Sex in the Cities. Volume 3. Paris. Hans-Jürgen Döpp

d’Orléans (1674–1723), who was Regent until Louis XIV’s maturity, was quite different. He was not interested in the traditional, rigid lit de justice: the start of the 18^th century is marked by Philippe’s reaction to relative prudery at the old Sun King’s court. Philippe adored comfortable beds, which he called his “love nests”. Raised and trained in the art of depravity by the Abbé Dubois, who later became a Cardinal and Minister and was considered – even in those days – one of the most out-and-out roués. For him, love was nothing but a courtly, convenient catchword for unrestricted sexual intercourse, the faire l’amour which he practised in such a blatant, uninhibited way that his mother, Liselotte von der Pfalz, accused him in her coarse way of using women like a night-stool: