343- DECORATIVE PANEL BY WATTEAU. 



CHAPTER VI 



STYLE OF LOUIS XV. (1710-70). 



KINGS. 



Louis XIV. (</. 1715). 



PHII.H', DUKE OF ORLEANS, REGENT 



(1715-23^- 

 Louis XV. (1710-74). 



QUEEN. 



MARIE LECZINSKI. 



CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS. 



ANNE (d. 1714); GEORGE I. (1714-27); GEORGE II. (1727-60); 



GEORGE III. (1760). 



INTRODUCTORY- 



DECORATION AND ARCHITECTURAL 

 TENDENCIES. 



REIGN OF Louis XV. The long reign of Louis XIV. came to an end 

 in 1715, and with the figure of the monarch, in whose person the glories 

 of a great epoch were embodied, there disappeared much of the glamour 

 of his life's work. When the crown passed to his great-grandson, a 

 child of seven, and the executive into the hands of his nephew, Philip, 

 Duke of Orleans, a man of enlightened views but weak and dissolute 

 character, the insufficiency of the foundations, on which this splendid 

 political and social edifice had been reared, began to appear. The 

 system of absolute centralised government, after reaching its highest 

 pitch of efficiency, had begun to show its defects even during Louis 



356 



