ABSTRACT
Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715, leaving a child of 5 to succeed; it was the age at which he had come to the throne seventy-two years before: ironic coincidence, some might have thought, even ominous. Previous royal minorities, those of Charles IX and Louis XIII, his own, had been blighted by civil war. It is possible to speak of a consensus in the political nation till 1700, if not beyond. By 1715, at least on the surface, this had gone; in its stead were the murmurs and intrigues of discontented parties. There was a powerful, general desire among influential courtiers for relaxation of the strict surveillance of manners: the dévôts were isolated, on the defensive. Politically, the main thrust came from those who wanted a shift in the balance of power, with more weight in council and with executive posts going to the king’s traditional advisers, who had been deliberately excluded in favour of the professional administrators, close-knit groups, several belonging to the dynasties established by Colbert and Le Tellier. Orléans was known to be sympathetic to such views. But his position was threatened from several quarters. Men such as Torcy, Colbert’s nephew and Louis XIV’s foreign minister, had unrivalled experience. The leading luminaries of ‘the old court’, men like Harcourt and Villeroi, would not readily accept any abrupt break with their king’s regime. The dukes of Maine and Toulouse, legitimized by the king’s controversial edict of 1714, expected their special position to be respected by the new regime: the former had been appointed by the king’s will to be guardian of the young Louis. Many favoured the king of Spain, though he was debarred by the terms of the peace of Utrecht, for the succession to the French throne, in the event of Louis XV’s dying young. That ensured that the succession question would not merely be a domestic question but a vital concern of diplomats. Altogether the situation was both complicated and hazardous. But there was to be no civil war. That in itself says much about what had occurred during Louis XIV’s reign: the balance did indeed tilt, but only slightly. It also says something about Louis XIV’s nephew Philip of Orléans. Some of the difficulties that he faced at the outset were of his own making and reflected justifiable mistrust of his character. The relatively sound position that he bequeathed to the king eight years later was equally a tribute to his resourcefulness and realism.
