Philippe II, Duke of Orléans in the context of "King Louis XV"

Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (Louis Henri Joseph; 18 August 1692 – 27 January 1740), was a French nobleman and politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1723 to 1726. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a prince du sang.

Louis Henri was the second child and eldest son of Louis III, Prince of Condé, and Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of King Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan. Following the death of his father in 1710, he became head of the Bourbon-Condé cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. As such, he was entitled to be known as Prince of Condé, but he used the title Duke of Bourbon instead and was known at court as Monsieur le Duc. After his maternal grandfather died in 1715, Louis Henri became a member of the regency council led by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the regent for the new minor king Louis XV.

The Régence (French pronunciation: [ʁeʒɑ̃s], Regency) was the period in French history between 1715 and 1723 when King Louis XV was considered a minor and the country was instead governed by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (a nephew and son-in-law of Louis XIV of France) as prince regent. This was not the only regency in French history, but the name is nevertheless associated with this period.

Philippe was able to take power away from Louis-Auguste, Duke of Maine (illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan) who had been the favourite son of the late king and possessed much influence. From 1715 to 1718 the Polysynody changed the system of government in France, in which each minister (secretary of state) was replaced by a council. The système de Law was also introduced, which transformed the finances of the bankrupted kingdom and its aristocracy. Both Cardinal Dubois and Cardinal Fleury were highly influential during this time.

John Law (pronounced [lɑs] in French in the traditional approximation of Laws, the colloquial Scottish form of the name; 21 April 1671 – 21 March 1729) was a Scottish-French economist and financier. He rose to power in France where he created a novel financial scheme for French public finances known as Law's System (French: le système de Law) with two institutions at its core, John Law's Bank and John Law's Company (also known as the Mississippi company), ending in the devastating boom and bust "Mississippi Bubble" of 1720.

Born in Scotland, Law was an accomplished gambler with an interest in the rules of probability. After killing a man in a duel and being sentenced to death, he fled to mainland Europe. He read economics and made the acquaintance of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who became regent for the juvenile Louis XV in 1715. In 1716 Philippe approved Law's plan to create a private bank which would take gold deposits in return for bank notes, loaning out the gold. It was structured as a joint-stock company and was bought by the French government in 1718, becoming the Banque royale. In 1717 Law founded another joint-stock company, the Mississippi company, whose purpose was the economic exploitation of Louisiana as well as other French colonies. Law became Controller General of Finances in 1720 and was the richest man in Europe. He had to leave France that same year, as a stock boom turned into a bust. He then lived in various European cities and died in Venice, impoverished.

Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, GE (French pronunciation: [lwi də ʁuvʁwa]; 16 January 1675 – 2 March 1755), was a French courtier and memoirist, who also spent time as a soldier and diplomat. He was born in Paris at the Hôtel Selvois, 6 rue Taranne (demolished in 1876 to make way for the Boulevard Saint-Germain). The family's ducal peerage (duché-pairie), granted in 1635 to his father Claude de Rouvroy (1608–1693), served as both perspective and theme in Saint-Simon's life and writings. He was the second and last Duke of Saint-Simon.

His enormous memoirs are a classic of French literature, giving the fullest and most lively account of the court at Versailles of Louis XIV and the Régence at the start of Louis XV's reign. His relationship with Louis XIV was distant and difficult, but he was a life-long friend of Louis' nephew Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was made Regent for the infant Louis XV after the old king died. Orleans appointed Saint-Simon to his council and in 1721 made him ambassador to Spain.

Nicolas Lancret (French pronunciation: [nikɔla lɑ̃kʁɛ]; 22 January 1690 – 14 September 1743) was a French painter. Born in Paris, he was a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society during the regency of the Duke of Orleans and, later, early reign of King Louis XV.