LOUIS XV BOURBON DE FRANCE : Family tree by Joan DOUGHTY (cousinjeanne)

Publish date: 2024-03-17

LOUIS XV, called THE BELOVED (French: le Bien-Aimé) (February 15, 1710 - May 10, 1774), ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1715 until his death. Unexpectedly surviving the death of his entire family, he enjoyed a favourable reputation at the beginning of his reign. However, in time, his inability to reform the French monarchy, his lack of morals, and his foreign policy on the European stage lost him the support of his people, and he died as one of the most unpopular kings of France.

While historians have traditionally treated Louis XV harshly, more recent research has suggested that he was in fact very intelligent and dedicated to the task of ruling the largest kingdom of Europe. His indecisiveness, fuelled by his awareness of the complexity of problems ahead, as well as his profound timidity, hidden behind the mask of an imperious king, account for the poor results achieved during his reign. In many ways, Louis XV prefigures the bourgeois rulers of the romantic 19th century: although dutifully playing the role of the imperial king carved out by his great-grandfather Louis XIV, Louis XV in fact cherished nothing more than his private life far away from pomp and ceremony. Having lost his mother while still an infant, he always longed for a motherly and reassuring presence, which he tried to find in the intimate company of women, for which he was much criticised both during and after his life.

THE MIRACLE CHILD Louis XV, known as Louis, Duke of Anjou, was the second son born to Louis, duc de Bourgogne and Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, after Louis, Duc de Bretagne, who was three years his senior. He was born at Versailles on February 15, 1710, while his great-grandfather Louis XIV was still on the throne. The heir to the throne was Louis XIV's only son, Louis, le Grand Dauphin, who in turn had three sons: Louis' father, who was the eldest, Philippe, Duc d'Anjou (soon to be confirmed as Philip V of Spain), and Charles, Duc de Berry. His mother, Marie-Adélaïde, was a very lively woman of whom the king was very fond, and the young couple, deeply in love with each other (quite an unusual fact at the court in Versailles), had rejuvenated the court of the old king and become the centre of attraction in Versailles. This, coupled with the existence of six male heirs (one son, three grandsons, and two great-grandsons from his oldest grandson), made the prospects of the House of Bourbon seem very bright.

However, dramatic events altered the shape of the royal family. In 1700, the Duke of Anjou became King of Spain under the name Philip V, inheriting the crown from his grandmother, wife of Louis XIV and a Spanish princess. In the War of the Spanish Succession that followed, Philip V had to renounce all claims to the French throne. England was loath to see Spain and its colonial empire united with France under a single king in the future. The renunciation of Philip V was not a major problem for Louis XIV since he had so many other male descendants. However, in April 1711 the Dauphin died suddenly, and the Duke of Burgundy became Dauphin, heir to the throne. Then one year later, the vigorous and lively Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy contracted smallpox (or measles) and died on February 12, 1712, to the dismay of the old king Louis XIV. Her husband, heartbroken by the death of his wife, died within a week of the same disease. Within a week of the Dauphin's death, it was also clear that the two children of the couple had caught the virus. The eldest son, the Duc de Bretagne, was bled repeatedly by doctors and died on March 8, 1712. His younger brother Louis XV was saved by his governess Madame de Ventadour, who vigorously forbade doctors to bleed the young boy and personally looked after him during his illness. Then finally in 1714 the Duc de Berry, youngest son of le Grand Dauphin, died.

Thus Louis XIV had lost four male descendants in just three years, and the fate of the dynasty now lay in the survival of a four-year-old boy. Should the boy die, the crown would pass to Philippe II, Duc d'Orléans, the nephew of Louis XIV, and the first cousin of the late Grand Dauphin. However, it appeared quite probable that Philip V of Spain would denounce the treaty whereby he had renounced the crown of France, and that a major European war, as well as a French civil war, was sure to happen. The young boy was made very conscious of the heavy responsibility lying on his shoulders, and his life was carefully watched. Moreover, he was now an orphan, with no surviving siblings, no legitimate uncles or aunts (except Philip V who was in Madrid and whom he would never meet), and no legitimate first cousins (again, excepting those in Madrid). This family context shaped much of the later personality of the king.

THE REGENCY OF THE DUC D'ORLEANS Towards the end of August 1715, Louis XIV was dying of gangrene. On September 1, the king passed away after having reigned in France for 72 years, and Louis XV was immediately hailed as the new King of France with a grand coronation.

In August 1714, Louis XIV had made a will which granted a prominent role in the anticipated regency to his two legitimised sons by his former mistress, Madame de Montespan, the Duc de Maine and the Comte de Toulouse. By legitimising his bastard sons, Louis XIV was trying to remedy the death of most of his male heirs in the three preceding years, and ensure the future of the endangered dynasty. The calculation was that should the young Louis XV die, the bastard sons of Louis XIV would succeed him on the throne. This was in contravention of the traditional rule of succession to the throne of France. The move also resulted from the insistence of Louis XIV's second wife, Madame de Maintenon, who had raised the two boys and was on close and friendly terms with them (other bastard sons of the king, not raised by Madame de Maintenon, were not legitimised). The will sought to enhance the positions of Toulouse, and especially the elder son, Maine, at the expense of the man who was expected, by traditional right, to become regent and rule France until Louis XV reached adulthood, Philippe d'Orléans, son of Louis XIV's younger brother. The will stipulated that until the new king reached the age of majority, the nation was to be run by a Regency Council of 14 members. Philippe d'Orléans was named president of the council, but all decisions were to be taken by majority vote; and the composition of the council, which included Maine, Toulouse and various members of Louis XIV's administration, was such that Orléans would usually be outvoted.

THE REGENT, PHILIPPE D'ORLEANS The content of the will had become known before the old king died, and factions had already begun to line up behind Maine, Toulouse and Maintenon on one hand, and Orléans on the other. Orléans enjoyed the support of many amongst the old sword nobility (noblesse d'épée), descending from medieval knights, as opposed to the noblesse de robe, the new aristocracy of recently ennobled lawyers and civil servants. Louis XIV had usually excluded the noblesse d'épée from government in favour of commoners from the bourgeoisie who often entered the noblesse de robe and whom he could control better. Thus the noblesse d'épée yearned for a change of policy more favourable to them, and were greatly displeased with the legitimisation of the "royal bastards" Maine and Toulouse, which they regarded as an affront to the traditional rules of inheritance.

The Parlement of Paris, another political entity which Louis XIV had shut out of power, also hoped for an Orléans regency and a change of course in the government, with increased powers given to the Parlement. Religion too entered the picture. Madame de Maintenon was a supporter of the Jesuits, the Pope, and the Pope's controversial Bull Unigenitus, a 1713 papal bull directed against the Jansenists, a Catholic group popular in France who were deemed to have too many Protestant tendencies. Orléans was naturally supported by the Jansenists and the Gallicans (French Catholics who wanted their church to be more independent from Rome), since they thought he would dislodge the Jesuit-Papist group from power after his own accession to power.

It appears that in the final weeks before his death, King Louis XIV arrived at somewhat of a reconciliation with his nephew Philippe d'Orléans. Bidding adieu to the closest courtiers and ministers on August 26, the king had told them: "Always obey the orders my nephew Philippe d'Orléans will give you; he will govern the kingdom"². In the following days, Philippe d'Orléans met with and made promises to various aristocrats, clergymen, and members of the Parlement of Paris to secure their support. He promised the aristocrats places on the new government councils he intended to form, which would eventually become known as the polysynody; he assured Jansenists and Gallicans he would be lenient regarding Unigenitus; and he promised the Parlement he would restore its right of remonstrance (the right to criticize and delay royal edicts), which had been taken away from the Parlement by Louis XIV in 1673.

On September 2, the day after Louis XIV died, there was a special session of the Parlement of Paris. It was attended not only by the magistrates who were usually there, but also by the peers and princes of the blood. The king's will was read, and the future of the government decided. Philippe d'Orléans addressed the assembly. He stated his claim to be made regent, asking that he be given full power. He referred to a recent conversation in which the king had indicated to him that he would govern. He reminded those present of the arrangements he had negotiated with them over the preceding days. The Parlement responded affirmatively. He was granted the crucial right to choose his own Regency Council. Thus the king's written will was to a large extent nullified, and Philippe d'Orléans became, in fact, regent. He was 41 years old. The Parlement, on the other hand, recovered its right of remonstrance. This court coup was recorded in detail by Saint-Simon, the famous writer of memoirs. Orléans took the symbolic decision to relocate the government to Paris, and the court in Versailles disbanded.

The regent conducted affairs of state from his Parisian palace, the Palais Royal. The young Louis XV was moved to the modern lodgings attached to the medieval fortress of Vincennes, located 7 km/4.5 miles east of Paris in the Forest of Vincennes, where the air was deemed more wholesome and healthy than in Paris. Later during the regency he was moved to the Tuileries Palace, in the center of Paris, near the Palais Royal. In keeping with the tradition that all French royal princes, when they reached their seventh birthdays, should be put under the care of men, a tearful Louis was separated from his governess, Madame de Ventadour, in February 1717, and put in the care of the Duc de Villeroi, who had been designated as his governor in Louis XIV's will of August 1714.³ The Duc de Villeroi served under the formal authority of the Duc de Maine, made superintendent of the king's education. He was aided by André-Hercule de Fleury (later to become Cardinal Fleury), tutor to the young king. The Duc de Villeroi, an old and vain courtier, loved to show the good manners and talents of his pupil. The young king, during endless public ceremonies, had to learn to hide his feelings and his natural shyness. He acquired the cold attitude and air of majesty that he would display during his entire life in public, as well as a taste for private apartments and intimate circles, in short an almost private bourgeois lifestyle.

Fleury, his tutor, gave him an excellent education, with renowned professors such as the geographer Guillaume Delisle. Louis XV's was an extremely curious and open-minded personality. He was an avid reader, and of eclectic tastes. A man of the Enlightenment, fond of science and new technologies, he pushed for the creation of a department of physics (1769) and mechanics (1773) at the Collège de France. The Cardinal Fleury, an ambitious man, and, like the king, secretive, but above all affable, was deeply admired by Louis XV, and had a great influence on the rest of the king's life. During the Régence, the regent, Philippe d'Orléans, in search of support, and in keeping with his promises, favoured the nobility (aristocrats) who had been deprived of power during the reign of Louis XIV. He established the so-called polysynody (September 15, 1715), a short-lived structure of councils that gave the aristocracy a visible appearance of participating in the government. He concluded an alliance with Great Britain and the Netherlands in 1717 (Triple Alliance) in an effort to prevent Philip V of Spain from claiming the crown of France should the young Louis XV die. Confronted with a total lack of expertise amongst the aristocracy in government affairs, the regent reverted to the monarchical organization of government that existed under Louis XIV and by 1718 reinstated secretaries of state. Cardinal Dubois, close confidant of the regent, was made prime minister in 1722. In an attempt to replenish the French treasury the regency tried a number of original financial experiments, notable amongst which was the famous inflationary scheme of John Law. The bursting of the speculative bubble fueled by Law's system brought about the ruin of many aristocrats.

In 1721, Louis XV was betrothed to his first cousin, Maria Ana Victoria de Borbón, daughter of Philip V of Spain and his second wife Elizabeth Farnese. The eleven-year-old king found no interest in the arrival in Paris of his future wife, the three-year-old Spanish infanta, who only bored him. In June 1722 the young king and the court returned to Versailles, where they would stay until the end of the reign. In October of the same year, Louis XV was officially crowned in Reims Cathedral. On February 15, 1723, as he turned thirteen, the king was declared of majority by the Parlement of Paris, thus ending the Régence. The king left the Duc d'Orléans in charge of state affairs. The Duc d'Orléans was made first minister on the death of Cardinal Dubois in August 1723, and he himself died in December of the same year. Following the advice of Fleury, Louis XV appointed his cousin the Duc de Bourbon, to replace the late Duc d'Orléans.

THE MINISTRY OF THE DUC DE BOURBON The king took no part in the decisions of the government under the Duc de Bourbon. The government was secretly under the influence of a group of speculators and wheeler-dealers such as É. Berthelot de Pléneuf and banker J. Pâris-Duverney. The Duc de Bourbon was worried by the health of the young king, not so much out of concern for the king or the future of the dynasty, but in fact out of a desire to prevent the family of the late regent, the House of Orléans, from ascending the throne should the king die. The Duc de Bourbon saw the House of Orléans as his enemy. The king was quite frail, and several alerts led to concern for his life. The Spanish infanta was too young to procreate and give an heir. Thus, the Duc de Bourbon, who was also hostile to Spain, sent the infanta back to Spain and set about choosing a European princess old enough to produce an heir. Eventually, the choice fell on the twenty-one year old Maria Leszczynska, daughter of Stanislaw Leszczynski, the toppled King of Poland. An impoverished and plain-looking princess who had followed her father's misfortunes, she was nonetheless said to be virtuous, and quite charming. She was also from a royal family which had never intermarried with the French royal family, and it was hoped that she would bring new blood to it. The relatively low status of her father would also ensure that the marriage would not cause diplomatic embarrassment to France by having to choose one royal court over another. The marriage was celebrated in September 1725. The young king immediately fell in love with his new wife, who was seven years older than he. Nonetheless, many considered the marriage of the most powerful king in Europe with such a low-ranking princess to be improper and lacking in grandeur.

The ministry of the Duc de Bourbon was marked by the persecution of Protestants (1726), several monetary manipulations, the creation of new taxes such as the fiftieth (cinquantième) in 1725, and the high price of grain, all of which created troubles and economic depression. In 1726, the king, who was now sixteen and had since his marriage shown a new health and authority, dismissed the Duc de Bourbon, who was extremely unpopular and was preparing a war against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. As his replacement he chose his old tutor, Cardinal Fleury, to serve as first minister.

THE MINISTRY OF CARDINAL FLEURY From 1726 until his death in 1743, Cardinal Fleury ruled France with the king's assent. It was the most peaceful and prosperous part of the reign of Louis XV, despite some Parlement 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. By the middle of the 18th century, France had the most modern and extensive road network in the world. The body of ponts et chaussées engineers, instituted by the central state, built modern straight highways, many of which are still in use today, stretching from Paris to the most distant borders of France, in the typical star pattern that remains the backbone of the National Highway network of France. 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 claiming that miracles took place in this graveyard) were put to an end in 1732. As for the Gallican opposition, after the "exile" of 139 parlementaires 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, attempting to maintain the alliance with England and pursuing reconciliation with Spain. In September 1729, at the end of her third pregnancy, the queen finally gave birth to a male child, Louis, 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, on the advice of his secretary of state for foreign affairs Germain Louis Chauvelin (1727-1737), the king temporarily abandoned Fleury's peace policy to intervene in the War of the Polish Succession. In addition to attempting to restore his father-in-law Stanislaw Leszczynski to the Polish throne, the king also hoped to wrest the long-coveted duchy of Lorraine from its duke, Francis III. The duke's expected marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI's daughter, Maria Theresa, would bring Austrian power dangerously close to the French border. The half-hearted French intervention in the east was insufficient to enable Stanislaw to 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), Stanislaw was compensated for the loss of his Polish throne with the duchy of Lorraine, which would eventually pass to King Louis as his son-in-law, while Duke Francis III of Lorraine was made heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as compensation for the loss of Lorraine. The war cost France very little, 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 favourable result, France's mediation in the war between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire led to the Treaty of Belgrade (September 1739) which favoured the Ottoman Empire, an 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. With these successes, Louis XV's prestige reached its highest point. 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 elderly Cardinal Fleury had too little energy left to oppose this war, which was strongly supported by the anti-Austrian party at court. Renewing the cycle of conflicts so typical of Louis XIV's reign, the king entered the war in 1741 on the side of Prussia. The war would last seven years. Fleury did not live to see the end of the war. After Fleury's death in January 1743, the king followed his predecessor's example, ruling from then on without a first minister.

FIRST 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. 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, Louis. This did not help dispel the concerns about the future of the dynasty brought about by the repeated deaths of the early 1710s. 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 yet another sister MADAME DE CHATEAUROUX, while the queen took refuge in religion and charities.

In June 1744, the king left Versailles for the front in order to take personal command of his armies fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession. This otherwise popular move was marred by the king's indiscreet decision to bring along Madame de Chateauroux. In August, the king fell gravely ill in Metz. Death appeared imminent, and public prayers were held all across France to ask God to save the king from a certain death. Pressed by the dévot party, Msgr. de Fitz-James, First Chaplain (premier aumônier) of the king, refused to give the king the absolution unless the king renounced his mistress. The king's confession was then publicly announced, embarrassing him and tarnishing the prestige of the monarchy. Madame de Châteauroux was forced to leave to the boos of the public. Although Louis' recovery earned him the 'well-beloved' epithet from a public relieved by his survival, the events at Metz (August 1744) appear to have left profound scars on his psyche as well as on French political life. Nevertheless, the king soon returned to his adulterous ways.

SEE NOTES FOR "Jeanne Antoinette "Pompadour" POISSON" and other "Spouses" of Louise XV

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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XV_of_France

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