ORLEANISTS, a French political party which arose out of the Revolution. It took its name from the Orleans branch of the house of Bourbon, the descendants of Philippe, duke of Orleans, younger brother of Louis XIV., who were its chiefs. Its aim was to reconcile the monarchical principle with the "rights of man," as proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly in 1789. The Orleans princes were traditionally marked out as the leaders in such a policy. Enormously rich, within measurable distance of the succession to the throne, but cut off by the jealousy of the crown from all share in public affairs, they had long been the centres of opposition to the encroachment of the royal power. Louis, duke of Orleans, had headed the protest of the princes against the policy of Maupeou in suppressing the parlement of Paris; his son later earned the style of Philippe t galite by adopting—with ulterior objects—extreme revolutionary views (see ORLEANS, LOUIS PHILIPPE J., duke of) ; and Egalite's son, Louis Philippe (afterwards king of the French) fought, as duc de Chartres, at Jemappes, under the republican tricolour. The gen eration of Orleanists, the immediate supporters of Philippe Ega lite, were swamped in the turmoil of the Revolution. But they came naturally to the front when another revolution overthrew the restored legitimate monarchy of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. During the Restoration, 1815-30, everything tended to identify the Liberals with the Orleanists. It is true that Louis XVIII. had been induced to grant (octroyer) a constitutional charter; but he and his successor claimed to rule by divine right and to confer liberties upon their subjects of their own will. The difference between the Legitimists, and the Orleanists, was thus fundamental. So was that between the Orleanists and the Bonapartists; for the former aimed at securing political liberty, in addition to equality before the law and in social life, while the latter aimed at subjec tion to a military despotism.
The revolution of 183o brought the Orleanists into power, and they marked the profound change made in the character of the government by styling Louis Philippe not "king of France and Navarre by the grace of God," but "king of the French by the grace of God and the will of the people." The Orleanists were led by men eminent in letters and in practical affairs—Guizot, Thiers, the Broglies, the banker Laffitte, and many others—and the 18 years of their rule were, on the whole, profitable to France. That they ended in another "general overturn" in 1848 was due mainly to the fact that the Orleanist conception of what was meant by the word "people" led the Government to offend the deeply-rooted love of the French for equality. On the model of
the English constitution they instituted a pays legal of about a quarter of a million of voters by whom all the rest of the country was to be "virtually represented." But the nation outside of the pays legal soon discovered that it was being governed by a privi leged class, less offensive perhaps, but also less brilliant, than the aristocracy of the old monarchy.
The revolution of 1848 swept the Orleanists from power for ever. They continued indeed throughout the Second Republic and the Empire (1848-7o) to enjoy a marked prestige, due to the wealth and capacity of some of their members, their influence in the French Academy and the ability of their organs in the press. But their weakness was demonstrated when the Second Empire was swept away by the German War of 187o-71. The country, in its disgust at the Bonapartists and its fear of the Republicans, chose a great many royalists to represent it in the assembly which met in Bordeaux on Feb. 12, 1872. In this body the Orleanists again exercised a kind of leadership by virtue of individual capac ity, but they were counterbalanced by the Legitimists. They de feated Thiers on May 24, 1873, as punishment for his dexter ous imposition of the Republic on the unwilling majority of the assembly. Their real occupation was to endeavour to bring about a fusion between themselves and the Legitimists. As far back as 1850 Guizot had proposed, or had thought of proposing, such a fusion, but it was on the condition that the comte de Chambord would resign his divine pretentions. The fusion arranged in 1873 was on quite another footing. After much exchange of notes and many agitated conferences, the comte de Paris, the representa tive of the Orleanists, sought an interview with the comte de Chambord at Frohsdorff, and obtained it by giving a written en gagement that he came not only to pay his respects to the head of his house, but also to "accept his principle." Orleanists have declared that the engagement was given, with mental reservations; but the country believed that the liberal royalists had been absorbed in the divine right royalists, and returned republicans at by-elections till it transformed the Assembly. The Orleanist princes had still a part to play, particularly when the death of the comte de Chambord in 1883 left them heads of the house of France, but the Orleanist party ceased to exist as an independent political organization.