Читать книгу Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Various - Страница 7

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The French Revolution spared not anything that stood in its way. The royal houses were in its way, and they went down before the blast. Thus did the House of Bourbon, and thus did also the House of Orleans. The latter branch, however, sought by its living representatives to compromise with the storm. The Orleans princes have always had a touch of liberalism to which the members of the Bourbon branch were strangers.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans, fraternized with the popular party, threw away his princely title and named himself Philippe Egalité; that is, as we should say, Mr. Equality Philip. In this character he participated in the National Assembly until he fell under distrust, and in despite of his defence and protestations—in spite of the fact that he had voted for the death of his cousin the king—was seized, condemned and guillotined.

This Equality Philip left as his representative in the world a son who was twenty years old when his father was executed. The son was that Louis Philippe who, under his surname of Roi Citoyen, or "Citizen King," was destined after extraordinary vicissitudes to hold the sceptre of France for eighteen years. Young Louis Philippe was a soldier in the republican armies. That might well have saved him from persecution; but his princely blood could not be excused. He was by birth the Duke of Valois, and by succession the Duke of Chartres. As a boy, eight years of age, he had received for his governess the celebrated Madame de Genlis, who remained faithful to him in all his misfortunes. At eighteen he became a dragoon in the Vendome Regiment, and in 1792 he fought valiantly under Kellermann and Dumouriez at Valmy and Jemappes. Then followed the treason, or defection, of Dumouriez; but young Louis remained with the army for two years longer, when, being proscribed, he went into exile, finding refuge with other suspected officers and many refugees in Switzerland.

Thither Dumouriez himself had gone. Of the flight of young Louis, Carlyle says: "Brave young Egalité reaches Switzerland and the Genlis Cottage; with a strong crabstick in his hand, a strong heart in his body: his Princedom is now reduced to that Egalité the father sat playing whist, in his Palais Egalité, at Paris, on the sixth day of this same month of April, when a catchpole entered. Citoyen Egalité is wanted at the Convention Committee!" What the committee wanted with Equality Philip and what they did with him has been stated above.

Consider then that the Napoleonic era has at last set in blood. Consider that the Restoration, with the reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X., has gone by. Consider that the "Three Days of July," 1830, have witnessed a bloodless revolution in Paris, in which the House of Bourbon was finally overthrown and blown away. On the second of August, Charles X. gave over the hopeless struggle and abdicated in favor of his son. But the Chamber of Deputies and the people of France had now wearied of Bourbonism in all of its forms, and the nation was determined to have a king of its own choosing.

The Chamber set about the work of selecting a new ruler for France. At this juncture, Thiers and Mignet again asserted their strength and influence by nominating for the throne Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, representative of what is known as the Younger Branch of the Bourbon dynasty. The prince himself was not loath to present himself at the crisis, and to offer his services to the nation. In so doing, he was favored greatly by his character and antecedents. At the first, the Chamber voted to place him at the head of the kingdom with the title of Lieutenant-General. The prince accepted his election, met the Chamber of Deputies and members of the Provisional Government at the Hotel de Ville, and there solemnly pledged himself to the most liberal principles of administration. His accession to power in his military relations was hailed with great delight by the Parisians, who waved the tri-color flag before him as he came, and shouted to their heart's content.

At this stage of the revolution the representatives of the overthrown House and of the Old Royalty sought assiduously to obtain from Louis Philippe a recognition of the young Count de Chambord, under the title of Henry V. But the Duke of Orleans was too wily a politician to be caught in such a snare. He at first suppressed that part of the letter of abdication signed by Charles and Angoulême in which reference was made to the succession of the Duke of Berry's son; but a knowledge of that clause was presently disseminated in the city, and the tumult broke out anew.

Then it was that a great mob, rolling out of Paris in the direction of the Hotel Rambouillet, gave the signal of flight to Charles and those who had adhered to the toppling fortunes of his house. The Chamber of Deputies proceeded quickly to undo the despotic acts of the late king, and then elected Louis Philippe king, not of France, but of the French. The new sovereign received 219 out of 252 votes in the Deputies. His elevation to power was one of the most striking examples of personal vicissitudes which has ever been afforded by the princes and rulers of modern times.