Endeavor to _relieve the people at the earliest possible
moment_, and thus to accomplish what, unfortunately, I am unable to
do myself."
[Sidenote: Louis XV, 1715-1774]
It was good advice. But Louis XV was only a boy, a plaything in the
hands of his ministers. In an earlier chapter [Footnote: See above, pp.
255 f.] we have seen how under the duke of Orleans, who was prince
regent from 1715 to 1723, France entered into war with Spain, and how
finance was upset by speculation; and how under Cardinal Fleury, who
was minister from 1726 to 1743, the War of the Polish Election (1733-
1738) was fought and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
begun.
When in 1743 the ninety-year-old Cardinal Fleury died, Louis XV
announced that he would be his own minister. But he was not a Frederick
the Great. At the council table poor Louis "opened his mouth, said
little, and thought not at all." State business seemed terribly dull,
and the king left most of it to others.
But of one thing, Louis XV could not have enough--and that was
pleasure.
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