Philippe II, Duc d'Orléans

Philippe II, Duc d'Orléans (1674-1723), regent of France during the minority of King Louis XV, a period known as the Régence. A nephew of Louis XIV, Orléans came to power after his uncle's death in 1715, replacing the piety and rigid ceremony of Louis XIV's court with an atmosphere of informality, moral licence, and religious scepticism. At home he restored the influence of the parliaments (courts that claimed the right to restrict royal power) and tried unsuccessfully to revive the political power of the great nobles. In foreign affairs he and his minister Guillaume Dubois formed an alliance with Louis XIV's enemies, Great Britain, Austria, and the Netherlands, and fought a successful war against Spain (1718-1720). The object of his foreign policy was to gain support for his own succession to the throne in the event of Louis XV's death. In 1719 Orléans made John Law, a Scottish financier, comptroller general of France. The regent was discredited when the Compagnie de la Louisiane, a trading company formed by Law to colonize Louisiana, went bankrupt (1720), causing great losses to its many investors.