Son of the duke of Orleans, king of the French of 1830 to 1848.

Louis-Philippe was born in Paris in 1773 and died in Claremont (Great Britain) in 1850. Become duke of Chartres in 1785, it shared the ideas and the control of his father called “Philippe Egalité”, future Conventionnel regicide; it adhered to the club of the Jacobins in 1790. After a headquarters to the battles of Valmy and Jemappes, become aide-de-camp of the Dumouriez general, it followed it in treason, by hostility with regard to the Mountain dwellers, after the battle of Neerwinden, in March 1793. It could then be prided to be one of the grave-diggers of the Former regime while refusing the democratic evolution.

Unlike the other emigrants - people having fled France at the time of the Revolution of 1789, its life was guided by the preoccupation with activities. In turn, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in America and Great Britain as from 1801, it vainly tried to join again with the elder branch of the Bourbons. Its marriage with Marie-Amélie de Bourbon, girl of the king of Deux-Siciles, in 1809, put it in charge of a many family (ten children, of which two died young people).

In 1814, of return in France, its immense goods were restored to him. After the Hundred Days, its liberal frequentations obliged it to remain in England until 1817. Of return in France, being held away from the power, its residence of the Palais Royal became one of the appointments of the liberal thought. Its simplicity, its middle-class frequentations, her desire of popularity clashed clearly with most noble. Also incarnated it, for much, fusion between the nobility and the upper middle class

Tocqueville, in its work Memories appeared in 1893, made of Louis-Philippe this long panegyric:

“Though this prince was resulting from the noblest race of Europe, that at the bottom of its heart it hid all hereditary pride of it and did not believe undoubtedly the similar one of any other man, it had however most qualities and of the defects which belong more particularly to the rows subordinates of the company. He had regular m.urs and wanted that they were had such around him. He was arranged in his control, simple in his practices, was measured in his tastes; naturally friendly of the law and enemy of all excesses, moderate in all its processes if not its desires, human without being sensitive, covetous and soft; not noisy passions; not ruinous weaknesses; not bright defects; only one virtue of king, courage.

It had an extreme courtesy but without choice nor size, a courtesy of merchant rather than of prince. It hardly tasted the letters nor the fine arts, but it liked industry passionately. Its memory was extraordinary and specific to retain the least details obstinately. Its prolix conversation, diffuses, original, commonplace, anecdotière, full with small facts, salt and of direction, all the approval got which one can find in the pleasures of the intelligence when delicacy and rise are not there. Its spirit was distinguished, but tightened and obstructed by the little height and of extended from its heart.

Lit, fine, flexible and tough; turned only towards the useful one and filled of a so major contempt for the truth and of a so great incredulity in the virtue that its lights were darkened by it, and that not only he did not see the beauty that always truth and the honest one show, but that he did not understand any more the utility that they often have; deeply knowing the men but by their defects only; nonbeliever as regards religion like the XVIII ^E century and skeptical in policy like the XIX ^E century; without belief itself; not having null faith in that of the others…”.

The solution orleanist appeared, in 1830, like the only possibility of avoiding the Republic. Named lieutenant-general of the kingdom owing to the Revolution, he was proclaimed king of the French on on August 7th, 1830, after a revision of the Charter.

Making profitable the division of the royalists, it could impose its personal positions gradually. Although brocardé by its adversaries (the caricature of pear is very famous), although aimed personally (attacks, of which that of Fieschi in 1835), it generally controlled by interposed ministers. Come to the power with the support from the liberals, it turned as of 1831 to the party of resistance, recommending the maintenance of the social order, and political conservatism, preaching peace in Europe, against the revolutionary movements and in alliance with England. It resisted thus the republican attacks of June 1832, with the attempts legitimists of the duchess of Berry, with those of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1836 and 1840), as with the popular insurrections of Lyon and Paris (1834).

This authoritative and preserving policy was appropriate for the upper middle class: social peace and external ensured enrichment to him; the parliamentary mode of monarchy satisfied its attachment with the British system.

However, if, seemingly, the king complied with the rules of the game member of Parliament, makes some it put out of order them by its ceaseless interventions. Parliamentary monarchy legally preventing it from controlling, it turned the situation by the intrigue and handling. Thus, it named with the presidency of the Council of “famous swords” like Soult, Mortier or Gerard, which enabled him to largely operate.

From 1840, it ceased being the referee whom the revolution had carried to the power, to become an head of party, just like had been to it Charles X. At the same time, his concern of the material interest of its family harmed her prestige. It was alienated thus and populates it, which did not support any more its overrated good-naturedness, and the middle-class, which defied its operations more and more. It is Guizot which incarnated this progressive fall, since their collaboration, going back to 1840, died out with the mode. Louis-Philippe, into growing old, became increasingly authoritative.

The crisis of the mode opened since 1847. It was unable to face there. Studded with the only maintenance of law and order, it was swept by the revolution of 1848. On February 24th, 1848, he abdicated and flees in Great Britain where he finishes his days.