text: **Succession**
  
  *The Death of Louis XIV at the*
  *Palace of Versailles*, Thomas Jones 
  Barker, 1835-1840 
  
  Louis outlived most of his immediate legitimate family. His last surviving legitimate son, 
  Louis, Dauphin of France, died in 1711. Barely a year later, the Duke of Burgundy, the 
  eldest of the Dauphin's three sons and then heir-apparent to Louis, followed his father. 
  Burgundy's elder son, Louis, Duke of Brittany, joined them a few weeks later. Thus, on his 
  
  deathbed, Louis's heir-apparent was his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis, Duke of Anjou, Burgundy's younger son. 
  
  Louis foresaw an underaged successor and sought to restrict the power of his nephew Philip II, Duke of Orléans, who, as his 
  closest surviving legitimate relative in France, would probably become regent to the prospective Louis XV. Accordingly, the king 
  created a regency council as Louis XIII had in anticipation of Louis XIV's own minority, with some power vested in his 