History in artistic images (Louis XV)

"On Saturday, February 15, 1710, Louis XIV was awakened at seven in the morning, that is, an hour earlier than usual, for the reason that the Duchess of Burgundy felt the first pains of childbirth. The king hastily dressed himself and went to the duchess. This time, Louis XIV almost did not have to wait, because at eight o'clock, three minutes and three seconds, the Duchess of Burgundy gave birth to a prince, who was named Duke of Anjou ... This newly born baby already had a brother named Dauphin ... March 6 In 1711, both princes fell ill with measles, which was immediately made known to Louis XIV. Since they were baptized only with a small baptism, the king immediately ordered them to be baptized ... At the request of the king, both princes were to be called Louis. On March 8, the eldest of the two brothers died. The Duke of Anjou then succeeded his brother and assumed in turn the title of Dauphin. This Duke of Anjou, grandson of the Grand Dauphin, the only legitimate son of Louis XIV, is the same prince who succeeded to the throne of France under the name of Louis XV.," - this is how, according to the great Alexandre Dumas (see his book "Louis XV and his era"), the earthly journey of one of the kings of France began.

Maurice Quentin de la Tour Portrait of King Louis XV

King Louis XV (1710-1774) received in history the nicknames "Beautiful" and "Beloved", and ruled France for fifty-nine years. The "beautiful" ruler had little interest in the affairs of the state, and therefore, by the end of his reign, everything fell into relative desolation. However, arts and love flourished, therefore, apparently until now, when mentioning the name of Louis XV, art connoisseurs immediately remember not about a man, the king of France, but about a very intimate and feminine style in the manufacture of furniture, painting and sculpture, called "Louis XV Style ". Elements of this style are also characteristic of numerous portraits of the king and his entourage, which have already become history for us ...

Pierre Gobert Infante of France, future King Louis XV 1712

Artist (?) Young Louis XV dressed as a pilgrim

In Alexandre Dumas, the life stories of all French Louis are very fascinating, but in reality everything was not at all so beautiful. For example, the absence of childhood. At the age of four, our hero Louis becomes the king of France, after the death of Louis XIV. The boy must be present at receptions, balls, church services, although he had the so-called regent, Duke Philippe of Orleans, with him. At the same time, the boy also studied: and these are French, Latin, history lessons every day, three times a week - mathematics, astronomy, natural sciences, music, dancing, drawing, work. At the age of 13, young Louis was crowned and he officially ascended the throne.

Bryullov K.P. Promenade of Louis XV as a Child 1850

Hyacinthe Rigaud Portrait of Louis XV in coronation 1715

(Palace of Versailles)

The famous Crown of Louis XV. It was the custom to have their own personal crowns for their coronation of the kings of France. Used during the coronation of Louis XV in 1722 in Reims Cathedral, where all French kings were crowned until 1789. The crown is adorned with the famous "Regent" diamond, other diamonds, precious stones and gold. The crown was made by the French jeweler Laurent Rond, who used diamonds from the Mazarin collection, as well as rubies, emeralds and sapphires. It is currently kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Painter (?) Portrait of King Louis XV

In 1721, the regent announced Louis's engagement to his two-year-old cousin, Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain... here, as they say, "no comment." The little infanta arrived in France and was listed as a royal bride. After the death of Philippe d'Orleans in December 1723, Duke Louis Heinrich of Conde-Bourbon became the first minister and he decided to marry the king as soon as possible.

Rosalba Carriera Portrait of Louis XV

Jean-Francois de Troy Portrait of Louis XV and Marianne Victoria of Spain

The only suitable Catholic princess (although 7 years older than the king) was Maria Leshchinskaya, daughter of the former Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky. The little Infanta Marianna of Spain was sent home to Madrid and later became Queen of Portugal.

Francois Stimard Maria Leszczynska, Queen of France

Maria Leshchinskaya Engraving late XVIII century

At first, the marriage with Leshchinskaya was happy: from 1727 to 1737, Maria gave birth to ten children, but the company of her wife, a colorless and ordinary woman, did not satisfy Louis and he began to change mistresses one after another. The latter was also facilitated by some of the king's ministers...

Alexis Simon Bellet Portrait of Louis XV

The theme of the love affairs of King Louis XV is so extensive that it could amount to several volumes. As historians say, the fall of the ruler of France, at that time very shy (with already ten children!) And indecisive, began with the family of the old noble family of Nelei, who was related to the house of Malia. Four of the five sisters of Nelei-Maglia became the mistresses-favorites of the king. The first was the eldest Louise de Malli, then there were Pauline - Felicite, Diana - Adelaide and Marie - Ann.

Alexis Grimau Louise Julie de Nelay, Comtesse de Magly

Jean Marc Natier Pauline-Félicite de Nelay, Marquise de Ventimiglia as Aurora

Jean Marc Nathier Marie-Anne de Magly-Néleil, Duchess de Châteauroux

For his love pleasures, Louis bought Choisy. He arranged everything to his liking: chambers decorated with statues and paintings of famous artists, luxurious sofas upholstered in Persian velvet; beds, on which it was possible to move everywhere without outside help; gardens, where, in the midst of marble pools and fountains, tables with dishes were set up and cages with exotic songbirds hung, bosquets of roses and jasmines. In Versailles, the king appeared only on solemn days. In this sanctuary of love, mechanical tables first appeared, ridding the witty society of feasting at evening orgies from the presence of indiscreet and chatty servants. Each interlocutor had a table near him with a device made of gold and crystal, wrote on it what kind of food he wanted to have and what kind of wine. By means of a spring, the table disappeared under the floor for a minute and rose back, laden with various dishes.

Ball of the time of King Louis XV

Jean-Baptiste Oudry The Hunt of Louis XV 1730

Maurice Quentin de la Tour Louis XV

Madame de Pompadour Late 18th century engraving

After the death of Pompadour, she was replaced by Madame Dubarry, and in addition, there was a whole royal "harem" near Versailles, called the "Deer Park" (the old name for the Versailles quarter, built in the time of Louis XV on the site of a park with wild animals from the time of Louis XIII).

Madame du Barry

Cesare Auguste Detti Louis XV in the throne room

The king bought more girls from their parents, little girls from nine to twelve years old, and moved them to Versailles. There Louis XV spent long hours with them. He liked to undress them, bathe them, dress them up. He himself took care of teaching them the basics of religion, taught them to read, write and pray. "Deer Park" was their habitat ... Later, Madame du Barry was accused of all these perversions. Her passion for love pleasures delighted Louis XV, and once he shared with Richelieu: " I am delighted with your Madame du Barry, she is the only woman in France who knows the secret - how to make me forget about my sixty years of age".

Louis Michel van Loo Ceremonial portrait of King Louis XV of France

Louis XV Porcelain bust

Jean-Baptiste Lemonet Louis XV Marble bust

From the beginning of 1774, they began to notice a strong change in the habits and mindset of the king. He quickly grew old and decrepit. Deep sadness did not leave him for another minute. With the greatest reverence, he attended all the sermons and strictly observed the fasts. Louis seemed to have a premonition of his near end. At the end of April 1774, after an affair with the daughter of a carpenter, he suddenly fell ill. Soon a rash appeared on his body - after a few days there was no doubt that it was smallpox. On May 10, Louis died, leaving his heir with huge public debts, many unresolved problems and a kingdom in a protracted crisis. His catchphrase remained the motto of his reign: " After us at least a flood!".

Original entry and comments on

Louis XV (fr. Louis XV), official nickname Beloved (fr. Le Bien Aimé; February 15, 1710, Versailles - May 10, 1774, Versailles) - King of France since September 1, 1715 from the Bourbon dynasty.

Great-grandson, the future king (who bore the title Duke of Anjou from birth) was at first only fourth in line to the throne. However, in 1711, the boy's grandfather, the only legitimate son of Louis XIV, the Grand Dauphin, died.

At the beginning of 1712, Louis' parents, the Duchess (February 12) and the Duke (February 18) of Burgundy, and then (March 8) and his older 4-year-old brother, the Duke of Brittany, died one after another from measles. The two-year-old Louis himself survived only thanks to the perseverance of his tutor, the Duchess de Vantadour, who did not allow the doctors to apply strong bloodletting to him, which killed his older brother. The death of his father and brother made the two-year-old Duke of Anjou the direct heir of his great-grandfather, he received the title of Dauphin of Vienne.

In 1714, Louis's uncle, the Duke of Berry, died without heirs. It was expected that he would be regent for his nephew, since his other uncle, Philip V of Spain, abdicated the rights to the French throne in 1713 in the Treaty of Utrecht. The fate of the dynasty, which until a few years ago was numerous, depended on the survival of a single child. The little orphan was constantly watched, not left alone for a minute. The anxiety and sympathy he aroused played a role in his popularity in the early years of his reign.

After the death of his great-grandfather, Louis XIV, on September 1, 1715, Louis acceded to the throne at the age of 5, under the tutelage of regent Philippe d'Orléans, the late king's nephew. The foreign policy of the latter was a reaction against the direction and policy of Louis XIV: an alliance was concluded with England, a war was started with Spain.

Internal management was marked by financial turmoil and the introduction of the John Law system, which led to a severe economic crisis. Meanwhile, the young king was brought up under the guidance of Bishop Fleury, who cared only about his piety, and Marshal Villeroy, who tried to bind the student to himself, indulging all his whims and lulling his mind and will. On October 1, 1723, Louis was declared of age, but the power continued to remain in the hands of Philip of Orleans, and after the death of the latter passed to the Duke of Bourbon. In view of the poor health of Louis and the fear that in the event of his childless death, his uncle of the Spanish king Philip V would not claim the French throne, the Duke of Bourbon hurried to marry the king to Maria Leszczynska, daughter of the ex-king of Poland Stanislav.

In 1726, the king announced that he was taking over the reins of power, but in fact power passed to Cardinal Fleury, who led the country until his death in 1743, trying to stifle any desire in Louis to enter politics.

The reign of Fleury, who served as an instrument in the hands of the clergy, can be characterized as follows: inside 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 bring great savings in costs and the inability to achieve this due to the complete ignorance of the minister in 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.

The first, at least, annexed Lorraine to the possessions of France, on the throne of which the king's father-in-law Stanislav Leshchinsky was elevated. The second, which began in 1741 under favorable conditions, was conducted with varying success until 1748 and ended with the Peace of Aachen, according to which France was forced to cede to the enemy all its conquests in the Netherlands in return for ceding Parma and Piacenza to Philip of Spain. In the War of the Austrian Succession, Louis personally participated at one time, but in Metz he fell dangerously ill. France, greatly alarmed by his illness, joyfully welcomed his recovery and called him the Beloved.

Cardinal Fleury died at the beginning of the war, and the king, reiterating his intention to govern the state himself, appointed no one as first minister. In view of the inability of Louis to deal with affairs, this had extremely unfavorable consequences for the work of the state: each of the ministers managed his ministry independently of his comrades and inspired the sovereign with the most contradictory decisions. The king himself led the life of an Asian despot, at first obeying either one or the other of his mistresses, and from 1745 he fell completely under the influence, who skillfully pandered to the base instincts of the king and ruined the country with her extravagance. The Parisian population became more hostile to the king.

In 1757, Damien made an attempt on the life of Louis. The disastrous state of the country led the inspector general Machot to the idea of ​​reforming the financial system: he proposed to introduce an income tax (vingtième) on all classes of the state, including the clergy, and to restrict the right of the clergy to buy real estate in view of the fact that the possessions of the church were freed from payment of all kinds of duties. The clergy revolted unanimously in defense of their ancestral rights and tried to arrange a diversion - to arouse the fanaticism of the population by persecuting the Jansenists and Protestants. In the end, Machaut fell; his project remained unfulfilled.

In 1756, the Seven Years' War broke out, in which Louis took the side of Austria, the traditional opponent of France, and (despite the local victories of Marshal Richelieu), after a series of defeats, he was forced to conclude the Peace of Paris in 1763, which deprived France of many of its colonies (by the way - India, Canada) in favor of England, which managed to take advantage of the failures of its rival in order to destroy its maritime importance and destroy its fleet. France sank to the level of a third-rate power.

Pompadour, who changed generals and ministers at her own discretion, placed the Duke of Choiseul at the head of the administration, who knew how to please her. He arranged a family agreement between all the sovereigns of the House of Bourbon and persuaded the king to issue a decree on the expulsion of the Jesuits. The financial situation of the country was terrible, the deficit was huge. New taxes were required to cover it, but the Parlement of Paris in 1763 refused to register them. The king compelled him to do so through lit de justice (the supremacy of the royal court over any other - the principle according to which, as soon as parliament decides in the name of the king, then in the presence of the king himself, parliament has no right to do anything. According to the saying: "When the king comes , the judges fall silent"). The provincial parliaments followed the example of the Parisian: Louis arranged a second lit de justice (1766) and declared the parliaments to be simple judicial institutions, which should be considered an honor to obey the king. Parliaments, however, continued to resist.

The new mistress of the king, who took the place of Pompadour after the death of the latter in 1764, led Choiseul, the defender of parliaments, d'Eguillon, their ardent opponent, to the place.

On the night of January 19-20, 1771, soldiers were sent to all members of Parliament demanding an immediate answer (yes or no) to the question of whether they wished to obey the king's orders. The majority answered in the negative; the next day it was announced to them that the king was depriving them of their posts and expelling them, despite the fact that their posts were bought by them, and they themselves were considered irremovable. Instead of parliaments, new judicial institutions were established (see Mopu), but lawyers refused to defend cases before them, and the people reacted with deep indignation at the violent actions of the government.

Louis did not pay attention to popular discontent: locking himself in his parc aux cerfs (Deer Park), he was engaged exclusively in his metresses and hunting, and when he was pointed out to the danger that threatened the throne, and to the disasters of the people, he answered: “The monarchy will hold out yet, as long as we are alive” (“even a flood after us”, “après nous le déluge”). The king died of smallpox, having contracted it from a young girl sent to him by Dubarry.

Family and children of Louis XV:

On September 4, 1725, 15-year-old Louis married 22-year-old Maria Leszczynska (1703-1768), daughter of Stanisław, the former King of Poland. They had 10 children, of whom 1 son and 6 daughters survived to adulthood. Only one, the eldest, of the daughters married. The younger unmarried daughters of the king took care of their orphaned nephews, the children of the dauphin, and after the accession of the eldest of them, Louis XVI, to the throne, they were known as "Lady Aunts" (fr. Mesdames les Tantes). Children:

1. Louise Elisabeth (14 August 1727 – 6 December 1759), wife of Philip, Duke of Parma
2. Henrietta Anna (August 14, 1727 - February 10, 1752), to whom the Regent's grandson Louis-Philippe d'Orleans (1725-1785) unsuccessfully wooed
3. Marie Louise (July 28, 1728 - February 19, 1733)
4. Louis Ferdinand, Dauphin of France (September 4, 1729 - December 20, 1765), father of Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X
5. Philip (30 August 1730 – 7 April 1733), Duke of Anjou
6. Adelaide (March 23, 1732 - February 27, 1800)
7. Victoria (May 11, 1733 - June 7, 1799)
8. Sophia (July 27, 1734 - March 3, 1782)
9. Teresa Felicite (May 16, 1736 - September 28, 1744)
10. Marie Louise (July 15, 1737 - December 23, 1787)

Madame de Pompadour had a daughter, Alexandrine-Jeanne d'Étiol (1744-1754), who died in childhood, who may have been the king's illegitimate daughter. According to some version, the girl was poisoned by court haters of Madame de Pompadour.

In addition to his wife and favorite, Louis had a whole "harem" of mistresses who were kept in the Deer Park estate and other places. At the same time, many favorites were prepared for this since adolescence, since the king preferred "non-perverted" girls, and was also afraid of venereal diseases. In the future, they were given in marriage with the release of a dowry.

September 13, 2005 in Peterhof was the opening of a recreated monument to the founder of the city, in the Lower Park. The author is the sculptor N. Karlykhanov. The opening of the monument was timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of Peterhof. The current monument is a copy of the monument lost after the war "Peter I with a young Louis XV in his arms" works by R. L. Bernshtam. The sculpture illustrates the visit of the Russian tsar to France in 1717, when Peter lifted the infant French king in his arms and said: "The whole of France is in my hands."

30th King of France
Louis XIII the Just (fr. Louis XIII le Juste; September 27, 1601, Fontainebleau - May 14, 1643, Saint-Germain-en-Laye) - King of France from May 14, 1610. From the Bourbon dynasty.

Reign of Marie de Medici
He ascended the throne at the age of 8 after the assassination of his father, Henry IV. During Louis' infancy, his mother Marie de' Medici, as regent, retreated from the policy of Henry IV, entering into an alliance with Spain and betrothing the king to Infanta Anna of Austria, daughter of Philip III. This aroused the fears of the Huguenots. Many nobles left the court and began to prepare for war, but the court on May 5, 1614 made peace with them at Sainte-Menehould. The marriage with Anna took place only in 1619, but Louis's relationship with his wife did not work out and he preferred to spend time in the company of his minions Luyne and Saint-Mar, in whom rumors saw the king's lovers. Only at the end of the 1630s did relations between Louis and Anna improve, and in 1638 and 1640 their two sons were born, the future Louis XIV and Philip I of Orleans.

Richelieu's reign
A new era began, after Louis' long hesitation, only in 1624, when Cardinal Richelieu became minister and soon took control of affairs and unlimited power over the king into his own hands. The Huguenots were pacified and lost La Rochelle. In Italy, the French House of Nevers was granted the succession to the throne in Mantua, after the War of the Mantua Succession (1628-1631). Later, France was very successful against Austria and Spain.

Internal opposition was becoming increasingly irrelevant. Louis destroyed the plans directed against Richelieu by the princes (including his brother, Gaston of Orleans), nobles and the queen mother, and constantly supported his minister, who acted for the benefit of the king and France. Thus, he gave complete freedom to Richelieu against his brother, Duke Gaston of Orleans, during the conspiracy of 1631 and the rebellion of 1632. In practice, this support of Richelieu limited the personal participation of the king in the affairs of government.

After the death of Richelieu (1642), his place was taken by his student, Cardinal Mazarin. However, the king outlived his minister by only a year. Louis died a few days before the victory at Rocroix.

In 1829, in Paris, on the Place des Vosges, a monument (equestrian statue) was erected to Louis XIII. It was erected on the site of a monument erected by Richelieu in 1639, but destroyed in 1792 during the revolution.

Louis XIII - artist
Louis was a passionate lover of music. He played the harpsichord, masterfully owned a hunting horn, sang the first bass part in the ensemble, performing polyphonic courtly songs (airs de cour) and psalms.

He began to learn dancing from childhood and in 1610 made his official debut in the Dauphine Court Ballet. Louis performed noble and grotesque roles in court ballets, and in 1615 in the Ballet Madame he performed the role of the Sun.

Louis XIII - the author of courtly songs and polyphonic psalms; his music also sounded in the famous Merleson ballet (1635), for which he composed dances (Simphonies), invented costumes, and in which he himself performed several roles.

31st King of France
Louis XIV de Bourbon, who at birth received the name Louis-Dieudonné ("given by God", French Louis-Dieudonné), also known as the "Sun King" (Fr. Louis XIV Le Roi Soleil), also Louis XIV the Great, (5 September 1638), Saint-Germain-en-Laye - September 1, 1715, Versailles) - King of France and Navarre from May 14, 1643. He reigned for 72 years - longer than any other European monarch in history. Louis, who survived the wars of the Fronde in his youth, became a staunch supporter of the principle of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings (he is often credited with the expression “The State is me”), he combined the strengthening of his power with the successful selection of statesmen for key political posts.

Marriage of Louis XIV, Duke of Burgundy

Portrait of Louis XIV with his family

Louis XIV and Maria Teresa in Arras 1667 during the War of Devolution
Louis XIV and Maria Theresa at Arras 1667 during the war

32nd King of France
Louis XV fr. Louis XV, official nickname Beloved (fr. Le Bien Aimé) (February 15, 1710, Versailles - May 10, 1774, Versailles) - King of France from September 1, 1715 from the Bourbon dynasty.
Miraculously surviving heir.
The great-grandson of Louis XIV, the future king (who bore the title of Duke of Anjou from birth) was at first only fourth in line to the throne. However, in 1711, the boy's grandfather, the only legitimate son of Louis XIV the Grand Dauphin, died; at the beginning of 1712, Louis's parents, the Duchess (February 12) and the Duke (February 18) of Burgundy, and then (March 8) and his older 4-year-old brother, the Duke of Brittany, died one after another from chickenpox. The two-year-old Louis himself survived only thanks to the perseverance of his tutor, the Duchess de Vantadour, who did not allow the doctors to apply strong bloodletting to him, which killed his older brother. The death of his father and brother made the two-year-old Duke of Anjou the direct heir of his great-grandfather, he received the title of Dauphin of Vienne.

Louis XV during classes in the presence of Cardinal Fleury (c) Anonyme

On September 4, 1725, 15-year-old Louis married 22-year-old Maria Leszczynska (1703-1768), daughter of Stanisław, the former King of Poland. They had 10 children (plus one stillborn), of whom 1 son and 6 daughters survived to adulthood. Only one, the eldest, of the daughters married. The younger unmarried daughters of the king took care of their orphaned nephews, the children of the dauphin, and after the accession of the eldest of them, Louis XVI, to the throne, they were known as "Lady Aunts" (fr. Mesdames les Tantes).

Marie-Louise O "Murphy (1737-1818), mistress of Louis XV

Cardinal Fleury died at the beginning of the war, and the king, reiterating his intention to govern the state himself, appointed no one as first minister. In view of the inability of Louis to deal with affairs, this led to complete anarchy: each of the ministers managed his ministry independently of his comrades and inspired the sovereign with the most contradictory decisions. The king himself led the life of an Asian despot, at first obeying either one or the other of his mistresses, and from 1745 falling completely under the influence of the Marquise de Pompadour, who skillfully pandered to the base instincts of the king and ruined the country with her extravagance.

Mignonne et Sylvie, chiens de Louis XV (c) Oudry Jean Baptiste (1686-1755)

33rd King of France
Louis XVI (August 23, 1754 - January 21, 1793) - King of France from the Bourbon dynasty, son of Dauphin Louis Ferdinand, succeeded his grandfather Louis XV in 1774. Under him, after the convocation of the States General in 1789, the Great French Revolution began. Louis first accepted the constitution of 1791, renounced absolutism and became a constitutional monarch, but soon he began to hesitantly oppose the radical measures of the revolutionaries and even tried to flee the country. On September 21, 1792, he was deposed, tried by the Convention, and executed on the guillotine.

He was a man of good heart, but of an insignificant mind and indecisive character. Louis XV did not like him for his negative attitude towards the court lifestyle and contempt for Dubarry and kept him away from public affairs. The upbringing given to Louis by the Duke of Voguyon gave him little practical and theoretical knowledge. He showed the greatest inclination towards physical pursuits, especially locksmithing and hunting. Despite the debauchery of the court around him, he retained the purity of morals, was distinguished by great honesty, ease of handling and hatred of luxury. With the kindest feelings, he ascended the throne with a desire to work for the benefit of the people and to destroy the existing abuses, but he did not know how to boldly move forward towards a consciously intended goal. He obeyed the influence of those around him, either aunts, or brothers, or ministers, or the queen (Marie Antoinette), canceled decisions made, and did not complete the reforms that had begun.

Escape attempt. constitutional monarch
On the night of June 21, 1791, Louis and his entire family secretly left in a carriage towards the eastern border. It is worth noting that the escape was prepared and carried out by the Swedish nobleman Hans Axel von Fersen, who was madly in love with the king's wife Marie Antoinette. In Varennes, Drouet, the son of the caretaker of one of the postal stations, saw in the carriage window the profile of the king, whose image was minted on coins and was well known to everyone, and raised the alarm. The king and queen were arrested and returned to Paris under escort. They were greeted with the deathly silence of the people crowding in the streets. On September 14, 1791, Louis took the oath of a new constitution, but continued to negotiate with the emigrants and foreign powers, even when he officially threatened them through his Girondin ministry, and on April 22, 1792, with tears in his eyes, declared war on Austria. Louis's refusal to sanction the decree of the assembly against the emigrants and rebellious priests and the removal of the patriotic ministry imposed on him caused a movement on June 20, 1792, and his proven relations with foreign states and emigrants led to an uprising on August 10 and the overthrow of the monarchy (September 21).

Louis was imprisoned with his family in the Temple and accused of plotting against the freedom of the nation and of a number of attempts against the security of the state. On January 11, 1793, the trial of the king in the Convention began. Louis behaved with great dignity and, not content with the speeches of his chosen defenders, defended himself against the accusations brought against him, referring to the rights given to him by the constitution. On January 20, he was sentenced to death by a majority of 383 votes to 310. Louis listened to the sentence with great calmness and on January 21 ascended the scaffold. His last words on the scaffold were: “I die innocent, I am innocent of the crimes of which I am accused. I tell you this from the scaffold, preparing to stand before God. And I forgive everyone who is responsible for my death."

Interesting Facts
When the future King of France, Louis XVI, was still a child, his personal astrologer warned him that the 21st of every month was his unlucky day. The king was so shocked by this prediction that he never planned anything important for the 21st. However, not everything depended on the king. On June 21, 1791, the king and queen were arrested while trying to leave revolutionary France. That same year, on September 21, France declared itself a republic. And in 1793, on January 21, King Louis XVI was beheaded.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's tomb in Saint Denis Basilica, Paris

Napoleon I
Napoleon I Bonaparte (Italian Napoleone Buonaparte, French Napoléon Bonaparte, August 15, 1769, Ajaccio, Corsica - May 5, 1821, Longwood, Saint Helena) - Emperor of France in 1804-1815, French commander and statesman who laid the foundations of the modern French state.

Napoleone Buonaparte (as his name was pronounced until about 1800) began his professional military service in 1785 with the rank of second lieutenant of artillery; advanced during the French Revolution, reaching the rank of brigade under the Directory (after the capture of Toulon on December 17, 1793, the appointment took place on January 14, 1794), and then the divisional general and the post of commander of the rear military forces (after the defeat of the rebellion of 13 Vendemière 1795 ), and then the commander of the army.

In November 1799, he carried out a coup d'état (18 Brumaire), as a result of which he became the first consul, thereby effectively concentrating all power in his hands. May 18, 1804 proclaimed himself emperor. Established a dictatorial regime. He carried out a number of reforms (the adoption of a civil code (1804), the foundation of the French Bank (1800), etc.).

The victorious Napoleonic wars, especially the 2nd Austrian campaign of 1805, the Prussian campaign of 1806, and the Polish campaign of 1807 contributed to the transformation of France into the main power on the continent. However, Napoleon's unsuccessful rivalry with the "mistress of the seas" Great Britain did not allow this status to be fully consolidated. The defeat of the Grand Army in the war of 1812 against Russia and in the "battle of the nations" near Leipzig marked the beginning of the collapse of the empire of Napoleon I. The entry of troops of the anti-French coalition into Paris in 1814 forced Napoleon I to abdicate. He was exiled to Fr. Elbe. Re-occupied the French throne in March 1815 (One Hundred Days). After the defeat at Waterloo, he abdicated a second time (June 22, 1815). Last years spent his life on St. Helena a prisoner of the British. His body has been in the Les Invalides in Paris since 1840.

dreamvision

dreamvision

Surrealism

Coronation of Napoleon, 1805-1808 (c) Jacques Louis David

Josephine kneeling before Napoleon during her coronation at Notre Dame (c) Jacques-Louis David

Premiere distribution des décorations de la Légion d "honneur dans l" église des Invalides, le 14 juillet 1804.
Tableau de Jean-Baptiste Debret, 1812. Musée national du château de Versailles.

Battle of Austerlitz, 1810 (c) François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770–1837)

Napoleon's tomb in Les Invalides. The material for the manufacture of the monument erected here, carved from a rare Ural stone, was kindly donated to the French government by Emperor Alexander III.

34th King of France (not crowned)
Louis XVIII, fr. Louis XVIII (Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, fr. Louis Stanislas Xavier) (November 17, 1755, Versailles - September 16, 1824, Paris) - King of France (1814-1824, with a break in 1815), brother of Louis XVI, who wore during his reign, the title of Count of Provence (fr. comte de Provence) and the honorary title of Monsieur (fr. Monsieur), and then, during emigration, he took the title of comte de Lille. He took the throne as a result of the Bourbon Restoration, which followed the overthrow of Napoleon I.

35th King of France
Charles X (fr. Charles X; October 9, 1757, Versailles - November 6, 1836, Görtz, Austria, now Gorizia in Italy), King of France from 1824 to 1830, the last representative of the senior Bourbon line on the French throne.

Louis Philippe I - 36th King of France
Louis-Philippe I (fr. Louis-Philippe Ier, October 6, 1773, Paris - August 26, 1850, Clermont, Surrey, near Windsor). Lieutenant General of the Kingdom from July 31 to August 9, 1830, King of France from August 9, 1830 to February 24, 1848 (according to the constitution he was titled "King of the French", roi des Français), received the nickname "King Citizen" ("le Roi-Citoyen") , a representative of the Orleans branch of the Bourbon dynasty. The last French monarch to hold the title of king.

Louis-Philippe d'Orleans, leaving the Palais-Royal, goes to the city hall, July 31, 1830,
two days after the July Revolution. 1832

Louis Philippe d'Orléans, appointed lieutenant general, arrives at the Hôtel de Ville

Napoleon III Bonaparte
Napoleon III Bonaparte (fr. Napoléon III Bonaparte, full name Charles Louis Napoleon (fr. Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte); April 20, 1808 - January 9, 1873) - President of the French Republic from December 20, 1848 to December 1, 1852, Emperor of the French from 1 December 1852 to September 4, 1870 (from September 2, 1870 was in captivity). The nephew of Napoleon I, after a series of conspiracies to seize power, came to her peacefully as President of the Republic (1848). Having made the coup of 1851 and eliminated the legislature, he established an authoritarian police regime by means of "direct democracy" (plebiscite), and a year later proclaimed himself emperor of the Second Empire.

After ten years of rather tight control, the Second Empire, which became the embodiment of the ideology of Bonapartism, moved to some democratization (1860s), which was accompanied by the development of the French economy and industry. A few months after the adoption of the liberal constitution of 1870, which returned the rights to Parliament, the Franco-Prussian War put an end to Napoleon's rule, during which the emperor was captured by the Germans and never returned to France. Napoleon III was the last monarch of France.

Napoleon Eugene
Napoleon Eugene (Napoleon Eugene Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte, fr. Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Impérial; March 16, 1856 - June 1, 1879) - Prince of the Empire and the son of France, was the only child of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie Montijo. The last heir to the French throne, who never became emperor.

Heir
Before his birth, the heir to the Second Empire was the uncle of Napoleon III, the younger brother of Napoleon I, Jerome Bonaparte, whose relationship with the children of the emperor was strained. Starting a family was a political task for Napoleon III from the moment the empire was proclaimed on December 2, 1852; being single at the time of the seizure of power, the newly-made emperor was looking for a bride from the reigning house, but was forced to be content already in 1853 with marriage to the Spanish noblewoman Eugenia Montijo. The birth of a son to the Bonapartes, after three years marriage, was widely celebrated in the state; 101 shots were fired from the cannons in Les Invalides. Pope Pius IX became the prince's godfather in absentia. From the moment of birth (childbirth, according to the French royal tradition, took place in the presence of the highest dignitaries of the state, including the children of Jerome Bonaparte), the prince of the empire was considered the successor of his father; he was the last French heir to the throne and the last bearer of the title "son of France". He was known as Louis or, diminutively, Prince Lulu.

The heir was brought up in the Tuileries Palace along with his maternal cousins, the Princesses of Alba. Since childhood, he had a good command of English and Latin, and also received a good mathematical education.

At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, the 14-year-old prince accompanied his father to the front and near Saarbrücken, on August 2, 1870, he bravely accepted a baptism of fire; the spectacle of the war, however, caused him a psychological crisis. After his father was captured on September 2, and the empire was declared overthrown in the rear, the prince was forced to leave Chalons for Belgium, and from there to Great Britain. He settled with his mother at the Camden House estate in Chislehurst, Kent (now within the boundaries of London), where Napoleon III, who was released from German captivity, then arrived.

Head of the dynasty
After the death of the ex-emperor in January 1873 and the 18th birthday of the prince, who turned in March 1874, the Bonapartist party proclaimed "Prince Lulu" the pretender to the imperial throne and the head of the dynasty as Napoleon IV (fr. Napoléon IV). His opponents in the struggle for influence on the French monarchists were the Legitimist party, led by the Count of Chambord, grandson of Charles X, and the Orleanist party, led by the Count of Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe I (the latter also lived in Great Britain).

The prince had a reputation as a charming and talented young man, his personal life was impeccable. His chances of regaining power in France during the unstable existence of the Third Republic in the 1870s were quoted quite high (especially since the Count of Chambord card was actually won back after his refusal of the tricolor banner in 1873). Napoleon IV was considered an enviable groom; in her diary, half-jokingly, the possibility of marriage with him is mentioned by Maria Bashkirtseva. At one time a marriage proposal was discussed between him and Queen Victoria's youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice.

The prince entered the British Military College at Woolwich, graduated from it in 1878 as the 17th in graduation and began service in the artillery (like his great great-uncle). He became friends with representatives of the Swedish royal family (King Oscar II of Sweden was a descendant of the Napoleonic Marshal Jean Bernadotte (Charles XIV Johan) and the great-grandson of Josephine Beauharnais).

Doom
After the outbreak of the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879, the prince of the empire, with the rank of lieutenant, voluntarily went to this war. The reason for this fatal act, many biographers consider the dependence on the mother that burdened the young Napoleon.

After arriving in South Africa (Natal), he almost did not participate in skirmishes with the Zulus, since the commander-in-chief, Lord Chelmsford, fearing political consequences, ordered to follow him and prevent his participation in the conflict. However, on June 1, Napoleon and Lieutenant Carey, with a small detachment, went to one kraal for reconnaissance (reconnaissance). Not noticing anything suspicious, the group settled down on a halt near the Itiotoshi River. There they were attacked by a group of 40 Zulus and put to flight: two Britons were killed, and then the prince, who defended himself fiercely. 31 wounds from the Zulu assegai were found on his body; a blow to the eye was certainly fatal. In British society, the question was discussed whether Lieutenant Carey had fled the battlefield, leaving the prince to his fate. The prince died just a month before the British captured the Zulu royal kraal near Ulundi in July 1879 and ended the war.

The death of Napoleon Eugene led to the loss of practically all the hopes of the Bonapartists for the restoration of their home in France; supremacy in the family passed to the inactive and unpopular descendants of Jerome Bonaparte (however, before the fateful departure to Africa, the prince appointed as his successor not the eldest in the family of his cousin uncle, "Prince Napoleon", known as "Plon-Plon", because of his bad reputation , and the son of the latter, Prince Victor, aka Napoleon V). On the other hand, just in the year of the death of the prince (1879), the monarchist Marshal McMahon was replaced in the Elysee Palace by the staunch Republican President Jules Grevy, under whom the monarchist conspiracies (see Boulanger) were defeated and the state system of the Third Republic was strengthened.

Memory
The prince's body was brought by ship to England and buried at Chisleheart, and subsequently, along with his father's ashes, was transferred to a special mausoleum erected for her husband and son by Eugenie in the imperial crypt of St. Michael's Abbey in Farnborough, Hampshire. Eugenia, according to British law, was supposed to identify her son's body, but it was so mutilated that only a postoperative scar on her thigh helped her. The funeral was attended by Victoria, Edward the Prince of Wales, all the Bonapartes and several thousand Bonapartists. Eugenia herself, who outlived her relatives by almost half a century, was buried there in 1920.

Many famous European artists painted the prince as a child, including the portrait painter of monarchs Franz Xavier Winterhalter. The Musée d'Orsay in Paris has a marble statue by Jean-Baptiste Carpeau, which is part of the museum's exposition, depicting a 10-year-old prince with Nero the dog. The sculpture gained great fame and became the subject of numerous replicas (after the fall of the empire, the Sevres manufactory produced replica figurines already under the name “Child with a dog”).

In 1998, an asteroid moon discovered by French-Canadian astronomers was named after the prince. The little Prince"(English) - a satellite named after his mother asteroid Eugene. The name refers, in addition to Napoleon IV, to the famous story by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, where the Little Prince lives on his own small planet. The official explanation for the choice of the name of the planet emphasizes the parallels between the two princes - Napoleon and the hero Exupery (both princes were young, brave and short, left their cozy world, their journey tragically ended in Africa). Perhaps this coincidence is not accidental, and Prince Lulu really served as the prototype of Exupery's hero (there are indications of this in the English and Polish Wikipedias).

In 1715, when Louis XIV passed away, it became apparent devastating consequences its ambitious domestic and foreign policy. The wars that went on almost continuously for 25 years exhausted the state treasury so much that the successors of the Sun King experienced an acute shortage of funds until the very end of the 18th century. The population was declining. In lean years, famine began. By the end of his many years of reign, the monarch completely lost popularity.

On the other hand, in this era, France gained special status in European culture. The authoritarian methods of government and the luxury of the Palace of Versailles became models for other European monarchs for many decades. The French style of interiors has become fashionable everywhere. French writers took their place at the forefront of European literature. The French royal dynasty ascended the Spanish throne. Among the states of the Atlantic region, France gradually became the main rival of Great Britain.

The following year, after the death of Louis XIV, the French authorities began to improve the financial situation. Scottish financier John Law persuaded the regent Duke of Orleans to reform the banking system. In 1705, his work "Money and Trade. A Proposal for Providing the People with Money" was published - one of the first works on the theory of monetarism. According to Lo's plan, the establishment of a state bank that prints bank notes was supposed to contribute to the recovery of the economy. With the active support of the Duke of Orleans, the Banque Générale was created in 1716. Banque Générale was originally a private bank, but three-quarters of its assets consisted of government treasury notes. The following year, to promote the development of the French colony in Louisiana, Lo acquired the Mississippi Company and reorganized it into a joint-stock company, which was called the Western Company (Compagnie d "Occident). The French government granted the Western Company a monopoly on trade with the West Indies and North America. In 1718 Banque Générale became a state bank.

By absorbing companies trading with the East Indies, China and Africa, the Western Company attracted a growing number of investors. In 1720, the Western Company was merged with a bank. Law also controlled the mint and the tax office. He was given the authority to decide on the issuance of shares and print banknotes. At the first stage the enterprise was very successful. During this time, Law was printing non-gold banknotes that were used to purchase shares in the Western Company and pay dividends. Due to the speculative hype, Lo's shares rose in price by 36 times - from 500 to 18,000 livres. At the end of 1720, the French government was forced to admit that the banknotes issued by the Banque Générale were not fully backed by metallic money. The system created by John Law collapsed when banknote holders en masse wanted to exchange them for coins. The value of issued banknotes fell by half. By the end of 1720, the Duke of Orleans dismissed Law from all his posts, all his initiatives in the field of financial policy were eliminated. The Scottish financier left France for Venice, where he died in poverty nine years later. The negative consequences of the reform of the banking system became the reason for the deep distrust of the French authorities in the national banks, which have the right to print banknotes. Banque de France was founded in 1800, far behind other European states.

After the end of the War for Spanish inheritance France and Great Britain occasionally cooperated with each other in various areas of international politics and economics, which was largely due to the similarity of views of their political leaders - Cardinal Fleury and Robert Walpole. Both politician believed that peace is a necessary condition for the growth of national prosperity. Walpole's resignation in 1742 and Fleury's death in 1743 ended a short period of peaceful coexistence. Hostility returned to relations between the two powers. In March 1744, France declared war on Great Britain and began preparing plans for an invasion - the French authorities supported the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. However, the French fleet, badly damaged by the storm, was unsuitable for the implementation of these plans, and the following year the French army performed other tasks - France invaded the Austrian Netherlands. At the Battle of Fontenoy, which took place in May 1745, French troops under the command of Moritz Count of Saxony defeated the combined forces of Great Britain, Hanover, Austria and Denmark, led by the son of the British monarch, the Duke of Cumberland.

The army of the Duke of Cumberland moved to the aid of the fortress of Tournai besieged by the French. Without lifting the siege, the French repulsed the onslaught of the enemy and launched a counteroffensive. The losses of the allied troops amounted to approximately 14,000 people. Building on his success, the Count of Saxony captured the entire territory of the Austrian Netherlands by the end of 1746. For most of this campaign, he did not fight with the British troops: in October 1745, the British units and the Duke of Cumberland himself returned to the opposite bank of the English Channel to participate in the hostilities in Scotland.

In the long term, the successes of the Count of Saxony in the campaign of 1745-1746 were of less importance than the dominance of the English fleet in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Shortly after the official declaration of war in 1744, British warships began to obstruct the ships of the French merchant fleet, flying to the Indies and the West Indies. By locking French transport ships in harbors, the British fleet paralyzed the coastal shipping system, which was widely used in those days in the absence of a developed road system.

In 1748, after four years of confrontation on the seas, France was ready to conclude a peace treaty. This time, the territories that changed their state affiliation were mainly overseas. In June 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession, a detachment of New Englanders captured Fort Louisbourg, located at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and considered the most impregnable of the American fortresses. Louisbourg was of strategic importance to French Canada. In 1746, British Madras was occupied by French troops. Under the terms of the second Peace of Aachen, concluded in 1748, both territories regained their original nationality. In addition, this peace treaty delayed the start of the inevitable colonial conflict between the two leading European powers. According to the Prussian monarch Frederick II, France and Great Britain considered themselves the leaders of two warring camps, one of which all kings and princes were obliged to join. Less than ten years later, the European rulers again had to decide on the choice of camp: the Seven Years' War began.

From the end of the 17th century until the beginning of this new conflict, the alignment of geopolitical forces did not change significantly, but by 1763, when the war ended, the situation changed dramatically. To a lesser extent, these changes affected the situation in India, to a greater extent - the situation in the North American colonies. The success of the British troops, culminating in the capture of Quebec in September 1759, was followed by significant concessions made by France under the terms of the peace treaty signed in Paris in 1763. All the territory between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, which was originally claimed by France, was annexed to the British possessions, as well as historical lands New France lying on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. These arrangements marked the end of the French empire in continental America. Only New Orleans and the surrounding territories still belonged to France. The signing of this treaty was one of the turning points in American history, giving Britain a dominant position on the continent. The lands between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, which were also the subject of French territorial claims, were ceded to Spain and subsequently annexed to the United States.

Louis XV, who had been on the throne for about sixty years, passed away in 1774. During his reign, the state financial system was in a deplorable state. Devastated during the military campaigns of his great-grandfather Louis XIV, the state treasury was actively used to finance the largest armed conflicts - the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. The French monarchy was ill-equipped to carry out necessary reforms. Formally, the kings had absolute power, but neither Louis XV nor his grandson Louis XVI, who ascended the throne in 1774, could direct this power to effective reform activities.

The political and socio-economic structure that existed in France during this era was called the Old Order (or the Old Regime - ancien régime). The old regime was characterized by estates, the preservation of the ancient privileges of the aristocracy, the small development of commodity-money relations, and the predominance of barter. Among the features of the state structure was the practice of selling positions in the state apparatus. Significant funds spent on the acquisition of a particular position were paid off by the "rent" that officials received until the end of their days. Such a system led to the growth of corruption and lack of control of officials, the formation of power structures with duplicating powers. Another distinctive feature of the Old Order was the so-called lettres de cachet (letters with a seal). They were royal orders for extrajudicial arrests and detention indefinitely without stating reasons. However, this royal privilege did not at all contribute to limiting the numerous privileges of the nobility.

Representatives of the first and second estates - the nobility and officials - were exempted from most of the taxes. Attempts by the government to change the current situation, by more evenly distributing the tax burden among the population, invariably ran into resistance from the aristocracy, whose interests were represented by the Paris Parliament. The dissatisfaction of the parliament was the reason for the resignation of two finance ministers who carried out reforms - Turgot and Calonne. These actions aimed at preserving feudal privileges were severely criticized by the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The measures taken by the monarch to suppress the arbitrariness of the aristocracy did not find support either. The court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette was considered immoral and corrupt. This notion became even more widespread after the famous diamond necklace scam case.

In 1772, Louis XV decided to give his mistress Marie Jeanne Becu, Countess Dubarry, a gift worth approximately 2 million livres. He turned to Parisian jewelers with a request to make a necklace that surpasses all other similar jewelry in beauty and luxury. It took the craftsmen several years to acquire suitable diamonds for this purpose. In the meantime, Louis XV died and the Countess Dubarry was banished from the royal court. The jewelers hoped that their work would be of interest to Queen Marie Antoinette, but she twice refused the necklace.

In 1784, an adventuress named Jeanne de Luz de Saint-Remy de Valois, having become the mistress of Cardinal Louis de Rogan, corresponded with him, passing off letters of her own composition as messages from the queen. Jeanne claimed that she personally knew Marie Antoinette. The cardinal, who was in disfavor, hoped through correspondence to regain the favor of Marie Antoinette. As the tone of the imaginary royal messages became softer, the cardinal became confident in the success of his enterprise. This adventure culminated in a nightly meeting organized by Jeanne in the garden of the Palace of Versailles between Louis de Rogan and a Parisian prostitute posing as the queen. Soon the "queen" turned to the cardinal with an offer to become an intermediary in the secret purchase of the necklace, stating that she did not want to act openly in times of need. Having agreed on a price with the jewelers and agreed on a payment schedule, de Rohan brought the necklace to Jeanne's house, from where it was delivered to London. Soon the plot was revealed, de Rogan went to the Bastille, but was subsequently acquitted. Jeanne was convicted, but soon escaped from prison. In her absence, her husband went to serve a life sentence. Despite Marie Antoinette's non-involvement in the theft of the necklace, which was not established during the trial, it caused significant damage to the popularity of the queen and the prestige of the royal court.

Under these conditions, the confrontation between the king and the privileged classes turned into a crisis, while neither side aroused sympathy among the general population. The ill-considered and imprudent actions of the enemies of the king led to a deepening of the crisis. The Royal Treasury was on the verge of bankruptcy, partly because of the costs associated with supporting the Americans who opposed the British monarch. The Parlement of Paris declared that the tax legislation would come into force only if it was voted for by the Estates General, a class-representative institution that had not been convened since 1614. Under pressure from Parliament, the royal ministers announced the convening of the Estates General at Versailles on May 1, 1789.

Until the age of seven, the Duchess Vantadour followed him, and on February 15, 1717, Marshal Villeroy and Bishop Fleury, known for their learning and piety, became his mentors. However, the upbringing did not give brilliant results, since Villeroy and Fleury were more interested in intrigues and political affairs than the education of the young king.

“The king thinks only about hunting, playing, about delicious food and about staying within the limits of etiquette,” wrote Marshal de Vaillard. “He has not turned his beautiful young eyes on anyone yet. stronger and more developed than any eighteen-year-old youth, and the most charming ladies do not hide the fact that they are always at his service.

The young monarch was distinguished by rare chastity. Once, for example, he drove a valet out of Versailles, who dared to receive a mistress in his apartment.

Finally, the time has come to find a queen for Louis XV. A list of European unmarried princesses was compiled. It turned out that seventeen could claim the French throne.

The choice fell on Maria Leshchinskaya, daughter of the ex-king of Poland, Stanislav. When the portrait of Mary was presented to the king, Louis XV could not hide his admiration and announced to the Council that he agreed to marry a Pole.

On September 5, 1725, Mary solemnly arrived at Fontainebleau. The wedding ceremony took place in the chapel and was so long that the young bride lost consciousness.

The delightful honeymoon of fifteen-year-old Louis XV lasted ... three months. The king went every evening to Mary's quarters and enjoyed her company. He was fascinated by the charms of the queen, she responded with boundless passion. She wrote to her father: "No one has ever loved the way I love him..."

Louis XV spent his free time hunting and pleasing the Queen. His efforts were not in vain: Maria Leshchinskaya gave birth to two twin girls in 1727, a year later - a daughter, in 1729 - the Dauphin, then the Duke d "Anjou (1730), Mademoiselle Adelaide (1732), Mademoiselle Victoria (1733 ), Mademoiselle Sophie (1734), Mademoiselle Teresa-Felicite (1736), Mademoiselle Louise-Marie (1737).

Best of the day

Since 1732, the queen has been understandably tired: "What a life! Sleep with the king all the time, be pregnant and give birth!" The king was offended by this statement, however, he continued to lead a virtuous life until he met Marie-Julia de Mailly, the eldest of the five daughters of the Marquis de Nesle. She was a gentle, charming, sensual woman. She, like the king, was twenty-two years old. Already on the second date, Louis XV cheated on the queen. This connection was kept secret for a long time. For three years, de Mailly, at the appointed hour, climbed the gilded stairs leading to the offices hidden from view. This went on until two ladies accidentally revealed the secret. When Maria Leshchinskaya found out about her husband's infidelity, she almost fainted and locked herself in her room. All attempts at reconciliation by Louis XV came to nothing. Then he promised his wife never to appear in her bedroom again. The queen was in her second month of pregnancy and hoped that the birth of her son would settle the quarrel. However, in June 1737 another daughter was born. The irritated monarch, leaving all shame and restraint, began to openly appear with de Mailly.

Louis XV was melancholic, reserved, secretive and, in the words of one historian, "indifferent to entertainment". The young duchess, in order to amuse him, began to arrange pleasure dinners - invariably savory, full of fiction. They took place in small, specially prepared apartments. These intimate, nicely furnished rooms communicated with His Majesty's room through secret doors. To be invited to such a dinner was considered a special favor. Dinner soon turned into an orgy: the ladies were undressed, and each man tried to prove his location to them. Then they drank again. At dawn, servants came and took out from under the table the monarch and the young women invited by him, who passed in a circle. These parties were only the beginning of the dissolute life of Louis XV. However, Madame de Mailly received only symbolic gifts ... Not prone to intrigue, she did not ask for more.

In December, after a long break, Louis XV spent the night with Maria Leshchinskaya and, judging by the words of the servants who crowded outside the door, proved himself to be a real man. But the rapprochement with his wife ended there, and the king returned to Madame de Mailly. But soon the adventures of the king resulted in unpleasant consequences. The chronicler Barbier testifies: “The king feels better. But he does not go hunting yet. According to rumors, he has syphilis, because Bachelier, his first valet, secretly brought him some girls, and here it’s not up to the respect of the royal person. .." This disease was awarded to him by the daughter of the butcher de Poissy, who, in turn, picked it up from the palace guard during the festivities.

At the end of 1738, Madame de Mailly introduced her sister, Pauline-Felicite de Nesle, who was two years her junior, to the court. This charming lady left the monastery with the clear intention of replacing her older sister, capturing the heart of the king and ruling France.

She immediately set to work, and, despite the fact that there was nothing seductive in her, she managed to become the mistress of Louis XV. In the spring of 1739, she appeared at the opera at a ball, disguised as a shepherdess, next to the king in a bat costume.

While Madame de Mailly mourned her fate in a Parisian mansion, a husband was sought for a new favorite. They became Felix de Vintimille, great-nephew of the Archbishop of Paris. In the evening after the wedding, the young couple went to the Madrid castle. But Vintimille, who received two hundred thousand livres for this fictitious marriage, only pretended to go to the marriage bed. In fact, he was replaced in the matrimonial bed by Louis XV.

From that day on, Madame de Vintimille followed the king everywhere, and Louis XV showered her with gifts. In May 1740, he gave her the small Château de Choisy, which he began to frequent.

In the castle, lovers spent all their time in bed. Madame de Vintimille had a stormy temperament, and the king, as one memoirist wrote, "fell asleep only after he had proved to her the power of his scepter seven times." Even those who would like Louis XV to show more zeal in state affairs were proud of the king's indefatigability in bed ... General joy knew no bounds on the day when it became known that the favorite during one of these meetings was tired before her lover .

Madame de Vintimille, thanks to the cares of the king, gave birth on September 1, 1741 to a lovely boy, he was granted the title of Comte de Luca. The favorite could have counted on the most brilliant future if she had not been carried away by a sudden fever after childbirth. The king again drew attention to Madame de Mailly, but already at the beginning of 1742 he became interested in the third sister de Nesle, the Duchess de Lorage. This young lady was not very beautiful, but possessed, as the historian of that time wrote, "a pleasant fullness of forms." It was women of this type that were considered especially attractive in the 18th century ...

Louis XV was attracted to her, surprising the courtiers. He loved her on benches, sofas, armchairs, stairs. The duchess, who clearly had a weakness for this kind of pastime, "allowed the king" everything, while uttering joyful cries. The monarch indulged in not so innocent pleasures with her. One day he demanded that Madame de Mailly join them, desiring to "sleep between two sisters" whose charms were in stark contrast. Such a variation gave Louis XV only modest entertainment, and he got bored as before. In the end, he was fed up with the Duchess de Lorage, who was not distinguished by a special mind, and in order to get rid of her, but so that she was always nearby, he appointed her the Dauphine's maid of honor ...

In the autumn of 1742, Madame de Mailly seemed to have enough power to interfere in politics. Alas! In November, a letter from Marshal de Belle-Isle to Marshal de Maibois was intercepted. It contained transparent allusions to the role of the favorite. Louis XV was furious and quickly got rid of his mistress.

Wishing to continue the successful start of the tournament, he turned his attention to the fourth sister de Nestle, the wife of the Marquis de Flavacourt. Her husband was insanely jealous, and the king failed to get her into his bed. The jealous husband, having found out about the intentions of Louis XV, threatened his wife with reprisal if she behaved like her sister's whores. The disappointed monarch chose de Nesle's last sister, Marie-Anne, widow of the Marquis de La Tournel.

One day after midnight, disguised as a doctor, the king went to her, accompanied by the Duke de Richelieu. Before entering the royal box, the young woman put forward her conditions. She demanded that her sister, Madame de Mailly, be sent away immediately and publicly, and that she be elevated to the status of official mistress, as was the late Madame de Montespan. She demanded a lot more: "... beautiful apartments worthy of her position, because she did not want, like her sisters, to dine and secretly make love in small rooms. Her own court and that the king openly come to dine with her. In case of lack of money, she wished to receive them in the royal treasury with the right of her own signature. And if she becomes pregnant, she will not hide it, and her children will be considered legitimate. "

Louis XV was very much in love - he agreed to these conditions, and on January 17, 1744, the chambers of parliament legalized the royal gift: the duchy de Chateauroux was transferred to the possession of Madame de La Tournelle. According to the documents, Madame de La Tournelle received this gift for services rendered to the queen.

In March 1744, instigated by King Frederick II, the King of France was forced to declare war on Maria Theresa of Austria, England and Holland. The enemy could seize French territory at any moment. Then Madame de Châteauroux appeared to Louis XV and made it clear that the time had come for the king to become a real ruler, to take up military affairs and lead the army.

This appeal touched the monarch. A month later he went to Flanders. But since he could not part with Madame de Chateauroux, he took her with him, which gave rise to a lot of gossip. Louis XV ordered that the duchess be allocated a mansion adjacent to his residence with secret passages, from one mansion to another.

At the beginning of August 1744, after an exquisite dinner, the Duke of Richelieu arranged for the king to be alone in the bedroom with Madame de Chateauroux and her sister, Mademoiselle Lorage, prudently closing the door behind them. The next day, Louis XV came down with a fever. The monarch, fearing an imminent death, sent for the confessor.

Bishop Fitz-James of Soissons declared that "the laws of the church forbid the communion of a dying man if his concubine is in the city," and asked the king to order the departure of the sisters.

Louis XV reluctantly agreed. As soon as these ladies left the city, the Bishop of Soissons gave permission for the unction of the monarch. However, a week later the king felt better. This news caused rejoicing among the people, who immediately called him the Beloved.

Louis XV returned to Paris. And, as soon as his strength returned, he hurried to Madame de Chateaure, who was excommunicated from the court, and asked her to return to Versailles. In response, the duchess demanded to expel those responsible for her disgrace. The king, burning with the desire to renew his intimacy with the duchess, accepted all her conditions. Alas, two weeks after the stormy night, the favorite of Louis XV died.

After the death of Madame de Chateauroux, Louis XV was at a loss. Having exhausted the female resources of the de Nestle family, he did not know where to look for a mistress. The corridors of Versailles were filled with beauties, trying by any means to attract the attention of the king.

At the end of February 1745, a masquerade ball was held at Versailles. At two o'clock in the morning the king paid a compliment to the young beauty in the attire of Diana the Huntress. The crowd immediately surrounded him. The beautiful Diana was seen flirting with the king. Strongly intrigued, Louis XV followed her. It was then that the mysterious Huntress took off her mask - and everyone recognized Madame Le Normand d "Etiol ...

“Continuing to scatter all the tricks of coquetry,” Sulavi wrote, “she got lost in the crowd, but did not disappear from sight. She had a handkerchief in her hand, and either by accident or on purpose she dropped it. Louis XV hastily raised the handkerchief, but. .. he could not get to his owner, and with all the courtesy he was capable of, he threw this elegant little ball to her. An embarrassed whisper rang out in the hall: "The handkerchief is thrown! .." All rivals lost their last hope.

Mm d "Etiol's name was Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. She was unusually pretty. After the episode with the dropped handkerchief, she did not have to wait long. Louis XV ordered Binet, his valet, to deliver her - she was Binet's cousin - to Versailles. Of course, soon she found herself in the widest bed of the state. Alas! There are situations when even monarchs are powerless ... Louis XV had a sudden weakness, and he, in the words of Mortz, "misfired." Fortunately, after a few days the king regained his strength and was able on the same wide bed to prove the power of feelings that overwhelmed him ... Louis XV was fascinated by Madame Poisson. Sulavi wrote: "Despite the natural coldness, the beauty had a very whimsical character." But Madame d'Etiol, against whom the whole court was set , dauphin, clergy, ministers, was afraid to lose everything, without becoming a favorite. Then she wrote to Louis XV: she has such a jealous husband, evil people will certainly tell him about treason, he will severely punish her. She asks the king for protection ... The simple-hearted king suggested that she take refuge in Versailles. She did not force herself to beg ... While she settled in the apartments that previously belonged to Madame de Mailly, Monsieur de Turnhem, who, of course, was her ally, went to Monsieur Le Norman d "Etiol and announced that his wife had become the king's mistress. In In terrible desperation, the husband was forced to leave Paris. Happy Louis XV could not refuse her anything. He bought for her the title of Marquise of Pompadour, land in Auvergne with twelve thousand livres of income, appointed her maid of honor to the Queen and, finally, recognized her as "the official favorite." The marquise was delighted. Her wildest dreams came true. However, the role of the king's mistress seemed too insignificant - she wanted to participate in government.

“If she had not entered the life of Louis XV then,” Pierre de Nolha is convinced, “events would have developed in a completely different direction: a different policy in matters of financial, religious, and perhaps diplomatic relations. From now on, a woman is smart and besides, knowing how to use her mind, she subjugated the monarch, the ruler of the kingdom, who was more zealous for power than Louis XIV himself. Eventually this shortcoming of her temperament became public knowledge, and many women perked up. One of them, Madame de Coisin, gave Madame de Pompadour some anxiety. One evening in Marley, the two women exchanged barbs, which amused everyone in the audience. The Marquise returned to her quarters, unsettled, almost in despair. Madame de Pompadour was not mistaken: the king became the lover of Madame de Coisin and, it seems, took pleasure in this. The offended favorite resorted to the services of the postmaster Janel. One day she handed him a piece of paper and ordered: "Insert these lines in excerpts from letters that you submit to the king." And there was this: “It is true that our monarch has a girlfriend. It would be better if he left the old one. She is quiet, does no harm to anyone and has already amassed a fortune. she will have to spend a million a year - her extravagance is known - to support the dukes close to her, howlers, marshals, her relatives ... They will fill the royal palace and make the ministers tremble.

Louis XV, being miserly, quickly left Madame de Coisin. A few days later, Madame de Pompadour told her friend: “This magnificent marquise miscalculated - she frightened the king with her habit of luxury. She constantly asked him for money ... Imagine what it takes him to sign a bill for a million, because he hardly parted with a hundred louis! "

However, over time, political intrigues, sleepless nights, worries deprived the all-powerful Madame de Pompadour of their former freshness, which did not hide from Louis XV. For several months, the monarch consoled himself with various mistresses, preferring virgins, if possible, who were secretly brought to him by friends. The secret police soon informed the Marquise of these royal pranks. Assessing the danger, she "decided to keep Louis XV near her, by all means, becoming the confidante of his hobbies." To help her cope with this task was destined quite by accident one unusual personality who showed up in Paris. We are talking about a twenty-five-year-old Italian who only thought about girls. His name was Casanova.

Once this young man met the charming Louison Morphy, who served as a model for Boucher. Casanova fell in love with her so much that he commissioned a portrait of her from a German artist. The painter depicted her naked. This artist, being in Versailles in 1753, showed a copy of the portrait to Monsieur de Saint-Quentin. It was this courtier who was looking for comforters for the royal bed. He decided that such a beauty could suit the king, and showed him a portrait. The image captivated Louis XV, and he expressed a desire to get to know the original better. On his orders, Louison, previously laundered by her sister - she received a thousand crowns for her - was taken the next morning to a small pavilion at Versailles. Already in the evening, Louison had an apartment in a small house not far from the palace, and the king set about her education with pleasure.

The little house in which the king settled Louison was not left unattended by any writer of the revolution. We mean the well-known Deer Park. For two centuries, the most incredible things have been told, written and invented about this corner. Most historians claimed that there was a harem there, and explained this name with the monstrous orgies that Louis XV arranged there. In fact, Deer Park is the old name of the Versailles quarter, built in the time of Louis XV on the site of a park with wild animals from the time of Louis XIII. In 1753, when Louis XV was looking for a meeting place hidden from prying eyes, he chose a house in this quarter. There he placed Louison Morphy - with a lady for protection and a servant. The girl lived in this house for about two years. One evening, in 1756, deciding that everything was allowed for her, she asked the king: "How is the old coquette doing there?" Louis XV jumped - he did not tolerate disrespectful attitude towards the Marquise. Three days later, Mademoiselle Morphy, despite the fact that she had already given birth to Louis XV's daughter, left the little house in Deer Park forever. She was replaced by her twenty-year-old sister Brigitte, then Mademoiselle Robert, Mademoiselle Fouquet and Mademoiselle Eno lived alternately in a small house ... Subsequently, Louis XV was not satisfied with the content of one mistress. He bought more girls from his parents (because he was afraid of contracting some deadly diseases, such as scrofula) and formed a "reserve of concubines." Little girls from nine to twelve years old, who attracted the attention of the police with their beauty, were bought from their parents and moved to Versailles. There Louis XV spent long hours with them. He liked to undress them, bathe them, dress them up. He himself took care of teaching them the basics of religion, taught them to read, write and pray.

Teenage girls were in different places. To accommodate them, the king bought other houses in the Deer Park quarter that remained unoccupied.

While Madame de Pompadour was engaged in political education, the king was no less enthusiastic about having fun with young virgins, who were collected for him in the Deer Park. Vain parents began to take special care of the virtue of their heirs, in order to serve His Majesty later. There was fierce competition. Some even made quite business proposals - these newly-minted merchants attached a kind of "guarantee certificate". Here, for example, is a letter from one father of the family: “Driven by a passionate love for the sacred royal person, I have the good fortune to be the father of a charming girl, a real miracle of freshness, beauty, youth and health. I would be happy if His Majesty deigned to violate her virginity Such a favor would be the most valuable reward for me for my long and faithful service in the army of the king ... "A few days later she was already in a small house in Deer Park.

In 1756, the Seven Years' War began, one of the most destructive in the history of France. To wage war, one had to have a lot of money. Therefore, new taxes had to be introduced. The people rebelled, bringing down their anger first on the Marquise de Pompadour, and then on Louis XV, who "was on the lead of the favorite." On January 5, 1757, when the king got into the carriage and was about to leave Versailles, a man jumped out of the crowd, pushed the guards, the courtiers away and rushed at the king. He managed to stab with a double-bladed knife, but he only lightly wounded the monarch. On March 28, a criminal named Damien was executed in the most sophisticated way, and Louis XV, barely recovered from the shock, again frequented the Deer Park.

In the spring of 1764, the Marquise de Pompadour fell seriously ill. Despite the cares of Louis XV, her health deteriorated so much that she ceased to be interested in politics and devoted herself entirely to the life of her soul.

Contrary to the testimony of other historians, the death of Madame de Pompadour deeply saddened Louis XV. Marquise has not been his mistress for ten years, but she managed to become his adviser, prime minister and best friend. It became necessary for Louis XV. In the evening of the same day, in pursuance of the law prohibiting leaving a corpse in the royal palace, the body of the favorite was transferred on a stretcher to the Hermitage. Two days later, when the remains of Madame de Pompadour were being taken from Versailles to Paris, it was pouring with rain. Louis XV could not follow the procession - he looked at the procession from the window: "These are the only honors that I could give her." At this time, Louis XV, who left Mademoiselle de Roman, who had tired the king with her intrigues, had a charming mistress - a delightful girl named Louise Tierselin. This young lady, thirty-six years younger than the king, had an irrepressible temperament. Ludovic owes many beautiful nights to her. However, the girl could not become a recognized favorite because of her youth. Therefore, the ladies of the court tried to attract the attention of the king by all means given to them by nature. One of them, Madame d'Esparbe, was lucky, and she replaced baby Tirselin. The number of her lovers was so impressive that she received the nickname Madame Versailles, because "the whole city was in her bed." She might have been declared an official mistress , if the minister, the Duke de Choiseul, who saw a danger in her, had not intervened.

Madame de Gramont and Madame de Maillet Brezet replaced her for a few months. But these women, despite their wealth of experience and beauty, could not satisfy the ardor of the king. Satisfied, Louis XV was no longer interested in court ladies. It was only possible to charm him with something unusual. For weeks on end, messengers roamed all the provinces in search of a young lady, not yet grown up and at the same time already corrupt enough to arouse the feelings of the king. At the beginning of 1765, the Comte du Barry had the idea to get rid of his annoying mistress in favor of the king. Her name was Mademoiselle Lange: twenty-five years old, a charming face, a magnificent body, experience - and a very easy disposition. The Comte du Barry ceded it to his friends when he found himself an insolvent debtor ... Her name was Jeanne Becu. At the age of fifteen, for some reason, she took the name Manon Lanson and turned her gaze to love pleasures. A certain prelate taught her the first lessons of pleasure. Finally, when she worked in a dubious institution, the Comte du Barry noticed her and, admiring her beauty, settled the girl in his place. For several years, the count exploited the charms of his protégé. He "lent" her for the night to both the Duke de Richelieu and the Marquis de Villeroy ... With the support of de Richelieu and the king's first valet, Count Lebel, Manon found herself among the women strolling around the courtyard, hoping to attract the attention of Louis XV. Finally, the girl was lucky: the king noticed her and was fascinated. Two hours later she was in his bed. For the first time in his life, it seemed to Louis XV that a woman saw in him a man, and not a king. His previous mistresses could not get rid of ... respect for him. Manon allowed herself all sorts of insolence. New to him, the lively and spontaneous manner of the young woman delighted the king.

In the future, Manon, who settled in a small pavilion, managed to invent new joys every night that could revive the faded feelings of the king - and aroused his true passion.

On July 23, 1768, the wedding of the Comte du Barry's brother, Guillaume, and Manon took place. On this occasion, a fake birth certificate was made: Jeanne Becu turned into the daughter of a certain Jean-Jacques de Vaubernier. The whole ceremony was an ordinary farce. The contract stipulated that the spouses should never live as husband and wife; the titles that du Barry had illegally used for many years were officially certified by notaries. "It was then that this family became noble and famous. Suddenly, three counts, a countess and a viscount appeared - this is how mushrooms appear and grow at night."

Having become a titled mistress, Madame du Barry, who once gave herself for a few crowns in the galleries of the Palais Royal, began to keep her house, started a quartermaster, first valet, hairdresser, two beauticians, three dressmakers, coachmen, couriers, footmen, a butler, a security officer , wardrobe servants, maids and even a black man - the famous Zamora. The king gave her a maintenance of one million two hundred thousand francs annually, which is equivalent to about fifty million old francs; showered her with jewels. Such luxury and exorbitant expenses, against the backdrop of general poverty in the kingdom, outraged the people, who composed pamphlets and songs on this occasion. Soon, a third reason for dissatisfaction with the favorite appeared among the people: she was accused of lustfully tiring the king, giving him stimulants so that he was always in great shape. It was said that she forced Louis XV to swallow Spanish flies, some kind of syrup and clove oil. The use of stimulants was then habitual. The king himself willingly used them to win the lady's favor. De Richelieu wrote: "The old lecher had to deal with specially selected girls. Lust sometimes forced him to resort to subterfuge in order to seduce those who were virtuous or faithful to their lovers. That is how he won the favor of some noble ladies and conquered Madame de Sade. He offered her marvelous lozenges, to which he added the powder of Spanish flies. He himself ate them and gave them to his girlfriend, driving her desire into a frenzy. She indulged in pleasures that we do not undertake to describe. The king, at the end of his reign, allowed himself several times this entertainment. Several courtiers ladies died from the consequences of these shameful orgies."

Later, Madame du Barry was accused of all these perversions. Her passion for love pleasures delighted Louis XV, and once he shared with Richelieu: "I am delighted with your Madame du Barry, she is the only woman in France who knows the secret - how to make me forget about my sixty years of age."

Ministerial meetings were held in du Barry's apartments, ambassadors gave her royal honors, and advisers came to her for advice. This unthinkable elevation outraged many courtiers. They decided to get rid of the Countess by finding a replacement for her. First, they tried to put the princess of Monaco into bed with the king. The young woman put on a very open dress, in which "her most beautiful chest in the world was almost completely visible," and went to Louis XV. At the sight of the king, the beauty sat down in a deep curtsey, so that her chest jumped out of her corsage. The monarch, with a heated look, picked it up and "kissed the strawberries that suddenly grew in his path." A similar beginning encouraged the Princess of Monaco. Not doubting the power of her charms, she quickly lay down on the sofa and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, the princess opened her eyes again to see what the king was doing. A hostage of his own reputation, Louis XV looked at her sadly. Deciding that he did not dare to encroach on her virtue, she smiled encouragingly at him and cast a passionate look, Ludovic sighed and sat down on the edge of the sofa. He gave her a few kind, meaningless caresses, politely said goodbye and retired. Severely offended, the young woman wasted no time in throwing a terrible scene at those who made her a laughingstock. Instead of answering, they reproached her for her inability to get down to business and began to look for a new replacement for the mistress du Barry. Found a young Englishwoman. She got no further than the Princess of Monaco: Louis XV did her a little courtesy on the corner of the sofa and soon forgot about her. It was the turn of the musician's wife, Madame Bash - she got only "miserable touches", and she, holding evil in her heart, returned to her husband. Attempts to steal her lover from her soon became known to du Barry. She was worried, even frightened. The age of the king, the irrepressible pleasures that have long become habitual... Du Barry could not hope that her charms could forever keep such a fickle and, moreover, weary lover. The monarch had several friendly conversations with the Princess de Lamballe. Once, in the presence of his mistress, he admired her grace. The Countess du Barry expressed her grievances to him and complained that rumors had reached her of the king's intention to marry the princess. The king, offended by such a reproach, defiantly declared: "Madame, I could do worse!" Du Barry felt a prick in her heart and groaned in resentment. The Countess shared her sorrows with the Abbé Terre. He advised her in a friendly way: "Take an example from Madame de Pompadour: adapt to the changing taste of the monarch, become a pimp and from time to time get acquainted with some young person who can satisfy the corrupt heart of the king." By putting forward this proposal, the abbot hoped to make one of his illegitimate daughters, Madame d'Amerval, the king's mistress, and oust du Barry. But this plan failed: Louis XV enjoyed this "tidbit" for several days ... and returned to his favorite.

Du Barry did not rest on her laurels. Following the advice of de Terre, she decided to bind the king, becoming the confidante of his pleasures. The countess, closing the small houses of the Deer Park in 1768, made up a whole harem for her lover. Having given the king her niece Mademoiselle Tournon to begin with, she introduced him to almost all the actresses of the Comedie Francaise (among others, the mother of Mademoiselle Mars). But the actresses were unimaginative, and their behavior in bed left much to be desired. The favorite brought to Versailles the charming Mademoiselle Rocourt, an actress by profession and a mistress by vocation. This passionate lady was so famous for her shamelessness that she earned the nickname of the Great She-Wolf. From the first meeting, her ardor and ingenuity attracted Louis XV.

In the spring of 1774, the king fell dangerously ill. The doctors diagnosed smallpox. According to one of the memoirists, he owed this disease "to the exorbitant pleasure he experienced at Trianon, where he had fun with a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl provided to him by the Countess du Barry. The poor thing, without knowing it, carried the virus of this deadly disease that struck her a day later than the king - she died at three days." And despite all the efforts of doctors, bloodletting, medicine, Louis XV was getting worse. On May 5, he became very ill, and on May 10, at about one in the afternoon, he died.