55 J 



LOUIS XV. 



turned to that general, who was adored l>y the whole 

 nation, with the question, " How did you like the 

 Minorca figs ?" The famous family compact of the 

 Buurbons, by which Choiseul hoped, in the course of 

 the war (1761), to unite forever the policy of Spain, 

 Sicily, and Parma with the French interest, was of no 

 great benefit to France. After the war, Choiseul's 

 ministry was marked by several (often violent) re- 

 forms ; especially by the expulsion of the Jesuits 

 from France, in 1764, and by the acquisition of Cor- 

 sica, in 1769. Shortly after, Mme. du Barry, in con- 

 nexion with the chancellor, Maupeou, effected the 

 overthrow of the duke de Choiseul, and elevated to 

 his post the duke of Aiguillon. The quarrel of the 

 latter with the parliament at Rennes, which had writ- 

 ten against him in a violent tone, as former governor 

 of Bretagne, and the refractoriness of all the parlia- 

 ments, especially with respect to the new oppressive 

 financial edicts, induced the king, in 1771, to banish 

 the members of the parliament from Paris, and, soon 

 after, to abolish the parliaments entirely, which were 

 first re-established under Louis XVI., in 1774, with 

 certain limitations. The notorious edict which the 

 chancellor Maupeou then issued, called the king the 

 sole and supreme legislator of his kingdom, who 

 permitted parliament, indeed, to protest against a new 

 law, but, after two considerations, might demand un- 

 conditional obedience. Thus Maupeou made the 

 absolute will of the monarch a constitutional law ! A 

 worthy counterpart of Maupeou was the comptroller- 

 general of finances, the abbe' Terrai, who im- 

 poverished the country, while he received an income 

 of 1,200,000 livres. In proportion as the king was 

 despised at home, the authority of France was les- 

 sened abroad. The partition of Poland took place 

 in 1773, without the knowledge of France. After 

 having sunk into a complete nullity, the king, whom 

 no domestic misfortunes, not even his own attempted 

 assassination, in 1757, by a fanatic, Damiens (see Da- 

 miens}, nor the public misery, could restore to con- 

 sciousness, died of the small-pox, caught of a young 

 girl, by whom the countess Du Barry wished to dis- 

 pel his melancholy, leaving a debt of 4,000,000,000 

 livres. 



Age of Louis XI~. In proportion as the reign of 

 Louis was weak and pernicious to the state, the spirit 

 of the nation rose, awakened by the times of Louis 

 XIV., and by distinguished men in the arts and 

 sciences. In Paris, public institutions arose ; palaces 

 and churches were built (for example, the church of 

 St Genevieve, by Soufflot, &c.) ; the military school 

 of Paris, and the Champs Elisees, were laid out in 

 1751, by the minister of war, count D'Argenson; 

 the intendant, Trudaine, prosecuted, with success, 

 the construction of roads. The commerce of Lyons, 

 and Bourdeaux adorned these cities with regal splen- 

 dour. Stanislaus Lec/ynski, who died in 1776, restored 

 the public prosperity in Lorraine, and Pigal executed 

 a splendid monument, which was erected in Strasbnrg, 

 to the marshal Saxe, who died in 1750. Of the 

 numerous painters of this period, the best were Le- 

 inoine and Vernet. But taste degenerated under the 

 influence of a voluptuous court, and art paid homage 

 to luxury. It delighted in empty show, but, at the 

 same time, carried manufactures to perfection. The 

 ingenious Vaucanson applied his talents to the im- 

 provement of the Gobelin manufactory. (See Gobe- 

 lin.) Louis XV. himself took an interest in the por- 

 celain manufactory established at Sevres, by the advice 

 of madame de Pompadour. At the same time, he is 

 said to have suppressed, from humanity, a means of 

 destruction, which would have been more formidable 

 than the Greek fire; but this is not historically proved. 

 Enterprising and intelligent men, like La Bourdon- 

 naye, founder of the colonies of the Isle de France and 



Bourbon, and even his calumniator, Dupleix, extended 

 the commerce of France. Louisiana, Canada, espe- 

 cially St Domingo and the Lesser Antilles, the colony 

 on the Senegal, and the ports of the Levant, employed 

 the French activity, and enriched the maritime cities. 

 But, by the unjust measures of La Bourdonnaye, the 

 state deprived itself of the advantages acquired in 

 the East Indies over Great Britain; and, while France 

 lost Canada and several islands by the manner in 

 whicli it carried on the war (from 1756 62), it pro- 

 moted the British power in India. The third estate, 

 however, gradually acquired, by its wealth and intel- 

 lectual advancement, consequence and influence. 

 Public opinion assumed, in the age of Louis XV., 

 the character of levity, frivolity, and boldness, which 

 was afterwards so strongly developed in the revolu- 

 tion. Striking events, such as the trial of the unfor- 

 tunate John Calas (q. v.), and the execution of the 

 young chevalier De Labarre (q. v.), for sacrilege, 

 brought new opinions into general circulation. But 

 the evil genius of France willed that the decline of 

 morals and religion, contemporary with the abuses of 

 arbitrary power, with prevalent prejudices and the 

 oppressions of the priesthood, should change the light 

 of truth, just springing up in France, into a destroy- 

 ing fire, and the defensive weapon of knowledge into 

 a two-edged sword ; that the egotism of sensuality 

 should gain possession of the territory of reason, and 

 that brilliant wit should be more esteemed than a 

 serious purpose and a solid character. This unhappy 

 concurrence of the public misery with sensual licen- 

 tiousness, stifled those improved views, and that 

 scientific cultivation, which Montesquieu and others, 

 to whom France was indebted for its intellectual 

 influence on the higher classes of society, in a great 

 part of Europe, exerted themselves to disseminate. 

 The ignorant, stupified Louis had an abhorrence of 

 all intellectual cultivation. He feared talented writers, 

 and frequently said of them, that they would be the 

 cause of ruin to the monarchy. He, nevertheless, 

 followed, in the first part of his reign, the advice of 

 cardinal Fleury, who highly esteemed the sciences, 

 and subsequently yielded to the opinion of the court, 

 and especially of Pompadour, who took a pleasure in 

 being denominated the patron of genius, and a judpe 

 of the excellent. The most powerful and permanent 

 influence on the spirit of the nation was exerted by 

 Voltaire, who commenced his splendid career, in 

 1716, with the tragedy of (Edipus. Louis had an 

 aversion to him, but the marchioness induced him to 

 appoint Voltaire his historiographer and groom of 

 the chambers. Meanwhile, the preference visibly 

 manifested by the court towards the poet Crebillon, 

 inspired the author of the Henriade with a disgust at 

 residing in Paris. Simultaneously with him, the im- 

 mortal Montesquieu awoke the powers of reflection 

 and of wit in the nation. His Lettres Persannes 

 (1721) kindled the spirit of public criticism, and his 

 work Sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Deca- 

 dence des Romains (1734), like his Esprit des Lois 

 (1734), became a classic manual for the study of 

 politics. About this time, the interest universally 

 felt in scientific subjects, induced cardinal Fleury 

 and count Maurepas to persuade the king to ascer- 

 tain the truth of Newton's opinion respecting the 

 form of the earth by the measurement of a degree in 

 a high northern latitude and under the equator 

 which was undertaken in 1735 and 1736, and to 

 patronize Cassini's map of France. After 1749, J. J. 

 Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, Duclos, Condillac. 

 and Helvetius are found in the ranks of the great 

 writers of France. The greatest agitation in public 

 opinion was caused by the Dictionnaire Encyclope- 

 dique of Diderot and D'Alembert, against which the 

 clergy, particularly the Jesuits, and the ministers, 



