LOUIS XV. (1710-1774), king of France, was the great grandson of Louis XIV. and the third son of Louis, duke of Bur gundy, and Marie Adelaide, princess of Savoy. He was five years old when Louis XIV. died. With the help of the parlement of Paris the arrangement for a council of regency made by the late king was set aside, and the duke of Orleans was declared regent with full powers. Fleury, bishop of Frejus, was appointed the king's tutor. He attained his legal majority at the age of thirteen, shortly bef ore the death of the duke of Orleans. His first minister was the incapable duke of Bourbon, who in 1725 procured his marriage to Maria Leszczynska, daughter of the exiled king of Poland. In 1726 the duke of Bourbon was displaced by the king's tutor, Fleury, who exercised almost absolute power. His administration was successful and peaceful until the year 1734, when France intervened in Poland on behalf of the queen's father. The peace of Vienna (1735) secured to France the pos session of Lorraine. In 1740 France drifted into the war of the Austrian Succession as an ally of Frederick of Prussia and the enemy of England, and of Maria Theresa of Austria.
On Fleury's death in 1743 Louis XV. determined to rule alone, but he was not strong enough in will or intellect to rule effectively. The queen for some time seems to have secured his affections, and she bore him seven children. But Louis entertained a series of mistresses. The first to acquire notoriety was the duchess of Chateauroux, the third sister of one family who held this posi tion. He dismissed her in a fit of piety of ter an illness, but her place was taken in 1745 by Madame de Pompadour, whose in fluence on public affairs was a fatal one. She had many rivals during her lifetime and on her death in 1764 she was succeeded by Madame du Barry (q.v.). To the last Louis maintained the pretence of personal rule, but the machinery of government fell out of gear, and the disorder of the finances was never remedied before the revolution of 1789.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which ended the war of the Austrian Succession, brought no gains to France in spite of her victories at Fontenoy and Raucoux; and the king was blamed for the diplomatic failure. The interval between this war and the
Seven Years' War (1756) saw that great reversal of alliances which is sometimes called the "Diplomatic Revolution"; whereby France repudiated the alliance of Frederick the Great and joined hands with her old enemy Austria. The intrigues of Madame de Pompadour played in this change an important though not a decisive part. It was the cause of immense disasters to France; for after a promising beginning, both by land and sea, France suffered reverses which lost her both India and Canada and de prived her of the leading position which she had so long held in Europe. Her humiliation was declared by the peace of Paris (1763).
The article on the history of France (q.v.) shows how there arose during the last years of Louis XV.'s reign a strong reaction against the monarchy and its methods. In the parlements, provincial and Parisian; in religion and in literature, a note of opposition was struck which was never to die until the monarchy was overthrown. France annexed Corsica in 1768, but this was felt to be the work of the minister Chauvelin, and reflected no credit on the king. He died on May 10, For the king's life generally see the memoirs of Saint-Simon, d'Argenson, Villars and Barbier, and for the details of his private life E. Boutaric, Correspondance secrete de Louis XV.; Madame de Pompadour's Correspondance published by P. Malassi ; Dietric, Les Mattresses de Louis XV.; and Fleury, Louis XV. intimes et les petites mattresses (1909).
For the system of secret diplomacy and organized espionage, see Albert duc de Broglie, Le Secret du roi, Correspondance secrete de Louis XV. avec ses agents diplomatiques (1878) ; Cahen, Les querelles religieuses et parlementaires sous Louis XV. (1913); and for a general account of the reign, H. Carre, La France sous Louis XV. (Paris, 1891) ; Mouffle d'Angerville, The Private Life of Louis XV. (1924) ; also C. Saint-André, Louis XV. (1921). For other works, general and special, see G. Monod, Bibliographic de la France, and the bibliography in the Histoire generale of Lavisse and Rambaud, vol. vii., and the Cambridge Modern History, vol. vi.