Louis de France (1682-1712)
Wire of Louis de France, the large dolphin and of Marie-Anne-Christine of Bavaria. His/her maternal grandparents were Ferdinand Maria, Électeur of Bavaria and Adélaïde Henriette of Savoy, girl of Victor Amédée Ier, the Duke of Savoy.
Born with Versailles, he was the heir in second line to his paternal grandfather Louis XIV; he succeeded his father like dolphin after the death of this last in 1711. But him and his wife Marie-Adelaide of Savoy fell sick and died in six days of interval of an epidemic of measles at the beginning of 1712. Their oldest son, Louis, duke of Brittany, succumbed to the same disease. Only survived their young person sons, then two years old only, and which became the king Louis XV in 1715.
Young violent and arrogant prince who did not respect anybody, the duke of Burgundy became, thanks to the long efforts of his tutor Fénelon (the future Cambric archbishop), a man of large a devotion. Since 1702, at the 20 years age, he was admitted by his grandfather Louis XIV with the Conseil of in top and was initiated with the secrecies of State concerning the religion, the diplomacy and the war, but he showed little skill in the war and only reverses in the countryside of 1708 tested, which he made in Flanders with the assistance of the duke of Vendôme, and in which he had to fight Eugene of Savoy and the Duc of Marlborough (→ rout of Audenarde).
Under the influence of the devout party, the duke of Burgundy was surrounded by a circle of people, known as the faction of Burgundy, made up especially of his former tutor Fénelon (who composed for him his Fables and his Télémaque ), of his former governor, the duke of Beauvillier, the duke of Chevreuse (the son-in-law of Colbert) and of the duke of Saint-Simon (the author of famous historical reports). These aristocrats of high row were reformers who wished a return to a absolute monarchy where councils and intermediate organizations of capacities (between the king and the people) made up aristocrats (and either of middle-class man as those which had named Louis XIV) would assist the king in the exercise of the governmental capacity. There was this utopian ideal of a monarchy controlled by the aristocracy (in which one saw representing it of the people) and decentralized (of broad capacities would be granted to the provinces). It is the policy which the duke of Burgundy would have probably applied if he had become king.
The untimely death of the duke of Burgundy to the castle of Marly (it was believed wrongly that it had been poisoned) ruined the hopes of its faction and besides the majority of those which formed part of it died soon in their turn of natural death. However, the Regency, which started in 1715, put some into practice their ideas, with the creation of what one called the Polysynodie; but this one was abandoned since 1718 and one returned from there to the absolute monarchy in the style of Louis XIV.
In 1697, he marries Marie-Adelaide of Savoy (1685 † February 12th 1712), girl of Victor-Amédée II, duke of Savoy. They had three children:
- Louis de France (June 25th 1704 † April 13rd 1705), duke of Brittany,
- Louis de France (January 8th 1707 † March 8th 1712), duke of Brittany then dolphin of France,
- Louis de France (February 15th 1710 † May 10th 1774), duke of Anjou, future Louis XV.