Louis XV of France

“ There, instead, absolute monarchy in Europe reached its most complete triumph during the long reigns of Louis XIV (1643-1715) and Louis XV (1715-74) , and the splendor of the court life of France captivated all Europe and served to hide the misery which made the splendor possible. There the power of the nobles had been completely broken, and the power of the parliaments completely destroyed. "I am the State," exclaimed Louis XIV, and the almost unlimited despotism of the King and his ministers and favorites fully supported the statement. ”

“ Nor had the immediate future much better things in store for exhausted France. The successor upon the absolutist throne was Louis XV, great- grandson of Louis XIV and a boy of five years of age, who did not undertake to exercise personal power until near the middle of the eighteenth century. In the meantime the country was governed for about eight years by the king's uncle, the duke of Orleans, and then for twenty years by Cardinal Fleury. ”

“ This more than amazing phrase signified that France would demand nothing, nothing for so many dearly bought victories, nothing for the five hundred thousand men she had sacrificed, nothing for the twelve hundred millions added to the national debt. Louis XV. restored all the conquered [131] cities and territories. He engaged not to rebuild the fortresses of Dunkirk; he recognized the English succession in the Protestant line and carried complaisance toward the vanquished of Fontenoy to the point of expelling the Pretender, the heroic Charles Edward, from France. ”

“ At the present day they are more enlightened, and would only love the sovereign whose sole desire is the happiness of his people, and such a king—the first citizens of a great nation—not Paris and its suburbs, but all France, will be eager to love and obey. As for kings like Louis XV., they have become totally impracticable ”

“ Starting from the reign of Louis XV. the nation has no longer a head, history no longer a centre; at the same time with a master of the higher order, great servants also fail the French monarchy; it all at once collapses, betraying thus the exhaustion of Louis XIV.‘s latter years; decadence is no longer veiled by the remnants of the splendor which was still reflected from the great king and his great reign; the glory of olden France descends slowly to its grave. At the same time, and in a future as yet obscured, intellectual progress begins to dawn ”

“ But on both sides of the Pyrenees the practical value of these renunciations is contested. When Louis XV. fell seriously ill before his marriage, in 1721, Philip V. made ready to reclaim the crown of France if the young King should die. When the Dauphin, who as yet has no heir, will himself be in danger of death, Madame du Hausset will write in her Memoirs: “The King would be in despair at having a prince of the blood as his recognized successor. He does not like them, and looks at them so distantly as to humiliate them. ”

“ What was the secret of her long continued hold upon the King? Louis XV. was a notoriously fickle monarch, whose many amours have become a part of history. But none exercised the influence over him--and over all France, through him--as did this person of "mean birth." Even her enemies have had to admit her wonderful executive ability, in addition to her womanly charms. These Memoirs, though rambling and without strict sequence, answer our many questions interestingly. They have been written, very evidently, by an inmate of the household. ”

“ Of the others the elder, Louis of Burgundy, died in 1712, and his only surviving son became Louis XV. The younger, Philip, duke of Anjou, became king of Spain, and founded the Spanish branch of the Bourbon family. Louis XV. was succeeded by his grandson, Louis XVI., who perished on the scaffold. At the restoration the throne of France was occupied by Louis XVIII., brother of Louis XVI., who in turn was succeeded by his brother Charles X. The second son of Charles X., the duc de Berry, left a son, Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné d’Artois, duc de Bordeaux, and comte de Chambord (q.v.) ”

“ The economists claimed that it would be far better to leave the manufacturer to carry on his business in his own way. They urged the king to adopt the motto, laissez faire, "Let things alone," if he would see his realms prosper. [388]
Accession of Louis XVI.
216. In 1774 the old king, Louis XV, died after a long and disgraceful reign. His unsuccessful wars had brought France to the verge of bankruptcy, and his ministers had been unable to meet the obligations of the government. ”

“ The public calamities were charged to the man, not to the monarchy. I know not in all history a king more beloved, more venerated, more adored as king and independently of his personal qualities, than was Louis XV. A child at first, then a young man, without other personal merit than that of leaving Cardinal de Fleury to govern, Louis XV., during twenty years, gathered in peace the fruits of royalty. More humane than Louis XIV. ”

“ Failing to comprehend changing conditions, the same old problem, with a towering house of Hapsburg, obscured her view, and remained the great unchanging fact about which her policy revolved.
Louis XV. was five years old when, in 1715, he became heir to a throne absolutely rigid. The best work of Richelieu and Mazarin and Louis XIV. had been expended upon it. Absolutism could go no farther. The king was all ”

“ In fact, the King spends his time nowadays in seeing the Marquise and the other personages trained by all these professional actors, who familiarize themselves with the monarch in an impious and sacrilegious fashion.”
In October, 1748, France had lost, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, an opportunity to enlarge its dominions. Louis XV. consoled himself by enlarging, if not the realm, at least the theatre of the little cabinets. A new hall was constructed in the space containing the great staircase of the Ambassadors, [33] care being taken to injure neither the [142] marble nor the pictures. ”

“ Louis XIV. died [401] . The Duc d'Orléans was Regent during the minority of Louis XV. A war with Spain broke out as [Pg 200] the result of Cellamare's [402] conspiracy: peace was restored by the fall of Alberoni [403] . Louis XV. attained his majority on the 15th of February 1723. The Regent succumbed ten months later. He had communicated his gangrene to France; he had seated Dubois [404] in Fénelon's pulpit and raised Law [405] to power. The Duc de Bourbon [406] became Prime Minister to Louis XV., and he had as his successor the Cardinal de Fleury [407] , whose genius lay in his years. ”

“ Every one knows that Louis XV, with all his manifold weaknesses, had one, and only one, strong point: he was inexorable.
One evening, as he sat before the fire with his feet on the mantelpiece, melancholy as was his wont, the marquise, looking through a packet of letters, suddenly burst into a laugh and shrugged her shoulders. The King wished to know what was the matter. ”

“ The course of events, the conduct of their rulers, prepared the minds of the French people for political change, and accounted for the influence which literature acquired. The doctrines of philosophers found easy access to the hearts of a people with whom reverence for royalty and a tranquil acceptance of an established government had been succeeded by contempt for the king and hatred for the regime under which they lived. We can trace this change of sentiment during the reign of Louis XV. The popular affection which encircled his cradle accompanied him when he had grown to be a man. ”

“ When the King thought proper to be reconciled to the Queen after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV., and when she became a mother, she really was very much attached to Louis XVI., as may be proved from her never quitting him, and suffering all the horrid sacrifices she endured, through the whole period of the Revolution, rather than leave her husband, her children, or her sister. ”

“ They had not the resources possessed by the poorer scions of the British nobility, who are free now to act as directors of public companies, stock-brokers, wine merchants, or railway managers; who may own collieries, or hansom cabs, or breed cattle without loss of caste or privilege.
As to the king, Louis XVI., he was a man of no decision of character, incapable of reading the signs of the times, or of realizing that the future of the monarchy, of France itself, depended on the reforms required in the State. ”

“ By the defeat he inflicted on the great vassals, the favor he showed the middle classes, and the use he had the sense to make of this new social force, he contributed powerfully to the formation of the French nation, and to its unity under a national government. Feudal society had not an idea of how to form itself into a nation, or discipline its forces under one head; Louis XI. proved its political weakness, determined its fall, and labored to place in its stead France and monarchy. Herein are the great facts of his reign, and the proofs of his superior mind. ”

“ When Louis XIV. laid down, one September day in the year 1715, the crown which he had worn with such splendour for more than seventy years, his sceptre fell into the hands of his nephew Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who for eight years ruled France as Regent, and as guardian of the child-King, the fifteenth Louis.
Seldom in the world's history has a reign, so splendid as that of the Sun-King, closed in such darkness and tragedy. The disastrous war of the Spanish Succession had drained France of her strength and her gold. ”

“ I understand why Louis XV. should be dissatisfied with others and with himself. I understand his exhaustion, his discouragement, his remorse, and I am not amazed that, in spite of the clink of glasses, the glitter of chandeliers, and the perfume of flowers, the boudoirs of Versailles sometimes resembled sepulchres. ”

“ It must always be remembered that a real difference exists between the royalty of Louis XIV. and that of Louis XV. Louis XIV. performed his kingly duties with the facility of a great actor playing his part, or, better, with the dignity of an officiating priest. Louis XV., on the contrary, in spite of his noble [102] bearing and the successful beginnings of his reign, is almost ashamed of his royal dignity. He does not like what is grand; what he prefers are small apartments, little suppers, petty conversations. At times the monarch is not even a private gentleman ”

“ But Louis XIV.'s reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity. It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of mankind. It stretches across history like a great mountain-range, separating ancient France from the France of modern times. On the farther slope are Catholicism and feudalism in their various stages of splendour and decay--the France of crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On the hither side are free-thought, industry, and centralization--the France of Voltaire, Turgot and Condorcet. ”

“ THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV The brilliant reign of the French king cast its spell upon the rest of Europe. Kings and princes looked to Louis as the model of what a king should be and set themselves to imitate the splendor of his court. During this period the French language, manners, dress, art, literature, and science became the accepted standards of good society in all civilized lands. France still retains in large measure the preeminent position which she secured under the "Grand Monarch." ”

“ If a patent of nobility was a pretty good passport to the scaffold, good service in a town council was an open door to elevation.
So, judged by results, Louis XI. was a better king than many a better man had been. He buried the ideals of the past fathoms deep and then stamped them down with remorseless feet. He demolished the political structure of mediaevalism in his kingdom, and when his terrible reign was ended, in 1483, the Middle Ages had passed away and modern life had begun in France. ”

“ So saying, Louis XV went to the chimney, and pulled the bell-rope with so much vehemence that ten persons answered it at once.
“Send for the duc de la Vrillière; if he be not suitably attired let him come in his night-gown, no matter so that he appear quickly.”
On hearing an order given in this manner a stranger might have supposed the king crazy, and not intent on imprisoning a miserable libeller. I interceded in his favor, but Louis XV, delighted at an opportunity of playing the king at a small cost, told me that it was no person’s business, and he would be dictated to by no one. ”

“ When grown up, Louis XV saw the libertinism of cardinal Dubois and the orgies of the regency: madame de Maillis' shameless conduct was before his eyes and Richelieu's also. Louis XV could not conduct himself differently from his ministers and his family. His timid character was formed upon the example of others. At first he selected his own mistresses, but afterwards he chose some one who took that trouble off his hands. Lebel became purveyor in chief to his pleasures; and controlled in Versailles the house known as the Parc-aux-Cerfs. ”

“ The duke had promised Louis XV to be as amusing as possible too! After a conversation of three hours, which his majesty (of course) said had appeared but of a moment, he left me delighted with his person, wit, and manners.
When Louis XV saw me, he inquired my opinion of his Danish majesty.
“He is,” I replied, “a well-educated king, and that they say is a rarity.”
“True,” said Louis XV, “there are so many persons who are interested in our ignorance, that it is a miracle if we escape out of their hands as reasonable beings.” ”