Louis XV

Louis XV functions as the 18th-century French monarch whose fiscal and military choices enter the series as moral shorthand: C.J. invokes his practice of melting down vermeil to fund wars to recast luxury objects as instruments and symbols of state violence. The episode treats him not as an active presence but as a historical actor whose policies and reputation—rooted in extractive royal finance and wartime spending—shape contemporary political argument, providing staff a ready exemplar for debates about provenance, moral responsibility, and the legacies embedded in material culture.