhine River. The king was then at the peak of his popularity.
However, at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, France restored all its conquests
to Austria, to the amazement of French people, and to the surprise of European
powers. Louis XV, who at heart was not a bellicose king, unlike his great-grandfather
Louis XIV, felt content with his almost perfect hexagon-shaped kingdom, which
he called his pré carré (i.e. "square field"), a concept still used in French
politics today. He thought it better to cultivate his pré carré rather than
trying to expand it. The king declared he had made peace "as a king and not
as a merchant". The attitude of the king was hailed in Europe, and he became
overnight the "arbiter of Europe". At home, however the consequences for his
popularity were catastrophic. The people had forgiven Louis XIV for his high
taxes, his mistresses, and his lavish expenditures, as long as he was successful
in wars. As for Louis XV, the incident of Metz (1744) weighed little in the
eyes of the public against the king's victories in the War of the Austrian Succession.
But the news that the king had restored the Southern Netherlands to Austria
at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was met with disbelief and bitterness. Parisians
coined the phrase: "As stupid as peace" ("Bête comme la paix"). Historians usually
consider that the year 1748 saw the first true manifestation of public opinion
in France, a nationalist public opinion that the king did not understand. 1748
was also the turning point in the king's popularity at home: after 1748, his
popularity steadily declined, never to recover, and pamphlets against his mistresses
and his lifestyle arose en masse.
Moreover, in 1756, breaking with the traditional Franco-Prussian alliance, the
king operated the so-called "reversal of alliances". A new European conflict
was brewing, the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle being but a sort of truce. Already,
French and English were fighting each other in North America without a declaration
of war (see Indian Wars). In 1755, the English seized 300 French merchant ships,
in violation of international law. A few months later, on January 16, 1756,
the United Kingdom and Prussia signed a treaty of "neutrality". In Paris and
Versailles, the parti philosophique and the Marquise de Pompadour could not
hide their disappointment at this betrayal by King Frederick II of Prussia,
who was until then seen as an enlightened sovereign friend of the Philosophers.
Frederick II had even welcomed Voltaire in Potsdam when the famous writer had
run into trouble with the dévot party in France. But the truth was that Frederick
II was motivated first and foremost by personal interests and the desire to
expand the territory of Prussia by any means available. He had already abandoned
his French ally during the War of Austrian Succession, signing a separate peace
treaty with Austria in December 1745, which had greatly angered the French.
The Marquise de Pompadour particularly disliked Frederick II, who had always
showed contempt for her, and even named one of his poodles "Pompadour". At the
same time, French officials realized that the Habsburg empire of Austria was
no more the danger it had been in the heyday of the Habsburgs, back in the 16th
and 17th centuries, when they controlled Spain and most of Europe and presented
a formidable challenge to France. The new dangerous power looming now on the
horizon was Prussia. It was in this context that the parti philosophique and
the Marquise managed to win over the king to a reversal of alliances. By the
Treaty of Versailles signed on April 1, 1756, the king, overruling his ministers,
who were still attached to the policy of Habsburg containment followed under
Richelieu and Louis XIV, allied himself with Austria and thus put an end to
more than 200 years of conflict with the Habsburgs.
At the end of August 1756, Frederick II invaded Saxony without a declaration
of war. He soon defeated the unprepared Saxon and Austrian armies and occupied
the whole of Saxony. His treatment of the electoral family of Saxony was particularly
brutal; the Electress Maria Josepha died from maltreatment. These actions by
Frederick II profoundly shocked Europe, and particularly France. The wife of
the dauphin, who was the daughter of the Elector and Electress of Saxony, had
a miscarriage as a result of the news coming from Saxony. Louis XV was left
with no choice but to enter the war. Meanwhile England had already declared
war on France on May 18, 1756. The ensuing Seven Years' War (1756-1763) was
to have profound consequences for France and England.
ASSISSANATION ATTEMPT
At home, discontent grew, fueled by the perceived political incompetence of
the king and the spending spree of the court. As previously highlighted, modern
historians have shown that the king was in fact not incompetent, albeit not
resolute enough. The spending at court was also not particularly high under
Louis XV, at any rate not any higher than under previous French kings, and certainly
much lower than in some other European courts, such as in Russia, where Peter
the Great and Empress Elizabeth spent enormous amounts of money to build palaces
in and around Saint Petersburg. Court spending also helped to carry French arts
to their zenith under Louis XV, and supported thousands of families of artists
and craftsmen. French arts were admired and copied all over Europe. Even today,
250 years later, "Louis XV" style is still a favorite among the rich and famous
around the world. Yet at the time the French public, influenced as it was by
a violent campaign of libels against the king and the Marquise de Pompadour
starting in the mid-1740s, could only see royal incompetence and spending sprees.
This was what may have inspired the assassination attempt on the king by Robert
Damiens. On January 5, 1757, would-be assassin Damiens entered the Palace of
Versailles, as did thousands of people every day to petition the king. At 6
p.m., as night had fallen on a cold Versailles covered in snow, the king, who
was visiting his daughter, left her apartments to return to the Trianon where
he was staying that day. As he was walking in the Marble Courtyard between two
lines of guards lighting the way with torches, headed toward his carriage which
was waiting at the edge of the Marble Courtyard, Damiens suddenly emerged from
the dark, passed through the guards, and stabbed the king in the side with a
penknife. The 8.1 cm (3.2 in.) blade entered the king's body between the fourth
and fifth ribs. The king, who was bleeding, remained calm and called for a confessor
as he thought he would die. Thoughts of poison came to his mind. At the sight
of the queen, who had come in a hurry, he asked for forgiveness for his misbehavior.
However, the king survived. He was probably saved by the thick layers of clothes
he wore on that cold day, which cushioned the blade, protecting the internal
organs. Allegedly, the blade penetrated only 1 cm (0.4 in.) into the king's
body, leading Voltaire to mock what he called a "pinprick".
Damiens, who was mentally unstable, had been a servant of members of the Parlement
of Paris where he had heard much criticism of the king. This, combined with
the violent pamphlets and general discontent with the king, convinced him that
he had to commit regicide in order to save France. Other sources say that he
did not want to kill the king, but merely to give him a warning and thus force
him to change his behavior. In any case, it was the first attempt at regicide
in France since the murder of King Henry IV by Ravaillac in 1610. The king,
bent on forgiving Damiens, could not avoid a trial for regicide. Tried by the
Parlement of Paris, Damiens was executed on the Place de Grève on March 28,
1757, following the horrible procedure applied to regicides: after numerous
tortures, Damiens was carried to the Place de Grève in the cold afternoon of
that day. There, he was first tortured with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding
the knife used in the attempted murder, was burnt using sulphur; molten wax,
lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. Horses were then harnessed
to his arms and legs for his dismemberment. Damiens' joints would not break;
after some hours, representatives of the Parlement ordered the executioner and
his aides to cut Damiens' joints. Damiens was then dismembered, to the applause
of the crowd. His trunk, apparently still living, was then burnt at the stake.
There was an immense crowd to watch this gruesome spectacle, which nobody had
witnessed in 147 years. Balconies in buildings above the Place de Grève were
rented to women of the aristocracy for the exorbitant price of 100 livres per
balcony (approx. $700 in 2005 US dollars.)
The king was already so unpopular that whatever sympathy for him the attempted
murder had generated in the public quickly disappeared with the execution of
Damiens. This gruesome execution was harshly criticized by Philosophers, who
saw it as a remnant of the dark ages. In truth, the king himself had not much
to do with the method of execution. It was the members of the Parlement of Paris
who selected such a horrific execution, as they thought it would please the
king, willing as they were to reconcile themselves with the king after their
opposition to the tax on the twentieth and their support of the Jansenists against
the king's will. But above all, the people were outraged that the king did not
dismiss Madame de Pompadour, despite the clear signal sent by Damiens. Posters
appeared on the walls of Paris with the following ironic pun: "Ruling from the
Mint Court: A louis not properly struck shall be struck a second time." The
Austrian ambassador wrote to Vienna: " The public discontent is general. All
the conversations are about death and poison. There appeared in the Hall of
Mirrors of Versailles some dreadful posters threatening the life of the king."
The king, who had displayed calm and royal dignity on the day of the assassination
attempt, sank into profound depression in the following weeks. He became convinced
that he was on the wrong track, since his people disowned him so loudly. All
attempts at reforms were abandoned. At the Marquise de Pompadour's instigation,
the king dismissed his two most hated ministers, the comte d'Argenson, secretary
of state for war, and Machault d'Arnouville, keeper of the seals (justice minister)
and before that controller-general of finances; and he called Choiseul to the
government. Reforms would resume only with Maupeou in 1771.
REGIME
CRISIS
Louis XIV had left France in a financial mess and in a general decline. Unfortunately,
Louis XV failed to overcome these fiscal problems, mainly due to his chronic
indecision and lack of commitment. At Versailles, the king and the nobility
surrounding him showed signs of boredom, signaling a monarchy in steady decline.
Worse, Louis seemed to be aware of the forces of anti-monarchism threatening
his family's rule and yet failed to do anything to stop them. Popular legend
has it that Louis even predicted, "After us will come the deluge" ("Après nous,
le déluge"). A chillingly accurate prediction, whose fulfilment Louis XV could
have done something to prevent.
King Louis expended a great deal of energy in the pursuit of women. His marriage
to Marie Leszczynska produced many children (see below), but the king was persistently
(and notoriously) unfaithful. Some of his mistresses, such as Madame de Pompadour
and the former prostitute Madame du Barry, are as well-known as the king himself,
and his affairs with all five Mailly-Nesle sisters are documented by the formal
agreements into which he entered. In his later years, Louis developed a penchant
for young girls, keeping several at a time in a house known as the Parc aux
Cerfs ("Deer Park").
At first he was known popularly as Louis XV, Le Bien-aimé (the well-beloved)
after a near-death illness in Metz in 1744 when the entire country prayed for
his recovery. However, his weak and ineffective rule was a contributing factor
to the general decline that culminated in the French Revolution. Popular faith
in the monarchy was shaken by the scandals of Louis' private life, and by the
end of his life he had become the well-hated. On January 5, 1757, would-be assassin
Robert Damiens entered Versailles and stabbed him in the side with a penknife.
In 1743, France entered the War of the Austrian Succession. During Louis' reign
Corsica and Lorraine were won, but a few years later the huge colonial empire
was lost, a result of the Seven Years' War with Great Britain. The Treaty of
Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War, was one of the most humiliating
episodes of the French monarchy. France abandoned India, Canada, and the west
bank of the Mississippi River. Although France still held New Orleans, lands
west of the Mississippi, and Guadeloupe, it was this defeat and the signing
of the treaty that marked the first stage of a total abandonment of the New
World. France's foreign policies were a dismal failure. Its prestige sank dramatically.
King Louis XV died of smallpox at the Palace of Versailles. He was the first
Bourbon whose heart was not, as tradition demanded, cut out and placed in a
special coffer. Instead, alcohol was poured into his coffin and his remains
were soaked in quicklime. In a surreptitious late-night ceremony attended by
only one courtier, the body was taken to the cemetery at Saint Denis Basilica.
Louis XV's son, Louis, Dauphin de France, having died nine years earlier, Louis's
grandson ascended to the throne as King Louis XVI. The king's mismanagement
of the financial situation and his scandalous private life undermined the entire
French monarchy, and the problems of Louis XV's reign would haunt (and eventually
destroy) the lives of his successors - Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Two of
Louis's other grandchildren also became Kings of France - Louis XVIII and
Charles X.