[Born at Versailles, 1710. Died there, 1774. Aged 64.]
He succeeded his great grandfather, Louis XIV., in the fifth year of his
age. He was styled “the well beloved.” In his 34th year, on the field of
Fontenoy, he gave proof of courage. Up to the prime of manhood, he gave
equally satisfactory evidence of many good qualities of heart and head.
But indolence and vicious habits, subsequently contracted, rendered the
latter half of Louis’s reign one of the most disgraceful and profligate
that France had witnessed. The shameless proceedings which had stained
the career of his guardian, the Regent Orleans, were re-enacted in his
own vicious Court. The disasters of France abroad during this degraded
time, the destruction of her navy, the financial crisis that followed
that catastrophe, the corruptions that were eating into the very heart
of the State, and the immorality that characterized the higher classes,
were the natural forerunners of the frightful storm that burst over
France in the following reign. Louis XV., once “the well beloved,” died
execrated by his subjects, who insulted his wretched remains, as they
were passing to their last home.
309A. LOUIS XV. _King of France._
[From the marble, in the Louvre, by Guillaume Couston the son, who
died at Paris, 1777. The costume, in accordance with the fancy of the
day, is that of a Roman general, as we see in the statue of King James
II., of England, (No. 491). The King holds in his right hand a sceptre
reversed, and with his left presents a baton of a Marshal of France.
At Versailles, are several authentic busts of the time of this
monarch, besides a copy of this statue, and an equestrian statue in
bronze, by Bouchardon. The date of this work is about 1728.]