Louis XV

Do you see in this why Baroness de Stael proposes de Narbonne to us? [chuckles] This time, Madame, two likings are combined, that for the aristocracy and the aristocrat.

Do you imagine that she loves Louis de Narbonne on account of his descent? Louis de Narbonne was supposed to be an incestuous son of King Louis XV.

It is not on account of any ability, [chuckles] I reckon.

But nobody is less well-born than Louis de Narbonne.

Of the rustic nobility, unable to obtain a rank, he enlisted as a common soldier.

At twenty years, he fought five or six troopers, though hacked badly, and despite this proof of courage, he languished in the ranks.

He sharpened his wits by serving Louis XV as spy.

Why do you call that spying in him which you rate diplomacy in others? I know that he carried on correspondence with the king without the knowledge of the ministers, but what noble of the court does not do the same? But, Doctor, this man whom you recommend is essentially a most immoral one, exclaimed the queen, betraying her deep knowledge of politics by the details into which she went.

It broke out in 1733 nominally over the question of the election of the King of Poland, but it soon resolved itself into a struggle between the Bourbon powers of France and Spain on the one hand and Austria, supported by Russia and the German states on the other.

The Russians and Austrians had little difficulty in expelling from Poland the French candidate Stanislav Leshtensky, the father of Louis XV's wife, and placing Augustus of Saxony on the throne.

but in italy and on the rhine the austrians were not so successful exposed to the attacks of the french spaniards and sardinians the habsburgs quickly lost their hold on southern italy while their possessions in northern italy were seriously threatened On the Rhine, Philipsburg was taken in 1734 by the French, and Lorraine and the electorate of Treves occupied.

During these years, England remained neutral, in spite of the anxiety of the king, supported by the queen, the majority of the cabinet, and the nation, to respond to the urgent appeals of the court of Vienna and take part in the war.

The years 1744 and 1745, however, saw further developments of the struggle both in Germany and in Great Britain.

Frederick the Great suspected that the Austrians were planning the recovery of Silesia.

he dreaded the covert hostility of george the second as elector of hanover and moreover he was convinced that the hapsburgs meditated the permanent occupation of bavaria he resolved to defend not only his own conquests in silesia but also the rights of the empire on april fifth seventeen forty four with the support of the french he formed the league of frankfort which though not joined by many german princes enabled prussia to pose as the defender of the rights of the emperor and the empire In June a treaty was made between Louis XV and Frederick the Great, and shortly afterward the Second Silesian War began and continued till December 25, 1745, when Austria, by the Treaty of Dresden, was again forced to recognize her inability to reconquer Silesia.

During the struggle, the Bavarian emperor, Charles VII, died, January 20, 1745, and Austria agreed to forego her intention of seizing his dominions.

So she was already suffering for rolling 10 years into new 10 years.

She was rolling 10 years into threes and twos and said, after me, the storm, which is the famous Louis XV, I think it was, phrase.

Or Winston Churchill.

I'm sure he said a similar thing.

And the result of that was the great collapse of the Seven Years' War.

And it's generally agreed upon that it was Louis XV who had basically changed this France's foreign policy and France's economic policy to a blue water policy to try to compete with the British.

And that didn't work out so well.

There's this strain in French intellectual thought, French thought about economics and about international competition, where the French believe that they don't need to participate in international trade and international competition, and that they are just fine as their own self-contained economic unit.

compared to when the czar pulled russia out of the continental system and allowed british goods to enter russian ports

let's take it to the next slide here

so these are just difference between I remember I was talking about 18th century, Louis XV kind of reorients French national, French foreign policy, French national security objectives and so forth into a blue water colonial type framework in which puts them, you know, even more in competition with the British.

So you've got mercantilism and hegemonic mercantilism.

In fact, if the tolerating mind will meditate it with any sympathy, what could poor Rohan perform? Performing needs light, needs strength, and a firm clear footing, all of which had been denied him.

Nourished from birth with the choicest physical spoon-meat indeed, yet also with no better spiritual doctrine and evangel of life than a French court of Louis the Well-Beloved could yield, gifted moreover, and this too was but a new perplexity for him, with shrewdness enough to see through much, with vigor enough to despise much, unhappily not with vigor enough to spurn it from him and be forever enfranchised of it, he awakes at man's stature with man's wild desires in a world of the merest incoherent lies and delirium, himself a nameless mass of delirious incoherences, covered over at most and held in a little by conventional politesse and a cloak of prospective cardinal's plush.

Are not intrigues, might Rohan say, the industry of this our universe? Nay, is not the universe itself at bottom properly an intrigue? A most Christian majesty in the apocalypse, he, thou seest, is the god of this lower world.

In the fight of life, our war banner and celestial antutonica is a strumpet's petticoat.

Unhappy man! This is not a world which was made in sleep, which ’tis safe to sleep and somnambulate in.

In that loud-roaring loom of time, where above nine hundred millions of hungry men for one item restlessly weave and work; so many threads fly humming from their eternal spindles, and swift invisible shuttles, far-darting to the ends of the world, complex enough; at this hour a miserable bamer in Paris, whom thou wottest not of, is spinning, of diamonds and gold, a paltry thrum that will go nigh to strangle the life out of thee.

Meanwhile, Louis the Well-Beloved has left, forever, his Parc-aux-Cerfs, and amid the scarce suppressed hootings of the world taken up his last lodging at St. Denis.

Feeling that it was all over [for the small-pox has the victory, and even Du Barry is off], he, as the Abbe Georgel records, made the amende honorable to God [these are his reverence’s own words], had a true repentance of three days’ standing, and so, continues the Abbe, fell asleep in the Lord.

Although she dressed in the velvet-laced bodice and blue petticoat of Finistère and wore the bewitching white coif of Saint-Gildas, it seemed like a pretty masquerade.

To me she was as sweet and gently bred as many a maiden of the noble Falberg who danced with her cousins at a Louis XV fête champêtre.

So when Lise said that Yves Turec had returned openly to Saint-Gildas, I felt that I had better be there also.

What did Turec say, Lise? I asked, watching the line vibrating above the placid pool.

"Go on," said I, lighting a cigarette.

"The fort," said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV and was dismantled twice by the English.

Louis XV restored it in 1739.

In 1760, it was carried by assault by the British.

The heights where St. Louis is built struck him as just the spot for his plan.

The next year, Auguste Chouteau, Laclede's aide, had the land made clear for a large town to which Laclede gave the name of St. Louis for his King Louis XV of France.

the sketch you see here is the first large well-built house put up in the town tis the first home of the well-known race of choteaus up to this date st agne de belrive the chief man here for the french government had his camp in a place in illinois known as fort chartres he now came to st louis with his troops and so this town got to be the one of great note here all the men came to trade and here the commerce of the state made its nest in those days just as it does in our day on so vast a scale how quaint those old towns would look to us how nice it must have been to see lands laid out like one vast field in which each man had a share to till and to reap and take care of all were good friends they could go from house to house and share in the home

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