Louis Philippe I

Louis Philippe I
King of France (more...)
Reign	9 August 1830 – 24 February 1848
Proclamation	9 August 1830
Predecessor	Charles X
Successor	Position abolished Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (as President of France)
Prime ministers	See list Jacques Laffitte (1830–1831) Casimir-Pierre Périer (1831–1832) The Duke of Dalmatia (1832–1834) Étienne Maurice Gérard (1834–1834) The Duke of Bassano (1834–1834) The Duke of Trévise (1834–1835) The Duke of Broglie (1835–1836) Adolphe Thiers (1836–1836) Louis-Mathieu Molé (1836–1839) The Duke of Dalmatia (1839–1840) Adolphe Thiers (1840–1840) The Duke of Dalmatia (1840–1847) François Guizot (1847–1848) Louis-Mathieu Molé (1848–1848)
Born	(1773-10-06)6 October 1773 Palais Royal, Paris, Kingdom of France
Died	26 August 1850(1850-08-26) (aged 76) Claremont, Surrey, United Kingdom
Burial	1876 Chapelle royale de Dreux
Spouse	Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily ​ ​ (m. 1809)​
Issue see detail...	Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans Louise, Queen of the Belgians Marie, Duchess of Wurttemberg Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours Clémentine, Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Kohary François, Prince of Joinville Prince Charles, Duke of Penthièvre Prince Henri, Duke of Aumale Prince Antoine, Duke of Montpensier
Catholicism
Signature
Military career
Allegiance	Kingdom of France  French First Republic
Service/branch	French Army
Years of service	1785–1793
Rank	Lieutenant general
Commands held	Governor of Strasbourg 4th Brigade of the Army of the North 14th Dragoons Regiment
Battles/wars	French Revolutionary War Battle of Valmy Battle of Jemappes Battle of Neerwinden

Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was

.

Louis Philippe remained in exile for 21 years until the Bourbon Restoration. He was proclaimed king in 1830 after his cousin Charles X was forced to abdicate by the July Revolution. The reign of Louis Philippe is known as the July Monarchy and was dominated by wealthy industrialists and bankers. During the period 1840–1848, he followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of French statesman François Guizot. He also promoted friendship with Great Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, notably the French conquest of Algeria. His popularity faded as economic conditions in France deteriorated in 1847, and he was forced to abdicate after the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848.

He lived for the remainder of his life in exile in the United Kingdom. His supporters were known as

.

Before the Revolution (1773–1789)

Early life

Louis Philippe was born in the

]

Louis Philippe was the eldest of three sons and a daughter, a family that was to have erratic fortunes from the beginning of the

]

Education

Louis Philippe was tutored by the

] brand of Catholicism. When Louis Philippe's grandfather died in 1785, his father succeeded him as Duke of Orléans and Louis Philippe succeeded his father as Duke of Chartres.

In 1788, with the

Mont Saint-Michel

, during a visit there with the Countess of Genlis. From October 1788 to October 1789, the Palais Royal was a meeting-place for the revolutionaries.

Revolution (1789–1793)

Louis Philippe grew up in a period that changed Europe as a whole and, following his father's strong support for the Revolution, he involved himself completely in those changes. In his diary, he reports that he took the initiative to join the

Jacobin Club

, a move that his father supported.

Military service

In June 1791, Louis Philippe got his first opportunity to become involved in the affairs of France. In 1785, he had been given the hereditary appointment of Colonel of the Chartres Dragoons (renamed 14th Dragoons in 1791).^[1]

With war imminent in 1791, all proprietary colonels were ordered to join their regiments. Louis Philippe was a model officer, and demonstrated his personal bravery in two famous instances. First, three days after Louis XVI's

.

Louis Philippe served under his father's crony,

).

After the Kingdom of France declared war on the Habsburg monarchy on 20 April 1792, Louis Philippe first participated in what became known as the French Revolutionary Wars within the French-occupied Austrian Netherlands at Boussu, Wallonia, on about 28 April 1792. He was next engaged at Quaregnon, Wallonia, on about 29 April 1792, and then at Quiévrain, Wallonia, near Jemappes, Wallonia, on about 30 April 1792. There he was instrumental in rallying a unit of retreating soldiers after French forces had been victorious at the Battle of Quiévrain (1792) two days earlier on 28 April 1792. The Duke of Biron wrote to War Minister de Grave, praising the young colonel, who was promoted to brigadier general; he commanded the 4th Brigade of cavalry in Lückner's Army of the North.

In the Army of the North, Louis Philippe served with four future Marshals of France:

campaign.

At the 20 September 1792 Battle of Valmy, Louis Philippe was ordered to place a battery of artillery on the crest of the hill of Valmy. The battle was apparently inconclusive, but the Austrian-Prussian army, short of supplies, was forced back across the Rhine. Dumouriez praised Louis Philippe's performance in a letter after the battle. Louis Philippe was recalled to Paris to give an account of the Battle at Valmy to the French government. He had a rather trying interview with Danton, the Minister of Justice, which he later told his children about. Shortly thereafter, he was made Governor of Strasbourg.

While in Paris, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. In October Louis Philippe returned to the Army of the North, where Dumouriez had begun a march into the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium). Louis Philippe again commanded a brigade, even though he held the rank of lieutenant general. On 6 November 1792, Dumouriez chose to attack an Austrian force in a strong position on the heights of Cuesmes and Jemappes to the west of Mons. Louis Philippe's division sustained heavy casualties as it attacked through a wood, and retreated in disorder. Lt. General Louis Philippe rallied a group of units, dubbing them "the battalion of Mons", and pushed forward along with other French units, finally overwhelming the outnumbered Austrians.

Events in Paris undermined his budding military career. The incompetence of

to death, Louis Philippe began to consider leaving France. He was dismayed that his own father, known then as Philippe Égalité, voted in favour of the execution.

Louis Philippe was willing to stay to fulfill his duties in the army, but he became implicated in the plot Dumouriez had planned to ally with the Austrians, march his army on Paris, and restore the Constitution of 1791. Dumouriez had met with Louis Philippe on 22 March 1793 and urged his subordinate to join in the attempt.

With the French government falling into the Reign of Terror about the time of the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal earlier in March 1793, Louis Philippe decided to leave France to save his life. On 4 April, Dumouriez and Louis Philippe left for the Austrian camp. They were intercepted by Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Nicolas Davout, who had served at Jemappes with Louis Philippe. As Dumouriez ordered the Colonel back to the camp, some of his soldiers cried out against the General, now declared a traitor by the National Convention. Shots rang out as the two men fled toward the Austrian camp. The next day, Dumouriez again tried to rally soldiers against the convention; however, he found that the artillery had declared itself in favour of the Republic. He and Louis Philippe had no choice but to go into exile when Philippe Égalité was arrested.

At the age of nineteen, and already ranked as a Lieutenant General, Louis Philippe left France. He did not return for twenty-one years.

Exile (1793–1815)

The reaction in Paris to Louis Philippe's involvement in Dumouriez's treason inevitably resulted in misfortunes for the Orléans family. Philippe Égalité spoke in the

in Marseille.

Meanwhile, Louis Philippe was forced to live in the shadows, avoiding both pro-Republican revolutionaries and

, where Louis Philippe was discovered by a group of émigrés.

It became quite apparent that for the women to settle peacefully anywhere, they would have to separate from Louis Philippe. He then left with his faithful valet Baudouin for the heights of the Alps, and then to Basel, where he sold all but one of his horses. Now moving from town to town throughout Switzerland, he and Baudouin found themselves very much exposed to all the distresses of extended travelling. They were refused entry to a monastery by monks who believed them to be young vagabonds. Another time, he woke up after spending a night in a barn to find himself at the far end of a musket, confronted by a man attempting to keep away thieves.

Throughout this period, he never stayed in one place more than 48 hours. Finally, in October 1793, Louis Philippe was appointed a teacher of geography, history, mathematics and modern languages, at a boys' boarding school. The school, owned by a Monsieur Jost, was in Reichenau, a village on the upper Rhine in the then independent Grisons league state, now part of Switzerland. His salary was 1,400 francs and he taught under the name Monsieur Chabos. He had been at the school for a month when he heard the news from Paris: his father had been guillotined on 6 November 1793 after a trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Travel

After Louis Philippe left Reichenau, he separated the now sixteen-year-old Adélaïde from the Countess of Genlis, who had fallen out with Louis Philippe. Adélaïde went to live with her great-aunt the

and Hungary and, finally, to her mother, who was exiled in Spain.

Louis Philippe travelled extensively. He visited Scandinavia in 1795 and then moved on to Finland. For about a year he stayed in

Louis Philippe visited the

.

His visit to Cape Cod in 1797 coincided with the division of the town of Eastham into two towns, one of which took the name of Orleans, possibly in his honour. During their sojourn, the Orléans princes travelled throughout the country, as far south as Nashville and as far north as Maine. The brothers were even held in Philadelphia briefly during an outbreak of yellow fever. Louis Philippe is also thought to have met Isaac Snow of Orleans, Massachusetts, who had escaped to France from a British prison hulk during the American Revolutionary War. In 1839, while reflecting on his visit to the United States, Louis Philippe explained in a letter to Guizot that his three years there had a large influence on his political beliefs and judgments when he became king.

In Boston, Louis Philippe learned of the coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797) and of the exile of his mother to Spain. He and his brothers then decided to return to Europe. They went to New Orleans, planning to sail to Havana and thence to Spain. This, however, was a troubled journey, as Spain and Great Britain were then at war. While in colonial Louisiana in 1798, they were entertained by Julien Poydras in the town of Pointe Coupée,^[3] as well as by the Marigny de Mandeville family in New Orleans.

They sailed for Havana in an American

Marriage

In 1808, Louis Philippe proposed to

In 1809, Louis Philippe married Princess

Bourbon Restoration (1815–1830)

After the abdication of Napoleon, Louis Philippe, known as Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, returned to France during the reign of his cousin

, caused friction between him and Louis XVIII, and he openly sided with the liberal opposition.

Upon his return to Paris in May 1814, the Duke of Orléans was restored to the rank of lieutenant-general in the army by Louis XVIII. He was denied the title of Altesse Royale (Royal Highness), although it was accorded to his wife. Louis Philippe had to settle for the lesser Altesse Serenissime (Serene Highness).^[8] Less than a year after returning to France, he and his family were uprooted by the return of Napoléon from Elba, known as the Hundred Days. On 6 March 1815, after the news of Napoléon's return to France reached Paris, Louis Philippe was dispatched to Lyon with the Comte d'Artois (the future Charles X) to organize a defense against the Emperor, but the hopelessness of the situation soon became apparent and he was back in the capital by the 12th. Thereafter, Louis XVIII made him commander of the Army of the North. In the days after Napoléon entered Paris (March 20), Louis XVIII fled to Belgium and Louis Philippe resigned his commission, choosing to join his family in exile in England. This brought him further scorn from royalists because he did not join Louis XVIII in Belgium.^[9] Napoléon was soon defeated in the Battle of Waterloo and Louis XVIII was restored to power, but Louis Philippe and his family only returned to France in 1817, after the wave of repression and recriminations had faded.

Louis Philippe was on far friendlier terms with Louis XVIII's brother and successor, Charles X, who acceded to the throne in 1824, and with whom he socialized. Charles X granted him the Altesse Royale title, and permitted the

caused him to be viewed as a constant threat to the stability of Charles' government. This soon proved to be to his advantage.

King of the French (1830–1848)

In 1830, the

for the young Henri.

Charles X and his family, including his grandson, went into exile in the United Kingdom. The young ex-king, the Duke of Bordeaux, in exile took the title of Comte de Chambord. Later he became the pretender to the throne of France and was supported by the Légitimists.

Louis Philippe was sworn in as King Louis Philippe I on 9 August 1830.^[11] Upon his accession to the throne, Louis Philippe assumed the title of King of the French, a title previously adopted by Louis XVI in the short-lived Constitution of 1791. Linking the monarchy to a people instead of a territory (as the previous designation King of France and of Navarre) was aimed at undercutting the Légitimist claims of Charles X and his family.

By an ordinance he signed on 13 August 1830,

, that the younger sons would continue to have their previous titles, and that his sister and daughters would be styled Princesses of Orléans, not of France.

His ascent to the title of King of the French was seen as a betrayal by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. Nicholas ended their friendship.

In 1832, Louis' daughter, Princess

.

Rule

Louis Philippe ruled in an unpretentious fashion, avoiding the pomp and lavish spending of his predecessors. Despite this outward appearance of simplicity, his support came from the wealthy

In parliament, the narrow, property-qualified electorate of the time (only about 1 in every 170 citizens was enfranchised at the beginning of the reign) provided Louis Philippe with consistent support.

income gap widened considerably.^{[citation needed]} According to William Fortescue, "Louis Philippe owed his throne to a popular revolution in Paris, he was the 'King of the Barricades', yet he went on to preside over a regime which rapidly gained notoriety for political repression of the left, class oppression of the poor and rule in the interests of the rich."^[16]

In foreign affairs it was a quiet period, with friendship with Great Britain.[17] In October 1844 he paid a visit to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. This made him the first French king to set foot on English soil since Jean II was imprisoned there after the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.^[18]

Throughout his reign, Louis Philippe faced domestic opposition from various factions, ranging from Legitimists, who supported the senior branch of the Bourbons over the Orléans branch, to Republicans. This opposition, however, was weak and fragmented.^[12] In the spring of 1832, a terrible outbreak of cholera in Paris fueled resentment against the July Monarchy and reignited revolutionary fervor. Many Parisians blamed Louis Philippe and his government for their perceived inaction in the face of the epidemic. This resentment culminated in the short-lived Republican uprising called the June Rebellion, in which insurrectionists took over a portion of central Paris. The rebellion was quickly crushed by a huge force of soldiers and National Guards who descended on the city. Louis Philippe showed a cool resolve throughout the crisis, coming to Paris as soon as he was informed of the disturbances, greeting the troops, and going amongst the people.^[19][20]

An industrial and agricultural depression in 1846 led to the

1848 Revolutions, and Louis Philippe's abdication.^[21]

The dissonance between his positive early reputation and his late unpopularity was epitomized by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables as an oxymoron describing his reign as "Prince Equality", in which Hugo states:

[Louis Philippe had to] bear in his own person the contradiction of the Restoration and the Revolution, to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power ... He had been proscribed, a wanderer, poor. He had lived by his own labor. In Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had sold an old horse in order to obtain bread. At Reichenau, he gave lessons in mathematics, while his sister Adelaide did wool work and sewed. These souvenirs connected with a king rendered the bourgeoisie enthusiastic. He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of

Danton had said to him: "Young man!"

What is there against him? That throne. Take away Louis Philippe the king, there remains the man. And the man is good. He is good at times even to the point of being admirable. Often, in the midst of his gravest souvenirs, after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the continent, he returned at night to his apartments, and there, exhausted with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit, considering it something to hold his own against Europe, but that it was a still greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner.^[22]

Assassination attempts

Fieschi, 28 July 1835 by Eugène Lami

Louis Philippe survived seven assassination attempts.

On 28 July 1835, Louis Philippe survived an assassination attempt by

, and numerous staff.

Fieschi, a Corsican ex-soldier, attacked the procession with a weapon he built himself, a volley gun that later became known as the Machine infernale. This consisted of 25 gun barrels fastened to a wooden frame that could be fired simultaneously.^[23] The device was fired from the third level of n° 50 Boulevard du Temple (a commemorative plaque has since been engraved there), which had been rented by Fieschi. A ball only grazed the King's forehead. Eighteen people were killed, including Lieutenant Colonel

Several of the gun barrels of Fieschi's weapon burst when it was fired; he was badly injured and was quickly captured. He was executed by guillotine together with his two co-conspirators the following year.

Abdication and death (1848–1850)

February 1848 Revolution

On 24 February 1848, during the

The

and then Emperor Napoleon III in 1852.

Louis Philippe and his family remained in exile in Great Britain in Claremont, Surrey, though a plaque on Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds, claims that he spent some time there, possibly due to a friendship with the Marquess of Bristol, who lived nearby at Ickworth House. The royal couple spent some time by the sea at St. Leonards^[28] and later at the Marquess's home in Brighton. Louis Philippe died at Claremont on 26 August 1850. He was first buried at St. Charles Borromeo Chapel in Weybridge, Surrey. In 1876, his remains and those of his wife were taken to France and buried at the Chapelle royale de Dreux, the Orléans family necropolis his mother had built in 1816, and which he had enlarged and embellished after her death.

Clash of the pretenders

The clashes of 1830 and 1848 between the

. Thus the comte de Chambord's death would have united the House of Bourbon and House of Orléans.

However, the comte de Chambord refused to take the throne unless the

but this was not seriously considered.

Many of the few remaining French monarchists regard the descendants of Louis Philippe's grandson, who use the title Count of Paris, as the rightful

. Philippe (King Philip V of Spain), however, had renounced his rights to the throne of France to prevent the much-feared union of France and Spain.

The two sides challenged each other in the

's legal system has no jurisdiction over the matter.

Honours

National

Silver coin of Louis Philippe I, struck 1834
Obverse: (French) LOUIS PHILIPPE I, ROI DES FRANÇAIS, in English: "Louis Philippe I, King of the French"	Reverse: 5 FRANCS, 1834

• Knight of the Holy Spirit, 2 February 1789^[29]
• Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, 3 July 1816;^[30] Grand Master, 9 August 1830
• Grand Cross of the Military Order of St. Louis, 10 July 1816^[31]
• Founder and Grand Master of the Order of the Cross of July, 13 December 1830

Foreign

•  Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold, 10 March 1833^[32]
•  Denmark: Knight of the Elephant, 30 April 1846^[33]
• Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, March 1840^[34]
•  
  Grand Cross of the Military William Order, 22 March 1842^[35]
•  Spain: Knight of the Golden Fleece, 21 February 1834^[36]
• Beylik of Tunis: Husainid Family Order^[37]
•  Two Sicilies:^[38]
  • Knight of St. Januarius
  • Grand Cross of St. Ferdinand and Merit
•  United Kingdom: Stranger Knight of the Garter, 11 October 1844^[39]

Arms

• 
  Standard of Louis Philippe I
• 
  Coat of arms of Louis Philippe I

Territory

The British Lieutenant-Governor Captain William Hobson subsequently went on to claim sovereignty over Port Louis Philippe.

As a further honorific gesture to Louis Philippe and his Orléanist branch of the Bourbons, the ship on which the settlers sailed to found the eponymous colony of Port Louis Philippe was named the Comte de Paris after Louis Philippe's beloved infant grandson, Prince Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris who was born on 24 August 1838.^[41]

Issue

Name	Picture	Birth	Death	Notes
Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans		3 September 1810	13 July 1842	Married Duchess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had issue.
Louise d'Orléans		3 April 1812	11 October 1850	Married King Leopold I of Belgium, had issue.
Princess Marie d'Orléans		12 April 1813	6 January 1839	Married Duke Alexander of Württemberg, had issue.
Louis, Duke of Nemours		25 October 1814	26 June 1896	Married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had issue.
Princess Françoise Louise Caroline d'Orléans		26 March 1816	20 May 1818	Died aged two. Baptised on 20 July 1816, with Emperor Francis I of Austria as her godfather.
Clémentine d'Orléans		6 March 1817	16 February 1907	Married Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had issue.
François, Prince of Joinville		14 August 1818	16 June 1900	Married Princess Francisca of Brazil, had issue.
Charles d'Orléans		1 January 1820	25 July 1828	Died aged eight.
Henri, Duke of Aumale		16 January 1822	7 May 1897	Married Princess Caroline Auguste of the Two Sicilies, had issue-but no descendants survive.
Antoine, Duke of Montpensier		31 July 1824	4 February 1890	Married Infanta Luisa Fernanda, Duchess of Montpensier , had issue.

Ancestry

See also

• Louis Philippe style
• List of works by James Pradier
• Paris under Louis Philippe
• Lieutenant-General (France)
• Origins of the French Foreign Legion
• Port Louis Philippe (Akaroa)

Namesakes

• Louis Philippe, Crown Prince of Belgium (1833–1834), grandson by his daughter Queen Louise of the Belgians
• Luís Filipe, Prince Royal of Portugal (1887–1908), great-great-grandson and heir to the Portuguese Throne

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Aston, Nigel (October 1988). "Orleanism, 1780–1830". History Today. 38 (10): 41–47.
• Bastide, Charles (1927). "The Anglo-French Entente under Louis Philippe". Economica (19): 91–98.
  JSTOR 2548358
  .
• Beik, Paul Harold (1965). Louis Philippe and the July Monarchy. Van Nostrand.
  OL 40215892M
  .
• Collingham, H.A.C.; Alexander, R. S. (1988). The July Monarchy: A Political History of France, 1830–1848. Longman.
  OL 2394831M
  .
• OL 6918316M
  .
• Fortescue, William (2005). France and 1848: The End of Monarchy. Routledge. p. 27.
  ISBN 978-0-4153-1462-6
  .
• Howarth, T.E.B. Citizen-King: The Life of Louis Philippe, King of the French (1962).
• Jardin, Andre, and Andre-Jean Tudesq. Restoration and Reaction 1815–1848 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1988).
• Lucas-Dubreton, J. The Restoration and the July Monarchy (1929).
• Newman, Edgar Leon, and Robert Lawrence Simpson. Historical Dictionary of France from the 1815 Restoration to the Second Empire (Greenwood Press, 1987) online edition Archived 28 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
• Porch, Douglas. "The French Army Law of 1832." Historical Journal 14, no. 4 (1971): 751–69. online.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Louis Philippe I.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Louis Philippe I".

• Media related to Louis Philippe I at Wikimedia Commons
• "Louis-Philippe" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XV (9th ed.). 1883.
• Caricatures of Louis Philippe and others, published in La Caricature 1830–1835 (La Caricature Gallery)

Louis Philippe I House of Orléans Cadet branch of the House of Bourbon Born: 6 October 1773 Died: 26 August 1850
Regnal titles
Preceded by Charles X as King of France	King of the French 9 August 1830 – 24 February 1848	Vacant Napoleon III as Emperor of the French
Preceded by Charles X of France	Co-Prince of Andorra with Simó de Guardiola 9 August 1830 – 24 February 1848	Succeeded by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
French nobility
Preceded by Louis Philippe II	Duke of Orléans 6 November 1793 – 9 August 1830	Succeeded by Ferdinand Philippe
Political offices
Preceded by Charles X	French Head of State 9 August 1830 – 24 February 1848	Succeeded by Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure
Titles in pretence
Loss of title Republic declared	— TITULAR — King of the French 24 February 1848[1]	Succeeded by Louis Philippe II

1. ^ Abdicated on the same day