Named regent of France during the minority of Louis XV, his great-nephew and first cousin twice removed,[1] the period of his de facto rule was known as the Regency (French: la Régence) (1715–1723).

Madame Henriette died at Saint-Cloud in 1670; rumors abounded that she had been poisoned by her husband or his long-term lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine; the two would remain together till the death of the Duke of Orléans in 1701.

[4]The Duke of Chartres grew up at his father's "private" court at Saint-Cloud and in Paris at the Palais-Royal, the Parisian residence of the Orléans family until the arrest of Philippe Égalité (his grandson) in April 1793, during the French Revolution.

In May 1685 the Duc de Chartres, then just ten years old, made his first public appearance at Versailles; the occasion was the arrival of the Doge of Genoa, Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari, at the French court.

Upon hearing that her son had agreed to the marriage, Philippe's mother slapped his face in full view of the court and turned her back on the king as he bowed to her.

[11] The rumors were also used by the opposition during his period as regent, and were the inspiration of libelous songs and poems[12] On the death of his father in June 1701, Philippe inherited the Dukedoms of Orléans, Anjou, Montpensier and Nemours, as well as the princedom of Joinville.

[2] Philippe had died at Saint-Cloud after an argument with Louis XIV at Marly about Chartres' flaunting his pregnant mistress, Marie-Louise de Séry, before Françoise Marie.

In December 1697, the son of the Dauphin Louis de France married Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, eldest daughter of Philippe's half sister Anne Marie.

The deaths within three years of the Dauphin, two of his three sons, his daughter-in-law and the little Duke of Brittany led to widespread rumours that Orléans had poisoned them all to gain the throne.

In fact, the Dauphin died of smallpox, the Duc de Berry in a riding accident and the others of measles, but they did great damage to Orléans' reputation, and even Louis XIV seems to have at least half-believed them.

He had been chosen by the Safavid Persian emperor Sultan Husayn for the mission and travelled with a grand entourage, as suitable to the diplomat of a mighty empire.

[20] On 29 July 1714, upon the insistence of his morganatic wife, the marquise de Maintenon, Louis XIV elevated his legitimised children to the rank of Princes of the Blood, which "entitled them to inherit the crown if the legitimate lines became extinct".

Mme de Maintenon would have preferred Philip V [King of Spain] to be Regent and the duc du Maine to be Lieutenant Général and consequently in control.

Fearing a revival of the war, Louis named the duc d'Orléans joint President of a Regency Council, but one that would be packed with his enemies, reaching its decisions by a majority vote that was bound to go against him.

Otherwise he would have been deliberately condemning his kingdom to perpetual strife, for the codicil appointed the duc du Maine commander of the civil and military Household, with Villeroy as his second-in-command.

By this arrangement they became the sole masters of the person and residence of the King; of Paris ... and all the internal and external guard; of the entire service ... so much so that the Regent did not have even the shadow of the slightest authority and found himself at their mercy.

On 2 September, the Duke of Orléans went to meet the parlementaires in the Grand-Chambre du Parlement in Paris in order to have Louis XIV's will annulled and his previous right to the regency restored.

After a break that followed a much-heated session, the Parlement abrogated the recent codicil to Louis XIV's will and confirmed the Duke of Orléans as regent of France.

[25] On 30 December 1715, the regent decided to bring the young Louis XV from the Château de Vincennes to the Tuileries Palace in Paris[26] where he lived until his return to Versailles in June 1722.

Reversing his uncle's policies again, Philippe formed an alliance with Great Britain, Austria, and the Netherlands, and fought a successful war against Spain that established the conditions of a European peace.

Philippe favoured Jansenism which, despite papal condemnation, was accepted by the French bishops, and he revoked Louis XIV's compliance with the bull Unigenitus.

He countenanced the risky operations of the banker John Law, whose bankruptcy led to the Mississippi bubble, a disastrous crisis for the public and private affairs of France.

[27] On 6 June 1717, under the influence of Law and the duc de Saint-Simon, the Regent persuaded the Regency Council to purchase from Thomas Pitt for £135,000 the world's largest known diamond, a 141 carat (28.2 g) cushion brilliant, for the crown jewels of France.

It was directed in France by the Prince of Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador, with the complicity of the Duchess of Orléans' older brother, the duc du Maine, and Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, the latter's wife.

Guillaume Dubois, formerly tutor to the Duke of Orléans, and now his chief minister, caused war to be declared against Spain, with the support of Austria, England and the Netherlands (Quadruple Alliance).

After some successes of the French marshal, the Duke of Berwick, in Spain, and of the imperial troops in Sicily, Philip V made peace with the regent (1720).

The young Louis XV of France would marry the three-year-old Infanta Mariana Victoria who would thus become Queen of France; the Infante Luis would marry the fourth surviving daughter of Philippe, Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans; and the Infante Charles would be engaged to the pretty Philippine Élisabeth d'Orléans who was the fifth surviving daughter of Philippe.

Known as l'infante Reine (Queen-Infanta) while in France, she was placed in the care of the old Dowager Princess of Conti, Philippe's sister in law, and lived in the Tuileries Palace.

Despite a cold reception from the Spanish royal family, especially by Elisabeth of Parma, the stepmother of her husband, she married Louis of Spain on 20 January 1722 at Lerma.

[30] In December 1722, the Regent lost his mother to whom he had always been close; the Dowager Duchess of Orléans died at Saint-Cloud at the age of seventy, with her son at her side, but he did not attend her funeral service because he had been called away on official business.