Louis XV of France

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Louis XV, king of France from 1715 until 1774, was born on February 15, 1710, at the Palace of Versailles and died there on May 10, 1774.

The son of Louis Capet and Marie-Adélaide of Savoy, and grandson of King Louis XIV, he was part of the Bourbon Dynasty. He was crowned King of France at the age of five in the Cathedral at Reims. Until the royal legal age of maturity at fourteen, his uncle, Philippe d'Orleans acted as Regent.

At age two, his father, mother, and brother all died within one week. Spoiled, he became self-indulgent all his life. Growing up melancholy, and cruel to pets and to humans, as king he was subject to fits of apathy. Pessimism and a lack of conviction marked his long reign.

• On September 4, 1725 he was married to Marie Leszczynska, the unattractive Princess of Poland (1703-1768), seven years his senior. Nonetheless, the political marriage produced ten children:
  • 1) Louis (dauphin) (September 4, 1729 - December 20, 1765)
  • 2) Louise-Elisabeth (August 14, 1727 - December 6, 1759)
  • 3) Adélaide (March 23, 1732 - February 27, 1800)
  • 4) Henriette-Anne (August 14, 1727 - February 10,1752)
  • 5) Victoire-Louise (May 11, 1733 - June 7, 1799)
  • 6) Sophie-Philippine (July 17, 1734 - March 3, 1782)
  • 7) Louise-Marie (July 5, 1737 - December 23, 1787)
  • 8) Marie-Louise (July 28, 1728 - February 19, 1733)
  • 9) Philippe (August 30, 1730 - April 17, 1733)
  • 10) Thérèse-Félicité (May 16, 1736 - September 28, 1744)

His grandfather, Louis XIV, had left France in a financial mess, and in general decline. Louis XV worked hard but unsuccessfully to overcome the fiscal problems. At Versailles, the King and the nobility surrounding him, showed signs of boredom that symbolized a monarchy in steady decline.

King Louis expended a great deal of energy on the hunt and the pursuit of woman. Some of his mistresses such as Madame de Pompadour, and the prostitute, Madame du Barry, are as well known as him and his affairs with all five Mailly-Nesle sisters is documented by the formal agreements he entered into. With age, Louis developed a penchant for young girls, keeping several at a time in a house known as the Deer Park.

At first he was known popularly as Louis XV, Le Bien-aimé (the well-beloved) after a near-death illness in Metz in 1744 when the entire country prayed for his recovery. However, his weak and ineffective rule was a contributing factor to the general decline which led to the French Revolution. Popular faith in the monarchy was shaken by the scandals of Louis? private life and by the end of his life he had become the well-hated. In 1757 a would-be assassin entered Versailles and stabbed him in the side with a penknife.

In 1743, France entered the Austrian War of Succession. During his reign Corsica and Lorraine were won, but he lost the huge colonial empire as a result of the Seven Years War with England.

King Louis XV died of smallpox on May 10, 1774 at the Palace of Versailles. He was the first Bourbon whose heart was not cut out as tradition demanded and placed in a special coffer. Instead, alcohol was poured into his coffin and his remains were soaked in quicklime. In a near-surreptitious late night ceremony attended by only one courtier, the body was taken to the cemetery at Saint Denis Basilica.

Because Louis XV son the dauphin had died nine years earlier, Louis XV?s grandson ascended to the throne as King Louis XVI.