ABSTRACT
Vain, vacuous, selfish, handsome, lazy, profligate, and easily bored—all these adjectives describe Louis XV, the weakest monarch France had suffered in a long time. In his thirty-three years of life, Louis had always been ruled, first by Orleans and then by Fleury; but now he was delighted to be master of his own fortune at last. Claudine de Tencin, probably informed by her brother, told the Due de Richelieu, “The Council is really laughable. Scarcely anything is said which concerns the State. Those who wish to occupy themselves seriously with such affairs are obliged to give up any such desire owing to the lack of interest which the King seems to take in them and the silence he keeps.” The French ministers were afraid that Cardinal Tencin would gain the King’s ear and persuade him to embark on a rash project backed by the Pope involving James Stuart.
