Louis XV furniture
Louis XV furniture was designed not for the vast palace state rooms of the Versailles of Louis XIV, but for the smaller, more intimate salons created by Louis XV and by his mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and Madame DuBarry. It included several new types of furniture, including the commode and the chiffonier, and many pieces, particularly chairs and tables, were designed to be moved easily rearranged or moved from room to room, depending upon the kind of function.
With the death of Louis XIV on 1 September 1715, his grandson, Louis XV, born in 1710, became King. Because of his young age, France was ruled by a Regent, Philippe of Orleans, until 1723. During this period, the style of furniture changed little from the Louis XIV period; it was massive, lavishly decorated and solemn, designed for the gigantic state halls of the new Palace of Versailles. In 1722 Louis XV moved from Paris, where he had lived with the Regent, to Versailles, began his own rule, and gradually imposed his own taste on the arts, architecture, and furniture.
House of Bourbon
Initially, most of the other powers were willing to accept Anjou's reign as Philip V, but Louis's mishandling of their concerns soon drove the English, Dutch and other powers to join the Austrians in a coalition against France. The War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701 and raged for 12 years. In the end Louis's grandson was recognized as king of Spain, but he was obliged to agree to the forfeiture of succession rights in France, the Spanish Habsburgs' other European territories were largely ceded to Austria, and France was nearly bankrupted by the cost of the struggle. Louis died on 1 September 1715 ending his seventy-two-year reign, the longest in European history.
The reign of Louis XIV was so long that he outlived both his son and eldest grandson. He was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV. Louis XV was born on 15 February 1710 and was thus aged only five at his ascension, the third Louis in a row to become king of France before the age of thirteen (Louis XIII became king at 9, Louis XIV at almost 5 and himself at 5). Initially, the regency was held by Philip, Duke of Orléans, Louis XIV's nephew, as nearest adult male to the throne. This "Regence" was seen as a period of greater individual expression, manifested in secular, artistic, literary and colonial activity, in contrast to the austere latter years of Louis XIV's reign.