Who ruled before Louis XV?
Louis XV of France
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé),[1] was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) on 15 February 1723, the kingdom was ruled by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal's death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom.
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV and the third son of the Duke of Burgundy (1682–1712), and his wife Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. He was born in the Palace of Versailles on 15 February 1710. When he was born, he was named the Duke of Anjou. The possibility of his becoming King seemed very remote; the King's oldest son and heir, Louis Le Grand Dauphin, Louis's father and his elder surviving brother were ahead of him in the succession. However, the Grand Dauphin died of smallpox on 14 April 1711.[3] On 12 February 1712 the mother of Louis, Marie Adélaïde, was stricken with measles and died, followed on 18 February by Louis's father, the former Duke of Burgundy, who was next in line for the throne. On 7 March, it was found that both Louis and his older brother, the former Duke of Brittany, had the measles. The two brothers were treated in the traditional way, with bleeding. On the night of 8–9 March, the new Dauphin died from the combination of the disease and the treatment. The governess of Louis, Madame de Ventadour, would not allow the doctors to bleed Louis further; he was very ill but survived.[4] When Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715, Louis, at the age of five, inherited the throne.[5]