LOUIS PHILIPPE I., king of the French (1773-185o), was the eldest son of Louis Philippe Joseph, duke of Orleans (known during the Revolution as Philippe Egalite) and of Louise Marie Adelaide de Bourbon, daughter of the duc de Penthievre, and was born at the Palais Royal in Paris on Oct. 6, 1773. The legend that he was a supposititious child is dealt with elsewhere. (See MARIA STELLA, countess of Newborough.) The god-parents of the duke of Valois, as he was entitled till 1785, were Louis XVI. and Queen Marie Antoinette; his governess was the famous Madame de Genlis, to whose influence he doubtless owed his wide, if superficial knowledge, his orderliness, and perhaps his parsimony. Known since 1785 as the duc de Chartres, he was 16 at the outbreak of the Revolution, with which, like his father, he at first identified himself. In 1790 he joined the Jacobin club, in which the moderate elements still predominated, and attended the debates of the National Assembly. He thus became a persona grata with the party in power; he was already a colonel of dragoons, and in 1792 he was given a command in the army of the north. As a lieutenant-general, at the age of 18, he was present at Valmy (Sept. 2o) and Jemappes (Nov. 6).
The republic had meanwhile been proclaimed, and the duc de Chartres, now like his father surnamed Egalitg, posed as its zealous adherent. Fortunately for him, he was too young to be elected to the Convention, and while his father was voting for the death of Louis XVI. he was serving under Dumouriez in Holland. He shared in the defeat of Neerwinden (March 18, 1793) ; was implicated with Dumouriez in the plot to overthrow the republic, and on April 5 escaped with him into the Austrian lines. He went first, with his sister Madame Adelaide, to Switzer land where he obtained a situation as professor in the college of Reichenau under the assumed name of M. Chabaud de la Tour, mainly in order to escape from the fury of the emigres. The exe cution of his father in Nov. 1793 had made him duke of Orleans, and he now became the centre of the intrigues of the Orleanist party. In 1795 he was at Hamburg with Dumouriez, who still
hoped to make him king. With characteristic caution Louis Philippe refused to commit himself, and announced his intention of going to America ; but in the hope that something might hap pen in France to his advantage, he postponed his departure, travelling instead through the Scandinavian countries. But in 1796, the Directory having offered to release his mother and his two brothers, who had been kept in prison since the Terror, on condition that he went to America, he set sail for the United States, and in October settled in Philadelphia, where in Feb. 1797 he was joined by his brothers the duc de Montpensier and the comte de Beaujolais. The news of the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire decided them to return to Europe. They returned in i800, only to find Napoleon Bonaparte's power firmly established. Immediately on his arrival, in Feb. 1800, the duke of Orleans, at the suggestion of Dumouriez, sought an interview with the comte d'Artois, through whose instrumentality he was reconciled with the exiled king, Louis XVIII. The duke, however, refused to join the army of Conde and to fight against France, an attitude in which he persisted, while maintaining his loyalty to the king. He settled with his brothers at Twickenham.
On May 18, 1807, the duc de Montpensier died at Christchurch in Hampshire of consumption. The comte de Beaujolais was ill of the same disease and in 1808 the duke took him to Malta, where he died on May 29th. The duke now, in response to an invitation from King Ferdinand IV., visited Palermo where, on Nov. 25, 1809, he married Princess Maria Amelia, the king's daughter. He remained in Sicily until the news of Napoleon's abdication recalled him to France. He was cordially received by Louis XVIII. ; his military rank was confirmed, he was named colonel-general of hussars, and such of the vast Orleans estates as had not been sold were restored to him by royal ordinance. This made him enormously rich.