THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 357 



XIV. 's lifetime. The frivolous Regency, checkered with well-meaning 

 but impracticable reforms, was followed by the long reign of Louis XV., 

 a cold and selfish sensualist, indifferent to his people's welfare, and even 

 more tenacious of his prerogatives than his predecessor, but without his 

 statesmanship. The cumbrous machine of government, incapable of 

 adaptation to changing conditions, increasingly out of touch with national 

 needs and aspirations, went creaking on towards bankruptcy and collapse. 

 For half a century no attempts at reform were made. Costly and useless 

 wars succeeded one another, resulting in the loss of almost all the 

 colonies. An extravagant and dissipated aristocracy had all the privi- 

 leges and none of the duties of the State, the professional and middle 

 classes were excluded from the political influence to which their growing 

 wealth and enlightenment seemed to entitle them ; the lower orders 

 were ground down by taxation and restrictive customs, and sunk in 

 ignorance. Meanwhile the vicious example of the Court, the corruption 

 and incompetence of the government, were undermining old-fashioned 

 ideas of loyalty, morality, and religion no less than the influence of the 

 philosophical and political writers of the Encyclopaedia, the witty 

 scepticism of a Voltaire, or the sentimental and Utopian republicanism 

 of a Rousseau. 



SOCIAL CONDITIONS. The first result of Louis XIV. 's death was 

 to hasten the tendencies already at work. No longer restrained by 

 a priest-ridden Court, society flung off its veil of hypocritical piety, and, 

 with a sigh of relief, plunged openly into a whirl of amusement and 

 profligacy. Keen wilted and polished, but sceptical and frivolous, it 

 gave rein to every mood and caprice. Weary of the splendid pomp and 

 tedious ceremonial of the Court, oppressed by the centralised systema- 

 tisation of life, thought, and art, it sought entertainment in all that had 

 been of little account under Louis XIV. The country, animal life, the 

 doings of the common people, the customs of foreign lands, became 

 fashionable subjects of literature and art, less from a desire to under- 

 stand their real nature than because they provided unexplored sensations. 

 The subject was indifferent, provided it was novel in itself, and that 

 its artistic presentment had esprit and invested it with k bel air. If 

 in the social sphere morals were optional, wit and the manners of good 

 society were indispensable. All known rules of architecture might 

 be set aside with impunity, if the result had but style, piquancy, and 

 perfect technique. But the analogy between art and morals may be 

 and often has been pushed too far, and the style of Louis XV. has 

 been the target of moralists and academic critics, who inveigh against 

 it as the last word of bad taste, the climax of reprehensible licence, and 

 regard its excesses as bound up with those of a society justly condemned 

 as corrupt to the core. This, however, is a confusion of ideas of which 

 it is well to clear the mind. The age of Louis XV., in the rebound 



