Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans

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Ferdinand Philippe
Ingres, 1842
Born(1810-09-03)3 September 1810
Palermo, Kingdom of Sicily
Died13 July 1842(1842-07-13) (aged 31)
Sablonville, Kingdom of France
Burial(1842-07-16)16 July 1842
Chapelle royale de Dreux
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1837)​
Issue
Names
Ferdinand Philippe Louis Charles Henri Joseph
HouseOrléans
FatherLouis Philippe I
MotherMaria Amalia of Naples and Sicily
SignatureFerdinand Philippe's signature

Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans (Ferdinand Philippe Louis Charles Henri Joseph; 3 September 1810 – 13 July 1842) was the eldest son of King

King of the French in 1830, he became the Prince Royal of France and Duke of Orléans. He died in 1842, never to succeed his father or see the collapse of the July Monarchy
and subsequent exile of his family to the United Kingdom.

Early life

Ferdinand Philippe with his mother in 1819. His parents' coats of arms can be seen on the column. Painting by Louis Joseph Noyal after François Gérard

Born in

prince of the blood and was styled Serene Highness. As the eldest son, he was the heir to the title of Duke of Orléans, head of the House of Orléans (a cadet branch of the Bourbons of France descended from the only brother of Louis XIV
).

The young prince first visited France in 1814 during the

1er régiment de hussards, of which he was made colonel by Charles X
in 1824. In September 1824, King Charles X granted him the style "Royal Highness", a style maintained by Ferdinand Philippe at his father's accession to the throne six years later.

July Revolution

In 1830, during the

Casimir Périer
was nominated president of the Conseil in March 1831, he accepted the post only on condition that Ferdinand Philippe be excluded from the Conseil.

In November 1831, the young Duke of Orléans and Marshal

Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, accompanied by Casimir Périer (who caught the disease and died).[2] In the eyes of the people and the press he was seen as a generous prince, sincerely preoccupied with the plight of the poor, and he became a sort of icon for the dynastic opposition of politician Odilon Barrot, who saw in him the only prince capable of reconciling modern France's democratic aspirations with the heritage of its monarchical past. On 2 March 1832 he was granted an annual income of 1 million francs under his father's new Civil List
.

Military career

Ferdinand Philippe in hussar uniform by Ary Scheffer, c. 1830

In 1831, under Marshal

Armée du Nord. On 20 November 1832 he was before the citadel of Antwerp, and commanded the trenches on the night of 29/30 November. During the attack on the Saint-Laurent Lunette
, he launched himself onto the parapet amidst a hail of projectiles to lead the action and arouse his soldiers' courage.

In 1835, when Marshal

Teniah de Mouzaïa
. After this campaign he was recalled to France for good.

This brilliant military career increased his popularity and prestige. He also devoted himself to the improvement of the troops' living conditions and morale. At

Saint-Omer he organised the chasseurs de Vincennes, who became the chasseurs d'Orléans in 1836, and re-formed the chasseurs à pied de Vincennes. He laid the foundations for a Histoire des Régiments, commissioned by order of the Minister of War
, and began writing the service histories of the two regiments he had himself commanded.

Marriage negotiations

Ferdinand Philippe's marriage had long been one of the July Monarchy's major political affairs. Had it not been for the 1830 Revolution, he would have married the sister of

regency
, in all its political uncertainty – thus, for her, the wisest course consisted of marrying off the King's third son, then the fourth, then the fifth, guaranteeing Louis Philippe descendants, all the while leaving several men around the throne who could take over from him if he died suddenly.

At this time the July Monarchy was searching for new allies in

Queen Louise wrote to her parents on Marie's marriage that "We see singular things. It was not at all probable that this daughter, who the king of Württemberg did not wish to give to Chartres for fear of his ending his days [in exile] in America, should end up marrying a miserable little Austrian officer without illustriousness and of very ordinary birth."[3]

Louis Philippe next envisaged an alliance with

Duke of Choiseul
as the maker of a spectacular reversal in the alliances of Europe.

Ferdinand Philippe and his younger brother, the

Waldeck who was good and pretty and of robust health, rather than an archduchess of Austria who would bring us all sorts of evils in her dowry. [...] Napoleon, in this situation, was able to make sacrifices to ally himself with Austria; and we all saw what profit he got from it. But we are not upstarts, and have no need of ennobling ourselves by uniting with the house of Lorraine".[4]

The two young princes returned to France via Italy. At

King Ferdinand VII. The former was excluded by her remoteness, and the latter due to her family's unfortunate history (her mother Princess Luisa Carlotta of the Two Sicilies, niece of Queen Marie-Amélie, was monstrously obese) and her physical appearance (she was red-haired and thin; Queen Louise wrote to Queen Marie-Amélie on 21 November 1836 that "I send you her portrait, that Leopold found hideous. Her hair especially is frightening in terms of the children she will have. If all her family are ginger, this will afflict them [too]".[6]

Marriage

Marriage of Ferdinand Philippe and Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin by Eugène Lami, 1837

Some possibilities were also seen among the Protestant German princesses. Via his great-niece the

a Danish princess), whilst Queen Louise suggested Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg (born 1818 to the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg and Princess Amelia of Wurtemberg, and who finally ended up marrying King George V of Hanover in 1843), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (daughter of an elder brother of King Leopold I of the Belgians; she was actually raised a Catholic and married the Prince Royal's younger brother, the Duke of Nemours
, in 1840).

However, the negotiators' choice finally came to rest on

Bresson, succeeded in resolving). Nicholas I of Russia
, for his part, affected disdain of the marriage, proclaiming that such a minor marriage was not worth the trouble to prevent.

The

Count Bresson
, France's minister to Berlin.

The ceremony was well attended, but there was a notable lack of foreign ambassadors, except for Baron von Werther (

Mecklembourg. The reception was brilliant; the Duchesse de Maillé
observed:

Princess Hélène was not a king's daughter, and so the model for [the ceremonies] was the reception for Madame the Duchess of Burgundy,[7] and all that happened in the house of Sa Majesté citoyenne was as if Louis XIV was present amidst the most major lords of France. Some believed that Louis Philippe made a political mistake. I think not. To the contrary, he greatly pleased his supporters. The pomp did not displease those whose names figured in it, in place of the great lords who so envied them. Louis Philippe was the man of the middle class, elected by them, and they know that full well, but they were flattered by the shine in which he surrounded himself. If he did not seek to regild this kingdom that [the middle class] has given him, its self-respect would be wounded. His supporters thought themselves great lords when they saw a great king.[8]

The marriage was very happy and produced two children:

  1. Infanta of Spain
    (1848–1919), and had issue.
  2. Prince Robert, Duke of Chartres (1840–1910), married Princess Françoise of Orléans (1844–1925) and had issue.

Patron of the arts

Lithograph
by Ferdinand-Philippe d'Orléans (1830)

Ferdinand Philippe loved literature, music, and the fine arts, and had a pronounced taste for collecting, "making his choice slowly, like a true lover [of the arts]".

Riesener, and Jacob
. He was passionate about modern painters, buying several
Camille Corot, Paul Huet, and Théodore Rousseau. He commissioned Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres to paint Antiochus and Stratonice (1833), bought his Œdipus and the Sphinx
in 1839, and commissioned his portrait from him in 1840.

Himself a talented draughtsman, Ferdinand Philippe made amateur engravings – twelve

lithographs by him are known,[10] including a satire showing the sleeping Gulliver with Lilliputians all round him on foot and on horseback and a sign referring to the alarmist proclamation of 11 July 1792 by the Legislative Assembly
that declared the fatherland to be in danger.

Death

Louvre
Depiction of Ferdinand-Philippe d’Orléans' death.
daguerréotype, Paris, Musée d'Orsay
.

In 1842, the Duke was scheduled to leave for

département, he lost his balance and fractured his skull, and, despite the best attentions of his doctors, the 31-year-old Duke died some hours later, surrounded by family members who had rushed to the scene.[11] Alfred de Musset
evoked the accident in his poem Le Treize Juillet (in the collection Poésies nouvelles).

Ferdinand Philippe's funeral service was held in Notre Dame which was covered not in black fabric (of which there wasn't enough) but, at the suggestion of the architect Visconti, black paper. He was interred in an elaborate tomb in the Chapelle Royale, in Dreux, Eure-et-Loir.

Deprived of the popular support his eldest son had had, Louis Philippe and his regime fell six years later. He, his family, and Ferdinand Philippe's widow Princess Hélène went into exile in Great Britain. There, Hélène died nearly 16 years after her husband, on 18 May 1858 in Richmond, Surrey. Because Hélène was a Protestant, she could not be buried in the Catholic Chapelle Royale at Dreux. Instead, a room with a separate entrance was built attached to the chapel and a window was opened between her tomb and her husband's. The sculpture of the Protestant princess rests atop her tomb, depicting her reaching through the opening to the tomb of her beloved Catholic prince and husband Ferdinand Philippe.

Ancestry

Honours

In fiction

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prince Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans.
  1. ^ "Encyclopedia – Britannica Online Encyclopedia". academic.eb.com. Retrieved 2016-03-31.
  2. ^ "Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orleans | Heirs to the Throne Project".
  3. ^ cited by Guy Antonetti, Op. cit. (p. 756)
  4. ^ a b c Cited by Guy Antonetti, Op. cit., p. 757
  5. ^ a b Cited by Guy Antonetti, Op. cit., p. 782
  6. ^ cited by Guy Antonetti, Op. cit., p. 781)
  7. Louis of France
    , Duke of Burgundy
  8. ^ Cited by Guy Antonetti, Op. cit., p. 783
  9. ^ Anonyme, L'Artiste, 1836, vol. II, p. 164
  10. ^ Henri Béraldi, Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle, vol X, 1890, p. 234-236.
  11. ^
    ISBN 978-1-78076-784-0
    .
  12. ^ Teulet, Alexandre (1863). "Liste chronologique des chevaliers de l'ordre du Saint-Esprit depuis son origine jusqu'à son extinction (1578-1830)" [Chronological list of knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit from its origin to its extinction (1578-1830)]. Annuaire-bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France (in French) (2): 118. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  13. ^ H. Tarlier (1854). Almanach royal officiel, publié, exécution d'un arrête du roi (in French). Vol. 1. p. 37.
  14. ^ "Capitolo XIV: Ordini cavallereschi", Almanacco Reale del Regno Delle Due Sicilie (in Italian), 1829, pp. 415, 419, retrieved 8 October 2020
  15. ^ "Caballeros existentes en la insignie Orden del Toison de Oro". Guía de forasteros en Madrid para el año de 1838 (in Spanish). En la Imprenta Nacional. 1838. p. 62.
  16. ^ "Grand Crosses of the Order of the Tower and Sword". geneall.net. Retrieved 2018-09-21.

Sources

Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans
Cadet branch of the House of Bourbon
Born: 3 September 1810 Died: 13 July 1842
French royalty
Preceded by
Louis Philippe

later became King Louis Philippe I
 Heir to the Throne
as Heir apparent
9 August 1830 – 13 July 1842 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Louis Philippe
later became King Louis Philippe I
 Duke of Orléans
9 August 1830 – 13 July 1842 		Vacant
Title next held by
Prince Philippe
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