constitute
himself prisoner till these calumnies should be silenced. There remained
only a young prince, the Duc d'Anjou, son of the Duc de Bourgogne and
Marie-Adelaide de Savoie, five years old at this date, and so delicate
that his life was despaired of. He, however, lived to become Louis XV.
Louis XIV, after having declared his sons by the Marquise de Montespan,
the Duc du Maine and the Comte de Toulouse, heirs to the crown in
default of princes of the blood, and making them members of the Council
of the Regency, died September 1, 1715, at the age of seventy-seven.

His testament, as he had foreseen, was set aside, much as his father's
had been. Philippe d'Orleans summoned the Parlement, which granted him
full power as regent, with freedom to compose the council as he liked,
and the government of the royal household was taken from the Duc du
Maine after a most unseemly altercation. All the solemn and pompous
traditions of the court were likewise abandoned. "What does it matter to
the State," said the regent, "whether it is I or my lackey who rides in
a carriage." He took for his minister and councillor the Abbe Dubois, "a
little, thin man, like a weasel," said Saint-Simon, "in whom _all_ the
vices, perfidiousness, avarice, debauchery, ambition, and base flattery,
struggled for the mastery." The general demoralization caused by the
collapse of the great financial schemes of John Law was only a feature
in the general abandonment of all restraint in the pursuit of
pleasure. In the midst of this luxury of effrontery, there suddenly
appeared the imposing and barbaric figure of Peter the Great of Russia,
who visited Paris in the spring of 1717, and dismayed the court and the
Parisians by the simplicity and directness of his character, his
disregard for their voluptuous frivolity, and his appreciation of the
things only that make for greatness in a State. He did not hesitate to
prophesy, from what he saw and learned, the approaching decadence and
ruin of the French monarchy and the French people.

[Illustration: BEFORE THE ATTACK. After a water-color by J. Koppay.]

At the age of thirteen, in February, 1723, Louis XV was declared to have
attained his majority and assumed the reins of government, nominally at
least, for the regent had taken care to give him Dubois for prime
minister. Both these illustrious personages, however, died in the course
of the year, and were succeeded by the Duc de Bourbon, "ugly and
one-eyed, low