Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Philippe II | |
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Regent of France | |
Regency | 1 September 1715 – 15 February 1723 |
Monarch | Louis XV |
First Minister of State | |
In office 10 August 1723 – 2 December 1723 | |
Monarch | Louis XV |
Preceded by | Guillaume Dubois |
Succeeded by | Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon |
Born | Philippe Charles, Duke of Chartres 2 August 1674 Basilica of St Denis , France |
Spouse | |
Issue Detail | |
Roman Catholicism | |
Signature |
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Charles; 2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723), was a French prince, soldier, and statesman who served as
In 1692, Philippe married his first cousin
Parents
In March 1661,
In the following year, the Duke of Orléans married
Youth
Philippe Charles d'Orléans was born at the
At his birth, he was titled
Philippe was born fourth in
In 1676, his older brother the Duke of Valois died at the Palais-Royal in Paris, making Philippe the new heir to the House of Orléans; the future heirs of the family would be known as Duke of Chartres (Duc de Chartres) for the next century. The distraught mother of Philippe was pregnant at the time with Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans (1676–1744), future Duchess and regent of Lorraine. Élisabeth Charlotte and Philippe would always remain close.[4]
The Duke of Chartres grew up at his father's "private" court at Saint-Cloud and in Paris at the Palais-Royal, the Parisian residence of the Orléans family until the arrest of
Education
A program of how best to educate a prince was drawn up exclusively for him by Guillaume Dubois, his preceptor.[6] Dubois had entered Philippe's household in 1683 as his "under-preceptor". Philippe's education was carried out by the respected instructor Nicholas-François Parisot de Saint-Laurent until 1687.[3]: 23
Each course of study taught the Duc de Chartres the "principles" or "elements" of a subject. Some of the best historians, genealogists, scientists and artists in the kingdom participated in this educational experiment, which started around 1689. For example, Philippe learned physics and mathematics from Joseph Sauveur; and from Étienne Loulié[7] he learned musical notation, elementary musical theory, plus the basics of playing the viol and the recorder.
Chartres was reared alongside Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, later famous for his memoirs and defense of the rights of the peerage of France; Saint-Simon often accompanied the duke, and his wife was later a lady-in-waiting to Philippe's daughter, Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, Duchesse de Berry.
Next, collaborating to link physics and music, Sauveur and Loulié demonstrated vibrating strings and the Galilean pendulum, and how the mathematical principles on which these devices depend are related to music. Finally, in 1693 the prince studied composition with Marc-Antoine Charpentier. With Charpentier's help, he composed an opera, Philomèle, performed at his residence in 1694; and in 1705 the prince wrote a second opera, Penthée, to a libretto by the Marquis de La Fare. In the late 1690s Chartres studied the viol with Antoine Forqueray the elder. Meanwhile, he was studying diplomacy and riding, as preparations for a military career.
In May 1685 the Duc de Chartres, then just ten years old, made his first public appearance at Versailles; the occasion was the arrival of the
Military career
His father gained military distinction in the Battle of Cassel and during the decisive French victory against William of Orange, Chartres would similarly demonstrate military prowess. He had his first experience of battle at the siege of Mons in 1691, the year before his marriage. He fought with great distinction at the Battle of Steenkerque on 3 August 1692. In the same year he also served at the Siege of Namur. The following year he served at the Battle of Landen; he fought alongside the prince de Conti, who was wounded.
During a hiatus between military assignments, Chartres studied natural science.
In the next century, he would serve in the
Marriage
Constant wars with many of the
The lavish ceremony took place in the chapel of the
The young couple, mismatched from the start, never grew to like each other, and soon the young Philippe gave his wife the nickname of Madame Lucifer.[10] In spite of this, they had eight children (see below).
There were contemporary rumors of an incestuous relationship between the duke and his daughter, Marie Louise Elisabeth of Berry.[11][12][13] These rumors were never confirmed, although the duke reacted to them by demonstrating affectionate behavior towards her at court.[11] The rumors were also used by the opposition during his period as regent, and were the inspiration of libelous songs and poems[12]
Court life
On the death of his father in June 1701, Philippe inherited the Dukedoms of Orléans,
Throughout his life Philippe had many
Upon the death of the
In December 1697, the son of the Dauphin
In 1705, he became Grandmaster of the Ordre du Temple, reforming the Statutes, and bring the Order into semi-public view.[17][18]
In 1710, his eldest (and favourite) surviving daughter Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans married her first cousin Charles, Duke of Berry; he was a son of the Dauphin and thus outranked Philippe and his wife; this meant that Louise Élisabeth took precedence over her parents. The Berry couple would have no children that lived more than a year.
In 1711, the Dauphin died at
In his will, Louis XIV appointed Orléans president of the council of regency for the young king
The Regency
Months before the death of Louis XIV, Philippe was present at the
The scene of the Persian ambassador's entry into Paris, 7 February 1715, was described by
Louis XIV's will
On 29 July 1714, upon the insistence of his
Mme de Maintenon would have preferred Philip V [King of Spain] to be Regent and the duc du Maine to be Lieutenant Général and consequently in control. Fearing a revival of the war, Louis named the duc d'Orléans joint President of a Regency Council, but one that would be packed with his enemies, reaching its decisions by a majority vote that was bound to go against him. The real power would be in the hands of the duc du Maine, who was also appointed guardian of the young sovereign.[22]
On 25 August 1715, a few days before his death, Louis XIV added a
He sent for the Chancellor and wrote a last codicil to his will, in the presence of Mme de Maintenon. He was yielding, out of sheer fatigue, to his wife and confessor, probably with the reservation that his extraordinary action would be set aside after his death, like the will itself. Otherwise he would have been deliberately condemning his kingdom to perpetual strife, for the codicil appointed the duc du Maine commander of the civil and military Household, with Villeroy as his second-in-command. By this arrangement they became the sole masters of the person and residence of the King; of Paris ... and all the internal and external guard; of the entire service ... so much so that the Regent did not have even the shadow of the slightest authority and found himself at their mercy.[23]
The evening of 25 August, Louis XIV had a private audience with the Duke of Orléans, his nephew and son-in-law, re-assuring him:
You will find nothing in my will that should displease you. I commend the Dauphin to you, serve him as loyally as you have served me. Do your utmost to preserve his realm. If he were to die, you would be the master. [...] I have made what I believed to be the wisest and fairest arrangements for the well-being of the realm, but, since one cannot anticipate everything, if there is something to change or to reform, you will do whatever you see fit...[24]
House of Orléans |
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See descendants |
Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715, and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. On 2 September, the Duke of Orléans went to meet the parlementaires in the Grand-Chambre du Parlement in Paris in order to have Louis XIV's will annulled and his previous right to the regency restored. After a break that followed a much-heated session, the Parlement abrogated the recent codicil to Louis XIV's will and confirmed the Duke of Orléans as regent of France.[25]
On 30 December 1715, the regent decided to bring the young Louis XV from the Château de Vincennes to the Tuileries Palace in Paris[26] where he lived until his return to Versailles in June 1722. The regent governed from his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal.
Philippe disapproved of the hypocrisy of Louis XIV's reign and opposed
He acted in plays of
At first, he decreased taxation and dismissed 25,000 soldiers. But the inquisitorial measures which he had begun against the financiers led to disturbances, notably in the province of
On 6 June 1717, under the influence of Law and the duc de Saint-Simon, the Regent persuaded the Regency Council to purchase from Thomas Pitt for £135,000 the world's largest known diamond, a 141 carat (28.2 g) cushion brilliant, for the crown jewels of France. The diamond was known from then on as Le Régent.
Cellamare conspiracy
There existed a party of malcontents who wished to transfer the regency from Orléans to his cousin, the young king's uncle, King
From the beginning of 1721,
In March 1721, the Infanta Mariana Victoria arrived in Paris amid much joy. Known as l'infante Reine (Queen-Infanta) while in France, she was placed in the care of the old Dowager Princess of Conti, Philippe's sister in law, and lived in the Tuileries Palace.
In November 1721, at the age of twelve, Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans was married by proxy in Paris,
On 15 June 1722, Louis XV and the court left the Tuileries Palace for the Palace of Versailles where the young king wanted to reside. The decision had been taken by the Duke of Orléans who, after the fall of Law's System, was feeling the loss of his personal popularity in Paris.[29] Philippe took the apartments of his cousin the late Dauphin on the first floor of the Palace; the King's apartments were above his.
On 25 October of that year, the twelve-year-old Louis XV was anointed King of France in the cathedral of
In December 1722, the Regent lost his mother to whom he had always been close; the Dowager Duchess of Orléans died at Saint-Cloud at the age of seventy, with her son at her side, but he did not attend her funeral service because he had been called away on official business.[3]: 306 Philippe was greatly affected by his mother's death.
On the
The regent died in Versailles on 2 December 1723 in the arms of his mistress the duchesse de Falari. Louis XV mourned him greatly. The Duke of Bourbon took on the role of Prime Minister of France.
On 3 December, the Duke of Orléans' body was taken to Saint-Cloud where funeral ceremonies began the following day. His heart was taken to the
The heart of the Duke of Orléans is now at the
The Cellamare conspiracy is the subject of one of Alexandre Dumas' novels, The Conspirators (Le Chevalier d'Harmental).
Legacy
- The duke assembled the Orléans Collection, one of the finest collections of paintings ever made by a non-monarch, which was mostly sold in London after the French Revolution.
- As Grandmaster and reformer of the Ordre du Temple, he left a legacy of Templarism that exists to this day as the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.
- He promoted education, making the Sorbonne tuition-free and opening the Royal Library to the public (1720).
- The city of New Orleans, in Louisiana, U.S., was named after him.[32]
Issue
- Marie Isabelle d'Orléans (17 December 1693 – 17 October 1694) died in infancy.
- Charles of France, Duke of Berryand had no surviving issue.
- Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans (13 August 1698 – 10 February 1743) Abbess of Chelles died unmarried.
- Francesco III d'Este, Duke of Modenaand had issue.
- Margravine Johanna of Baden-Badenand had issue.
- Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans (11 December 1709 – 16 June 1742) married Louis I of Spain, no issue.
- Philippine Élisabeth d'Orléans (18 December 1714 – 21 May 1734) engaged to Infante Carlos of Spain, no issue.
- Louis François de Bourbonand had issue.
Illegitimate issue
Philippe also had several illegitimate children with several women, four of whom he acknowledged.
- By Léonore N, a doorkeeper at the Palais-Royal:
- N, bâtarde d'Orléans (c. 1688 – ), married Henri de Charency
- By Opera House:
- Archbishop of Cambrai, legitimized in 1706 (Paris, 1698 – Paris, 1764, bur Paris)
- By Lady-in-Waitingto the Dowager Duchess of Orléans, daughter of Daniel Le Bel de La Bussière and wife Anne de Masparant:
- Jean Philippe, dit le Chevalier d'Orléans (Chilly-Mazarin, 28 August 1702 – Paris, 16 June 1748)
- By Théâtre-Français, daughter of actors Nicolas Desmaresand Anne d'Ennebault:
- Église Saint-Eustache, Paris)
Ancestors
Ancestors of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sources
- Antoine, Michel, Louis XV, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1989 (French).
- Dufresne, Claude, Les Orléans, CRITERION, Paris, 1991, (French).
- Erlanger, Philippe, Louis XIV, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 1965, reprinted by Librairie Académique Perrin, Paris, 1978, (French).
- Erlanger, Philippe, Louis XIV, translated from the French by Stephen Cox, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970, (English).
- Haggard, Andrew C.P., The Regent of the Roués, Hutchison & Co, London, 1905, (English)
- Lewis, W. H., The Scandalous Regent, André Deutsch, London, 1961, (English).
- Meyer, Jean, Le Régent (1674–1723), Editions Ramsay, Paris, 1985, (French).
- Petitfils, Jean-Christian, Le Régent, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1986, (French).
- Pevitt, Christine, Philippe, Duc d'Orléans: Regent of France, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1997, (English).
- Ranum, Patricia M., Portraits around Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Baltimore, 2004), pp. 324–27 (where Philippe is attributed the number "III", as some genealogies do.)
- Shennan, J. H., Phillippe, Duke of Orléans: Regent of France, Thames and Hudson, London, 1979, (English).
References
- ^ The grandson of Philippe's half-sister Anne Marie d'Orléans and of his cousin and brother-in-law Louis, Grand Dauphin
- ^ a b Nancy Nicholas Barker, Brother to the Sun king:Philippe, Duke of Orléans, p. 1.
- ^ OCLC 1150973261– via the Internet Archive.
- ^ Fraser, Antonia, Love and Louis XIV, Anchor Books, 2006, p. 134.
- ^ At the time of Philippe's birth, the Palais-Royal was only occupied by the Dukes of Orléans as a grace and favour residence; it was later given to Philippe when he married Louis XIV's illegitimate daughter Mademoiselle de Blois in 1692.
- ^ V. de Seilhac, L'Abbé Dubois, premier ministre de Louis XV (Paris, 1862), especially pp. 5-11, 185-205, for the prince's education.
- ^ Patricia M. Ranum, "Étienne Loulié (1654-1702), musicien de Mademoiselle de Guise, pédagogue et théoricien", (part 1) Recherches, 25 (1987), especially pp. 67-75, on the prince's education; and (part 2), Recherches, 26 (1988-90), especially pp. 5-10, on the prince's subsequent protection of Loulié.
- ^ The previous day there had been a formal engagement party at Versailles.
- ^ a b The Unruly Daughter of the Regent
- ^ Dufresne, Claude, Les Orléans, Criterion, Paris, 1991, p. 74-78, (French).
- ^ a b Nancy Mitford (1966). Solkonungen (The Sun King) (in Swedish).
- ^ a b Simon Sebac Montefiore (2005). Potemkin och Katarina den stora- en kejserlig förbindelse (Potemkin and Catherine the Great – an Imperial liaison) (in Swedish). p. 237.
- ^
Joan Haslip (1991). Marie Antoinette. p. 38. ISBN 978-1555841836.
- ^ Mitford, Nancy, The Sun King, Hamish Hamilton, 1966
- ^ Lescure, M. de (Mathurin): Les maitresses du régent; études d'histoire et de mœurs sur le commencement du xviiie siècle
- ^ ib. Spanheim, Ézéchiel, pp. 104-105.
- ^ Clausen, Daniel J. "Origins of Masonic Templarism in the French Ordre du Temple". Templar Succession: Establishing Continuity 1307-Present.
- ^ Clausen, Daniel J. (January 2021). "Succession 1307-1804 Re-Examining the Larmenius Charter". Templar Succession: Establishing Continuity 1307-Present.
- ^ In French sources, Méhémet Riza Beg.
- Ispahanunder the terms of the commercial treaty.
- ^ Erlanger, Philippe, Louis XIV, translated from the French by Stephen Cox, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970, p. 363
- Praeger Publishers. p. 373.
- Praeger Publishers. p. 373.
- ^ ib. Erlanger, p. 373.
- ^ ib. Dufresne, pp. 123-126.
- ^ Antoine, Michel, Louis XV, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1989, p. 43.
- ^ Subject of the first section of Charles Mackay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", which is available from http://gutenberg.org
- ^ Nouvelle biographie générale
- ^ Antoine, p. 102.
- ^ Dufresne, p. 170.
- ^ Chéruel, Adolphe (1858). Mʹemoirs complets et authentiques du duc de Saint-Simon sur le siècle du Louis XIV et la rʹegence. pp. 93–94.
- ^ "French History in New Orleans". www.neworleans.com. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
- ^ Vatout, Jean (1836). Le chateau d'eu: notices historiques, Volume 4. Félix Malteste & Co. p. 438. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
- ^ Williams, Hugh Noel (1913). Unruly daughters; a romance of the house of Orléans. Hutchinson & Co. p. 10. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
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