King Louis XV of France is a controversial figure in history. He can, as much as his heart desires, accuse him of having spent his life in pursuit of pleasure, of suffering from an almost pathological passion for female(just look at his famous “Deer Park”, a real harem in which the king kept his girls), was a glutton and a drunkard, actually wasted his life, but at the same time, if you close your eyes to all his human weaknesses, Louis was king, during whose reign France achieved economic and cultural prosperity. It was under Louis the Fifteenth that extensive urban construction began, and it was under Louis the Fifteenth that Montesquieu gained worldwide fame. Whatever one may say, his reign was a time of incredible rise of France in the political arena of Europe.

When the son Louis was born into the family of Louis of Burgundy and Marie-Adelaide of Savoy on September 1, 1715, no one could have imagined that he would become the king of France. The fact is that he was fifth in line to the throne. Firstly, Louis had an older brother, secondly, Louis had his father, who was only 28 years old, thirdly, his grandfather, the Dauphin of France and the direct heir to the throne, who was barely 45, was still alive and full of strength, and fourthly, the great-grandfather of the newborn boy, the Sun King, the current king, who, although he is 71 years old, still does not complain about his health, is quite strong and will reign for several more years. That is, in order to become a monarch, he needed to outlive four people. No one ever thought that this is exactly what would happen in the near future. Louis's grandfather, the Grand Dauphin, unexpectedly dies, and then both the boy's father and mother also died suddenly. And after them the older brother dies. Thus, at the age of two, the boy becomes the Dauphin of France, heir to the throne, and as soon as he turns four, he becomes the King of France, after the death of his great-grandfather Louis the Fourteenth.

Of course, it was completely impossible to rule the country at such a young age, and the boy gets a regent - the king's great-uncle, the Duke of Orleans. He rules the country in place of little Louis, but tradition and etiquette require the constant presence of the king at all state meetings, audiences and church services that last for hours. The four-year-old kid hid under the bed in tears at the mere mention of the fact that he couldn’t play today either, because he had to attend another hours-long diplomatic reception. One day he lost consciousness right during some ceremony, because he really wanted to do something small and was embarrassed to disgrace himself in public. All these events of the king’s sad childhood had a very negative impact on his psyche. Separated at the age of seven from his nanny, whom he called mother, and transferred to the hands of a teacher-tutor, as required by etiquette, Louis became seriously ill from nervous experience. In essence, he was a child whom no one ever loved, and whose fate and experiences no one cared about.

At the age of thirteen, Louis XV was officially crowned. His regent died a few months after this event. Power in the country, in fact, passed to the Duke of Bourbon. It was he who married the king to the daughter of the former Polish king Stanislav, Maria Leszczynska. In 1726, the king attempted to take power into his own hands. own hands, and, in fact, handed it over to Cardinal Fleury, whose reign was remembered for two ruinous wars - for the Austrian inheritance and for the Polish inheritance. As a result of the Polish war, Lorraine was annexed to France, where the king's father-in-law, Stanislav Leszczynski, now ruled. But in the Austrian campaign, the king almost died, miraculously recovering from a serious illness, and he deserved his famous nickname- Beloved. The independent rule of the king after the death of Fleury was marked by a timid attempt to carry out political reforms in the country. Louis, for some reason, decided to take the side of his traditional political enemy, Austria, in the Seven Years' War, as a result of which, after the signing of the Peace of Paris in 1763, France lost many of its colonies.

All his life, Louis was a Russophobe, from childhood he disliked Tsar Peter the Great because he allowed himself to take the little king in his arms. Such familiarity was unusual at the French court. Foreign policy with Russia, of course, developed, but very, very slowly. Not finding happiness in the arms of his wife. The king had countless mistresses. But one of them, the Marquise de Pompadour, played on the king’s vices so skillfully that she remained an unspoken queen until the end of her life. After the death of Madame Pompadour, she was replaced by Madame DuBarry, and then another, and another - in a word, many women. On the tenth of May 1774, the king-lover died of smallpox, already a decrepit old man, but still, in the end, even in such a deplorable state, he managed to play pranks with the daughter of some carpenter.

Louis XV of France. Internal development. Domestic policy

If we take a closer look at the 59 years of the reign of Louis XV, they look - with all the weaknesses and shortcomings - as a brilliant era for France in a variety of fields, especially in the arts, science, literature and spiritual life, as well as in the field of economics. A big role was played by the fact that France during these for long years was largely free from external invasions and did not experience the ravages of war. Contemporaries Abbé de Vere and Duke de Croy assessed the long period of her reign as a happy era due to her internal peace and her economic and intellectual strength.

Since Louis XV was not very musical, he did not really encourage music, although composers such as François Couperin (1668-1733) and Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) worked in France. He liked sculpture and painting, but he devoted himself with real passion to architecture and personally encouraged a wide variety of projects. He knew this subject so well that the architects could not mislead him in anything, he intervened as a specialist and in all large projects delved into all the details. His reign was a time of great growth in art and architecture. It is no coincidence that the dominant then, especially in interior decoration, characteristic style Louis XV, with its refined ornaments and imaginative decorations in the Rococo style, was named after the king. The most outstanding buildings should be called the Neptune Pool and the opera house built by Gabriel in 1770 at the Palace of Versailles, one of the most beautiful opera buildings in the world, then the “small apartments”, which were created from 1735 to 1738. The largest completed project was restored from 1751 to 1755, Robert de Cotte castle in Komien. At the same time, other, smaller castles arose: Petit Trianon (Gabriel), Saint-Hubert, Bellevue, etc. Under the auspices of Louis XV, “Place Louis XV” (now Place de la Concorde), one of the largest and most beautiful squares, was also built Europe, public buildings military and surgical schools, the Church of St. Genevieve (now the Pantheon), begun in 1764 and the Church of St. Louis (now the Cathedral), begun in 1745 in Versailles, ministerial buildings, etc.

The art of interior decoration reached a special flourishing thanks to such masters as Germain Boffant and J.A. Rousseau. At the same time, elegant, magnificent examples of furniture appeared, as well as masterfully painted, delicate and exquisite paintings in the Rococo style by Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher and Jean-Marc Nattier.

Louis XV was, as Antoine, as well as Maoc and Michel Bernay, emphasize, thanks to his vigorous building activity, his desire to renovate and bring to perfection the interior decoration of buildings and his search for refined comfort, the main driver in the era of the heyday of French architecture and the “golden age” of applied arts. art. At the same time, the courtyard and the city of Versailles formed a symbiosis. The king set the tone, and he was followed by the court nobility, who had palaces in this huge world city, in which artists, craftsmen and dealers in works of applied art lived and worked. These artists and craftsmen found rich buyers and patrons here. For the castles of Louis, for example, from 1722 to 1774, no less than 850 paintings were purchased or orders were placed for them, more than a thousand elegant pieces of furniture, which guaranteed the livelihood of a large number of famous cabinetmakers. Since French style and taste were a model for Europe, craftsmen from Paris and Lyon (silk) supplied their products to almost all the courts of Europe right up to Russian St. Petersburg.

The era of Louis XV was a golden age for science, literature and spiritual life. Since Louis XV especially encouraged natural Sciences and medicine, it seems that he showed himself to be a patron of literature and philosophy much less than Louis XIV. And yet Voltaire long years was a court writer. Louis did not patronize writers and poets as much as his great-grandfather, so that they would exalt him and the royal power, but with his relatively liberal rule - despite outdated censorship restrictions and even persecution - he provided them with a wide field of activity. Thus, his reign became the golden age of the French Enlightenment. Soon all of Europe looked to France as the center of spiritual life.

It was then that the following became leaders in their disciplines: French mathematicians and naturalists like d'Alembert, Condorcet, Laplace, Monge, Lavoisier, Buffon, Montgolfier and many others. Much success achieved by French historians, linguists and art historians who studied foreign overseas cultures. The physiocrats published their economic theories and founded the first national economic school, which preached rationalism, individualism and natural law.

Diderot and d'Alembert in 1751 - 1780. A 35-volume Encyclopedia was published. It published “Information about modern knowledge" Thanks to its anti-clerical and anti-absolutist orientation, the Encyclopedia became “the main work of the French Enlightenment”, a journalistic weapon of philosophers. It was these philosophers and thinkers of the era who published seminal works and proposed ideas that became historical and, among other things, prepared the revolution.

The most outstanding mind among philosophers was Voltaire (1694-1778). From 1726 to 1729 he lived in England and was therefore strongly influenced by English thinkers. He was a writer, playwright, poet, historian, philosopher and popularizer of the ideas of the Enlightenment. Montesquieu had a great influence on the development of society with his “Spirit of Laws,” which demanded the independence of the judiciary and a certain separation of powers; Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) gained great respect as a critic of civilization, writer and teacher. His published in 1762 " Social contract" later greatly influenced the revolutionaries, especially the Jacobins. It was Rousseau who spoke about the need to transfer state power into the hands of the people, i.e. citizens. The enlightenment philosophers mentioned as an example also played a significant role in the literature of that time, when traditional authorities were no longer taken into account and reason was declared the universal judge of all things. The comedy was updated by Pierre Carlet de Chambelin de Marivaux (1688-1763), the drama by Michel-Jean Sedin (1719-1797), the realistic novel by Alain-René Lesage (1668 - 1747), philosophical novel- Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot and Tasso and psychological - Marivaux and Abbot Prevost (1697-1763).

Louis's reign was a favorable time not only for the flowering of Enlightenment philosophy, but to some extent also for internal development and the economy, although there were plenty of difficult situations and conflicts for which the regent laid many foundations.

During the regency of the Duke of Orleans, when the young King Louis XV already had to perform numerous representative duties as the sovereign of the kingdom, many decisive milestones were outlined that negatively affected further development monarchy and having severe consequences. Responsible for this was primarily the regent, described in an ancient study as a "cynical hedonist." In newer works, along with very free morals, his intelligence and political abilities are also noted.

The reign of the “Sun King” Louis XIV (1643 - 1715) became the pinnacle of the “absolute” power of the monarchy in France, but during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714) the image of the monarchy within the kingdom was shaken, leading position France in Europe was replaced by the balance of the great powers, and the finances of the Bourbon kingdom were exhausted. In fact, the French state became insolvent in 1715. Thus, the regent inherited a burden of difficult political problems. He had to find a solution to them.

In his 1714 will, Louis XIV appointed a regency for his then four-year-old heir to the throne and great-grandson Louis XV. The “Sun King” in it decreed that his only nephew, Philip, Duke of Orleans (in the event of the death of Louis XV, he was also his heir), should not receive a full regency and too much influence over the child king. However, when the “Sun King” died, the ambitious Duke of Orleans wanted an unlimited and complete regency. In order to receive it without conflicts, the Duke considered it necessary to meet the Parisian Parliament halfway as the custodian of the will. He recognized the political role of the Paris Parliament, which had been lost half a century ago. This was to play a negative role in the next 74 years, since the Parisian Parliament and the provincial parliaments, that is, the highest courts of the kingdom with their judges from the serving nobility, who received their positions by inheritance or bought them, invariably opposed the reforms and almost constantly blocked them as representatives of the interests of the privileged.

Another long-term goal of the regent was in the religious field, was associated with the strengthened positions of parliaments and created problems for Louis XV throughout his reign: the rise of the Jansenist, Rigorist and Gallican movements. Jansenism, originally a religious and moral reform movement of the 17th century. within the Catholic Church with strict, ascetic moral foundations, was persecuted by Louis XIV because over time it developed from a purely religious into a large-scale political movement With religious basis. He acquired special meaning and penetrating power, as he united with rigorism and gallicanism. Rigorism is a church movement that emerged in 1611, based on the theses of the Sorbonne theologian Edmond Richet, which were adopted by the Jansenists. Richet emphasized the largely equal role of all priests as judges in matters of faith and advisers in matters of church discipline and, in accordance with this, the advantage of representative meetings of the clergy (synods, church councils) as opposed to bishops and the pope. These ideas found more adherents among chaplains and priests, the more the episcopate appointed by the French king represented a virtual monopoly of the nobles. Rigorism united with Gallicanism with the goal of creating a national church that was not dependent on the pope. Since Gallicanism had a legal weapon - the ability to appeal against abuses, these appeals against the church authorities (up to the pope and church courts) were now submitted to the highest secular courts, parliaments.

Parliaments thus considered not only the appeals of priests who had been condemned or persecuted by their bishops, but also questions of faith - complaints against bulls, prayer books and instructions of the papacy. Parliamentary councils, mostly close to Jansenism, used their rights to weaken the authority of the noble bishops appointed by the king in favor of the lower clergy. This led to discord and unrest in the dioceses.

Louis XIV, as the French king, certainly did not have a negative attitude towards Gallicanism and even sometimes tried to use it in the harshest form against the pope, but he saw the Jansenists behaving like Gallicans as a danger to royal authority. He believed, not without reason, that the Jansenists, who fought with such passion against dogmatic decisions and the infallibility of the pope, would also attack the authority of the king. At his request, Pope Clement XI once again condemned in 1713 in the bull Unigenitus Dei 101 provisions from the work of the French Jansenist Quesnel. The bull again aroused minds. But Louis XIV, with the authority of his power, ensured that the Paris Parliament on February 15, 1714 registered the papal charter, which thus became a kind of basic law (constitution) of the monarchy.

After a purely external pacification, passions flared up again after the death of the “Sun King” in September 1715. It came to clashes between the Jansenist-rigorist opponents of the bull and its defenders, primarily the Jesuits.

When the Parliament of Paris declared the "Constitution Unigenitus" unacceptable and condemned it as directed against the liberties of the Gallican Church, the Regent allowed this to happen, apparently awaiting the favor of the parliaments in the matter of the will. Interested in questions of faith from a young age, he went to meet the opponents of the bull. This led to a small theological war, fueled by pamphlets, and a serious conflict with the pope. The pope approved only those bishops appointed by the regent who recognized the bull, while the Duke of Orleans rejected such a papal position as an unacceptable interference in his rights.

While parliaments constantly interfered in matters of theology and church discipline, passions on both sides flared up more and more, so that the regent felt the need to restore calm. In 1720, he ordered that the bull be taken into account and this issue not be discussed further. However, this order did not have great success, and the split into the parties of Jansenists, Rigorists and Gallicans, encouraged by the regent, which had a strong influence both on the highest legal circles and on the clergy and population of Paris, played in the following decades until the revolution important role in weakening the monarchy.

Under the regent, the authority of the monarchy also began to decline due to constant destructive criticism and systematic exaggeration of the mistakes and weaknesses of the monarch and his entourage, directed primarily by the Jansenist party. If Louis XIV evoked a certain respect, then after his death, under the regent, criticism took on a sharper and at the same time more incorrect and destructive form. Finally, in the area financial policy the regent took a step that had dire consequences. He decided on an experiment by Edinburgh financier John Lowe. John Law created a new type of bank in 1716 to account for bills, deposits and issue banknotes; in 1717 he founded the Compagnie d’Occident for French North America and issued shares against it. In 1718 Oma was transformed into a royal bank that issued banknotes. In the spring of 1720, he declared banknotes the only legal means of payment for payments over 100 livres. However, since the cover was not provided and Lowe succumbed to the temptation to use the printing press more and more, printing 1.5 billion worth of banknotes in two months, he caused an inflation that he could no longer curb with deflationary measures. So, on December 26, 1720, the bankrupt royal bank was closed and Lowe fled. Because of the experiment, hundreds of thousands of people lost their fortunes, but due to inflation, public debts were significantly reduced and the state gained room for maneuver. Some sectors of the economy even experienced a boom.

The bankruptcy of the Royal Bank pushed France into a severe state crisis. Confidence in all kinds of government securities and paper money was undermined, as was faith in public credit institutions.

This continued for many years, until finally, under Napoleon I, the Bank of France was founded.

When Louis XV came of age on 23.2.1723 at the age of 13, initially next to the ambitious Cardinal Dubois, the Duke of Orleans remained the dominant figure in the kingdom. He even took over the post of prime minister after the death of the cardinal in August 1723, which was unusual for such a high-ranking member royal family. However, when the former regent suffered a blow on 12.2 of the same year, the position of first minister was taken over for three years by another prince of the blood, the “very crafty” 31-year-old head of the house of Condé, the Duke of Bourbon. During the time of the Duke, who profited handsomely from Lowe's experiment, the dominant figures were the financier and army supplier Paris-Duvernay and the Duke's mistress, the Marquis de Prie. However, when the prime minister, under the influence of this lady, decided to fight against Austria and Spain, he was dismissed, on the initiative of a member of the State Council, who had a very strong influence on the 16-year-old king. Fleury's main goal was to maintain peace both in France and abroad. Although the young king declared that he would rule himself, following the example of his great-grandfather Louis XIV, the leading figure in France was the 73-year-old Fleury, a "wise old man" who commanded the unlimited and always respectful confidence of the young king. Fleury was content with the title of minister of state and refused the duties of prime minister, although he performed them in practice like few others.

Fleury, born in 1653 in Loschedev (Languedoc), the son of a tax collector, was initially a priest; Despite his relatively simple bourgeois origin, in 1698 he became the bishop of the small southern French diocese of Freju, then Aumonier of the Versailles court, and in 1714 - on the recommendation of the Jesuits - tutor to Louis XV. This determined Fleury's further rise to power. By nature kind and meek, with good manners, this man with an iron will and perseverance knew how to hide his ambition. Since he avoided court intrigues, he had no enemies for a long time. Not a genius, but a wise, moderate, diligent and very gifted statesman with a brilliant memory, economically managed those entrusted to him by public means and worked with an extremely small staff of employees, numbering no more than 3 - 4 secretaries with assistants for each. And in his personal life, this clergyman was moderate and economical, avoided, as was customary then, enriching his own family and did not engage in philanthropy, like his illustrious and wealthy predecessors, Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. Fleury donated a significant part of his income to alms. Most of all, he rested at the Sulpician seminar in Issile-Mulino.

Louis XV 20.8.1726 achieved for his confidant statesman cardinal rank, as French monarchs had previously done for their ministers, such as Richelieu and Mazarin. For Fleury, who had a humble origin, this was a great honor, since cardinals were equal in rank to princes of the blood, sometimes even crown princes. Fleury managed to ensure long-term external and internal peace for his country and avoid enemy invasion of the territory of the kingdom. An era of significant economic recovery began in France. He was very successful in encouraging trade, so that during this time and in the subsequent decades of the reign of Louis XV, foreign trade increased greatly. An essential prerequisite for economic prosperity, along with peace and the end of major epidemics, was the stabilization of the French currency. After it was under Louis XV and the regent that government manipulation of currency was often used as a means of skimming the cream of income, on June 15, 1726 it was established once and for all that 1 louis d'or is equal to 24 livres, and 1 ecu is equal to 6 livres. Public debts decreased, and in 1738 the Comptroller General (Minister of Finance) Philibert Horry presented a balanced, deficit-free budget, the only one in the entire French 18th century.

The cardinal's influence was also pacifying in domestic religious and constitutional-legal discussions. He silenced the pathetic Jansenist agitation and curbed the “ultramontanes”, ensuring that the bull Unigenitus 24.3 was passed. 1730 became state law, and decreased political influence parliaments.

To carry out this conciliatory but firm policy, Fleury formulated a strong government, the members of which were appointed by Louis XV at the suggestion of the cardinal. The post of chancellor was held by Henri-François d'Aguesso, a capable lawyer close to Jansenism, the foreign affairs department was headed by Chauvelin, a persistent, brilliant former president of the Paris Parliament, the Ministry of Finance from 1726 to 1730 was headed by Le Peletier and from 1730 to 1745 by Orry, "clumsy, cruel, massive, thrifty" War Ministry- le Blanc, from 1728 to 1740 - d’Angervilliers. The main members of the government came from the service, not military, nobility. In addition, the government then had very good and capable intendants in the province. Contemporary Croy assessed Fleury’s era this way: “He always ruled with great kindness, and France was never as peaceful as under him.”

Thus, the Fleury era was a “golden age” for France, when the country became rich, however, the state remained largely poor, since the rich and enriched upper strata, the privileged, but also the rising bourgeoisie, were not adequately allowed access to the means, so how Fleury did not carry out truly decisive reforms in this area and thereby did not change the structure of the regime, despite all its shortcomings. This was, as can now be judged, the weakness of this otherwise happy era.

The decades after the death of Cardinal Fleury in 1743 are rightfully considered the era of the independent rule of Louis XV. He held the reins of government in his hands and performed the duties of an "absolute" monarch like a typical bureaucrat who, being a shy, public-spirited man, ruled his kingdom from behind his desk and in in writing. The significant restraint of this bureaucrat, who, with all his mobility, passion for hunting and a large number of mistresses, carried out a consistent policy of government not publicly and without using propaganda, led to the fact that in the public mind other people came to the fore, such as the mistresses, especially the marquise de Pompadour, as well as ministers like the Duke de Choiseul. His role is therefore exaggerated in older studies, although his strong influence in many areas on the timid, self-doubting monarch can well be proven.

This is especially true of Madame de Pompadour, so that in literature they even often talk about the Pompadour era or “France Pompadour”. She went down in history as the “typical personification” of the royal mistress. A very ambitious, power-hungry, beautiful, educated young woman became the Marquise de Pompadour and was officially presented to the court as a noble person. Like none of her predecessors or successors, she was “full of wild determination not to allow anyone to push her from her once conquered place.” However, she was not able to lead high politics and outline its main lines. The monarch kept this for himself. However, the royal mistress managed, albeit indirectly, through a strong influence on the personal policy of Louis XV, to play an important political role, which, however, was rarely positive and happy. The Marquise sought to appoint her favorites to important posts and to grant them honors, rewards and pensions by the monarch. Since she herself could not judge their talents, she promoted flatterers, able and incapable, without distinction, who considered her intercession the best means of gaining the favor of the monarch. Thus, in France at that time, unworthy people often received important posts, and competent and strong-willed people were fired as a result of Pompadour's intervention. Ultimately, these political actions had very negative consequences for the internal and external development of France.

It was a matter of public condemnation that a woman from bourgeois circles should have such a positive influence on the king and his personnel policy. She was accused of displaying a lush and luxurious lifestyle, extravagance, and boastful patronage of the arts. Thus, it is reported that Pompadour spent about 4 million on her holidays, and 8 million livres on patronage. All this harmed the king’s reputation and gave the slanderers and wits the desired reason for attacks.

How could the fact help here that the king, as researchers show, did not pamper Pompadour too much financially and gave her only a couple of thousand livres a month, while she, the business daughter of a financier, thanks to her connections with the financial world, had significant personal income? funds and took out large loans. The extravagance and enormous expenses of Madame Pompadour were blamed on the king, and this at a time when the monarchy was experiencing great financial difficulties and there was an urgent need to raise taxes and carry out decisive financial reforms. Pompadour's influence had a negative impact on political morality, although the Marquise tried to win the favor of writers and enlightenment philosophers by encouraging them. She supported the Encyclopedia and the party of philosophers against the Jesuits, Jansenists and the Sorbonne, achieved for Voltaire the post of royal historiographer, member of the Academy and chamberlain, started various construction projects and gave large sums for them.

At first she was closely associated with a group consisting of financiers from Paris, Tensen and Marshal Richelieu, which had a strong influence on the composition of the government. However, a general crisis of authority led to a government crisis and growing internal tensions, conflicts and restlessness. Attempts by the Minister of Finance d'Harnouville (1745-1754) to decisively reform the structures of the unsuitable and unfair tax and financial system, as well as to increase taxation of the privileged and thereby provide the monarchy with the necessary financial resources, encountered a revolt of the nobility and resistance of the clergy and collapsed as Louis XV retreated . Particularly dangerous for him was the long-term opposition, reaching the point of obstruction, by the highest courts and parliaments, a struggle that did not affect the constitutional basis of the kingdom and was a life-and-death struggle for the crown.

The councils of parliaments and other high courts formed a cohesive layer of the highest service nobility, which was related to the military nobility and belonged to the richest landowners and the most prosperous townspeople. They either bought their positions or inherited them and could hold them from the age of twenty, with minimal legal knowledge. They became "an instrument of noble and landowning reaction." Despite this, judges close to Jansenism became popular as an opposition against the “despotism” of the king and his government. Thanks to advocacy and influence on public opinion, especially in Paris, the Councils of Parliaments, dreaming of a “government of judges” in France, tried to systematically defend their positions against the government. Certain groups practiced “real ideological terrorism” against their fellow judges. Ultimately, the parliaments formed the strongest of the three opposing groups that were then waging a fierce struggle in the kingdom: the clergy - the Jesuits, the parliamentary Jansenists and the enlightenment philosophers. Obstruction of parliaments caused the greatest harm to the monarchy.

While the Jansenist-Jesuit quarrels caused a moral crisis and social problems deepened, political difficulties also intensified when the Comptroller General had to introduce a new tax to save public finances. In this situation, Robert Francois Damien, who had long been in the service of the Jansenist-minded parliamentary councils, single-handedly made an attempt on the life of Louis XV, although only wounding him.

In response to this assassination attempt, under Pompadour's influence, the king fired both his finance minister (a sacrifice to the privileged) and the Jesuit friend Comte d'Argenson, who was firmly in charge of the Parisian police (a concession to the Jansenists). However, due to the resignation of hated but capable ministers, strong people in the government, the situation became even more difficult and unstable. The high-born, enlightened free mason Duke of Choiseul came to the fore. He was a favorite of Pompadour, an arrogant, energetic, but flighty and controversial personality, who, from 1758, held various positions in the government for 12 consecutive years. All concessions to public opinion and the opposing high courts were not justified; their resistance to all reforms of the monarchy, which was in a dire financial situation, intensified even more. Although such capable controllers general as Bertin (1759 - 1763) and L'Averdi (1763 - 1768) made great efforts, conducted surveys throughout the kingdom and through diplomats - in all largest states Europe, in order to obtain materials to justify the reform, everything went to pieces. They prepared a general cadastre for the whole of France in order to unify the tax system and received detailed information about the tax systems of various European countries in order to benefit from their experience. Parliaments and the public opinion they guided sharply opposed “ministerial despotism.” At this time, one of the most significant and rare events of the reign of Louis XV occurred: the destruction of the Jesuits. As has already been mentioned many times, the Jesuits in France were hated as the greatest opponents of the Jansenists, as “agents” of the pope and defenders of the “absolute” monarchical power in Paris there were Jansenist-minded layers, philosophers, and free masons. Thus, the Jansenists constantly sought to destroy the Society of Jesus. When in 1758, after the assassination attempt on the Portuguese king, his prime minister, the free mason Pombal, laid the blame on the Jesuits, this was incredibly inflated in Paris and was accompanied by sharp reproaches and accusations of the order, which in France numbered 111 colleges, 9 novices and 21 seminaries, which used respect of Louis XV, and the “party of the pious” at court, led by the Dauphin. Choiseul, who "by destroying the Jesuits wanted to gain parliamentary support for higher taxes," proposed taking action against the Jesuits. Madame de Pompadour supported him. She could not forgive the Society of Jesus for harsh criticism of her lifestyle.

The Order itself presented this opportunity to the Paris Parliament. After he lost an important debt case, he appealed to a higher authority, that is, to the Paris Parliament, although he must have been aware of the hostile, Jansenist attitude of its judges. The Jesuits lost the case in the highest court, and Parliament, on behalf of the Parliamentary Council, began to consider the issue of the “danger” of the order. At the same time, they did not hesitate to use poorly translated and distorted quotes from the works of foreign Jesuits as evidence. Parliament accused the Jesuits of calling for the murder of the king and decided in 1761 to ban fraternities and close colleges.

While Chancellor Lamoignon, the Crown Prince and even Louis XV himself wanted to tackle the Jesuits and negotiated with the Holy See to change the rules of the order, the parliaments confronted them with a fait accompli. The Parliament of Rouen was the first to pronounce a “final verdict” on February 12, 1762; other higher courts joined it and immediately ordered the closure of the colleges. Louis XV, finding himself in a hopeless situation, retreated. Since the Jesuits had always been ardent defenders of the monarchy, the victory of their opponents was "a heavy blow to royal authority." Even the enemies of the Jesuits, the enlighteners Voltaire and d’Alembert, criticized this ban as the fruit of “fanaticism,” and Voltaire, himself a student of the Jesuits, emphasized that they never called for murder or taught “dangerous principles.”

If Choiseul and, under his influence, Louis XV believed that by sacrificing the Jesuits they would achieve parliamentary consent to increase taxes, then they were greatly mistaken. This victory made parliaments even more self-confident.

The Seven Years' War, which ended in 1763, brought the French monarchy not only the loss of numerous territories and a decline in prestige, but also devastating debts. The colossal debt after 1763 (2325.5 million livres in 1764) had catastrophic consequences for the French state treasury, which, due to the high costs of servicing the public debt, practically lost its freedom of action. The worsening financial problems turned into a protracted and severe regime crisis with immediate and long-term political and financial consequences. Ultimately, the debt fueled inflation and led to high interest rates, leading to an economic crisis.

Every attempt by the government to implement reforms was met with vetoes by the supreme courts and indignation. The kingdom became ungovernable as every measure was rejected as "oppressive" or as a "violation of fundamental laws." At the same time, the serving nobility sitting in the supreme courts worked together with the princes and the military nobility, which Choiseul had to endure.

If the king did not want to submit to the privileged and practically abdicate, but wanted to modernize his state and make it workable, he had to act. 60-year-old Louis finally summoned all his will, dismissed Choiseul and supported the reformers.

The most significant personalities of the time of reform were the Comptroller General (Minister of Finance) Abbot Terrey (1769-1774) and Chancellor Rene M.S.A. de Maupou (1770-1774). The Parliament of Brittany, having initiated proceedings against the local representative of the king, the tutor of the Duke d'Aiguillon and with its power deprived him of the peerage, opposed the king himself and his absolute monarchical power and contrasted with him the rule of parliamentary councils desired by the judges. The conflict was taken to extremes by both sides. When the king and the council of state revoked the deprivation of the peerage as against the authority of the king and withdrew the case from the parliament of Rennes, the latter continued to insist on his verdict, and was joined by other parliaments, supported by the princes of the blood. There was general outrage. After sharp disputes and numerous refusals of the parliament, and especially the Parisian one, to obey the highest royal judicial representatives, Maupou exiled 130 parliamentarians with their families to the provinces. Their positions and property were requisitioned for insubordination and refusal to work. In the provinces, 100 parliamentarians were also sent into exile. Mopu carried out a radical reform of the high courts, abolished the sale of judicial seats and introduced free access to court. New members of parliaments received allowances and became irremovable. The organization of the courts was streamlined and they began to function normally. This act of the king, considered by many as revolutionary, caused a sharp and violent reaction from a large part of society, which was influenced by parliamentarians, princes and Choiseul. It was no easier for the Minister of Finance, Abbot Terrey, a firm, energetic man who wanted to save the state. He reduced state pensions and funds provided to the crown, and sought to introduce a uniform, rationally increased land tax by creating a general cadastre. In addition, he increased the general rent.

These tough, but necessary for the survival of the state, measures of the two reformer ministers made them the target of malicious attacks and insults, in short, they were “mixed with dirt.” At the same time, they could mainly count only on the support of the king, who had lost the last vestiges of popularity, since Jansenist circles, having lost their old enemy - the Jesuits, now attacked a new enemy - the “despotism” of the government and the king. Despite this, the king declared: “I will never change my course.”

Biography of the French King Louis XV

Louis XV (nicknamed Beloved) born. February 15, 1710 - death May 10, 1774 - French king since September 1, 1715 from the Bourbon dynasty.

Ascension to the throne

1710 - when Louis (who received the title of Duke of Anjou at birth) was born, nothing foreshadowed that he would one day become king - he was only the second son of the eldest grandson of the ruler and was in fourth place in the order of heirs. However, the terrible misfortune that struck the Bourbon dynasty in 1711–1712 unexpectedly cleared the way for him to the throne.

During these years, the Dauphin Louis, his son the Duke of Burgundy and Louis's elder brother, the Duke of Brittany, died one after another. So the 2-year-old Duke of Anjou became the heir of his great-grandfather, 73 years old. Louis XIV, and after his death in 1715 he was declared King Louis XV. His great-uncle, the Duke of Orleans, became his regent.

Regency

From the age of six, Louis was given to be raised by Abbot Fleury, whom he loved dearly, like a father. From 1726 to 1743, Louis's children's mentor, Abbé Fleury, was the first minister. The reign of de Fleury, who served as an instrument in the hands of the clergy, can be characterized as follows: within the country - the absence of any innovations and reforms, the exemption of the clergy from paying duties and taxes, the persecution of Jansenists and Protestants, attempts to streamline finances and make greater savings in expenses and the inability to achieve this in view of the minister's complete ignorance of economic and financial matters; outside the country - the careful elimination of everything that could lead to bloody clashes, and, despite this, the waging of two ruinous wars, for the Polish inheritance and for the Austrian.

Personal life. Character

The king studied diligently and knew a lot; He especially liked mathematics and geography. In addition to the usual subjects, he was taught how to conduct state affairs: the regent forced him to attend important meetings and explained diplomatic affairs in detail. Since 1723, the king was considered an adult. 1725 - he married the Polish Princess Mary. According to Duke Richelieu, Louis at this time seemed to many to be the most handsome young man in the kingdom. Everyone was delighted with the nobility and pleasantness of his appearance. But already at that time he was burdened by his royal duties and tried to entrust them to ministers.

At the age of 20, Louis was pure and immaculate in heart, and his court was a picture of the most innocent and simple-minded morals. The monarch was passionate about hunting, loved refined society, games, a luxurious table and Toulouse wines. He was deft with his hands and did not shy away from painstaking work: he enjoyed planting onions, embroidering on canvas and turning snuff boxes. In his privacy he was kind and accommodating. Shy in front of large crowds, he became very witty in private conversation.

Despite the many beautiful seductive women, the king remained faithful to his wife for a long time. The first years of their marriage were cloudless. But after giving birth to 10 children from 1727 to 1737, Maria began to show fatigue and coldness towards Louis. "What is this? - she said once. “Still lying there, being pregnant, and constantly giving birth!”

She began to refuse the king to fulfill his marital duties, became cold and very pious. The offended king gradually moved away from his wife. They write that once, offended by his wife’s stubborn reluctance to host him in the evening, he vowed never again to demand that she fulfill her duty. Since then, their life together was limited only to ceremonial relationships, and other women took Mary’s place in the heart of the sensual king.

Abbot Fleury and Marquise de Pompadour

Madame de Magli became his first favorite. The king, due to his timidity, did not like too noisy society and a court constrained by the boundaries of etiquette, but preferred a close company consisting of several friends and beautiful women. The monarch's small apartments formed that part of the courtyard where no one was allowed without the special invitation of his favorite. Everything here was full of taste and grace. To have even more freedom, the king bought Choisy.

He immediately liked the location of this place: there was a dense forest full of game around and a river snaking through the parks. He ordered the castle to be completely rebuilt and luxuriously decorated. Louis appeared at Versailles only in special days. Here he was an excellent husband, a kind father of the family, and was always present at church services. The rest of the time the sovereign lived in Choisy. Mechanical tables first appeared in this sanctuary of love, freeing the witty society of revelers at evening orgies from the presence of immodest and talkative servants.

The Countess de Magly could, like no one else, add charm to such dinners: she was so captivating with her gaiety, she laughed so naively, with all her heart, that the monarch, who was prone to melancholy by nature, had fun and laughed like a child. However, the Countess de Magly did not dominate Louis's heart for long. Soon he developed other hobbies. At first, he fell in love with her older sister, the Duchess de Vantimille, but she died from childbirth, and then he became seriously interested in her younger sister, the ardent Marquise de la Tournelle, who was later granted the title of Duchess de Chateauroux. Together with her, a militant party came to the leadership, which demanded a break with Austria. Under her pressure, the king in 1740 supported Prussia and Bavaria in their war for the Austrian succession.

Independent rule

1741, summer - two French armies crossed the Rhine. In November the French took Prague. But in August 1742, the Austrians blocked it and forced the French to retreat. IN next year Abbot Fleury died. Louis announced that he was tired of the dominance of the first minister, which indulged his laziness, and that now he would rule himself, like Louis XIV. In fact, he began to lead a more active life, working with secretaries of state and often presiding over the council.

He had worthy qualities, a keen mind and a strong sense of power, but an insurmountable weakness of character never gave him the opportunity to be himself, so that he always yielded to the influence of others. In state councils, Louis, as a rule, showed a lot of intelligence, but never insisted on his opinion.

The affairs of the king's heart during these years were as follows. For some time, Louis mourned the Duchess of Chateauroux, and then fell into painful despondency. Deep in thought, he returned to Paris, where celebrations began for the Dauphin's wedding. There, in 1745, at a costume ball, the king became interested in the lovely Madame d'Etiol, to whom he soon granted the title.

King Louis XV (In his youth and adulthood)

Favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour

She was very beautiful and charming, played excellent music, was fond of painting, was well educated and witty. Having become close to Louis, she soon became more than a favorite and acquired such influence over Louis that she was for many years a real uncrowned French queen. The Marquise replaced commanders and ministers at her discretion. Its influence was not always positive for the state, but it undoubtedly added shine to the reign of Louis XV.

A fan of science and the arts, the Marquise de Pompadour gathered around her artists, writers, philosophers and painters. She became a trendsetter and entire trends that later bore her name. Her power, however, lay not so much in her charm as in her incredible ability to disperse the insurmountable boredom of the monarch.

Seven Years' War

An important consequence of the War of the Austrian Succession was the change of allies. Austria and France, which had been continuously at odds with each other for three centuries, began to move closer, and their former ally, Frederick II, became increasingly hostile to Louis. Having learned of the Anglo-Prussian military alliance in January 1756, Louis agreed in May to conclude a defensive alliance with Austria. Both powers promised each other assistance against any conqueror. At the end of the year, the Russians joined this treaty. With these allies, Louis began the Seven Years' War against England and Prussia in August 1756.

1757, May - Marshal Richelieu was able to easily occupy Hanover and Brunswick. At the same time the main french army under the command of Soubise, she joined the imperial army on the Main. In November, at Rosbach, a 60,000-strong Franco-German army entered into battle with a 20,000-strong Prussian army and was defeated. 1758 - the Prussians went on the offensive on the Rhine and defeated the French at Krefeld.

The 1759 campaign, marked by several battles, was more successful for the French, but they were unable to capitalize on their victories. Their fleet was defeated by the British. This predetermined defeat in the colonies. In both America and India the British achieved decisive successes. Canada came under their control in 1759, and in 1761 Pondicherry surrendered to India. In addition, the British captured Senegal, Martinique, Grenada and some other islands. All the French cursed this war.

Society still did not like the Austrians and rejoiced at every victory of Frederick. The Marquise de Pompadour, who was considered the culprit of the Austrian Union, was cursed in all levels of society. The treasury was empty. 1761, March - the French army in Europe achieved success at Grünberg, but was again defeated at Willinghausen in the summer. Russia's exit from the war in 1762 accelerated the conclusion universal peace. It was signed in February 1763 in Paris and ended the French colonial empire. All the conquests of the British in America and Hindustan remained with them. The French lost their military prestige, their fleet and their colonies in this war.

The year after the Peace of Paris, the Marquise de Pompadour died. With her death, little changed in court life. At first it was thought that Louis XV had given up the idea of ​​having a titled mistress and would be content with his concubines in Deer Park, but he returned from there boring. It took a long time before a replacement for the marquise was found. The last favorite of Louis XV in 1768 was the Comtesse du Barry.

Death of Louis XV

From the beginning of 1774, everyone began to notice a strong change in the habits and state of mind of the monarch. He quickly grew old and decrepit. The deep sadness did not leave him for another minute. He attended all sermons with the greatest reverence and strictly observed fasts. The king seemed to have a presentiment of his the end is near. At the end of April 1774, he unexpectedly fell ill. It was smallpox. On May 10, Louis XV died, leaving his heir with huge public debts, many unresolved problems and a kingdom in a protracted crisis.

(1710-1774) - King of France, great-grandson of Louis XIV, ascended the throne in 1715, at the age of five, under the tutelage of the regent Philippe d'Orléans. Philip's foreign policy was a reaction against the international course of Louis XIV: an alliance was concluded with England, and a war with Spain began. Internal management was marked by financial breakdown and the introduction of the Law system, which led to a terrible economic crisis. Louis XV was brought up by Bishop Fleury and Marshal Villeroy, who, in order to gain the sympathy of the future king, indulged his every whim. In 1723, Louis was declared an adult, but power remained with Philippe d'Orléans, and after his death passed to the Duke of Bourbon. Due to the poor health of Louis XV and the fear that in the event of his childless death, the Spanish king would not lay claim to French throne, the Duke of Bourbon hastened to marry the king to Maria Leszczynska, daughter of Stanislav Leszczynski, who, during the Northern War, by grace Charles XII occupied the Polish throne.

Louis XV. Portrait by van Loo

In 1726, Louis XV announced that he would now begin to rule independently, but in reality power passed to Cardinal Fleury, who led France until his death in 1743, trying to keep Louis away from politics. Fleury, who followed a strictly Catholic line, prevented internal reforms. He freed the clergy from duties and taxes, persecuted the Jansenists and Protestants, and tried to improve the state of finances by cutting expenses. In Europe, France under Fleury fought two wars, for the Polish inheritance and for the Austrian one. Following the War of the Polish Succession, France acquired Lorraine. The War of the Austrian Succession (1741–1748) ended with the Peace of Aachen, according to which Louis XV was forced to return all the conquests made by his troops in the Netherlands in exchange for the concession of the Italian Parma and Piacenza to Philip of Spain. Louis XV took personal part in the War of the Austrian Succession, but soon became dangerously ill. France, alarmed by the king's illness, joyfully welcomed his recovery - from then on Louis received the nickname le Bien-aimé ("The Beloved").

Cardinal Fleury died early in the war, and Louis XV, reiterating his intention to rule independently, appointed no one as first minister. Louis's inability to state affairs created confusion in them: each minister managed his department independently of his comrades, all of them inspired contradictory decisions in the king. Devoted to his amorous adventures, Louis XV obeyed first one or another of his mistresses. From 1745 he fell entirely under the influence of the Marquise de Pompadour, who was ruining France with unheard-of extravagance. In Paris there was strong hostility towards the king. In 1757, a certain Damien made an attempt on the life of Louis XV.

The disastrous state of the country led Comptroller General Machaut to think about financial reform: he proposed introducing an income tax (“twenty”) on all classes of the state, including the clergy, and restricting the right of the clergy to buy real estate due to the fact that church properties were exempt from payment all duties. The clergy stood up to defend their ancestral rights and tried to arouse the fanaticism of the population by persecuting Jansenists and Protestants. Machaut was dismissed; his project remained unfulfilled.

In 1756, the Seven Years' War broke out, in which Louis XV unexpectedly took the side of Austria, the traditional enemy of France, and after a series of strong defeats and the loss of a million soldiers, he concluded the Peace of Paris in 1763, which deprived France of many of its colonies (including extensive conquests in India). They were taken over by England, which managed to take advantage of the failures of the French to undermine them maritime significance. Pompadour, who replaced commanders and ministers at her discretion, placed the Duke of Choiseul, who knew how to please her, at the head of the department. He arranged a Family Pact between all the Bourbon sovereigns who then ruled in France, Spain and Italy, and convinced Louis XV to announce the expulsion of the Jesuits from French possessions. The country's financial situation remained dire and the deficit enormous. To cover it, new taxes were needed, but the Parisian parliament (the highest court) in 1763 refused to register them. Louis XV forced him to do this through the so-called lit de justice - a solemn meeting of parliament in the presence of the king and peers, obliging parliament to approve all royal decrees without protest. Provincial parliaments (local supreme courts) followed the example of the Parisian one, and Louis XV organized a second lit de justice (1766), declaring parliaments simple courts that should consider it an honor to obey the king. Parliaments, however, did not stop resisting. The new mistress of Louis XV, Dubarry, who replaced Pompadour, who died in 1764, replaced the patron of parliaments, Choiseul, with their ardent opponent, the Duke d'Aiguillon. On the night of January 19-20, 1771, soldiers were sent to all members of parliament demanding an immediate response , whether they wish to obey the orders of the king. The majority answered in the negative; the next day they were informed that Louis XV was depriving them of their posts and expelling them, although the members of parliaments inherited and bought their seats and were considered irremovable. Instead of parliaments, the Minister of Justice (Chancellor) Maupou established new courts. , in which important improvements were made, but the lawyers refused to conduct business in them, and only Voltaire approved the destruction of the old parliaments. In the face of public irritation immediately after the death of Louis XV, his successor, Louis XVI, hastened. restore the old parliaments.

Locked in his magnificent “deer park,” Louis XV at the end of his reign was busy only with mistresses and hunting. His character is best expressed by two phrases attributed to him: “after us, even a flood,” and “if I were in the place of my subjects, I would rebel.” Louis XV died in 1774 from smallpox, having contracted it from a young anemone sent to him by DuBarry.

Louis XV of France. Man, personality, character

“I want to follow in everything the example of the deceased king, my great-grandfather,” declared 16-year-old Louis XV after the fall of prime minister the Duke de Bourbon in 1726. Was this possible?

Under his great-grandfather Louis XIV (1643 - 1715), the system of “absolutist” monarchy in France and Europe reached its peak highest development. The "Sun King", like no one else, knew how to personify the sovereignty of the "absolute" monarch and the central power of the kingdom in reality and personally fill this central position. The difficult role of the “omnipresent” king was only possible for a person with the qualities of Louis XIV. But with this, the “sun king” turned the kingdom into a burden that exceeded human strength.

Human weaknesses prevented Louis XV, despite all his positive qualities, from following the example of his predecessor and centering the state in his person, as the “omnipresent” king did. He has not grown up to the inhuman tasks of an “absolute” monarchy. So he became a misunderstood, lonely and tragic figure.

For a long time, Louis XV was portrayed as a lazy and weak king who had a large number of favorites and metresses, and only new biographers, primarily Michel Antoine, rightly evaluate him as a person with his inherent merits.

Louis was born in Versailles on February 15, 1710. He was the son of the Duke of Burgundy, the eldest son of the Dauphin (Crown Prince) Louis and Maria Anna of Bavaria. Thus, he was the son of the eldest grandson of Louis XIV and Marie Adelaide of Savoy. Nothing seemed to foretell little Louis that he would someday ascend to the throne of the “Sun King.” But then a huge misfortune broke out over the Bourbon dynasty: within one year, from April 14, 1711 to March 8, 1712, death claimed the Dauphin in turn (died on April 14, 1711 from smallpox), followed by the Dauphin, Duke of Burgundy (died on February 18, 1711). .1712 from measles), his wife Maria Adelaide (died 12.2.1712) and his elder brother, who became the Dauphin (died 8.3.1712).

Since the firstborn died in childhood, only two-year-old Louis remained, the Dauphin, the hope of the dynasty when the reigning king and great-grandfather Louis XIV was already 73 and a half years old. The little crown prince is a charming child, lively, precociously developed, timid, very gentle, sensitive, weak and spoiled, being a complete orphan, he grew up without a family, 6 siblings, very isolated and withdrawn, although surrounded by many people. Therefore, he became very attached to the governess, whom he called “Mama Ventadur,” and to his great-grandfather, whom he called “Papa the King.”

The latter ordered that he former comrade In the games, the 73-year-old Duke of Villeroy became the tutor, the 63-year-old Bishop Fleury became the tutor, and the Duke of Meigne, the legitimized son, became the guardian, so that the Duke of Orleans, the regent and great-uncle of the baby, would not have too much influence on him.

When Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715, Louis XV became king of France at the age of five and a half. Of course, at this age he could not yet rule; this was done by the regent and the regency council on his behalf. But nevertheless, a serious life began for the little shy boy, because he was more and more involved in performing representative tasks. Already on September 2, 1715, he was supposed to preside as king at the reading of the will of Louis XIV. He opened the meeting with a few memorized words and then conveyed everything to the Chancellor. He also had to accept expressions of condolences in the presence of the regent in connection with the death of Louis XIV, then regularly receive the diplomatic corps, be present at the taking of the oath and perform religious duties as the most Christian king, and much more. Vijeroy is primarily to blame for the fact that a little boy in his seventh year of life was overloaded with these protocol duties, and the naturally timid child developed a fear of crowds that never left him. strangers. Behind his ease and excellent manners, an innate timidity was hidden in the soul and character of the monarch. At a time when other children could play with their peers, he carried out with amazing seriousness the duties entrusted to him, which greatly burdened him and early developed a tendency towards melancholy. Soon a relationship of trust united him with his tutor and home teacher, Bishop Andre Hercule de Fleury, who ruled the small bishopric of Freju from 1699 to 1715, a modest, wise and pious man who eschewed court intrigues.

Fleury gave the young king a strong religious education.

Already at the age of 10, along with his previous representative duties, Louis XV began to be involved in other royal affairs. From February 18, 1720, he regularly (as a listener) participated in meetings of the State Council. In addition, he began to study in depth all branches of knowledge important to the king.

As in other monarchies, the king's marriage was considered an important political event; the wishes or sympathies of the participants did not play a role here. But the marriage policy of the regent and his prime minister, Cardinal Dubois, who, in order to consolidate friendly relations with Spain, united the 11-year-old Louis XV with the 3-year-old Spanish infanta Maria Anna Victoria, was especially egregious. The marriage contract was signed on November 25, 1721, and the little Spanish princess was brought to Paris to raise her there and wait until a church wedding became possible.

The 11-year-old king was naturally left indifferent by his bride, but upon her arrival he gave her a doll. So Louis XV grew up alone at the head of state, without family or close friend. His only confidants were the elderly “Maman Ventadour” and the relatively old Fleury.

10/25/1722 with great pomp, according to old tradition, Louis was anointed to rule and crowned at Reims Cathedral. When the king turned 13 on February 15, 1723, he became an adult and the regency ended.

Soon the Prime Minister, the Duke de Bourbon, considered it extremely necessary to marry the often ill king, on whom the dynasty's hopes were pinned. The 6-year-old “infanta queen” was sent back to Madrid in 1725, to the great indignation of the Spaniards. Bourbon chose as his new bride the Polish princess Maria Leszczynska, the daughter of the dethroned King Stanislav, who was 7 years older than Louis. The wedding took place on September 5, 1725 in Fontainebleau with great pomp and in the presence huge amount princes and nobles from all over Europe.

What kind of person was Louis XV, who grew up without parents and family and always felt alone? What was his character like?

Contemporaries, as well as surviving portraits, indicate that Louis XV was a handsome, well-built, strong man. His representative appearance and harmonious facial features made him very attractive. He was said to be "the handsomest man in his kingdom." He especially enjoyed horseback riding and hunting and enjoyed good health. However, he had a tendency to inflammation of the nasal mucosa and laryngitis, which made his voice hoarse. In general, his voice did not match his impressive appearance. This prevented him from speaking, gaining recognition with his speeches, representing, leading the Council, pacifying obstinate parliamentary councils and ruling his court. Therefore, ministers often had to read his statements instead.

The most important distinguishing feature of the king was his high intelligence. He, along with Henry IV, was the most intelligent of the Bourbons (Antoine), quickly grasped the essence and was insightful, as many of his employees emphasize, such as d'Agreson, d'Averdi, Croy and others. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marquis d'Agreson wrote: "The king thinks quickly." And he emphasized: “His train of thought is faster than lightning... with quick and sharp judgments.”

Louis was, as the Austrian envoy Kaunitz reported to Vienna with surprise, one of the most well-informed and highly educated rulers of his time. The monarch always sought to expand and enrich his knowledge and for this purpose he collected a magnificent personal library, constantly replenished with new books. Along with history, law and theology, he was interested in natural sciences and public health issues. He personally contributed to the founding of the Academy of Surgery and naturally encouraged scientific projects, such as Count Le Garey, who in 1745 published his Hydraulic Chemistry. As Croy, a contemporary, emphasized, “the king was particularly well versed in astronomy, physics and botany.”

Louis XV, a highly intelligent and educated man, had an “extremely complex and mysterious character” (Antoine). Agreson and the Duke of Luyny described him as impenetrable and inaccessible. He had weak nerves, was timid in front of people, and often fell into melancholy and depression. Luyny writes about this: “Attacks of melancholy sometimes appeared spontaneously, sometimes they were determined by circumstances.”

While the “Sun King,” whom everyone - at least outwardly - respected and revered, controlled the court and courtiers at Versailles, the shy, fearful Louis XV was greatly on the nerves of constant court intrigues and disputes over rank , malicious chatter and slander, undisguised envy and pride. Accustomed to secrecy since childhood, the monarch saw only one opportunity to isolate himself from all this: to show the restrained, mysterious, silent, always mysterious and inaccessible external influences attitude. Like many shy people, he did not show his feelings and became a master of pretense and secrecy. Very remarkable in this regard is the advice that he gave to his grandson Ferdinand in 1771: “First of all, calm down and do not let your feelings be seen.”

Louis XV hid what he was planning, what he was doing and what he was working on. Because of this, the public had the false impression that he was not interested in the affairs of the state and was lazy; because no one knew his true thoughts, intentions, hard work, and foresight.

Unlike Louis XIV, whose life from morning to evening took place in public, surrounded by many ceremonies, including the presence of especially privileged people during the toilet, Louis XV was horrified by all this, tried to avoid court life, tried to fence off free space for himself. He built himself small apartments in Versailles, where he slept and worked, and where not everyone had access, as in the “large apartments.” In addition, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he fled from Versailles to small hunting castles in Rambouillet, La Mouette, Choisy, Saint-Hubert, etc. It has been established that in some years he spent less than 100 nights at Versailles.

The royal ceremony was for Louis XV only a harsh duty and a heavy burden, a façade behind which he hid his true way of life.

Louis, despite his timidity in front of people and fear of crowds and strangers, did not try to avoid performing representative duties. But he did not like theatrical appearances. When going into the active army, he, unlike his predecessors, avoided big ceremonies and simply left. From time to time he missed his great-grandfather's daily public rising or going to bed with all the court ceremonies in the large royal apartments.

Louis XV spent the night in his small apartments, got up early and managed to work for several hours at his desk before heading to the larger apartments.

In the same way, Louis retired in the evening after hunting to his small chambers to work, have dinner with several trusted people, and only then went to the state room to publicly demonstrate going to bed. But as soon as the curtains of the bed were drawn and the courtiers left, he went to sleep in his room. According to contemporaries, in his personal life he was a “modest and kind-hearted person.”

However, such double life led to the fact that the king could not use the court, court life and ceremony as a tool for ruling and “taming” the court nobility. In addition, by constantly avoiding publicity, he gave rise to mistrust, idle gossip, fantastic rumors, false judgments about his activities, and all this in the face of a very critical public, which, under the influence of the thoughts of enlighteners, as well as the scandalous press, was only looking for sacrifice. Louis XV became her favorite target, which gradually led to the weakening of the monarchical idea.

There was also something else that prevented him from completely taking the position of an “absolute” monarch like his great-grandfather: his naturally very strong shyness, fear of people and fear of public speaking, which increased during his childhood and youth. On them, “the king was always paralyzed” and could not, as Beri’s contemporary emphasizes, because of his timidity “read more than four sentences.” Thus, he could rarely overcome himself and publicly make a speech, address an envoy at a reception, exchange a few phrases with one of the courtiers, or express his praise or dissatisfaction to a minister or official. The king, who seemed constrained, cold and stiff in public, as Croy reports, in a narrow circle could be “cheerful, relaxed” and “no longer shy at all, but completely natural.”

The lack of ability in an official setting to address those who were waiting for his words constrained his actions. As Antoine rightly notes, for an absolute monarch it was primarily speech, that is, the ability to “speak to order and decide, to judge, to prohibit or allow, to congratulate, to encourage, to praise or scold, to punish or forgive.” Shyness made it difficult for him to communicate with his ministers and senior officials, especially with new faces, which is why he did not like change. They generally did not know what to expect from the monarch, who zealously guarded his powers of power, since they had never heard either praise or disapproval. All the more unexpected for them, in the appropriate circumstances, was Louis’s decision to resign or his written orders on punishments. Either truly significant politicians could not appear in such an atmosphere, or they simply did not exist. In any case, during the time of Louis XV after Fleury there were few significant political personalities, although there were well-governing officials. Despite this, Louis XV carried out his duties as the supreme representative of the kingdom, as the embodiment of the highest legislative, executive and judicial powers. He had a clear concept of his integral sovereign authority, a religious position of the “most Christian king”; he showed himself not as a despot or even as an authoritarian monarch.

He was a bureaucrat who wrote a lot, which suited his introverted nature. Unlike Louis XIV, who willingly and competently used the spoken word in his rule and wrote little, his great-grandson led the same institutions passed down from his predecessors in writing. Although he often had to preside over meetings of the State Council and regularly confer with ministers in a narrow circle, he still preferred correspondence. Since he was good with the pen, he felt much more confident in the written field. He wrote everything himself and did not have a personal secretary. The Marquis d'Argeson notes on this matter: “The king writes a lot in his own hand, letters, memos, many excerpts from what he reads...” Thus, the monarch tried to control writing as much as possible, demanded this or that, did notes in the documents of his ministers and officials, criticized or approved, gave instructions, etc.

Thus, he was able to fully carry out his management duties and keep everything under control, although he was often absent from Versailles and moved from one hunting castle to another. He had a folding desk with a lockable drawer filled with letters and files that was always with him, and important ministers sometimes had to travel to talk with their king.

Despite this style of government, which could have been quite effective, historians generally talk about his low ability to solve domestic and foreign political and financial problems due to exaggerated modesty and strong self-doubt. This intelligent, insightful monarch constantly doubted himself. Lack of confidence was holding him back valuable qualities. He very quickly grasped what was essential and necessary, as well as the meaning and consequences of events. But if his entourage or ministers expressed a different opinion, he became confused, became indecisive and spent a lot of time making a decision. Contemporary Duke Croy, who knew the king well, remarks on this matter: “...modesty was a quality that turned into a flaw in him. Although he understood matters much better than others, he always believed himself to be in the wrong.”

Non-musical, but sensitive to art, deeply religious, a devout man and a faithful son of the church and the pope, he did not allow many nobles to distract him from his faith, although they diligently tried to do so.

After he was no longer intimate with the queen from 1737 at the latest, he lived for long periods with official mistresses, to whom were sometimes added fleeting favorites of lower birth. Although keeping mistresses was then common for almost all monarchs, these constant violations of church morals caused French king remorse and depression. He was aware of his sinful state, but did not want to change it or did not have enough willpower to do so. He hoped, being always surrounded by priests, to solve the problem by repentance before death, as Croy notes.

Cardinal Burney emphasized: “His love for women conquered his love for religion, but it could never... harm his respect for her” and “The King has a religion... he would rather abstain from the sacrament of the sacrament than profane it.” . During the 38 years of his reign, Louis did not take the sacrament, although he otherwise fulfilled his religious duties responsibly and, like his predecessor, participated in Mass every day with great reverence and always kneeling, fasted on prescribed days and participated in processions. It was customary for the king, as God's anointed, to lay hands on his subjects who were sick with scrofula on major holidays in order to heal them. But for this it was necessary to first confess and receive communion. From 1722 to 1738, Louis XV always faithfully carried out the laying on of hands on scrofulous people. But from 1739 this stopped because he no longer received communion. This caused a big scandal. Although, thanks to the Enlightenment, the nobility had long questioned the sacredness of royal power, Louis XV, by ceasing to perform the old royal ritual of laying hands on the scrofulous, contributed to the desacralization of his authority and its weakening.

Louis XV caused great damage to his reputation by having too many mistresses. He was considered a "lustful sinner." This “most Christian king” was not forgiven, although most of the courtiers lived not with their wives, but with their mistresses, and things were no better for the upper bourgeoisie. A special reason for the scandal was the king’s connection with the notorious Pompadour, which went down in history as a symbol of the royal mistress.

The young king was at first a loving, good and faithful husband. In the first 12 years, his wife gave birth to ten children. The first daughter was born when he was seventeen and a half years old, and the last when he was twenty-seven and Mary thirty-four. In addition to two boys, the couple had 8 girls who bore the title “Madame of France”; they were numbered by age (“Madame First”, “Madame Second”, etc.). Of the girls, “Madame the Third” died at four and a half years old, and of the boys, the youngest, born in 1730. The only son left was the Dauphin Louis, born on September 4, 1729, an organist and singer who did not like either hunting or sports, very pious and homely, who, after the death of his beloved first wife, led a happy life with his second wife, Maria Josepha of Saxony family life, more reminiscent of the bourgeois. From them descended the subsequent kings Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X. Louis XV's relationship with his son was very tense, but he was very attached to his daughters, whom, when they grew up, he willingly visited and talked with them. I listened to their music and made them coffee with my own hands. Only the eldest, Elizabeth of France, married Don Philip of Spain, the future Duke of Parma. The youngest, Louise, became a nun of the Carmelite Order.

Although Louis was a loving father, difficulties soon arose in his marriage to Maria Leszczynska. His wife, seven years older, very pious, but unattractive, boring, apathetic and sad, had completely different interests than the king, rarely accompanied him due to her frequent pregnancies, and was unable to create the environment that Louis was striving for. There were no truly close relationships between them. trust relationships, and the king “found the queen’s darkest corner at court.” When the queen once, on the advice of doctors, denied intimacy to her husband, but did not dare explain the reason, he, offended, finally turned away from her. Not accustomed to abstinence and, obviously, incapable of it, from 1738/39 the king began to spend time in the company of the metresses. Croy spoke about this as follows: “Along with exaggerated modesty, he had the most important and only drawback - a passion for women.” The first official mistresses were the four daughters of the Marquis de Nestlé. He enjoyed the fact that he could relax with them and “live like an ordinary person.”

In the spring of 1745, a new lady rose to the position of “chief maîtresse”: Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, the illegitimate daughter of a financier, who grew up in a respectable bourgeois family and at the age of 20, in 1742, was married to the financier Charles Guillaume Le Normand d’Etoile. A seductive, exceptionally beautiful, ambitious and educated young woman met Louis XV during his hunting expeditions and decided to become his mistress, which she achieved in March 1745. She separated from her husband, received a noble estate from Louis and as Marquise de Pompadour was admitted to the court, although the nobles despised this upstart. Her art and talent lay primarily in the fact that she knew how to entertain the king and dispel his melancholy. The new mistress, unyielding in her ambition and desire for power, played a very important role from 1745 until her death in 1764. The public found it particularly scandalous that this woman was able to maintain her position for so many years. She perfectly knew how to recapture the king from her rivals and maintain his favor. Although their relationship lasted only until 1750, she remained an even more influential friend, created a private atmosphere for him and supplied the king with or tolerated around him little favorites from the common classes who were not dangerous to her. It was these little mistresses who lived in the same house that gave rise to fantastic rumors, stories and suspicions. They talked about mass orgies, seduction of minors, etc. In reality, young women of marriageable age made their way on their own, often pushed by their ambitious parents. Although Louis XV knew what a blow Pompadour dealt to his prestige, yet in 1768, at the age of 58, he made another bourgeoisie, 25-year-old Jeanne Vaubenier, who was married to the Comte de Barry, the main mistress. The new mistress, Countess de Barry, a cheerful, crafty, good-natured young woman, now surrounded by courtiers, artists and philosophers, did not play such a political role as the Marquise de Pompadour, but with her extravagance she also contributed to the decline of the monarch’s authority. The number of Louis's illegitimate children is estimated differently. Antoine emphasizes that there were only eight of them, i.e. less than the legal ones. It was mainly about girls who were well married off; both sons became clergymen.