46. Louis XV. 46. Ludwig XV. 46. Luis XV. 46. Louis XV. 46. Luigi XV. 46.ルイ15世 46. Ludwik XV. 46. Luís XV. 46.路易十五。

CHAPTER XLVI. Louis XV. (1715-1774)

There have been very few worse kings than Louis XV. of France.

He was a bad weak man, with none of the virtues of his father, or the great qualities of Louis XIV. He was not so fortunate as to have any (great) minister to help him in his reign, as Richelieu helped Louis XIII., and he lived at a time when there were great disturbances and troubles in France and in other countries, so that it was of special importance to each country that its king should be a wise and prudent man.

When Louis XIV. died the little Louis was(, as I said,) only five years old, and his great-grandfather had made arrangements that the country should be governed, not by any one regent but by a body of men, who were to be what was called a Council of Regency. At the head of this council was a man who had been the nephew of the last king, and was the great-uncle of the present one, and the nearest relation of the young king. His name was the Duke of Orleans. This man had expected to be Regent without any council to prevent him from doing what he wished, and when he had gone to see Louis XIV. on his deathbed, the poor old king had been afraid to tell him what had been arranged by the will, and so had said, "I have left affairs in such a way as will quite satisfy you." After this the Duke of Orleans was made very angry by finding out that he was not to be regent, and that another man had even been chosen to be guardian of the little king.

The Parliament held a meeting to hear the will read, and then the duke made a speech, saying that he was the fit person to be regent, and that the king had almost promised that he should be, and he succeeded so well in bringing all his hearers round to his side, that it was resolved to pay no attention to the will, but to make the Duke of Orleans regent, and let him choose the men who were to form the council and help him by their advice. At that time it was supposed that Louis would never live to grow up, and the Duke of Orleans was full of hopes of getting the crown for himself whenever the little king should die.

The regent and his advisers began their government by making everything as unlike as possible to what it had been in the reign of the last king. As he had done everything for himself, and had not even had chief ministers for the different parts of the Government, the regent resolved that each different part should be managed not by one man, but by a council of several men, who were to discuss together and settle what was to be done. This plan was tried for about three years, and did not answer well. It was found that matters were settled less, not more, quickly when there were several men to talk over what was to be done, instead of one, who would only have had to make up his own mind. The councils were done away with, and ministers chosen instead.

Philip of Orleans, the regent, had some things about him that were good and pleasant. He had a great taste for learning of all kinds; he was fond of music, and had written an opera; he spoke well, and was a good soldier; besides this, he had kind pleasant manners and was never cruel. But he was idle, and so fond of pleasure that his good qualities were of very little use to him, for he spent his time in feasting and amusing himself in bad ways, when he should have been attending to the government of the country.

He had a favourite minister, named Dubois, whom he allowed to manage the affairs of France very much in his own way, and who was a bad dishonest man, but anxious for the safety of the country, and clever in finding out plans for defending it against the attacks of the other nations who were its enemies. One of his great difficulties, as is always the case with the rulers of any great nation, was how to find enough money for carrying on the Government without putting on any fresh taxes, to which it was known the people would object. There was at this time a Scotchman in France, called John Law, who was full of a plan he had invented for making the Government of France rich, without, as he hoped, making anybody else the poorer. In die tijd was er een Schot in Frankrijk, John Law genaamd, die vol was van een plan dat hij had uitgevonden om de regering van Frankrijk rijk te maken zonder, zoals hij hoopte, iemand anders armer te maken. The way in which he meant to do this is rather difficult to understand, but his chief idea was to have paper money instead of the usual gold and silver coin. De manier waarop hij dit wilde doen is nogal moeilijk te begrijpen, maar zijn belangrijkste idee was om papiergeld te hebben in plaats van de gebruikelijke gouden en zilveren munten.

Before this, paper money had been used sometimes by private people who had business together. Daarvoor werd papiergeld soms gebruikt door privépersonen die samen zaken deden. People had begun to understand that money is useful to us only because we can change it away for other things we want. Mensen begonnen te begrijpen dat geld alleen nuttig voor ons is omdat we het kunnen inwisselen voor andere dingen die we willen. Therefore , anything which people agree to take in exchange for what they have to sell, will serve for money just as well as gold and silver. Daarom zal alles wat mensen bereid zijn aan te nemen in ruil voor wat ze te verkopen hebben, net zo goed dienen als geld als goud en zilver. Law thought it would be a good plan to have money made of something so common that the Government could always make as much as was wanted, and every one have plenty. Law dacht dat het een goed plan zou zijn om geld te laten maken van iets dat zo gewoon was dat de regering altijd zoveel kon maken als men wilde en iedereen genoeg had. He proposed that it should be made of paper like our bank-notes — sheets of paper, with the sum of money they were worth stamped upon them. Hij stelde voor om het van papier te maken zoals onze bankbiljetten - vellen papier met het bedrag dat ze waard waren erop gestempeld. This paper money was to be used as well as gold and silver, and orders were to be given that it should be considered as money all through the country. Dit papiergeld moest net zo goed gebruikt worden als goud en zilver, en er moesten orders gegeven worden om het in het hele land als geld te beschouwen. There was to be a bank, or place where money could be kept, at which the sheets of paper, which were called notes, could always be changed for money when the people to whom they belonged wished it. Er moest een bank komen, of een plek waar geld kon worden bewaard, waar de vellen papier, die biljetten werden genoemd, altijd konden worden ingewisseld voor geld als de mensen aan wie ze toebehoorden dat wilden.

But Law had forgotten one thing, which made his plan fail. Maar Law was één ding vergeten, waardoor zijn plan mislukte. Nobody cares to have anything that is not useful in itself, if it is very common indeed, and very easily to be had. Niemand wil iets hebben dat op zichzelf niet nuttig is, als het heel gewoon is en gemakkelijk te krijgen. Никому не интересно иметь что-то бесполезное само по себе, если оно очень распространено и его легко достать. If every one has great quantities of paper money already, it will be of so little value to them, that they will not consider a small quantity of it worth having, and they will ask for a great deal of it in exchange for their goods, so that the people who buy will be no richer than before; they will have more money than usual to begin with, but they will also have to spend more than usual. Als iedereen al grote hoeveelheden papiergeld heeft, zal het voor hen zo weinig waarde hebben, dat ze een kleine hoeveelheid ervan niet de moeite waard zullen vinden om te hebben, en ze zullen er veel van vragen in ruil voor hun goederen, zodat de mensen die kopen niet rijker zullen zijn dan voorheen; ze zullen meer geld hebben dan gewoonlijk om mee te beginnen, maar ze zullen ook meer moeten uitgeven dan gewoonlijk.

This happened in France when Law's plan was tried there. Dit gebeurde in Frankrijk toen het plan van Law daar werd uitgeprobeerd. The paper money became less and less valuable, and at last people began to dislike having it at all, and to ask for gold instead. Het papiergeld werd steeds minder waard en uiteindelijk begonnen de mensen het helemaal niet meer te willen hebben en vroegen ze in plaats daarvan om goud. They all took their notes to the bank to be changed for gold and silver; and then found that there was not enough gold and silver for them to receive what was owing to them. Ze brachten allemaal hun biljetten naar de bank om ze om te wisselen voor goud en zilver; en ontdekten toen dat er niet genoeg goud en zilver voor hen was om te krijgen wat ze verschuldigd waren. Hundreds of people were ruined in this way. Honderden mensen werden op deze manier geruïneerd. Law had other plans besides that of the notes, and they all seemed to fail at the same time. Law had andere plannen dan die van de briefjes, en ze leken allemaal tegelijk te mislukken. The French, who had believed in him, had all joined in his plans, taken his paper money, helped him in all he undertook, and hoped to make their fortunes; but many of them, instead of this, were utterly ruined, and found they had lost all their good money, and had, instead, only notes that were of no use to them. De Fransen, die in hem hadden geloofd, hadden zich allemaal aangesloten bij zijn plannen, namen zijn papiergeld aan, hielpen hem bij alles wat hij ondernam en hoopten hun fortuin te maken; maar velen van hen werden in plaats daarvan volledig geruïneerd en ontdekten dat ze al hun goede geld waren kwijtgeraakt en in plaats daarvan alleen maar biljetten hadden waar ze niets aan hadden. Law himself, who seems to have been an honest man, and to have really thought that what he did was for the good of the country, was ruined also. Law zelf, die een eerlijk man lijkt te zijn geweest en echt dacht dat wat hij deed goed was voor het land, werd ook geruïneerd. He had bought land in France with the first money he had gained; he left it and wandered away poor, after all his grand hopes, to the neighbouring countries, where he lived till his death, ten years afterwards. Hij had land gekocht in Frankrijk met het eerste geld dat hij had vergaard; hij verliet het en zwierf arm weg, na al zijn grote verwachtingen, naar de omringende landen, waar hij tot zijn dood woonde, tien jaar later.

While inside France every one was taken up with thinking about Law and his plans, which turned out so ill for all who believed in them, the affairs of the French abroad were going on very well, managed by Dubois, the regent's favourite Minister. The chief enemy of France was Spain. De grootste vijand van Frankrijk was Spanje. The hope of Louis XIV., that after his grandson became King of Spain, the two nations would always be friends (to one another), had not come to pass. De hoop van Louis XIV, dat nadat zijn kleinzoon koning van Spanje was geworden, de twee naties altijd vrienden (met elkaar) zouden blijven, was niet uitgekomen. The very fact of the kings of the two countries being relations made a reason for their quarrelling, for the Spanish king hoped to succeed Louis XV. Alleen al het feit dat de koningen van de twee landen familie van elkaar waren, was een reden voor hun ruzie, want de Spaanse koning hoopte Lodewijk XV op te volgen. on the throne if he died young, which every one fully expected him to do. op de troon als hij jong zou sterven, wat iedereen van hem verwachtte. The French, the English, and the Dutch, all joined to make an alliance against Spain, and as there were three of them, they called it The Triple Alliance. De Fransen, de Engelsen en de Nederlanders sloten een alliantie tegen Spanje en omdat ze met z'n drieën waren, noemden ze het de Triple Alliance. After a time they persuaded the Emperor of Germany to join it. Na een tijdje haalden ze de keizer van Duitsland over om mee te doen. And then, as there were four nations allied together, they called it the Quadruple Alliance. En omdat er vier naties waren die zich verenigden, noemden ze het de Viervoudige Alliantie.

After all these preparations there was not much fighting. Na al deze voorbereidingen werd er niet veel gevochten. The Spaniards were not strong enough to resist England, France, Germany, and Holland, all at the same time, and peace was very soon made by a treaty called the Treaty of London, in the year 1720. The Spanish king sent away the minister who had persuaded him to wish for the French crown, and Spain gave up some places about which there had been a dispute, to the Emperor and to France. De Spaanse koning stuurde de minister weg die hem had overgehaald om de Franse kroon te wensen, en Spanje stond enkele plaatsen af waarover een geschil was geweest, aan de keizer en aan Frankrijk. After all, Louis XV. did not die for many years after this, and when he did, he left a grandson to succeed him, so there was no need for the King of Spain and the Regent to quarrel about his possessions. Hij stierf pas vele jaren later en toen hij stierf, liet hij een kleinzoon na om hem op te volgen, zodat de koning van Spanje en de regent geen ruzie hoefden te maken over zijn bezittingen.

What Dubois wished at this time, more than anything else, was to be made cardinal. Wat Dubois op dit moment het liefste wilde, was kardinaal worden. It was the greatest honour, next to being Pope, that a Roman Catholic priest could have, and the Pope was always chosen from among the cardinals. Het was de grootste eer, naast die van paus, die een rooms-katholieke priester kon hebben en de paus werd altijd gekozen uit de kardinalen. Perhaps Dubois may have had hopes in his mind of even coming to be Pope some day; and many of the great French ministers had been cardinals, in particular, Richelieu and Mazarin, and Dubois, who thought himself nearly as great a man as they were, was anxious for the same honour. Misschien had Dubois wel de hoop in zijn hoofd om ooit paus te worden; en veel van de grote Franse ministers waren kardinaal geweest, in het bijzonder Richelieu en Mazarin, en Dubois, die zichzelf bijna net zo'n groot man vond als zij, verlangde naar dezelfde eer.

There was hardly any king or important person in Europe to whom he did not write letters and send presents, begging them to ask the Pope to listen to his wish. Er was bijna geen koning of belangrijk persoon in Europa aan wie hij geen brieven schreef en geschenken stuurde, smekend om de paus te vragen naar zijn wens te luisteren. In spite of all this the Pope who was then reigning refused the request, but when he died, Dubois managed that the new Pope should be one of his own friends; and one of the new Pope's first actions was to send a cardinal's hat, which was the way of showing that a man was made cardinal, to Dubois. Desondanks weigerde de Paus die toen regeerde het verzoek, maar toen hij stierf, zorgde Dubois ervoor dat de nieuwe Paus een van zijn eigen vrienden zou zijn; en een van de eerste daden van de nieuwe Paus was het sturen van een kardinaalshoed, wat de manier was om te laten zien dat een man kardinaal was geworden, naar Dubois. Very soon after this Dubois met with an accident while he was reviewing the king's troops, and died a day or two afterwards. A few months later the Regeut too, who had been ill for some time, died suddenly one evening while the King was sitting in a room close by, waiting for the Duke to come up to work with him. Philip of Orleans had (left off being) regent by the time this happened. The little king was now thirteen years old, and, according to the French laws, was old enough to rule by himself. Philip of Orleans and Dubois had not been good rulers for France. Philip had thought only of his pleasures, and Dubois had cared more for his own power and fame than for anything else; but still they had done something to make France strong and powerful among the countries of Europe, and the men who were to come after them were worse than they had been. Louis XV. was not a promising child. He was dull, silent, took no interest in anything, and cared for nobody. He had a very small cow and a white doe, which were his chief friends. He used to milk the little cow himself, and the doe followed him about everywhere; but he did not really care for them. Just about the time that he came of age, he made up his mind, for no special reason, to kill his white doe. He took a gun and shot at it. It was wounded, but had strength enough to crawl up to him and lick his hand. Животное было ранено, но у него хватило сил подползти к нему и лизнуть руку. He had it taken away to the right distance, shot at it again, and this time killed it. He had never had any one to teach him anything good; his parents had died when he was two years old, and the people who brought him up seemed to be trying to make him cruel and self-indulgent and idle. He grew up as bad a man as might be expected.

His first minister was the Duke of Bourbon, a man as bad as the Regent, and less clever; his second was Cardinal Fleury, an honest, quiet, rather slow old man, who managed the affairs of the country well through the sixteen years during which his power lasted. When the king was old enough to be married, a Polish princess was chosen to be his wife. Her father had once been king of Poland, but had been turned off the throne, and was living as a private person. He was much delighted when his daughter was sent for to become Queen of France. She was several years older than the king, who never cared much about her.

A few years later the King of Poland died. It was a question who should be king after him, whether the father of the French queen, or the son of the last king, who was a German. The Poles wished for Stanislaus, the French king's father-in-law, and he set off for Poland, hoping that Louis would send him an army to help him conquer his German enemy, but he was disappointed. Louis was thinking about other matters; no army came, and Stanislaus soon had to leave the country and come back to France, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Directly after this there was a war between France and Austria, which lasted for three years, and at the end of which France gained, by a treaty, the province of Lorraine on the east side of France; which, joining on to Alsace and the Three Bishoprics, Metz, Verdim, and Toul, made a kind of boundary between France and Germany, and was considered then, and has been thought since, very important for the safety of France.

At this time the people of France were suffering terribly. A French writer, just after the peace had been made between France and Austria, said: "At this very moment in which I write, in time of peace, men are dying all round us, as thick as flies; they are wretched, eating grass." One day, when the king drove into Paris, the people, instead of crying, "Long live the King !" shouted out "Misery, famine, bread !" as he went by. Once when Louis was holding a council, the Duke of Orleans threw on to the table a bit of bread made of bracken or fern, and said: "See, Sire, this is your subjects' food." At this time one of the taxes which the people most hated was put on all over the country; it was called the corvée, and it meant that when new roads were made, going from one part of the country to another, the peasants who lived where the road was being made were to go and work upon it for nothing, and lend their horses or carts, if they were wanted, both for making the road at first and for keeping it in repair afterwards. As they had to do this without being paid, it made them very angry.

At about this time the king began to lead a very bad life, doing nothing but amuse himself in all sorts of wrong ways. But the people did not know of this, and cared much more about him than he deserved. Once when he had a dangerous illness, they were all in despair at the thought of his death, and when he began to get better, they could hardly do enough to show their pleasure.

When the reign of Louis XV. was about half over, the Emperor of Germany died. He had been very anxious that his daughter Maria Theresa should govern the empire after him, and that her husband should be Emperor. He had made laws to say this should be so, and he had been constantly asking the other princes of Europe to promise that they would do nothing to prevent it. Some of them had promised and others had not, but when he died they almost all turned against Maria Theresa and said, whoever had the empire, it should not be she. After some disputing, almost all the countries of Europe went to war. Maria Theresa's husband was the Archduke of Austria, so Austria was on her side, and England and Russia. On the other side were France, Spain, Prussia — which was just beginning to become known as a distinct nation — Poland, and many of the small German princes.

The war lasted for eight years, and while it was going on there were two great battles fought between the English and the French — one at Dettingen, in the Netherlands, won by the English, and another at Fontenoy, gained by the French. When peace was made at last at Aix-la-Chapelle, it was settled that Maria Theresa's husband should be Emperor, under the name of Francis I., and that she should have all the possessions her father had meant to leave her, except one, which she gave up to the King of Prussia. While this war was going on the French gained a great deal of land in India. They had two famous generals, who conquered Madras and other places, driving the English out of them. The English took nearly all these places away from them about ten years later, in the time of Lord Clive, but just at the moment the French gained great glory by their triumphs in India.

After the war with Austria there were eight years of peace, and then seven years of war, but neither in peace nor in war did Louis XV, show any good qualities or do anything that was for the good of his country. An ambassador staying at his court said that he could not find even one hour a day for serious business. He spent his time in hunting and other amusements, and there was usually some lady about the court to whom he would listen more than to any one else, and whose advice he took on all sorts of matters, which he ought to have settled himself, or with the help of the ministers. Several great men lived under his reign; among others, (several great) writers, of whom the chief was Voltaire, a great friend of the King of Prussia, (and a man who has written) many interesting books himself, and had many amusing and curious things written about him, which are to be read in books of various languages. There were other writers, too many for me to tell you their names, though they were none of them, except Voltaire, as famous as the men who had lived in the reign of Louis XIV.

The last war in this reign was called The Seven Years' War, so called from the length of time for which it lasted, and was between England and France, and also between Prussia and Austria. England and Prussia were friends, though their armies did not fight together, but went on separately, each attending only to their own enemies, and France and Austria, who had been such fierce enemies, had now made a treaty and were on the same side.

At first the French armies seemed to be successful, especially against King Frederick of Prussia, who was beaten in a great battle, and who, with his small army and enemies all around him, expected to be entirely destroyed. But in this great difficulty he showed himself to be one of the best soldiers in Europe. No one had known it of him before, and there was great surprise when he suddenly led his men against the French, and defeated them so thoroughly that for a long time he had no more trouble with them. He made marches which took every one by surprise, and always appeared with his small army just when his friends wanted him most, and his enemies the least expected him. The English beat the French by sea, and then took from them all they had won in Canada and in India. When the war ended by the Peace of Paris in 1763, the English gave up some of the places in India, but kept all Canada, which has been under English government ever since. A peace was made between Austria and Prussia at the same time as the peace of Paris between France and England, and thus all the war in Europe stopped.

While this war was going on, a man named Damiens made an attempt to kill the king. He stabbed him in the back with a knife, one day when Louis was getting into his carriage at Versailles for a drive. Damiens always said that he meant only to wound the king, not to kill him, and this seems true, for he had stabbed him with the smaller of two blades which he had in his knife, and had made only a slight scratch, so that the doctor said: "If the king were any common man, he would be able to go to his work again to-morrow." However, the king was terribly frightened, thought the knife might be poisoned, and even when he found that he had got completely well, was so much disturbed, that he had Damiens tried and put to death in the most cruel way that had then been discovered.

The reign of Louis lasted for eleven more years after the peace of Paris, but there is scarcely anything to be said about (them). As (I have) (said), he had always some great lady for his favourite, whose advice he took about everything, so that when he chose his favourite badly the affairs of the country went on ill. One was the Madame de Pompadour, of whom pictures are often to be seen in old French fashion-books, and who seems to have done up her hair in a powdered pyramid on the top of her head, which was probably the fashion for ladies of that time. She gave Louis bad advice, and was the enemy of the Dauphin, the king's eldest son, who died before his father, so that the next heir was the king's grandson. Louis XV. died in 1774.