"LOUIS XV SIGNED MILITARY ORDER - APPROVAL FOR LEAVE TO CAPTAIN COUSTARD IN THE REGIMENT OF CAVALRY 
OF LORRAINE TO GO ABOUT HIS BUSINESS WITH SUSPENSION OF PAY" 
Countersigned by Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Duke d'Aiguillon at Versailles on April 6, 1774 
Size: 13" x 9.5" (33 cm x 24 cm) , Watermarked and Signed 
"The Roy. Knowing the need that the Sir
Captain Coustard in his Royal Lorraine Regiment
To go about his business ~ ~
And willing to give him the means, His Majesty
Given and gives leave during the present month of April
After which time He wants him to return to his charge
And that, however, He is not paid any salary 
For the reason of this absence ... Made at Versailles
The sixth of April, 1774.
  Louis
[And lower] Duc D'Aiguillon "
Emmanuel-Armand de Vignerot du Plessis-Richelieu, duc d'Aiguillon (31 July 1720 – 1 September 1788), was a French soldier and statesman, and a nephew of Armand de Vignerot du
Plessis, 3rd Duke of Richelieu. He served as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under King Louis XV (6 June 1771 – 2 June 1774).
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.