Philip II, Duke of Orléans
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| - Philippe of Orléans - |
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans,
Philippe Charles (
August 2,
1674 -
December 2,
1723) called
Duke of Chartres (1674-1701), and then
Duke of Orléans (1701-1723) was
Regent of
France from
1715 to
1723. His regency being the last in the
kingdom of
France, he is still commonly referred to as
le Régent and his regency as
la Régence.
He was born in
Saint-Cloud, the son of
Philippe I of Orléans and nephew of king
Louis XIV. He married Françoise-Marie de Bourbon in
1698.
On the death of Louis XIV, the late king's five-year-old great-grandson was crowned king
Louis XV of France and the then forty-one-year-old Philippe became Regent.
Philippe was a professed atheist who read the satirical works of
François Rabelais inside a
Bible binding during
mass, and liked to hold orgies on religious high holidays. He acted in the plays of
Molière and
Racine, composed the music for an
opera, and was a gifted painter and engraver.
A
liberal and imaginative man, he was however, often weak, inconsistent and vacillating. Nonetheless, as Regent, he changed the manners of the ruler and his nobles from the hypocrisy of Louis XIV to complete candor. He was against
censorship and ordered the reprinting of books banned under the reign of his uncle. Reversing his uncle's policies again, Philippe formed an alliance with
England,
Austria, and the
Netherlands, and fought a successful war against
Spain that established the conditions of a European peace.
Philippe promoted education, making the
Sorbonne tuition free and opening the Royal Library to the public. He is most remembered for the debauchery he brought to
Versailles and for the
John Law banking scandal.
He died at the Palace of Versailles and was buried in the city of his birth, Saint-Cloud.
Philippe had only one son:
Louis, duke of Orléans (1703-1752)
