Revolutions - 6.06- The Duc d'Orleans

Episode Date: April 17, 2017

Time to get this piece on the board. 

Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 6.6, the Duke of Dore Leon. So, a funny thing happened on the way to the final episode of this series on the Revolution of 1830. I am locked in the final edits for my book, The Storm Before the Storm, the Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic, forthcoming from Public Affairs fall 2017. Those edits kind of gobbled up all my time this week, So we have a slight revision to our schedule here at the Revolution's podcast.

This week's episode, as you might have already noticed, is a bit shorter than usual. That is because I had way less time to work on it. But fortuitously, this did solve my problem of where I was going to shoehorn in the back story of Louis-Philippe, the Duke to Orleans. It had gotten kind of long and was getting in the way. So I have taken that backstory and present it to you now as a standalone episode. We'll get back next week to wrap up the Revolution of 1830. This week, we are going to get Louis Philippe to the Revolution of 1830. He is, after all, kind of important to the climax of the story.

Louis Philippe was born on October 6th, 1773, the firstborn son of his father, the Duke D'Orlione. Now, we know all about the elder Duke D'Orlione, right? Philippe de Gallet, not only did he pop in and out of the French Revolution series going back to the first assembly of notables, but I did a whole supplemental episode on him. It was episode 3.34B. As I said in that episode, there was then, and is now, a version of history that paints the French Revolution as a conspiracy orchestrated by Orleon to overthrow his cousin Louis XVIth. If you believe that version of history, then 1830 is nothing less than the culmination of a project that have been ongoing since 1789.

Now, I personally don't really believe that version of history. I don't really think that there was a sinister Orleanist conspiracy. It was just that as the senior cadet branch of the royal family, those who were unhappy with the bourbons always tended to gravitate to the Orleans. Louis Philippe's father was always a bit of an intentional iconoclast, who embraced modern ideas almost specifically to raise a middle finger at his more traditionalist royal cousins. So rather than his children being educated by traditional aristocratic tutors, the Duke placed them in the hands of Madame de Jean-Lee, one of his former mistresses,

who was a passionate devotee of Rousseau. Louis-Philippe and his two brothers, his sister Adelaide, and a few other random children, were put through an intensive program of physical, mental, and emotional education. Their days ran from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and included, in addition to math and literature and philosophy, lots of physical exercise, like they were forced to complete tasks while wearing weights around their ankles. All of this was very experimental, all of it was very demanding. But Louis Philippe and the rest of the Orlean brute did emerge with a laudable physical endurance and incredibly wide-ranging knowledge of the world that most aristocrats of their day lacked.

Louis-Philippe was just emerging from childhood as the French Revolution got going. He was about to turn 13 when finance minister Cologne declared the monarchy broke in 1786. He was 15 when the Bastille fell, and then by sheer coincidence, it was actually on his 16th birthday that the women marched to Versailles and dragged the royal family back to Paris. He personally witnessed the final leg of that procession from his own window. But while his father was off playing a direct role in the revolution, Louis-Philippe's involvement would be limited because, A, he was just a teenager, and B, he had been enrolled as a colonel of dragoons and now had military duties to attend to.

But he did join the Jacobin Club in 1790, when it was still simply the Friends of the Constitution, and most of the liberal nobility were members in good standing. Because he was stationed at a garrison near the border with the Austrian Netherlands, Louis Philippe missed the drama surrounding the attempted breakout of his cousins in June of 1791. But the flight to Verren had enormous consequences for the young man. You'll recall that in the wake of the King's recapture, something like half the officer corps of the French army deserted. But as a good liberal noble, the now 18-year-old Louis Philippe, stayed on, and in fact suddenly became the senior most colonel in the entire French army.

When the Girondins declared war on Austria in April of 1792, Louis-Philippe was promoted to Lieutenant General and attached to the staff of the new commander-in-chief of the French army, Dumourier. In the early days of the war, Louis-Philippe showed himself to be a courageous patriot. He was cited for bravery at the pivotal Battle of Valmy, and then cited further for distinguished service at Jemain, Nervenden, as the French Army's first advanced towards the Netherlands and then retreated in early 1793. Over the winter of 1792, 1793, Louis Philippe's father was back in Paris wrestling with the most difficult decision of his life.

The king was now on trial, and the newly restyled Philippe Igallet had to decide how far he was willing to go down this revolutionary road. With the final vote approaching, would he really vote for his cousin's death? In December 1792, Louis Philippe was on leave in Paris, and while home, tried desperately to talk his father into recusing himself from the final vote on King Louis' fate. But Felipe Gallate did not take his son's advice, and in January 1793, famously voted death without appeal to the people. With the execution of the king coming amidst a broader turn towards a more aggressive revolutionary agenda, Louis-Philippe became disillusioned with the whole project. In March 1793, he wrote an intemperate letter to his father denouncing the increasing excesses of the convention,

and then the following month found himself brought into General Dumorrier's plot to stage a coup. Now, even though Louis-Philippe was non-committal about the coup, The fact that he knew about the plot but did not report it left him a marked man. When de Morier's conspiracy was uncovered and the general ran across the lines to the Austrians, Louis Philippe had no choice but to follow him. After he crossed the lines, Louis-Philippe would spend the next 21 years in exile. But his emigration had more immediate consequences for the rest of his family. The newly born Committee of Public Safety put his father and the rest of the Orlean family under house arrest.

So it was as a direct result of Louis Philippe's emigration that his father was arrested. And because that arrest led directly to Felipe Gallate's execution in November 1793, Louis Philippe would spend the rest of his life blaming himself for his father's death. He was in Switzerland when he got the news. His father was dead, and he was now the Duke Dorley on, if such a thing even existed anymore. After depositing his sister Adelaide in the care of some nuns in Switzerland, the newly minted Duke Dorillon began an unhappy exile. He was orphaned by everyone and everything. Supporters of the revolution considered him a traitor. Supporters of the monarchy would not forgive the Orlean

for the death of King Louis. So he had to travel under an assumed name and eventually settled four years in Switzerland working as a math and language instructor. He was able to do that until he accidentally knocked up a young cook's assistant and had to move on. Unwelcome among the various emigray communities, Orleon had to keep on the move, and he made his way from Germany to Scandinavia over the next few years. While he traveled, the revolution peaked and retreated, and the directory took over France. Orleon was living in Denmark in 1796 when he was located by agents of the directory. Wanting to clear anyone with royal blood out of Europe to hopefully ensure the sustainability of the French Republic, these agents offered Orlion a deal. If you go to the United

States, we will release your two brothers from custody and send them across the Atlantic to join you. With a chance to save his brothers, Orleon took the deal and sailed for Philadelphia, arriving in early 1797. Good to their word, the directory released his two brothers and the reunited trio set themselves up in the emigrate community of the United States. There, the Orlean were better treated, as they now lived among a grab bag of French exiles. Some families had fled the Jacobin, some had fled the monarchy, still others had only recently arrived after fleeing the directory. The Orlean brothers lived a fairly comfortable life in the United States and paid calls on

various notables, for example, making the obligatory pilgrimage to Mount Vernon to spend some time with George Washington. But eventually the three brothers got good news. Their mother, the last member of the family still in France, had been granted permission to move with her new husband to Spain. Free of the directory's potential retribution, the brothers broke their promise to stay in the United States and arranged passage to England. Upon arrival in England in 1800, Or Leon put out fuelers to his cousin, the Comptortoir,

who had himself settled in London. A lot of water had passed to him. under the bridge since 1793, and the Duke Dorlione suggested it was maybe time for the extended royal family to get back together. And odd as it may seem, D'Artois was open to the suggestion. Towards the wider world, the Comte d'Artois was an inflexible ultra-royalist who scrupulously maintained grudges, while his brother, Louis XIII, was open to forgiveness and compromise. But when it came to the inner circle of the family, their roles flipped. D'Artois is the one who wanted to mend all fences and unite the royal family,

while Louis XIV bore eternal enmity and deep anger at the entire Orleon family. Louis the 18th would never not believe that the Orlean hadn't staged the revolution to kill his brother. He would never not believe that the Orleon weren't plotting against him even now. But for the sake of the greater royalist cause, the families publicly reconciled. The Duke Dorotheon then settled down in England and lived there from 1800 to 1808 with the help of a British pension. He would later consider these days the happiest of his life. In 1809, the Duke Doralian was 36 years old and still a bachelor. So he flipped open the registry of eligible aristocratic daughters and soon found a perfect match.

Marie Amali, a daughter of the branch of the bourbons who still reigned in Sicily, and also the niece of Marie Antoinette. So Louis Philippe put out his feelers, arranged the marriage, and in 1809, the couple wed. The following year, Orleon tried to join the peninsular war on the side of the Allies, but the British ministry blocked his attempt. They did not need a man with a possible claim to the French throne running around loose in Europe, so they barred him from service. Instead, Orlion settled with his new wife in Sicily,

and together they started making babies, eventually producing five boys and three girls. It was while in Sicily that Orleon was also reunited with his sister Adelaide. Having spent her own years in exile bouncing around Central Europe, trying to stay out of Napoleon's clutches, she was now a grown woman. Worldly, intelligent, erudite, and full of energy, Adelaide joined her brother in Sicily and elected to a shoe starting a family of her own, instead becoming a member of her brother's family.

She was a sister to his wife, a second mother to his children. Aunt Adelaide became a powerful and beloved presence inside the Orleon family. And above all, she became her brother's personal and political confidant. It eventually became impossible to tell where his thoughts ended and hers began. So from their home in Sicily, the Orleon monitored the collapse of Napoleon. At first, I imagine Orleon watched Napoleon. in setbacks with some gratification. But by 1814, I imagine his emotions had become a bit more conflicted. The fall of Napoleon would lead to major tensions inside the royal family. If a restoration

came, would it be a bourbon restoration? Or would the old branch die, and the Orillon finally be called to the throne? But as the Emperor's abdication became more and more certain, the Duke-Dorlion let it be known that he was not, repeat-not, a candidate for king. King. He recognized Louis the 18th and pledged to support him. Now this may have been his own convictions talking, but I also imagine he was helped along by his British patrons, who had themselves settled on Louis as their man.

When the Comp d'Artois made his way to Paris in April 1814, the duke to Orleans soon followed. And though King Louis the 18th did not like Orleon one bit, for the sake of Royal Unity, he appointed his cousin, Lieutenant General of the realm, and restored to him all family property, which is how the Orlean reacquired the Palais Royal. Now, though the family was officially reunited, the events surrounding the hundred days

ended any possibility of personal reconciliation between Louis and Orlean. With Napoleon on his way back, Orleon boldly declared that he would remain in Paris and not leave until the king ordered him to do so. Now, on the one hand, this is Orleon doing the opposite of what he had done in 1793, when he had run away and got him.

and his father killed. But King Louis always believed that Orlean was trying to hang around to act as a plausible alternative monarch if Napoleon should lose, and the Allies decided to dump the bourbons. So the king ordered Orlean to vacate Paris. But instead of joining the royal court at Ghent, Orleon took his family back to England. Again, Louis believed this meant Orleon was actively positioning himself to become king of the second restoration. Partisans on either side will keep the debate about Orlean's intention going for the next 200 years, people still argue about it. But at least on the surface, Orleon never wavered from his recognition of Louis Xeenth. And when the second restoration came, Orleon once again let it be known that he was not a candidate

for King. During the second restoration, tensions continued to simmer between Orleon and the king. Now, the public face was all happy unity, of course, and Orleon was named to the Chamber of Peers. But in fine, Orleon's tradition, his home in the playwrights, Royal became a magnet for bourgeois liberal intellectuals, old Bonapartis, and doctrinaire-style constitutional monarchists. Orleon was happy to entertain these guys because their values were his values. But it annoyed King Louis, who thought the whole thing reeked of an Orleanist conspiracy. Orleon only seemed to confirm the king's suspicion when he gave a speech in the Chamber of

Pears in October 1815, expressing disapproval of the new white terror that had been sweeping France. Now, it's not like King Louis was himself a huge fan of the terror, but he did not care for Orleans' critical town, nor the applause he received for said critical town. The king ordered Orlean to vacate the country, packing up his family, Orleon returned to London and lived there for the next two years. He was finally allowed to return to Paris in 1817 and resettled in the Palais Royale. During the next few years, Orleon focused on restoring his family's properties. refurbishing the Palais Royale back to what it had once been, and sending forth an army of lawyers to track down and disentangled deeds to old Orleon property.

Though reconfuscation of the national lands would never be official policy, Orleon worked out private purchases to reconstruct the family portfolio. When the Emmergray's billion came along, he got in on that action, submitted a bunch of paperwork, and got a huge payout. By the mid-1820s, the Orlean were back to being one of the richest families in France. But in keeping with the spirit of the times, Orleon did not live as an old feudal lord. Instead, he lived as a member of the urban bourgeoisie. He had a knack for business and often handled his own contract negotiations, earning him a good reputation among the men of, say, Jacques Lafitte's set, who were impressed that the Duke was a man to be treated as an equal at the conference table.

Orleon continued to mingle easily with the crowds at the Play Royale and hosted salons that attracted all the best sorts. He even broke with royal tradition and had his sons educated in school rather than at home with private tutors. Rich, respectable, and available, the Duke Dorillon might have even been considered a man of the people. King Louis XVI did not like any of this. From his perspective, the very existence of the Duke Dorillon was a threat to the the Bourbons, especially as their branch of the family seemed to be going extinct. When the Duke de Barrierie was assassinated in 1820, the line of succession in the bourbon family stood as follows. First, the 63-year-old Compt d'artois, and then second,

D'artois's last living son, who was himself 45 years old and childless. Third, the Duke Dorillon. Now sitting on a clutch of five sons, almost overnight, it became dangerously plausible that the Orlean would, in fact, one day be the kings of France. But the late Duke de Barry's Miracle Baby, who was born in September of 1820, put an end to all of that. And though he really had endlessly said he did not want to be king, when the miracle baby was born, Orleon cornered men who were there to witness the birth and grilled them about whether or not they had seen the umbilical cord connected to the mother. When these witnesses confessed that yes, it was all true and they had seen it with their own eyes, Orleon cried, then it is true. We will really count for nothing in this country.

But while Orlean's relationship with King Louis was always abysmal, the Comptartois continued to be generous and inviting. When Louis died in September 1824 and the Comptartre became King Charles X, one of the first things he did was invite Orleon and his family to the palace to make them feel not just officially welcome, but really, truly, personally welcomed. It's one of those odd quirks of history that there was really no one in the Bourbon family who treated Orlean better than King Charles X, the man Orlean was destined to overthrow. Now, this bond between Charles and Orleon only existed at the intimate level. Their politics could not have been more different.

Orleon remained what he had always been, a liberal-leaning constitutional monarchist, and Charles remained what he had always been, an ultra-royalist absolutist. When, for example, Orleon had gotten the boot from the country in 1815 for denouncing the white terror, Charles had been the one actively cheering it on. So it was with a great deal of studied grimacing that Orlean watched Charles' reign unfold. The kind of bourgeois liberals Orleon had long surrounded himself with were forming the core of resistance to the New King's ultra-royalism, and Orlean could only shake his head as Charles responded with increasingly reactionary measures.

Like everyone else, Orleon considered the appointment of the polling yak ministry in 1829 to be a baffling mistake. And then Orleon was sitting just to the left of Charles when the king delivered his inflammatory opening to the Chamber of Deputies in March of 1830, the one that led to the address of the 221 and the beginning of the boulder of revolution rolling down the hill. Well informed of both ministerial policy and the liberal opposition, Orillon began to fear that the king was losing his grip. But despite those fears, at the end of July 1830, the Duke Dorillon, like everyone else in France, had no idea just how loose the grip was becoming. He certainly had no idea that he was on the verge of becoming king. But as usual, one man suspected that the Duke Dorillon was about to become king. Talleyrand. In mid-June, 1830, as the elections for the Chamber of Deputies unfolded,

Monsieur de Talleyin paid a call to the Duke d'Orleans. Now 76 years old and all but an invalid who had to be carried in and out of salons, Francois Gizot famously described Talleyrand as looking like a dead lion. The old master, mentally, was sharp as ever. When he arrived at the Palaisal, he retired to a private room with Orleans and Adelaide, and the three of them had a brief conversation that Talryan later recalled to a friend. With some talk in the air, the Orlean might marry his son to King Charles' daughter, Talleyrand said, The elder branch is finished. Be careful not to give your son to Mademoiselle Barry. Alone you may succeed. Link to them, you'll be chased out as well. Now, of course, not even

Talleyran realized that they were all just weeks away from the Revolution of 1830, but he did know something was brewing, and that when it hit, the Duke to Orleon would be living in Paris, and make for a very enticing alternative to the increasingly unhinged Charles. So it really did seem possible that what had begun in 1789 might now be finished in 1830.