During the minority of this child France was in the hands of the Duke of Orleans, act ing as regent. The regent had many quali ties that we admire in man, especially that of courage. He was a gentleman, and thoroughly generous; but he was a libertine, and this weakness of sensuality marred both the dignity of his position and the efficacy of his govern ment. His counsel, the Cardinal Dubois, was probably most unworthy, but one must be care ful not to exaggerate one's impression of him, for the attack upon authority was already be ginning, and the fact that Dubois was in orders was quite enough to make the intellect of his time emphasize his vices. After a period of violent speculation and of great though per haps exaggerated public distress, the regent died, having held his authority for eight years.
From that moment (1723) Louis XV began to reign.
Nothing is more difficult than to estimate the character of this man. It cannot be denied that upon this character the history of France during the next 70 years largely depended. For the monarchy was still real and absolute and the method in which it was conducted was the chief factor of the national destiny.
the writer of these lines has minutely ex amined the acts, the portraits and the hand writing of Louis XV and in relation to a mono graph concerned with that period has made himself thoroughly acquainted with the person ality of the man; and yet he finds it very diffi cult to give a true judgment. He was pro foundly Christian, with a fervor of . religion that verged upon superstition; he was un doubtedly courageous, somewhat sensual, in old age excessively so. On the other hand he suffered from an impediment of the will. To say that his will was weak would be to 'con vey a very erroneous impression. But there were a certain number of things he could not bring himself to do and chief of these was the exercise of authority face to face. He hated and avoided all interviews and all scenes. In his character of gentleman this was well enough, but in his character of king it was fatal. The first war of his reign was upon the whole glorious. And the Treaty of Vienna, signed in 1738, gave France the reversion of Lorraine. But two years later the principal quarrel of the century and the most important event, in its effects between the English Revolu tion and the French, took place. This was the death of Charles VI, the emperor of Germany, who left as heir his daughter Maria Theresa. The German anacchy was at once aroused. The attempt to destroy the empire virtually was begun by the Protestant princes, and notably by the rising power of Prussia. At this moment a clear error, one of the very few with which French diplomacy can be re proached, was committed. Two centuries of tradition proved too strong for the French in tellect, and the French armies were allied with those of the petty prince and of Prussia against Austria. The origin of the war was marked
by the first of those scandalous acts which have brought European civilization into such peril during our own time. Frederick II of Prussia, a man subject to every vice, with the exception of cowardice, seized Austrian terri tory without title and without any declaration of hostilities. It was the act rather of an Asiatic than of an European. But the French monarchy, whose whole history had been a protest against such a perversion of public morals, found itself in alliance with this de testable soldier. The alliance was not unsuc cessful, and the war which followed will be forever famous in French annals from the great victory of Fontenoy our 11 May 1745, a victory largely due to the Irish exiles who fought under the French flag. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle sign d in 1748 did not show the fruit of so much military valor and suc cess; it left France very much as it found her. But the struggle with its false issues and its vanity had luckily converted the French diplo mats, and henceforward France wisely asso ciated herself with Austria, with the especial purpose of meeting the rising power of Eng land. Had the French forces been confined to the struggle with England, their success, which was already great at sea, would probably have been final, and the strange spectacle would have been presented in our own time of a France weighted with eccentric, un-European colonies, and probably deprived of its whole national spirit and tradition. The reason that we have no such spectacle to enjoy or deplore is that the government of Louis XV, not con tent with fighting England abroad and at sea, undertook a continental campaign, and fought side by side with Austria in what is known as the Seven Years' War (q.v.). At the very be ginning, in 1757, Frederick of Prussia inflicted a crushing defeat upon the French at Rosbach, a defeat entirely due to the ineptitude of the French command. Meanwhile in the colonies the French lost and the English won. And in 1763 the Treaty of Paris was signed, which for a century destroyed all French effort oversew, left Canada to the English, abandoned India, and, what was graver in the history of Euro pean morals, permitted Frederick of Prussia to retain Silesia, thereby acknowledging in a pub lic instrument for the first time since the foundation of Christendom that lawful suc cession and inheritance might be waived in presence of force. From this grave crime Europe still suffers. It was the precedent of all the international anarchy which our gen eration has almost become accustomed to.