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La Régence
Philippe with Marie-Madeleine de Parabère as Athena; Jean-Baptiste Santerre, 1716
Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans
In office 1 September 1715 – 15 February 1723
Monarch	Louis XV
Prime Minister	Guillaume Dubois (in 1723)

The Régence (French pronunciation: [ʁeʒɑ̃s], Regency) was the period in French history between 1715 and 1723 when King Louis XV was considered a minor and the country was instead governed by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (a nephew and son-in-law of Louis XIV) as prince regent. This was not the only regency in French history, but the name is nevertheless associated with this period.

Philippe was able to take power away from Louis-Auguste, Duke of Maine (illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan) who had been the favourite son of the late king and possessed much influence. From 1715 to 1718 the Polysynody changed the system of government in France, in which each minister (secretary of state) was replaced by a council. The système de Law was also introduced, which transformed the finances of the bankrupted kingdom and its aristocracy. Both Cardinal Dubois and Cardinal Fleury were highly influential during this time.

Contemporary European rulers included Philip V of Spain, John V of Portugal, George I of Great Britain, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, the maternal grandfather of Louis XV.

Background

French Dynasty

Louis XIV is dying, no dead sons, XV too young

D'orleans

personality, social recluse ect

==

early years, 1715-1718

dealing with parlemonts

he restored power to parlemonts to destroy XIVs will that wouldve weakened him

People

The Men

• Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723) born at his father's Château de Saint-Cloud, he was the Duke of Chartres from birth; his mother, whom he was very close to, was a German princess of the Palatinate named Elizabeth Charlotte. In 1692 he married his first cousin, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon – the youngest illegitimate daughter of Philippe's uncle Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. He died at Versailles in the arms of his mistress;
• Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (18 August 1692 – 27 January 1740) son of Louis III, Prince of Condé and Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, he was thus the nephew of Philippe d'Orléans and was the Chief minister of France 1723–26; he was a great rival of the Regent and the House of Orléans in general;
• Louis-Auguste, Duke of Maine (31 March 1670 – 14 May 1736) favourite but illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, he was despised by the Princes of the Blood due to his constant honours and great wealth he accumulated from his father. He died at Sceaux aged 66;
• John Law (pronounced Jean Lass) (21 April 1671 – 21 March 1729) was a Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade. He was responsible for the Mississippi Bubble and a chaotic economic collapse in France; he died in Venice.

The Duke of Orléans, Régent du royaume

Louis XV in 1723; Rigaud

Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon

John Law who reformed French Finances

The Women

• Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain (31 March 1718 – 15 January 1781) was the eldest daughter of Philip V of Spain and his second wife Elisabeth Farnese; born in Madrid, she moved to France in 1721 and lived at the Tuileries Palace in Paris with her proposed husband; the engagement was broken off due to tense relations regarding the marriages of the Regent's daughters to Philip V's sons. The Infanta was sent back to Spain and later married the future Joseph I of Portugal; the present Brazilian Imperial Family descends from Philippe d'Orléans, Louis XV as well as Mariana Victoria;
• Françoise Marie de Bourbon (4 May 1677 – 1 February 1749) was an illegitimate child of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. She married Philippe d'Orléans and was mother of 8 of his children including the next Duke of Orléans; she died at the Château de Saint-Cloud aged 71;
• Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon (8 November 1676 – 23 January 1753) was the wife of the Duke of Maine and thus daughter-in-law of Louis XIV; she was one of the Regent's most ardent enemies and was the aunt of the Duke of Bourbon; she was also the granddaughter of the Le Grand Condé; she held court at Sceaux and was exiled to Dijon after the Cellamare Conspiracy was discovered; she died in Paris having outlived most of her generation;

The Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain

Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, duchesse d'Orléans

Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, duchesse du Maine

Places

• Palace of Versailles : Birthplace of Louis XV and the home of the French court before and after the Regency; it was at Versailles that the Duke of Orléans died in 1723;
• Palais-Royal : Paris home of the House of Orléans; it was from there that the Regent handled state affairs; his last daughter, Louise Diane, was also born at the palace;
• Tuileries Palace : the childhood home of Louis XV during the Regency; Louis XV was installed in the Grand Appartements of Louis XIV located on the second floor.

Politics

The Régence marked the temporary eclipse of Versailles as centre of policymaking, since the Regent's court was at the Palais Royal in Paris. It marked the rise of Parisian salons as cultural centres, as literary meeting places and nuclei of discreet liberal resistance to some official policies. In the Paris salons aristocrats mingled more easily with the higher Bourgeoisie in a new atmosphere of relaxed decorum, comfort and intimacy.

Art history

In the arts, the style of the Régence is marked by early Rococo, characterised by the paintings of Antoine Watteau (1684–1721).

Rococo developed first in the decorative arts and interior design. Louis XIV's succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the old king's reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves and natural patterns. These elements are obvious in the architectural designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this artistic change became well established, first in the royal palace and then throughout French high society. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is often seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XV's regime.

The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France. The style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Watteau and François Boucher. Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns, but by this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions.

Colonialism

The Régence is also the customary French word for the pre-independence regimes in the western North African countries, the so-called Barbary Coast. It was applied to:

• First the Barbary Coast (Maghrebinian countries in North Africa) was formally Ottoman, but de facto independent (dominated by military governors, soon de facto princes, styled dey, bey or beylerbey, and by the raïs, Muslim corsairs).

See also

• Liège–Aachen Baroque furniture

References

• Hardy, James D. (1967). Judicial politics in the Old Regime. Louisiana State University Press.
• Kreiser, Robert (1978). Miracles, Convulsions, and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris. Princeton University Press.
• Shennan, J H. (1979). Philippe, Duke of Orléans: Regent of France 1715-1723. Thames & Hudson.
• Rogister, John (1995). Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris, 1737-1755. Cambridge University Press.
• Jones, Colin (2002). The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715-1799. Penguin Press.
• Collins, Jones B. (2009). The State in Early Modern France. Second Ed. Cambridge University Press.