Hihi!! since you're like the philippe II expert do you know if the Duke of Villeroy always had an hostile relationship with phil ii? like we all know villeroy was completely opposed to whatever phil ii did during the the regency but I'm wondering if it was always like that. i guess if we make the connection that since Villeroy had lorraine-guise connections via his sister and brother in law (and i guess this also relates to chev) it might've been soooorta awkward 💀
Hi!!!!
I had to try and look up some details here because honestly Villeroy doesn’t get brought up all that much in books about Philippe! At least not in the sections prior to the Régence, at least. The earliest mentions are typically from around 1706, when Louis XIV finally decides to stop involving Villeroy in military campaigns (that took AWHILE given how terrible he was at the whole army thing haha) : Philippe gets to be in charge instead. Was there any resentment there? It’s not mentioned anywhere, so who knows! You kinda get the sense that they just didn’t interact all that much, but it does seem like Philippe was openly irritated at being left out of military command for a really long time (the Jean-Christian Petitfils biography has a few anecdotes but i always hesitate to refer to that one directly since figuring out where he took his info is next to impossible despite a super long list of sources at the end of the book). OTOH, you kinda want to hope Villeroy realized how bad he was at this after god knows how many embarrassing defeats, but who knows lmao
i don't think there was any open hostility between them at this point, but given that they ran with very different social circles and that pretty much right up until the King’s death Philippe was a pariah at the court, in my opinion it’s just unlikely that they saw each other much… They probably wouldn’t have been in great terms though, less for personal reasons and more because basically everyone was kinda looking the other way whenever Philippe was around at that point.
In this case the Lorraine-Guise connections aren’t particularly relevant imo: Villeroy was close to Louis XIV and Maintenon, and both of them wanted the duc du Maine to play the first role in the upcoming regency. Villeroy is chosen by Louis XIV to be governor to little Louis XV, and that effectively would’ve made him the duc du Maine’s second in command! Maine doesnt end up in charge of the regency, but he does get to be in charge of the little king’s education (...for a time, anyways), so these two generally seem to have stuck together for the most part.
Philippe dealt with his enemies by keeping them close and giving them high (but mostly honorific) positions to placate them, and that goes for Villeroy too! He got to be on the Regency council AND the council in charge of finances. And for a time you kinda don’t hear much about him, he’s just kinda doing his job… BUT. We do get upset reactions from him when Maine loses his rank and privileges, and as an old court guy close to Louis XIV of course he wasn’t a fan of the whole alliance with England at all.
During the Régence, the hostility between Villeroy and Philippe intensifies the older Louis XV gets. Early on Philippe just kinda shrugs it off, but then Villeroy keeps bringing up the poison rumors to try and scare the kid, he keeps hanging out with Maine, and then he keeps antagonizing Dubois. And then he ends his one big fight with Dubois by going “ARREST ME IF YOU DARE”... and Philippe takes it as an invitation to do exactly that :p
