Louis Philippe I

Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was known as the Citizen King. He ruled as King of the French from 1830 until 1848, making him France’s next-to-last monarch, the last to hold the title “King,” and the only French king from the Orléans branch of the Bourbon family. He stepped down from the throne during the 1848 French Revolution, which then established the French Second Republic.

The eldest son of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (later called Philippe Égalité), he first served as Duke of Chartres. During the French Revolutionary Wars, he led troops with distinction and became a lieutenant general at age 19. However, he broke with the First French Republic after it voted to execute King Louis XVI. In 1793, suspected of involvement in a plot to restore the monarchy, he fled to Switzerland. His father fell under suspicion and was executed during the Reign of Terror.

Louis Philippe spent 21 years in exile until the Bourbon Restoration. He was made king in 1830 after his distant cousin Charles X was forced to abdicate by the July Revolution. His reign, called the July Monarchy, was shaped by wealthy industrialists and bankers. From 1840 to 1848, he pursued conservative policies, heavily influenced by statesman François Guizot. He also fostered friendship with Britain and backed colonial expansion, notably the French conquest of Algeria. His popularity waned as France’s economy worsened in 1847, and he abdicated after the 1848 revolution broke out.

He spent the rest of his life in exile in the United Kingdom. His supporters were the Orléanists, while Legitimists backed the main Bourbon line and Bonapartists backed the House of Bonaparte. Among his grandchildren were King Leopold II of Belgium, Empress Carlota of Mexico, Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, and Queen Mercedes of Spain.

Before the Revolution (1773–1789)

Louis Philippe was born at the Palais-Royal in Paris to Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres (later Duke of Orléans), and Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. As a member of the House of Bourbon, he was a Prince of the Blood, entitled to the style “Serene Highness.” His mother was a very wealthy heiress descended from Louis XIV through a legitimized line. He was the eldest of three sons and a daughter, a family whose fortunes would shift wildly from the start of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration. The senior branch of the Bourbons deeply distrusted the cadet branch, which would inherit the throne if the senior line died out. His father was exiled from court, so the Orléans family focused on studying Enlightenment literature and science.

He was tutored by the Countess of Genlis from 1782. She gave him a taste for liberal ideas, and he likely picked up his mildly Voltairean Catholicism during this time. When his grandfather died in 1785, his father became Duke of Orléans, and Louis Philippe became Duke of Chartres. In 1788, as the Revolution loomed, he showed his liberal leanings by helping break down a prison cell door at Mont Saint-Michel during a visit with the Countess. From October 1788 to October 1789, the Palais Royal served as a meeting place for revolutionaries.

Revolution (1789–1793)

Louis Philippe grew up in a time that transformed all of Europe. Following his father’s strong support for the Revolution, he threw himself into the changes. His diary records that he took the initiative to join the Jacobin Club, a move his father backed.

In June 1791, he got his first chance to engage in French affairs. He had been given the hereditary post of Colonel of the Chartres Dragoons (renamed 14th Dragoons in 1791) in 1785. With war approaching in 1791, all proprietary colonels were ordered to join their regiments. He proved a model officer, showing personal bravery in two famous incidents. Three days after Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, a quarrel between two local priests and a constitutional vicar grew heated. A crowd surrounded the inn where the priests were staying, demanding blood. The young colonel broke through and got the two priests away safely. Later that day at a river crossing, another crowd threatened the priests. Louis Philippe placed himself between a peasant armed with a carbine and the priests, saving their lives. The next day, he dove into a river to rescue a drowning local engineer, for which the municipality gave him a civic crown. His regiment moved north to Flanders at the end of 1791 after the Declaration of Pillnitz on 27 August 1791.

He served under his father’s ally, the Duke of Biron, alongside officers who later became famous, including Colonel Louis Alexandre Berthier and Lieutenant Colonel Alexandre de Beauharnais (husband of the future Empress Joséphine). After France declared war on the Habsburg monarchy on 20 April 1792, Louis Philippe first saw action in the French Revolutionary Wars within the French-occupied Austrian Netherlands at Boussu around 28 April 1792. He then fought at Quaregnon around 29 April 1792, and later at Qui.