"KING LOUIS XV SIGNED LETTER ADDRESSED TO HIS COUSIN COUNT OF EU LOUIS AUGUSTE DE BOURBON" - Dated September 1, 1755. Month later on 1 October 1755 Louis Auguste de Bourbon went to Fontainebleau with the intention of fighting a duel. He lost and died at the age of 55 years old.
Countersigned by Marc-Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy, Comte d'Argenson (1696 – 1764) - Secretary of State for war under Louis XV (7 January 1743 - 1 February 1757)The Letter concerns the Captain Charles Gabriel de Bellere du Tronchay appointed to the the Bourquefelden battalion of the Royal Artillery Regiment
Size: 14.6" x 9.6" (37 cm x 24.5 cm), Watermarked and Signed and Sealed2 965 - 10Yc 7 - Bataillon de « BOURQUEFELDEN ». « Suivant la nouvelle formation déterminé[e] pa r l'ordonnance du 1e décembre 1756; à Grenoble, le 13 juin 1757. Signé : Clauwez ». Cies Belloy (sapeurs) Bouchard (can.) Le Cerf, d'Arblay (sap.) chev. du Tronchay (can.). Monnel, Delpy (bombardiers) Mestré (can.) d'Arblay, Franssure (bomb.) Gallon, du Pommeret (can.) Du Passage (canonniers) Dauteville, Lixière (can.) La Roussière, Bron (bomb.) Dantelmy, La Garde (bomb.) chev. de Caylus, d'Allegrin (can.) Geoffroy, La Roue (can.) du Tronchay, La Garrière (bomb.) Remaurin (can.). Compagnie Belloy (sap.): 1735-1754; 50 hommes; Compagnie Darblay.. (bomb.): 1729-1757; 44 hommes; A, Ln, Npm, D.Compagnie Du Passage (can.): 1729-1757; 45 hommes;List of Counts of Eu • 1693-1736: Louis Auguste de Bourbon (1670 – 1736), Duke of Maine. Legitimized son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan; • 1736-1755: Louis Auguste de Bourbon (1700 – 1755), Prince of Dombes. Son of the previous; • 1755-1775: Louis Charles de Bourbon (1701 – 1775). Count of Eu, brother of the preceding; • 1775-1793: Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon (1725 – 1793), Duke of Penthièvre. Son of Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse (another legitimized son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan); • 1793-1821: Marie-Adélaïde de Bourbon (1753 – 1821). Daughter of the previous;
Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Prince of Dombes (4 March 1700 in Palace of Versailles – 1 October 1755 in Palace of Fontainebleau) was a grandson of Louis XIV of France and of his maîtresse-en-titre Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan. He was a member of the legitimized House of Bourbon-Maine. Unlike his father, the prince de Dombes was of high military skill. Louis-Auguste served under the renowned military commander Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Austro-Turkish War (1716–1718). He also fought in the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1738) and in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). Upon the death of his father (to whom he was very close), on 14 May 1736 at the Château de Sceaux, he inherited the bulk of his wealth and his titles. He became Colonel General of the Cent-Suisses et Grisons (1710), Governor of Languedoc (1737), Grand veneur de France and Count of Eu (1736). In 1750, he gained the titles of prince d'Anet and comte de Dreux, when his mother gave him both estates three years before she died. Little seen at the court of his cousin Louis XV of France, he preferred living at the Château d'Anet, which he continued to embellish. In order to supply water for his gardens, he created a hydraulic system which he installed in the park of the domain near the river Eure. He also enjoyed hunting on his large estate of Eu. Louis-Auguste died on 1 October 1755, at the age of fifty-five, in a duel at Fontainebleau. His younger brother, Louis Charles, was his only heir.
Historians generally give his reign very low marks, especially as wars drained the treasury and set the stage for the governmental collapse and French Revolution in the 1780s.
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) on 15 February 1723, the kingdom was ruled by Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal's death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom.
His reign of almost 59 years (from 1715 to 1774) was the second longest in the history of France, exceeded only by his predecessor and great-grandfather, Louis XIV, who had ruled for 72 years (from 1643 to 1715). In 1748, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745. He ceded New France in North America to Spain and Great Britain at the conclusion of the disastrous Seven Years' War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Corsican Republic into the Kingdom of France. He was succeeded in 1774 by his grandson Louis XVI, who was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution.
Two of his other grandsons, Louis XVIII and Charles X, occupied the throne of France after the fall of Napoleon I.