At the accession of Charles X., Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, chief
of the younger branch of the Bourbons, born at Paris, October 6th,
1773, was not yet fifty-seven years old. He married November 25th,
1809, Marie-Amelie, Princess of the Two Sicilies, whose father,
Ferdinand I., reigned at Naples, and whose mother, the Queen
Marie-Caroline, sister of Marie Antoinette, died at Venice, September
7th, 1814. Marie-Amelie, born April 26th, 1782, was forty-two years old
when Charles X. ascended the throne. Of her marriage with the Duke of
Orleans there were born five sons and four daughters:--
1. Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Charles-Henri-Roulin, Duke of Chartres,
born at Palermo, September 3d, 1810. (When his father became King, he
took the title of Duke of Orleans, and died from a fall from his
carriage going from the Tuileries to Neuilly on the Chemin de la
Revolte, July 13th, 1842.)
2. Louise-Marie-Therese-Caroline-Elisabeth, Mademoiselle d'Orleans,
born at Palermo the 3d of April, 1812. (She married the King of the
Belgians, Leopold I., August 9th, 1832, and died October 11th, 1850.)
3. Marie-Christine-Caroline-Adelaide-Francoise-Leopoldine, Mademoiselle
de Valois, born at Palermo, April 12th, 1813. (She was designated by
the name of the Princess Marie, distinguished herself in the arts, made
the famous statue of Jeanne d'Arc, married October 17th, 1837, the Duke
Frederic William of Wurtemberg, and died January 2d, 1839.)
4. Louis-Charles-Philippe-Raphael, Duke of Nemours, born at Paris,
October 25th, 1814.
5. Marie-Clementine-Caroline-Leopoldine, Mademoiselle de Beaujolais,
born at Neuilly June 3d, 1817. (She was designated by the name of the
Princess Clementine, and married, April 20th, 1843, the Prince August,
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.)
6. Francois-Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Marie, Prince de Joinville, born
at Neuilly, August 14th, 1818.
7. Charles-Ferdinand-Louis-Philippe-Emmanuel, Duke of Penthievre, born
at Paris, January 1st, 1820. (He died July 25th, 1828.)
8. Henri-Eugene-Philippe-Louis, Duke d'Aumale, born at Paris, January
16th, 1822.
9. Antoine-Marie-Philippe-Louis, Duke of Montpensier, born at Neuilly,
July 5th, 1824.
The Duke of Orleans had a sister who lived with him at the Palais
Royal, and was reputed to be his Egeria. She was
Louise-Marie-Adelaide-Eugenie, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, as she was
called under the Restoration. Born August 23d, 1777, she had been
educated by Madame de Genlis, with her brother, and was said to be
attached to the ideas of the Liberal party. (It was she who in 1830
decided Louis-Philippe to accept the crown, took the name of Madame
Adelaide, and died, unmarried, some days before the revolution of the
24th of February, 1848.)
Marie-Amelie, Duchess of Orleans, was the sister of the Prince Royal of
the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand, father of the Duchess of Berry, and the
niece was very fond of her aunt. The two Princesses were united by
other bonds than those of blood. During all her infancy the Duchess of
Berry had lived with her aunt at Palermo and Naples. Both were
descended in direct line from the great Empress, Maria Theresa. Both
had greatly loved the Queen Marie-Caroline, of whom one was the
granddaughter, the other the daughter. Both professed great admiration
for the Martyr-Queen, Marie Antoinette, of whom one was the
grand-niece, the other the niece. The devotion and family feeling of
the Duchess of Orleans won every one's sympathy for her, and the
Duchess of Berry had a respectful attachment for her. Their relations
were as constant as they were friendly. There existed between the
Palais Royal and the Pavilion de Marsan, dwellings so near each other,
a friendship and neighborliness that left nothing to be desired.
The Duke of Bordeaux and his sister, Mademoiselle, were very fond of
their little Orleans cousins. There was a certain pleasure in thinking
that the Duke of Chartres might one day become the husband of
Mademoiselle. This young Prince, already very amiable and sympathetic,
was the favorite of the Duchess of Berry. She said to herself that he
would be the son-in-law of her dreams. Every time that she went to the
Palais Royal, where her visits were incessant, she was received with
transports of affection. Nowhere did she enjoy herself more.
Louis-Philippe treated her with deference and courtesy. She believed
sincerely in his friendship, and any one who had shown in her presence
the least doubt of the loyalty of her aunt's husband would not have
ventured to complete the phrase expressing it. The Duchess of Berry was
to preserve this confidence until the Revolution of 1830.
Charles X. had a kindly feeling, founded on very real sympathy, for the
Duke of Orleans and all his family. During the Emigration, as under the
reign of Louis XVIII., he had always maintained very cordial relations
with the Duke, and had tried to efface the bad memories of Philippe
Egalite. Charles X. was as confiding as Louis XVIII. was distrustful.
Optimist, like all good natures, the new King would not believe evil.
He attributed to others his own good qualities. Louis XVIII. always had
suspicions as to the Duke of Orleans. "Since his return," he said, in
1821, "the Duke of Orleans is the chief of a party without seeming to
be. His name is a threatening flag, his palace a rallying-place. He
makes no stir, but I can see that he makes progress. This activity
without movement is disquieting. How can you undertake to check the
march of a man who makes no step?" Every time the Duke attempted to
bring up the question of exchanging his title of Most Serene Highness
for that of Royal Highness, the King stubbornly resisted. "The Duke of
Orleans is quite near enough to the throne already," he replied to all
solicitations. "I shall be careful to bring him no nearer."
This refusal was very depressing to the Duke. One circumstance rendered
it still more annoying. As a king's daughter, his wife was a Royal
Highness. By this title she enjoyed honors denied to her husband. When
she was present at court with him she was first announced, both doors
of the salon being opened: "Her Royal Highness, Madame the Duchess of
Orleans." Then one door having been closed, the usher announced: "His
Most Serene Highness, Monseigneur the Duke of Orleans." This
distinction was very disagreeable to the Duke. Charles X. hastened to
abolish it. September 21st, 1824, he accorded the title of Royal
Highness to the Duke of Orleans, and three days later he conferred this
title, so much desired, on the children of the sister of the Duke. The
latter showed his great pleasure. Though he might favor liberalism and
give pledges to democracy, he remained a Prince to the marrow of his
bones. He loved not only money, but honors, and attached extreme
importance to questions of etiquette. The memories of his childhood and
his early youth bound him to the old regime and despite appearances to
the contrary, this Prince, so dear to the bourgeois and to the National
Guard, was always by his tastes and aspirations a man of Versailles.
Charles X. would gladly have said to the Duke of Orleans, as Augustus
to Cinna, speaking of his benefits:--
"Je t'en avais comble, je t'en veux accabler."
He was not content with according him a title of honor; he gave him
something much more solid, by causing to be returned to him, with the
consent of the Chambers, the former domain and privileges of the House
of Orleans. This was not easy. It required not only the good-will of
the Chateau, but the vote of the Chambers, and the majority was hardly
favorable to the Duke of Orleans, of whom it cherished the same
suspicions as Louis XVIII. The Duchess of Berry pleaded warmly the
cause of her aunt's husband, and conspired with Charles X. against the
Right, the members of which in this case believed it a service to
royalty to disobey the King. The opposition to the project seemed
likely to be so strong, that the government was obliged to commit a
sort of moral violence upon the Chamber of Deputies. The King directed
his ministers to join in some way the question of the apanages of the
House of Orleans with the disposition of his own civil list. The King
thought that the sentiments of the Chamber for himself and his family
would make them adopt the whole en bloc. It was a device of his
kindliness, a sort of smuggling in the King's coach, as was said by M.
de Labourdonnaye. A large number of deputies demanded a division of the
question. The ministers had to make great efforts and mount the tribune
many times to defend the measure, which passed only by a very feeble
majority. The Duke of Orleans, now at the very height of his desires,
thanked Charles X. with effusion.
Nor was this all; from the millions of indemnity to the emigres, the
Duke of Orleans drew 14,000,000 francs. The opposition chiefs of the
Left imitated the Prince and profited largely by the law that they had
opposed and condemned. The Duke of Choiseul obtained 1,100,000 francs,
the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt 1,400,000 francs, M. Gaetan de
La Rochefoucauld 1,429,000 francs, General Lafayette himself 1,450,000
francs.
The Orleanist party was already beginning to take form, perhaps without
the knowledge of its chief. In his pamphlets of 1824, Paul-Louis
Courier devoted himself to separating the older from the younger branch
of the House, declaring that he should like to be a resident of a
commune of Paris if the Duke of Orleans were its mayor, for from a
Prince the Duke had become a man during the Emigration, and had never
begged bread of a foreign hand. Louis-Philippe continued prudently the
role he had played at the end of the first Restoration and during the
Hundred Days. While professing an obsequious and enthusiastic respect
for Charles X., he secretly flattered the Bonapartists and the
Liberals. He sent his eldest son to the public school, as if to
insinuate that he remained faithful to the ideas of equality from which
his father had gained his surname. He made very welcome the coryphees
of the Opposition, such as General Foy and M. Laffitte, to the Palais
Royal, and received them in halls where the brush of Horace Vernet had
represented the great battles of the tricolor flag. When General Foy
died, in November, 1825, the Duke of Orleans put his name for ten
thousand francs to the subscription opened to provide a fund for the
children of the General. Some friendly representations were made from
the Chateau to the Palais Royal on this matter. It was answered that
the Duke of Orleans had subscribed not as Prince, but as a friend, and
in private called attention to the modesty of the gift compared with
others, with that of M. Casimir Perier, for example, which amounted to
fifty thousand francs. This excuse was satisfactory at the Tuileries.
Is this saying that Louis-Philippe was already at this time thinking of
dethroning his benefactor, his relative, and his King? We think not. He
profited by the errors of Charles X.; but if Charles X. had not
committed them, the idea of usurpation would not have occurred to the
mind of the chief of the younger branch. Men are not so profoundly good
or so profoundly wicked. They let themselves be carried further than
they wish, and if the acts they are to commit some day were foretold
them, the prophecies would most often seem to them as impossible as
insulting.
Madame de Gontaut, Governess of the Children of France, recounts an
incident that took place at the Louvre, December 22d, 1824, at the
opening of the session of the Chambers: "The crowd was prodigious. The
Dauphiness and the Duchess of Berry and Mademoiselle d'Orleans were
present in one of the bays. The Children of France were there. The
Duchess of Berry took the Duke of Bordeaux by her side. The Duchess of
Orleans called Mademoiselle, whom she loved tenderly, to her. The canon
announced the approach of the King. At the moment of his appearance the
hall resounded with acclamations. The platform for the royal family was
the one prepared for the late King; there had been left a slight
elevation in it, that the King did not see, and he stumbled on it. With
the movement his hat, held on his arm, fell; the Duke of Orleans caught
it. The Duchess of Orleans said to me:--
"'The King was about to fall; my husband sustained him.'
"I answered: 'No, Madame; Monseigneur has caught His Majesty's hat.'
"The Dauphiness turned and looked at me. We did not speak of it until
six months after. Neither of us had forgotten it."
A few years more and Charles X. was to drop, not his hat, but his crown.