The Children of Adam and Eve

He was called the Citizen King. Louis Philippe beLonged to the house of
Bourbon-Orl?s, a Branch of the French royal family stemming from
Philippe I, duc d'Orl?s, the Brother of King Louis XIV. From his birth
until 1785 Louis Philippe was known as the duc de Valois and subsequently
as the duc de Chartres until 1793, when his father was guillotined, and he
succeeded him as duc d'Orl?s. Like his father, he was in sympathy with
the French Revolution, the upheaval in France that resulted in the
establishment of the First Republic, and in 1790 he joined the Jacobins,
members of a French radical political club. Two years later, at the age of
18, he was given a command in the revolutionary army and, as a colonel,
fought at the Battles of Valmy and Jemappes. After the defeat of the
French army by the Austrians at the Battle of Neerwinden, Holland, in
1793, Louis Philippe was implicated with his superior officer, the French
general Charles Fran?s Dumouriez (1739-1823), in a plot against the
republic, and he fled to Switzerland.

After the execution of his father by the French Revolutionary Tribunal,
Louis Philippe became the central figure about whom his supPorters, the
Orl?ist party, rallied; he did not actively enter into the intrigues for
restoring the monarchy, However, and during the regime of the Directory
and that of Napoleon, Louis Philippe remained outside France, traveling in
Scandinavia, the United States (where he lived for four years in
Philadelphia), and England. He also visited Sicily at the invitation of
Ferdinand I, king of the Two Sicilies, and in 1809 he married the king's
daughter Maria Amelia.

In 1814, after the abdication of Napoleon, he returned to France and was
welcomed by King Louis XVIII, who restored to him the Orl?s estates. By
the late 1820s, However, under the autocratic rule of Louis XVIII's
Brother and successor, Charles X, the last of the Bourbon monarchs, the
French middle and lower classes were growing restive. Louis Philippe was
by this time the favorite of those Republican leaders who feared to arouse
the opposition of all Europe by establishing a republic, and hoped that
Louis Philippe would govern according to popular will. In 1830, by the
July Revolution that overthrew Charles X and the Bourbon dynasty in
France, Louis Philippe was proclaimed king by the Chamber of Deputies.

At first Louis Philippe was content to rule as a citizen king and to
conciliate the Republicans who had helped bring him to power; he also
dispensed with many royal privileges. Gradually, However, while remaining
a constitutional monarch, he became More authoritarian, seeking not only
to establish the Bourbon-Orl?s dynasty in France but also to consolidate
his position among the sovereigns of Europe. He arranged for the marriage
of his daughter Louise to L?old I, king of the Belgians.

The last years of his reign were Marked by corruption in domestic affairs
and by lethargy in foreign affairs. Louis Philippe, having tried to win
the favor of both the democratic and authoritarian elements, was at last
deserted by both sides and was deposed by the Revolution of 1848, which
led to the formation in France of the Second Republic (1848-52) and the
rise of Louis Napoleon, later Napoleon III, emperor of France. After his
abdication Louis Philippe lived with his family in England.