The Due de Montpensicr, whose health had long been declining, died at Twickenham in May 1807, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Soon afterwards the health of the Comte de Beaujolais failed also, and having gone to a warmer climate in obedience to the order of his physicians, accompanied by the duke his brother, he died at Malta in 1808. Being now rejoined by his sister, who for fifteen years had lived in retirement in Hungary, and by his mother, whom he met at Minorca, the Due d'Orldans took up his residence at Palermo. It so happened that Ferdinand, king of Naples and Sicily, was dwelling in that city under the protection of the British flag, while Murat occupied his throne in Italy. During his residence there, he gained the affections of the Princess Amelia, the second daughter of the king, to whom ho was married November 25, 1809. For upwards of four years the Duc d'Orleana resided at Palermo without taking any part in the publlo affairs of Europe, if we except a visit which ho paid to Spain in 1810, in the illusive idea that negociations com menced by the Spanish and English authorities might eventuate In an offer on their part to entrust to his hands the regency of that country.
In 1314 tidings reached Palermo of the downfal of the emperor Napoleon I., and of the intended restoration of the Boarbous. The duke returned to Paris without delay, and was reinstated in his honours and military rank. The returu of Napoleon iu the early part of the following year again disturbed the tenor of his life; and having sent away his family to England for safety, the duke took the com mand of the army in the north in obedience to the orders of Louis XVIII. Rather than endanger the peace of Frauce by family feuds, ho resigned his command in the following March, and retired to Twickenham, whence he returned to Paris after the Hundred Days, in obedience to a decree compelling the attendance of princes of the blood in the Chamber of Peers. He conciliated the popular esteem and respect by liquidating the debts of the Orleans estates, and by other politio measures. Louis Philippe, in his place in parliameut, publicly protested against the extreme measures proposed by the government against theme who had taken part in the revolution, and procured their rejection. Louis XVIII., who regarded him with especial jealousy, in disgust and revenge, forbade princes of the blood royal to appear in the Chamber of Peers. The Due d'Orleans revenged himself upon the court by entering his son in one of the public colleges as a simple citizen of Paris. lie returned to England, and continued to live in privacy at Twickenham during the remainder of that king's life and tho first few years of the reign of Charles X. Ile did not return to France until 1827, when he took up his abode at the palace of Neuilly, where he continued to live in seclusion natil the year 1830, when the revolution occurred which ended in his elevation to the throne as King of the French. Charles, whose weakness and duplicity were his ruin, was now in effect discrowned ; and the cause of the elder branch of the Bourbons being pronounced hopeless, the struggle of the three days of July was followed by a provisional government, in which Lafitte, Lafayette, Thiers, and other politicians, took the lead.
They naturally turned to the Duc d'Orleana, and in the name of the French people offered to him the crown. After a day's delibera tion he accepted it, and came to Paris on the Slat of July ; and, the preliminary forms having been passed through, on the 9th of August the crown was formally accepted by the Due d'Orleans, who was proclaimed as Louis Philippe. For seventeen years he sat on his elective throne, and if an increase of the wealth and physical progress of a nation be a test, the results of his reign may be advantageously compared with those of the first empire. Peace was preserved abroad, order was maintained at home, and commerce increased steadily. His foreign policy was iu like manner successful his sons, the Due de Nemours and the Prince de Joinville, carried the French arms into Algeria; Abel el-Kader was made a prisoner, and the Bey of Constantine forced to sue for peace, after a spirited resistance, and Algiers became a French military colony. Yet the king was not popular at home. He was hated alike by the Legiti mist party, in whose eyes he was but a usurper, and by the revo lutionists, who sighed for entire emancipation from kiugly rule. Besides, there aro deep and dark stains upon the reign of the "Napoleon of Peace," as Louis Philippe liked to bo called. his reign was a period of corruption in high places, of jealousy and illiberal restriction towards his own subjects, of a fraudulent and heartless policy towards the allies of his country, whose goodwill he more especially forfeited by his over-reaching conduct in regard to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier to a Spanish priucess. And thus it came to pass that the heart of the nation became alienated from their king; and when a trifling disturbance in February 1848 was aggravated into a popular riot through the audacity of a few ultra republicans, Louis Philippe felt that he stood alone and unsupported as a constitutional king, both at home and abroad, and that the soldiery were his only means of defence. He shrunk from employing their bayouets against his people : be fell in consequence, and his house fell with him. The king fled in disguise from Paris to the coast of Normandy, and taking ship again found a safe refuge on the shores of England, to which his family had already made their escape. He landed at Newhaven, March 3rd 1848. The Queen of Englsud who, in 1843, had enjoyed the hospitality of Louis Philippe at the h&teau d'Eu, his royal residence near Dieppe, and who had enter tained him in the following year at Windsor, and conferred on him the order of the Garter—immediately assigned Claremont, near Esher, as a residence for himself and his exiled family. From the time of his arrival in England, his health began visibly to decliue, and ho died on the 26th of August 1850, in tho presence of Queen Auselie and his family, having dictated to them the conclusion of his memoirs, and having received the last rites and sacraments of the church at the hands of his chaplain. He was buried on the following 2nd of September at the Roman Catholic chapel at Weybridge, Surrey, and an inscription was placed upon his coffin, stating that his ashes remain there, "Donee Deo adjuvants in patriam avitos inter ciueros tranaferantur."