BURGUNDY, Lorts, Duke of, the grandson of Louis XIV. of France, and dauphin of France after the death of his father, was b. at Versailles in 1682. Even in childhood he was ungovernable, and became excessively violent and haughty, and abandoned to all gross and sensual passions. Although educated under the care of the abbe Fenelon, he used, when 30 years of age, to divert himself with drowning flies in oil, and blowing up living frogs with gunpowder. He had the misfortune to be deformed; his deport ment and manners were undignified, and his mind was imbued with bigotry. When only about 15 years of age, he was married to the princess Adelaide of Savoy, and spent his time wholly in amusements in the company of his spouse, and of the ladies of the court. Nevertheless, in 1701, he was nominally appointed generalissimo of the army, really under the command of the duke de Vend5me, and is said to have shown some spirit in a cavalry-fight at Nimeguen: but he quarreled with VendOme, chiefly because he had once been compelled to establish his head-quarters in a nunnery. He lost the
respect of the army, and was exposed to many humiliations, _partly proceeding from intrigues set on foot against him out of envy by his father. He returned to the court more eccentric, gloomy, and unsociable than before. But when he became, on his father's death, the second person in the kingdom, all his defects vanished from the sight of the courtiers, and flattery bestowed on him the title of the great dauphin. He died suddenly in the vear 1712. A few days previously, his wife and her son, the duke of Bretiigne, had died, and the same hearse carried father. mother, and child to St. Denis. The duke of Orleans, subsequently resent, and his daughter, the duchess of Berri, were accused, but without reason, of having caused them to be poisoned.