LOUIS XV, King of France. - Born at Versailles on 15 Feb. 1710 to Louis, Duke of Burgundy, second Dauphin, and to Maria Adelaide of Savoy; heir to the crown on 7 Sept. 1715, under the guardianship of Philip II, Duke of Orléans, head of the Regency Council.
His tutor, listened to and loved from his earliest years, was H. de Fleury, bishop of Fréjus, gentle and modest, who won such ascendancy over the young King that, on the death of the Duke of Orléans, he had Louis Henry, Duke of Bourbon, accepted as first minister (1723), who with the marquise de Prie dominated internal and foreign policy as master. The understanding with England and the clash with the Orléans led France to detach itself progressively from Spain. Louis XV married on 4 Sept. 1725 Maria Leszczyńska, daughter of Stanislas, made king of Poland by Charles XII but dethroned by the elector of Saxony Augustus II.
Since Bourbon sought to divert onto Fleury the odium of the new taxes imposed and of the harsh measures against Jansenists and Protestants, the King reacted by dismissing the duke, exiling the marquise de Prie, and growing cold toward the Queen, who openly opposed Fleury. Fleury obtained the cardinal's hat barely two months after the dismissal of the Duke of Bourbon and suggested abolishing the office of first minister; he himself was in fact arbiter of the government until his death (1743).
The cardinal, moderate and inclined to peace, pursued a policy of withdrawal abroad and at home in the interest of the monarchy and of France, and continued it during the War of the Polish Succession unleashed in Europe following the sudden death of Augustus II of Saxony (Feb. 1733). It was chiefly owing to his policy that the treaty of Vienna of 1738 secured such advantages as to make Louis XV still be regarded as arbiter of Europe.
In domestic policy, Louis XV found himself having to struggle against the opponents of the famous bull Unigenitus, of Jansenist tendency. It was due to Fleury's skill that, even amid resistance and petitions carried to the foot of the throne, lay Jansenism was reduced to silence and the bull Unigenitus accepted (24 May 1730), and that, for the tranquillity of the State, the subtle interpretations of the opponents of the bull were banished, interpretations that ended by shaking the rules of the hierarchy and respect for the law, and the writings of Jansenist inspiration were prohibited, with penalties ranging from fine to banishment. Only in Dec. 1737 was peace achieved according to Fleury's wish.
All too well known is the part played in private and public affairs by the mistresses who, after the Queen's disgrace, were able to dominate Louis XV. From 1745 to 1750 Antoinette Poisson d'Étioles, created marquise de Pompadour, dominated completely over the King's mind, and she knew how to make herself a shrewd and sagacious counsellor to him even in political matters and steered him toward that rapprochement of France with Austria which, having turned into an alliance, caused a disastrous war against Prussia and England allied together. This was due in part to that irresolution which the Sovereign also showed in the question of mortmain property raised by Machault, in which, having for a time remained aloof, he then brusquely renounced the plan to burden the clergy's property with taxes; and furthermore in the struggle between the Parliament and the Church of France and of Rome, when he passed frequently from condemnations to pardons, supported the archbishop of Paris and exiled the Parliament to Pontoise; only then to recall the latter without having obtained a single concession, when he did not prevent the exile against the archbishop, and when finally he was obliged, in order to obtain silence on the bull Unigenitus, to have recourse to Benedict XIV and to hold the lit de justice of 1756, following which 180 councillors resigned.
Even with the "philosophers" of his century, Louis XV maintained a vacillating and uncertain conduct. While Pompadour busied herself protecting them, Louis XV agreed to support only the physiocrats because their theories had a fiscal scope favourable to the monarchy, yet he did not shrink from the idea of winning Voltaire over to himself. In the last years of the reign the ferment among the French people grew. The mad spending of the royal treasury on the favourites (it is calculated that for Pompadour alone the King had spent no less than thirty-six million francs), the scandalous squandering by the financiers irritated ever more and were causes of popular unrest. Satires and lampoons ran through the streets and squares of Paris and of France. In this respect, the attempt by Damiens (7 Jan. 1757) found a justification in popular irritation.
After the death of Pompadour (1764) it was hoped that, with the King's repentance, financial reorganization would begin. Instead the moment came for a new favourite, the Du Barry, who, though without political ambitions, had a part in all the intrigues of the Court, as an opponent of Choiseul. The latter, secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1758, had in fact taken direction of policy from the peace of Paris (1763) onward, and had set about reorganizing the civil and military administration and raising again the prestige of France abroad. His work was hampered by the contradictory conduct of the King, and by the internal complications to which the preparations for the war against England, desired by Choiseul, gave rise. To prepare the means necessary for the conflict, the latter placed great reliance on the revenues that could accrue to the treasury from the property of the Jesuits. He therefore abandoned them to the wrath of the Parliament, and blew vigorously on the violent campaign conducted against them, accused of sedition and of plots, and against the Society itself. The campaign concluded, as is known, with the seizure of the houses of the Society (1762) and with the expulsion of the Jesuits from the States of the Bourbons (1764-67). Louis XV, in order to bend the reluctant Pope, gave orders to occupy Avignon, precisely while Neapolitan troops proceeded to the occupation of Benevento and Pontecorvo, until the Society of Jesus was suppressed (21 July 1773), by the will of the Pope. The fall of Choiseul, due above all to the war he was preparing against England, opened the way to a triumvirate (Duke d'Aguillon, R. C. Maupéou, J. M. Terray), which had the merit of avoiding war at all costs, and which, by abolishing the Parliament, attempted to give strength to absolute power. However, the corrupt Sovereign and the one at the mercy of his favourites lacked the necessary moral strength, the financial system was lacking, too ruinous, and France lacked unity of purpose, by now on the decline in the international field, as was in part documented by the fact that the partition of Poland was carried out without it.
Toward the end of Apr. 1774, the King fell ill with smallpox. His dissoluteness had necessarily kept him away from the Sacraments (cf. on this point: J. Guiraud, Histoire partielle, Histoire vraie, Paris 1917, IV, p. 248 ff.); now he ordered the Du Barry to leave the court, obtained the last rites, giving clear manifestations of repentance, and died on 10 May 1774. - See pl. CXV.
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Raffaele Ciasca