The Bourbon Kings of France (17 page)

Meanwhile in April 1711, the first of a series of terrible personal blows struck Louis. The Dauphin, ‘drowned in fat and sloth’ though he was, had always seemed healthy enough. Suddenly he fell ill and died of smallpox, within little more than a week. The Duc de Bourgogne was now Dauphin, and impressed everyone by his sense of responsibility, attending all Council meetings and listening carefully to what ministers and generals had to say. Even Marie Adelaide became more serious. Then early in February 1712, when she was pregnant, she developed a fever; a rash appeared and she was dead within a few days. Louis wrote to Philip of Spain, ‘There will never be a moment in my life when I shall not regret her.’ Less than a week after his wife’s death, the Duc de Bourgogne developed the mysterious rash. ‘He was extraordinarily fond of his wife, and sorrow for her death gave him his fever.’ He died three days later, perhaps the worst blow of all to Louis.

His mind formed by Fénelon, Bourgogne, had he lived, might have saved the
Ancien Régime
. He recognized and lamented the gulf between monarch and subject. He intended to introduce changes in taxation—which would have ended the privileged position of the nobility—and generally to broaden the entire basis of government. Few men have been mourned so deeply.

Early in March the Bourgognes’ two surviving children sickened, and the elder, the five-year-old Duc de Bretagne, soon died. The younger, the Duc d’Anjou, was saved by his governess, the Duchesse de Ventadour, who said that he was too small to be bled, and had him breast-fed in her own room until the rash went. So mysterious were these deaths—probably a rare form of measles—that it was rumoured that the Duc de Bourgogne and his family had been poisoned by the Duc d’Orléans whose interest in chemistry was well known; the Duke was hissed in the streets. The Duc du Maine seems to have been largely responsible for spreading the slander. But the King had too much sense to believe such rumours. He showed incredible fortitude; Saint-Simon said that he truly merited the title of ‘the Great’ by his behaviour.

It was at this time that France was in most danger. Prince Eugène prepared to invade France from Flanders with 130,000 men. In April Louis entrusted Villars with his last army. In tears, his voice shaking, he told Villars, ‘You see the condition I am in,
M le Maréchal
. Few people have known, as I have, what it is to lose a grandson, a grand-daughter and their son, all of great promise and deeply loved, within a few weeks. God is punishing me and I deserve it: I shall suffer less in the world to come.’ The King went on to discuss what he should do if Villars failed. ‘Most of my courtiers want me to go to Blois without waiting for the enemy to advance on Paris, as they may well do if our army is defeated.’ But Louis thought that even if the worst happened, sufficient French troops would hold out on the north bank of the Somme. ‘I shall go to Péronne or Saint-Quentin, collect all the troops I can muster and make a last stand with you, in which we will either die together or save the kingdom.’

But in July Villars captured the fortified town of Denain and cut the allied army in half. Eugène was forced to retreat, the French advancing steadily and capturing town after town. Within less than two months, Prince Eugène had lost over fifty battalions; fifty-three enemy standards were sent to Versailles. At the Treaty of Utrecht in April 1713, Philip V renounced his claim to the French throne and was recognized as King of Spain by most of the allies. France kept Alsace and Strasbourg. In return Louis ceded Hudson Bay and Gibraltar to England and agreed to disown poor James III.

Although he had brought his kingdom close to ruin, he had won a brilliant triumph, demonstrating the strength of the state which he had created: France would not be invaded again till the Revolution. With his usual realism, Louis now began negotiations for an alliance with Vienna. The Habsburg encirclement had been broken for ever. Sainte-Beuve says patronizingly, ‘Louis had nothing more than good sense, but he had plenty of it.’ One may think that the old King had more than good sense—he anticipated a realignment in European diplomacy by thirty years.

In May 1714 Louis suffered yet another tragedy, when his third and last grandson, the Duc de Berry, died after a fall from his horse. Berry’s children had all died in infancy so (apart from Philip of Spain, who was not eligible) the King’s only heir was his great-grandson, the frail, four-year-old Duc d’Anjou. The heir presumptive was Monsieur’s son, the disreputable Philippe d’Orléans. In August 1714 Louis went directly against the
loi fondamental
by forcing the Parlement to recognize the Duc du Maine and the Comte de Toulouse as Princes of the Blood, with the right of succession to the throne in the event of M d’Anjou’s death. The education of the latter was to be entrusted to the Duc du Maine, who in these last days was the old King’s favourite companion.

Louis was now nearer eighty than seventy. Yet his appetite for food continued to astonish observers—some believed that he had a gigantic tapeworm. It was still the appetite of which his sister-in-law had written, ‘I have often seen the King drink four bowls of different sorts of soup and then eat an entire pheasant, a partridge, a large plate of salad, mutton with gravy or garlic, a dish of
patisserie
and after that fruit and hard-boiled eggs.’ Large quantities of bread and cold meat with two bottles of wine were placed in his room every night in case he should feel hungry. Plenty of fruit and green vegetables seem to have saved him from any ill consequences. At this period he drank watered burgundy instead of champagne, usually Romanée St Vivant, which had originally been prescribed for him after his fistula operation by the surgeon, Fagon, who told him, ‘Tonic and generous, it suits, Sire, a robust temperament such as yours.’ He needed exercise as much as ever, walking in all weathers, and following the hunt in his little cart. He worked his customary hours. He still exhausted Mme de Maintenon with his demands and then ‘slept like a child’. He kept his liking for Molière’s comedies—especially
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Georges Dandin
and
Le Coccu Imaginaire
—which were often performed at Versailles. In June 1715 he remarked, ‘If I continue to eat with such a good appetite, I am going to ruin all those Englishmen who have wagered large sums that I will die by September.’ But the English would win their bet.

Perhaps sensing that his end was not far off, he had grown steadily more devout in recent years. He listened dutifully to his new confessor, the sinister and fanatical Jesuit, Le Tellier. An old peasant who looked like a bird of prey, arrogant and illiterate and with burning eyes, Le Tellier has even been compared to Rasputin, such was his influence over Louis. The King was sincerely pious but he had a curiously underdeveloped religious sense. On his deathbed he told Cardinal Rohan that in matters of religion he had only done what his bishops had advised him. ‘It is you who will have to answer to God for everything that has been done … I have a clear conscience.’

The King enjoyed himself at Marly in the first few days of August 1715 and had a good stag hunt. Suddenly, on 10 August, he felt ill and returned to Versailles. Two days later sores broke out on his left leg. Although in pain, he worked as usual with his ministers, and interviewing ambassadors, and tried to soothe himself with frequent concerts. His leg began to smell foully and then turned black—it was gangrene. By 24 August, he knew he was dying. Next day he added a codicil to his will, nominating Philippe d’Orléans as chief of the Council of Regency.

He was already talking of ‘the time when I was King’. He took a dignified farewell of his courtiers, thanking them for their service and asking their pardon for the bad example he had set them. At the end both he and they began to cry. ‘I perceive that I am allowing my feelings to overcome me,’ said Louis, ‘and am making you do likewise. I beg your forgiveness for it. Farewell, gentlemen—I hope you will sometimes remember me.’ Later, however, he rebuked two servants for weeping: ‘Why do you shed tears? Did you think me immortal?’

He summoned his five-year-old great-grandson, who was placed on his bed. He told him, ‘My child, you are about to become the greatest King in the world. Never forget your duty to God. Do not copy me in my taste for war. And try to relieve your people as much as you can, which I unhappily have not done because of the needs of the state …’ He then kissed the Dauphin, blessed him and burst into tears.

It was a long and agonizing death, which he suffered with dignity. He received the sacraments many times and prayed fervently. He told his wife, ‘I thought it would be harder to die—I assure you it is not very terrible and does not seem difficult to me.’ His last words were, ‘Oh my God, come to my aid, make haste to succour me!’ He died at a quarter to eight on the morning of Sunday 1 September 1715.

The whole country rejoiced. His coffin was hooted at on the way to Saint-Denis by a drunken mob, and Voltaire saw small booths set up along the route where people drank and sang. Saint-Simon says that the provinces leapt for joy. Both the nobles and the lawyers felt that their deliverance had come. But the diarist also noted that no foreign court rejoiced—‘all plumed themselves on praising and honouring his memory’.

Historians vary considerably in their judgement of Louis and, indeed, the motives for many of his actions remain as much a mystery now as they were to his contemporaries. On the whole, however, he is generally seen as a selfish megalomaniac, whose lust for glory ruined his people; whose demoralization of the French nobility made the Revolution inevitable; whose ruthlessness in personal relationships ruined the lives of his intimates. This picture owes a good deal to the almost hypnotic fascination of Saint-Simon’s memoirs, and much to the impression made by the soulless bulk of Versailles. Yet Saint-Simon was biased to the point of derangement, while without its glittering courtiers, Versailles, essentially theatrical in conception, could never be more than a vast and deserted playhouse. The métier of absolute monarch was a demanding one which few human beings could perform without losing some of their humanity. None the less, Louis was a good father, a good son, a good brother and, for most of his married life, a good husband. If he made France suffer, he made her great. Napoleon, whose judgements it is always dangerous to ignore, once said, ‘Louis XIV was a great King. He made France first among the nations. What French King since Charlemagne can be compared with him?’

‘The Well-Beloved’

LOUIS XV (1715–1774)

_____________

‘If
I
were Lieutenant of Police, I would prohibit those Paris cabriolets’

Louis XV is the Hamlet of the Bourbons. Few Kings have baffled historians as he has done; to most he is a classic example of the man who is not up to his job, though a surprising number think he may have been seriously under-estimated. He was no less of a mystery to his contemporaries. The shyest and most reserved of all his dynasty, his interest lies in his strange yet curiously attractive character and in its tragic inadequacy. For Louis XV, the eighteenth century was always the age of the Rococo, not of the Enlightenment.

He was born on 15 February 1710, the third and youngest son of the Duc de Bourgogne and Marie Adelaide of Savoy, and was soon after created Duc d’Anjou. One brother had already predeceased him; his remaining brother died in the same epidemic which carried off their parents. It has already been related how he was saved by the good sense of his governess, the Duchesse de Ventadour. She continued to be his governess for the first two years of his reign, taking the place of his mother; on his deathbed Louis XIV told the little boy to obey her, and he remained devoted to her for the rest of his life, calling her
Maman
.

The young King, a frail but beautiful child, was the idol of his people. Michelet recaptures their veneration: ‘He, the only remains of so great a family, saved like the infant Joash, is preserved apparently that he himself may save others.’ At his accession the crowd joined with wild and tearful emotion in crying
‘Vive le Roi!’
Once again France was afflicted with a minority, but unlike his predecessors Louis XV had no mother to act as Regent. Nor did the nobility make any attempt at rebellion; it has been said that while during Louis XIII’s minority they waged civil war and during Louis XIV’s joined in the Fronde, in the minority of Louis XV they were only capable of writing memoirs.

The new ruler of France was the King’s ‘wicked uncle’, his cousin Philippe d’Orléans, a plump, short-sighted little man with a cynical grin. He quickly set aside Louis XIV’s will—which had given considerable powers to the Duc du Maine—telling the Parlement firmly, ‘I have been proclaimed Regent and during the minority I must have a King’s authority.’ Indeed, Orléans became King in everything but name, as heir presumptive to a sickly boy, whom everyone expected would soon make way for ‘Philippe VII’; the eight years of his regency amounted to a reign on which he stamped his own scandalous, pleasure-loving character. Amiable, humane, tolerant, sceptical but open-minded, the Regent seems surprisingly modern. Yet he looked backward rather than forward, consciously modelling himself on his great-grandfather, Henri IV, whom he really believed he resembled. Alas, he took after him only in being amusing, loose-living and wearing spectacles. He was an insatiable womanizer, with more than a hundred mistresses (famous for their ugliness), and a drunkard with a weak head, who consumed bottle upon bottle of the new sparkling champagne.

Despite his hopes of the throne, the Regent was obviously very fond of his little cousin. He treated him exactly as he had treated Louis XIV—with deep respect. There is a charming portrait of them together; the Regent is seated at his work table, gesturing amiably and deferentially towards the little King who stands in the foreground, dressed in the height of grown-up fashion, wearing the star and sash of the Saint-Esprit. He adored the Regent, insisting that he sat down to dinner with him, contrary to all etiquette. At the end of 1715 Louis and his governess were sent to the old château of Vincennes, where long country walks improved his health. After a year the Regent had him brought to Paris to take up residence in the refurbished Tuileries. Soon he began to attend Council meetings, holding his favourite cat, but remaining tongue-tied; the ministers called the King’s cat his
‘cher collègue’
.

In 1717 Peter the Great of Russia visited Paris. Observers were fascinated to see the gigantic Tsar—six foot eight inches tall—take the tiny King under both arms, hoist him up and kiss him again and again; Louis showed no fear, while Peter was charmed with him; Saint-Simon says that the Tsar’s gentleness was very moving. Despite his barbaric manners Peter was fêted enthusiastically by the French; the Regent took him to the opera (which he does not seem to have enjoyed, leaving early). He even visited the Sorbonne where he saw a statue of Richelieu; seizing it with both hands the Tsar cried, ‘Great man, I would give half my kingdom to learn from you how to govern the rest!’ None the less, during his stay Peter also foretold that the French lords would ruin themselves by their luxury.

Louis’s childhood was not always happy. The same year that he met Peter, he had to part tearfully from his governess and was handed over to a Governor, Marshal de Villeroy, an old soldier courtier in his seventies; the King, who was only seven, refused to eat or even speak for several days. Villeroy was not altogether satisfactory. He told Louis that in dealing with ministers he must ‘hold a chamber pot over their heads when they’re in office, and pour it over them when they are out. He made him attend endless parades and receptions, which caused him to dislike appearing in public for the rest of his life; having to dance in ballets—‘a pleasure for which he was far too young’—increased this dislike. When the King was eleven, a Turkish envoy reported that during an audience the senile Marshal had made Louis walk up and down: ‘Come, walk about a little and show us how you move—walk a little faster to show the ambassador how light you are on your feet.’ As a result he became abnormally reserved. The Regent’s mother thought the King an ill-natured child: ‘He loves no one but his old Governess, dislikes people for no reason at all and enjoys making cutting remarks.’ Certainly he showed a cruel streak; when his cat Charlotte had kittens, he teased three of them to death, although devoted to cats (throughout his life, Versailles was full of them); he also shot a pet white deer.

Even so, Louis was deeply attached to his tutor, kindly old Bishop Fleury of Fréjus, who did more than merely see that the child received a good education. He encouraged him to make use of a toy printing press and played cards with him when he was bored. Fleury’s shrewd understanding of small boys is vividly preserved in the beautiful model warships (now in the Musée Marine) which he had made for the young King; Louis always retained a keen interest in the French navy.

To begin with the Regent seemed breathtakingly liberal. Prison doors opened, galley slaves were unmanacled, Huguenots and Jansenists were set free. He even thought of re-enacting the Edict of Nantes. He had Fénēlon’s
Télémaque
—an allegory criticizing Absolutism—reprinted. For a short time he replaced Louis XIV’s bourgeois bureaucracy with a system of councils staffed by noblemen. He gave back to the Parlement of Paris its ancient right of refusing to register any royal edict of which they disapproved. (Louis behaved with precocious dignity during the wearisome
lit de justice
which followed his accession.) Orléans delighted the Parisians by bringing the court back to Paris, he himself governing from his town house, the Palais Royal. He allied with England, a country which he much admired; the alliance was joined by the Habsburgs and all three fought together against Spain in the war of 1719; the French army marched on its King’s uncle, Philip V, storming Fuentarrabia. Yet if the Regent’s policies were a complete reversal of those of Louis XIV, he was still not prepared to summon the States General and use it as an English Parliament, as his friend Saint-Simon suggested.

It was a time of great elegance. The Regent—whose paintings included works by Raphael, Titian, del Sarto, Veronese and Poussin—made Watteau painter to the King, an ethereal genius whose idealized, fantastic scenes of court life imply that there was more than debauchery to the Regency. Even the furniture—for example, that by Charles Cressent—seemed gayer and freer than that of the old King’s reign.

In 1716, always open to new ideas, the Regent introduced a system of national credit finance invented by a Scots gambler, John Law; it was based on the principle that the country’s economy would benefit if more money were in circulation, and that this could be achieved by issuing paper currency guaranteed by a state bank. Law, who was made Controller-General, also formed the
Compagnie du Mississippi
which quickly took over all the other state trading companies. There was a wave of frenzied speculation, during which great fortunes were made. Then dissatisfied investors began to sell shares; to save the company Law incorporated it into the bank which was flourishing, but there were not sufficient assets. The public lost confidence in the new bank notes. In the summer of 1720 both bank and company collapsed, ruining large numbers of investors; many committed suicide. The Regent incurred considerable unpopularity for his part in this French South Sea Bubble; which unpopularity, most unfairly, was increased by a dreadful plague at Marseilles.

He was now on bad terms with the Parlement which had begun to compare itself with the British Parliament, in what Saint-Simon calls ‘a mad career of infinite presumption, pride and arrogance’. Seeking better relations with Rome, the Regent forced the Parlement to register the Papal Bull against the Jansenists; the latter’s supporters retaliated with a flood of scurrilous pamphlets accusing him of tyranny and even alleging that he was trying to murder the King. When the boy fell ill, the fishwives of Paris gathered under the Tuileries’ windows, screaming ‘to hell with the Regent’. In 1722 Louis was taken back to Versailles and moved into his great-grandfather’s old rooms.

Orléans’s approaches to Rome were partly dictated by a wish to secure a Red Hat for the Abbé Dubois, his old tutor who was now his secretary and é
minence grise
. Popular rumour credited this unsavoury cleric with being responsible for the Regent’s debauched tastes. Saint-Simon described him as ‘a little, wizened, herring-gutted man in a flaxen wig, with a weasel’s face brightened by some small intellect. Within, every vice fought for precedence. Avarice, debauchery, ambition were his gods; perfidy, flattery and bootlicking his methods.’ He had some strange hold over his former pupil, who on occasion addressed him as ‘you shark’. Unwillingly, Philippe gave way to the man’s shameless pleading and made him Archbishop of Cambrai. According to Saint-Simon, ‘an appalling scandal’ resulted which embarrassed even M le Duc d’Orléans. In fact, although indisputably vicious and greedy, Dubois was not without ability; he was the architect of the English alliance, receiving a fat English pension, and also worked for a
rapprochement
with Spain. In 1722 the Regent made him First Minister.

However, Dubois died in August 1723. The King had come of age the previous February (thirteen was still the legal age of royal majority), so to retain his power Orléans—who had ceased automatically to be regent—had himself appointed First Minister in Dubois’s place.

The King had been crowned at Rheims on 25 October 1722. A painting by Jean Baptiste Martin shows an awkward, boyish figure, crowned and holding the sceptre and
main de justice
. M d’Argenson wrote in his journal, ‘How like Cupid he seemed in his long robes … our eyes filled with tears at the sight of this poor young prince.’ The sacrament made a profound impression upon Louis; throughout his life he never doubted the divine origin of his authority. Oddly enough, however, it seems to have done little to increase his self-confidence.

For all that Fleury could do, Louis was growing up to be shy and unsure of himself. His chief indulgence was over-eating—especially game and cakes. Ironically in view of his later life, at this age he was frightened of women and rather prudish; he actually ordered a loose lady to leave Versailles. Reassuringly, he had the family passion for hunting and enjoyed shooting: his other amusements were cards and gambling, which helped to distract him from his chronic boredom and melancholia. There were surprising affinities between the young Louis XV and his great-great-grandfather, Louis XIII.

He was even involved in a mild homosexual scandal in 1722 when a group of young courtiers near him, including Villeroy’s grandson were found indulging in sodomy. They were hastily banished; the King was told that they were being punished ‘for pulling up the pallisades in the gardens’. Shortly afterwards the aged Marshal followed, protesting shrilly. Louis wept from fear rather than regret; the old man, anxious to keep his place, had told the poor child that he would undoubtedly be murdered if Villeroy left court. The King’s too-enthusiastic friendship for the young Duc de La Trémouille, the first nobleman of the bedchamber, who was famed for his embroidery, also gave cause for alarm. Such fears were natural in the case of so beautiful a boy as Louis, but proved groundless.

In 1721 the Regent announced the King’s engagement to his first cousin, the Infanta Maria of Spain. On learning of his betrothal Louis burst into tears. Recovering, he told an unmarried courtier, ‘I am more experienced than you—I have a wife and child.’ For the Infanta was only four years old, and arrived in Paris sitting on Mme de Ventadour’s lap and playing with her doll. The monarch (who had just passed his twelfth birthday) greeted her gravely, ‘I am very glad, Madame, that you have reached France in such excellent health.’ Overcome with embarrassment, he then refused to address another word to her, although she persisted in following him everywhere. Sighing, the little girl told Mme de Ventadour, ‘He will never love me.’ There is a most attractive painting of the engaged couple in the Pitti in Florence.