Louis-Philippe I of France (October 6, 1773 – August 26, 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. He was the last king to rule France.

Louis-Philippe was born in Paris to Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of Chartres (later Duke of Orléans and also known as "Philippe Égalité") and Louise Marie Adélaïde of Bourbon-Penthièvre. He was the first of three sons and a daughter of the Orléans family, a family that was to have erratic fortunes for the next 60 years. The relationship between the Orléans line and the Bourbon elder line was linked through Louis XIII. The elder line had a deep distrust of the intentions of the family which would succeed to the French throne should the Bourbons die out. Exiled from the royal court, the Orléans confined themselves to studies of the literature and sciences emerging from the Enlightenment. Louis-Philippe was tutored by the Countess of Genlis, beginning in 1782. Madame de Genlis instilled in him a fondness for liberal thought; it is probably during this period that Louis-Philippe picked up his slightly Voltairean 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 Revolution looming, the young Louis-Philippe showed his liberal sympathies when he helped break down the door of a prison cell in Mont Saint-Michel, during a visit there with Madame de Genlis. From October 1788 to October 1789 the Palais-Royal, the Paris home of the Orléans family, was a meeting-place for the revolutionaries.

During the early stages of the Revolution, Louis-Philippe strongly supported the reformation of French society as a whole. However, his father Philippe's actions during the vote on the execution of King Louis XVI changed the fortunes of the young Duke of Chartres and his family. As Philippe continued his support for the liberal factions of the Revolution, the royal family and the royal court became increasingly hostile towards the Orléans family. Dubbed "Philippe Égalité", he became an exemplar of liberal reform to the common people of Paris. Hundreds of medallions with Philippe's figure framed by the title Père du Peuple (Father of the People) were minted and seen in the streets. But Philippe's actual position was weak, which became apparent as he was involved in several scandals in Paris. In October 1789, he went to England on the pretext of negotiating with the British government to set up an independent kingdom in the Austrian Netherlands. He returned in July 1790. Honoré Mirabeau later said of him: "if we need some sort of a puppet it might as well be that bastard as anyone else."

Louis-Philippe grew up in a period that changed Europe as a whole, and he involved himself completely in those changes (a trait of his which would remain when he became King). In his diary, he reports that he himself took the initiative to join the Jacobin Club, a move that his father supported. 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 14th Regiment of Dragoons (Chartres-Dragons). With war on the horizon in 1791, all proprietary colonels were ordered to join their regiments. Louis-Philippe showed himself to be a model officer, and he demonstrated his personal bravery in two famous instances. First, three days after Louis XVI's flight to Varennes, a quarrel between two local priests and one of the new "constitutional" vicars became heated, and a crowd surrounded the inn where the priests were staying, demanding blood. The young Colonel broke through the crowd and extricated the two priests, who then fled. At a river crossing on the same day, another crowd threatened to harm the priests. Louis-Philippe put himself between a peasant armed with a carbine and the priests, saving their lives. The next day, Louis-Philippe dove into a river to save a drowning local engineer. For this action, he received a "civic crown" from the local municipality. His regiment was moved north to Flanders at the end of 1791 after the declaration of Pillnitz.

Louis-Philippe served under his father's crony, the Duke of Biron, along with several officers who later gained distinction in Napoleon's empire and afterwards. These included Colonel Berthier and Lieutenant Colonel Alexandre de Beauharnais (husband of the future Empress Joséphine). Louis-Philippe saw the first exchanges of fire of the Revolutionary Wars at Boussu and Quaragnon and a few days later fought at Quiévrain near Jemappes, where he was instrumental in rallying a unit of retreating soldiers. Biron wrote to War Minister de Grave, praising the young colonel, who was then promoted to brigadier, commanding a 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: Macdonald, Mortier (who would later be killed in an assassination attempt on Louis-Philippe), Davout, and Oudinot. Dumouriez was appointed to command the Army of the North in August 1792. Louis-Philippe commanded a division under him in the Valmy campaign.

At Valmy, Louis-Philippe was ordered to place a battery of artillery on the crest of the hill of Valmy. The battle of Valmy was inconclusive, but the Austrian-Prussian army, short of supplies, was forced back across the Rhine river. Once again, Louis-Philippe was praised in a letter by Dumouriez after the battle. Louis-Philippe was then recalled to Paris to give an account of the Battle at Valmy to the French government. There he had a rather trying interview with Danton, Minister of Justice, which he later fondly re-told to his children. While in Paris, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. In October he returned to the Army of the North, where Dumouriez had begun a march into Belgium. Louis-Philippe again commanded a division. 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, retreating in disorder. 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 the budding military career of Louis-Philippe. The incompetence of Jean-Nicolas Pache, the new Girondist appointee, left the Army of the North almost without supplies. Soon thousands of troops were deserting the army. Louis-Philippe was alienated by the more radical policies of the Republic, and he began to think of leaving France after the vote to execute Louis XVI, in which he voted 'yes'. Dumouriez and Louis-Philippe met on 22 March, 1793 where Dumouriez urged his subordinate to join in his attempt to ally with the Austrians, march his army on Paris, and restore the Constitution of 1791.

Louis-Philippe was willing to stay in France to fulfill his duties in the army. But he was implicated in Dumouriez's plot, and with the French government slowly falling into the Terror, he decided to leave France to save his life. On April 4, 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 they fled towards the Austrian camp. The next day, Dumouriez again tried to rally soldiers against the Convention; however, he found that the artillery had declared for the Republic, leaving him and Louis-Philippe with no choice but to go into exile. At the age of 19, Louis-Philippe left France; it was some 21 years before he again set foot on French soil.

The reaction in Paris to Louis-Philippe's involvement in Dumouriez's treason inevitably resulted in misfortunes for the Orléans family. Philippe spoke in the National Convention, condemning his son for his actions, asserting that he would not spare his son, much akin to the Roman judge Brutus and his sons. However, letters from Louis-Philippe to his father were discovered in transit and were read out to the Convention. Philippe was then put under continuous surveillance. Shortly thereafter, the Girondists moved to arrest Philippe and the two younger brothers of Louis-Philippe, the dukes of Beaujolais and Montpensier; the latter had been serving in Biron's Army of the North. The three were interned in Fort Saint-Jean.

While this was occurring, Louis-Philippe was forced to live in the shadows, avoiding both pro-Republican revolutionaries and Legitimist French emigré centers in various parts of Europe and also in the Austrian army. He first moved to Switzerland under an assumed name, and met up with Madame de Genlis and his sister Adélaïde at Schaffhausen. From there they went to Zürich, where the Swiss authorities decreed that to protect Swiss neutrality, Louis-Philippe would have to leave the city. They went to Zug, where Louis-Philippe was discovered by a group of emigrés. It became quite apparent that for the ladies to settle peacefully anywhere, they would have to separate from Louis-Philippe. He then left with his faithful valet Baudoin 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 were 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, across from Switzerland. His salary was 1,400 francs and he taught under the name "M. Chabos". He had been at the school for a month when he heard the news from Paris: his father was guillotined on November 6, 1793, after a sham trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

In early 1794, Louis-Philippe began courting Marianne Banzori, the cook of M. Jost, the Reichenau schoolmaster. After Louis-Philippe ended his academic career in late 1794, M. Jost discovered that Marianne was pregnant. Upset with Louis-Philippe, Jost sent Marianne to Milan where the child was born in December 1794, and then placed in an orphanage.

After Louis-Philippe left Reichenau, he separated the now 16-year old Adélaïde from Madame de Genlis, who had fallen out with Louis-Philippe (now Duke of Orléans after the death of his father). Adélaïde went to live with her great-aunt the Princess of Conti at Fribourg, then to Bavaria and finally to Hungary. Later she went to her mother in Spain.

Louis-Philippe travelled extensively. He visited Scandinavia in 1795. For about a year, he stayed in Muonio (Torne Valley), a remote town at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, living in the rectory under the name Müller as a guest of the local Lutheran priest. Here he met the priest's wife's sister, Beata Caisa Wahlbom, who was a housekeeper in the rectory. Not long after Louis-Philippe left Scandinavia, Beata Caisa Wahlbom gave birth to a son, whom she named Erik.

Louis-Philippe also visited the United States for four years, staying in Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. In Boston, he taught French for a time and lived in lodgings over what is now the Union Oyster House, Boston's oldest restaurant. During his time in the United States, Louis-Philippe met with American politicians and people of high society, including George Clinton, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. 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, visiting 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. He is also thought to have met Isaac Snow of Orleans, Massachusetts, who escaped to France from a British prison hulk during the American Revolution. 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 later political beliefs and judgements when he became king.

In Boston, Louis-Philippe learned of the coup of 18 Fructidor (September 4, 1797) and 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.

They sailed for Havana in an American corvette, but the ship was stopped in the Gulf of Mexico by a British warship. The British seized the three brothers, but took them to Havana anyway. Unable to find passage to Europe, the three brothers spent a year in Cuba, until they were unexpectedly expelled by the Spanish authorities. They sailed via the Bahamas to Nova Scotia. There they were received by the Duke of Kent, son of King George III and later father of Queen Victoria. Louis-Philippe struck up a lasting friendship with the British royal. Eventually, the brothers sailed back to New York, and in January 1800, they arrived in England, where they stayed for the next 15 years.

After the abdication of Napoleon, and the restoration of the monarchy under his cousin King Louis XVIII, Louis-Philippe returned to France. Louis-Philippe had reconciled the Orléans family with Louis XVIII in exile, and was once more to be found in the elaborate royal court. However, his resentment at the treatment of his family, the junior branch of the House of Bourbon under the ancien régime, caused friction between him and Louis XVIII. He openly sided with the liberal opposition.

Louis-Philippe was on far friendlier terms with Charles X, who succeeded Louis in 1824. Louis-Philippe dined and socialised often with him. However, his opposition to the policies of Villèle and later Jules de Polignac caused him to be a constant threat to the stability of Charles's government.

In 1830, the July Revolution overthrew Charles X. Charles abdicated in favor of his 10-year-old grandson, the Count of Chambord, whom monarchists regarded as the legitimate Bourbon king and called "Henry V". (Supporters of this grandson, the Bourbon pretender, were called Legitimists.) Due to Louis-Philippe's Republican policies and his popularity with the masses, the Chamber of Deputies ignored the Legitimists, and passed over Chambord. Instead they proclaimed Louis-Philippe, who for 11 days had been acting as regent, as the new French king. The new monarch took the style of "King of the French", a constitutional innovation known as popular monarchy which linked the monarch's title to a people, not to a state, as the previous designation King of France did. Louis-Philippe repudiated the legitimist theory of the divine right of kings.

By his ordinance of August 13, 1830, soon after his accession to the throne, it was decided that the king's sister and his children would continue to bear the arms of Orléans, that Louis-Philippe's eldest son, as Prince Royal, would bear the title Duke of Orléans, that the younger sons would continue to have their existing titles, and that the sister and daughters of the king would only be styled "princesses of Orléans", not "of France".

In 1832, his daughter, Princess Louise-Marie Thérèse Charlotte Isabelle (1812–1850), became the first queen of Belgium, when she married Leopold I. Interestingly, Leopold I was titled "King of the Belgians" and not King of Belgium. Thus, Louis-Philippe's daughter, Princess Louise-Marie Thérèse Charlotte Isabelle, held the very similar title of "Queen of the Belgians", just as her father was "King of the French".

In July 1835 Louis-Philippe survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Mario Fieschi.

Louis-Phillippe 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 middle classes. At first, he was much loved and called the "Citizen King" and the "bourgeois monarch," but his popularity suffered as his government was perceived as increasingly conservative and monarchical. Under his management the conditions of the working classes deteriorated, and the income gap widened considerably. An economic crisis in 1847 led to the citizens of France revolting against their king again the following year.

On February 24, 1848, during the February 1848 Revolution, to general surprise, King Louis-Philippe abdicated in favor of his nine-year-old grandson, Philippe. (His son and heir, Prince Ferdinand, had died in an accident in 1842.) Fearful of what had happened to Louis XVI, he quickly disguised himself and fled Paris. Riding in an ordinary cab under the name of "Mr. Smith", he escaped to England. According to The Times of March 6, 1848, the King and Queen were received at Newhaven, East Sussex before travelling by train to London.

The National Assembly initially planned to accept young Philippe as king. The strong current of public opinion rejected that. On February 26, the Second Republic was proclaimed. Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected President in December; a few years later he declared himself president for life and then Emperor Napoleon III.

Louis-Philippe and his family lived in England until his death in Claremont, Surrey. He is buried with his wife, Amelia (April 26, 1782–March 24, 1866), at the Chapelle Royale, the family necropolis he had built in 1816, in Dreux.

The clashes of 1830 and 1848 between the Legitimists and the Orleanists over who the rightful monarch were resumed in the 1870s. After the fall of the Second Empire, a monarchist-dominated National Assembly offered a throne to the Legitimist pretender, "Henry V," the Count of Chambord. As he was childless, his heir was (except to the most extreme Legitimists) Louis-Phillippe's grandson, the Count of Paris. So Chambord's death would unite the House of Bourbon and House of Orléans.

However, Chambord refused to take the throne unless the Tricolor flag of the revolution was replaced with the fleur-de-lis flag of the ancien régime. This the National Assembly was unwilling to do. A Third Republic was established, though many intended for it to be temporary, to be abolished and replaced by a constitutional monarchy when Chambord died. However, Chambord lived longer than expected. By the time of his death in 1883, support for the monarchy had declined, and public opinion sided with a continuation of the Third Republic, as the form of government that "divides us least," in Adolphe Thiers' words. Some suggested a monarchical restoration under a later comte de Paris after the fall of the Vichy regime, even though the royalists had supported Vichy, but this did not occur.

Most French monarchists regard the descendants of Louis Philippe's grandson, who hold the title "Count of Paris" as the rightful pretenders to the French throne. A small minority of Legitimists prefer Don Luis-Alfonso de Borbon, Duke of Anjou (to his supporters, "Louis XX"). He is descended in the male line from Philippe, Duke of Anjou, the second grandson of Louis XIV, who renounced his right to the throne of France on becoming King of Spain.

The two sides challenged each other in the French Republic's law courts in 1897 and again nearly a century later. In the latter case, Henri, Count of Paris, challenged the right of the Spanish-born "pretender" to use the French royal title Duke of Anjou. The French courts threw out his claim, arguing that the legal system had no jurisdiction over the matter.

In 1809 Louis-Philippe married Princess Marie Amalie of Bourbon-Sicilies, daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Marie Caroline of Austria. They had the following ten children: # Ferdinand-Philippe, Duke of Orléans (b. September 3, 1810–d. 1842) married Helena of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. # Louise-Marie of Orléans (b. April 3, 1812–d. 1850) married Leopold I of Belgium. Children included Leopold II and Carlota of Mexico. # Marie of Orléans (b. April 12, 1813–d. 1839) married Duke Alexander of Württemberg (b. 1804–d. 1881). # Louis Charles Philippe Raphael, Duke of Nemours (b. October 25, 1814–d. 1896) married Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary (b. 1822–d. 1857). # Francisca of Orléans (b. March 28, 1816–d. 1818) # Clémentine of Orléans (b. June 3, 1817–d. 1907) married August of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary (b. 1818–d. 1881). # François, Prince of Joinville (b. August 14, 1818–d. 1900) married Francisca of Brazil (b. 1824–d. 1898), daughter of Pedro I of Brazil. # Charles, Duke of Penthièvre (b. January 1, 1820–d. 1828) # Henri, Duke of Aumale (b. June 16, 1822–d. 1897) married Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (b. 1822–d. 1869). # Antoine, Duke of Montpensier (b. July 31, 1824–d. 1890), married Luisa Fernanda of Spain (b. 1832–d. 1897) daughter of Ferdinand VII of Spain and became a prince of Spain.

* In France, a museum is dedicated to king Louis-Philippe and his family Louis-Philippe Museum of Eu castle in Normandy * Members of the French Royal Families

*

* La Caricature Gallery: Caricatures of Louis-Philippe and others, published in La Caricature 1830–1835 * Family d'Orléans Info

|-

|-

|-