Regency
Douglas Johnson
Philippe, Duke of Orleans Regent of France1715-1723J. H. Shennan (Thames and Hudson E8.50) It is sometimes said that Napoleon was always in a hurry, as if he feared that his reign would be short (and he was right) but that Louis XIV, from his earliest years, viewed all things as if his reign was destined to be extremely long (and he too was right). After reigning for 73 years (and ruling for 55) the death of the old king was bound to create a crisis in France. The sense of crisis was increased because his son, grandson and elder great-grandson had recently died, leaving the Bourbon dynasty to be maintained by a five-year-old child; a sense even of disaster prevailed because Louis's last years had seen defeat in war, civil, political and religious unrest. It seemed that France was ready for a period of upheaval.
The man who was to become Regent at this difficult moment, Philippe d'Orleans, was someone who had a very bad reputation. He was accused of having incestuous relations with his daughter, and it was rumoured that he was respdnsible for poisoning Louis XIV's grandson. There was much more that was said about this middle-aged 'boastful compendium of crimes' as he was called, and accounts of the subsequent systematic debauchery that took place in the Regent's Palace have enlivened the studies of many generations of history students. But it has for long been realised that there was much more to this man than an attempt to escape from his essential boredom by the pleasures of the orgy, and it seems certain that this carefully written analysis of the eight-year Regency will confirm this belief (although Professor Shennan prudently points out that with someone whose reputation has been so notoriously tarnished, it is not easy to make a balanced judgment).
It is tempting to say that this was a key moment in the history of the Ancien Regime when, with Orleans consciously seeking to reverse the policies and assumptions of the dead king, with the abbe Dubois seeking to find a new equilibrium of forces in Europe, and with the extraordinary Scottish financier John Law introducing a new financial system, there is an attempt to establish French government on a new basis. One might go further and suggest that the failures of these men helped to bring on the great crisis that was to overwhelm the Bourbons.
Professor Shennan, who is a renowned expert on the institutions of the Ancien Regime, points out how the Regent began his reign by summoning the Parlement of Paris. He thought it advisable to do this because Louis XIV had so distrusted him that in his will he had sought to circumvent the Regent's authority and had legitimised his bastard son, the Duke of Maine, in order to create an official rival. Before the Parlement Orleans not only claimed the Regency by right of birth, as the late king's cousin, but he also hinted that his claim would be stronger if he could add to it the Parlement's approval of his title, and he went on to suggest that he could rule more effectively in the public good, if he were to govern with the assistance and support of the Parlement. When the spokesman for the Parlement made an equivocal distinction between becoming regent by birth and becoming regent as a result of the votes of 'this august company' and when the Parlement proclaimed Orleans as regent by acclaim, then it looked for sure that France was moving in a new direction.
But undoubtedly the most fascinating part of this history is that which tells how Orleans, with his taste for the unconventional, and again with the desire to embark upon something new and different from the preceding reign, gave complete confidence to John Law's schemes of exploiting the credit potential of a rich and expanding economy, by allowing currency and companies alike to expand without limit. It is a pity that we are not told more about the relations between the Regent and Law, but it is typical of Orleans that when the crash came he ensured Law's personal safety.
This excellent book presents us with a convincing portrait of a political realist who had a lively mind and who deserved a better reputation as a statesman than he enjoyed at the time. However, as his mother, the German Princess Liselotte put it, when there is a Regency then everyone who isn't Regent is discontented. He was also an attractive man with a sardonic wit who might, as Professor Shennan observes, have derived a cynical pleasure from dying in the arms of the Duchess de Falari, his latest and last mistress.
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