Everywhere the impression is given of brilliancy and splendor--gold on
the walls, gold on the furniture, rich velvets and damasks and
tapestries, marbles and marquetry and painting, furniture worth a king's
ransom. It all formed a beautiful and fitting background for the proud
king, who could do no wrong, and the dazzling, care-free people who
played their brilliant, selfish parts in the midst of its splendor. They
never gave a thought to the great mass of the common people who were
over-burdened with taxation; they never heard the first faint mutterings
of discontent which were to grow, ever louder and louder, until the
blood and horror of the Revolution paid the debt.




_The Regency and Louis XV_


When Louis XIV died in 1715, his great-grandson, Louis XV, was but five
years old, so Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, became Regent. During the last
years of Louis XIV's life the court had resented more or less the gloom
cast over it by the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and turned with
avidity to the new ruler. He was a vain and selfish man, feeling none of
the responsibilities of his position, and living chiefly for pleasure.
The change in decoration had been foreshadowed in the closing years of
the previous reign, and it is often hard to say whether a piece of
furniture is late Louis XIV or Regency.

The new gained rapidly over the old, and the magnificent and stately
extravagance of Louis XIV turned into the daintier but no less
extravagant and rich decoration of the Regency and Louis XV. One of the