France History: the Napoleon Age
HISTORY: THE EMERGENCE OF THE BOURGEOISIE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION The period of the regency (1715-23), marked by an enormous financial scandal (the bankruptcy of J. Law, 1720), was also the one in which, among the nobility, the taste for luxury and the love of pleasure reached the apogee. At the same time a new class was emerging, the bourgeoisie of businessmen and robes, whose children and grandchildren would prepare the revolution. In 1723, on the death of the Duke of Orleans, Louis XV personally took over the reins of the government. Cardinal Fleury, former tutor of the king, became his prime minister at the age of 73, managing to readjust the state budget and avoid new clashes with Great Britain. Stanislao Leszczyński, father-in-law of Louis XV (1733-35). Two long…