Orleans, Dukes of. This title has belonged to three distinct dynasties of French princes of the blood. The title was first given in 1392 by Charles VI. to his dissolute brother Louis (1371–1407), who became regent on the king's madness, and was murdered in the streets of Paris at the instigation of the Duke of Burgundy in revenge for his father's death (see Jarry's Louis de France, 1890). His successor was his son Charles (1391–1465), the poet. Charles's son Louis succeeded to the throne as Louis XII. in 1498, whereupon the dukedom of Orleans merged in the crown. It was revived in 1626, when Louis XIII. created his ambitious and intriguing brother, Jean Baptiste Gaston (1608–60), Duke of Orleans and Chartres and Count of Blois. He died without male issue, whereupon Louis XIV. at once revived the title in favour of his brother Philippe (1640–1701), the husband of Henrietta, sister of Charles II., and, after her death, of the Princess Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria. His daughters married Charles II. of Spain, Victor Amadeus II. of Savoy, and Prince Charles of Lorraine; his son was the regent and debauchee, Philippe (1674–1723), and his great-grandson was the notorious Égalité, Louis-Philippe Joseph (1747–93). Égalité's son, Louis-Philippe (1773–1850), bore the title during his exile, and until he became king of the French in 1830. His eldest son (1810–42) took the title; but it was not borne by his son, the Comte de Paris (1838–94), who in 1883 became head of the French Bourbons, his son, Louis Philippe Robert (born 1869; travelled in Asia, 1890–95; married an Austrian princess, 1896), assuming the old ducal title. For the Orleanist party, see BOURBON, FRANCE.
Charles, Duke of Orleans, commonly called Charles d'Orleans, was the eldest son of Louis, Duke of Orleans, and of the high-spirited Valentina Visconti, and was born 26th May 1391. He married in 1406 his cousin Isabella, the widow of Richard II. of England, who brought him scarcely her good-will, but an ample dowry of half a million francs. Three years later she died, leaving him a daughter. He took his share in the intestine struggles of the time, in alliance with the infamous Bernard d'Armagnac, and did his best to avenge on the Duke of Burgundy his father's murder. He commanded at Agincourt (October 1415), and there, or shortly after, was taken prisoner and carried to England, where he spent over a quarter of a century in easy imprisonment at Windsor, Pontefract, Amphill, Wingfield in Suffolk, and the Tower. In his enforced leisure he hunted, hawked, admired the English ladies, and amused himself with turning some hundreds of ballades and rondels, which, conventional and shallow as they are, are easy and graceful in versification, and informed with a musical and tender melancholy that has a singular charm for the reader. His long captivity had made him a martyr to the eyes of Frenchmen—it was one of Joan of Arc's declared intentions to deliver the captive duke, who, she assured her judges, was beloved of God. His imprisonment became ever more irksome to him, but he was at length ransomed in 1440 through the good offices of Philip the Good of Burgundy, son of his father's murderer, and he at once married Philip's niece, Mary of Cleves. But it was soon discovered that there was nothing of the heroic in his temper or capacity, and he quickly sank again into political insignificance. The last third of his life he spent mainly in great dignity and state at his seat at Blois, where he maintained a kind of literary court which was visited by all the elegant poets of that rhyming age. His latest act was a vain attempt to defend the Duke of Brittany from the grasping hand of Louis XI. He died at Amboise, 4th January 1465. His son became Louis XII. of France.
The best edition of the poems of Charles d'Orleans is that of C. d'Héricault in the 'Nouvelle Collection Jannet' (2 vols. Paris, 1874). The Debate between the Herald of France and England is assigned to him by Mr Henry Pyne, its translator and editor; but M. Paul Meyer, in his edition of the French text, has declared against his authorship. See Beaufil's Étude (1861); and R. L. Stevenson, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882).
JEAN BAPTISTE GASTON, DUKE OF ORLEANS, was the third son of King Henry IV., was born in 1608, and was granted the title in 1626 on his marriage with Marie of Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier. His wife soon died, leaving one daughter, 'La Grande Mademoiselle.' He troubled France with incessant and bloody but fruitless intrigues against Richelieu, and but for his royal birth would have lost his head like Montmorency, Cinq-Mars, and De Thou. The validity of his marriage with Marguerite of Lorraine was only declared after a long disputation among jurists and theologians. After Richelieu's death a reconciliation was effected between him and the king, and he was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom during the minority of Louis XIV. The duke, finding himself impotent in the hands of Mazarin, placed himself at the head of the Fronde, but with his usual selfishness soon threw over his friends and made terms again with the court. After Mazarin's final triumph he was confined to his castle of Blois, where he died, 2d February 1660, leaving three daughters by his second marriage. See his Mémoires (Amsterdam, 1683).
PHILIPPE, DUKE OF ORLEANS, regent of France during the minority of Louis XV., was the son of the first Duke Philippe, and the grandson of King Louis XIII., and was born 4th August 1674. He possessed excellent talents, and acquired knowledge with rapidity, but his tutor, Dubois, afterwards cardinal, early demoralised him by ministering to his passions, and, hardly yet grown up, he gave himself up to debauchery. The king compelled him to marry Mademoiselle de Blois, his daughter by Madame de Montespan. The young prince now began to alarm the court by an unsuspected capacity for war, showed courage at Steenkirk and Neerwinden, and commanded with success in Italy and Spain. But his presence in Madrid after his victories was disliked both by Philip V. and by Louis XIV. For some years thereafter he lived in complete exile from the court, spending his time by turns in profligacy, the practice of the fine arts, and the study of chemistry. Louis, having legitimised his sons the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse, appointed the Duke of Orleans president of the regency only and not regent, giving the guardianship of his grandson and heir and the command of the household troops to the Duke of Maine; but this arrangement was set aside at his death (1715), and the Duke of Orleans became sole regent. He was popular, and his first measures increased his popularity; but the financial affairs of the kingdom were perplexing, and the regent's adoption of the schemes of Law led to disastrous results. He favoured an English and anti-Spanish alliance, and Anglomania, or a craze for everything English, was one of the features of his régime. His alliance with England and Holland, formed in 1717, was joined next year by the emperor, and this quadruple alliance succeeded in effecting the downfall of Alberoni and his wildly-ambitious schemes. At the instance of Lord Stair, the English ambassador, he expelled the Pretender from France. He put an end to the parliament of Paris meddling with financial or political affairs, and declared the legitimised sons of Louis XIV. incapable of succeeding to the throne. Dubois now became prime-minister, and ere long Archbishop of Cambrai and cardinal. To appease the Jesuits he sacrificed the Jansenists, compelling the parliament in 1722 to recognise the bull Unigenitus. Yet he was faithful to his trust, and the indolent young prince on his coming of age (1723) rewarded him by retaining him in power. But Dubois died in the August of the same year, and four months later, Philippe's frame gave way under the burden of his debaucheries, 2d December 1723. See the works by Piossens (5 vols. 1749) and Capefigue (2 vols. 1838).
LOUIS-PHILIPPE JOSEPH, DUKE OF ORLEANS, the famous Égalité, was born April 13, 1747, and succeeded to the title on his father's death in 1785, having been Duke of Chartres since 1752. He possessed good abilities, but early fell into a course of debauchery which he never quitted till the end of his career. In 1769 he married the heiress of the Duke of Penthièvre, and used her immense wealth to advance his political interest. But he was looked upon coldly at court, and still more so after the accession of Louis XVI. (1774), who abhorred his morals, while Marie Antoinette grudged him his wealth and independent position and hated the criticisms of the ring of witty reprobates who clustered round him. He fought at Ushant, but was prevented from further service and promotion to the rank of admiral by the jealousy of the court. He visited London frequently, became an intimate friend of the dissipated young Prince of Wales, afterwards inglorious as George IV., and infected young France with Anglomania in the form of horseracing and hard drinking. He made himself widely popular by profuse charity and by flinging open to the poor the splendid gardens of the Palais Royal. In the lit de justice of November 1787 he showed his liberalism boldly against the king, and was sent by a lettre-de-cachet to his château of Villers-Cotterets. As the States-general drew near he lavished his wealth in disseminating throughout France books and papers by Sieyès and other advocates of liberal ideas, and had himself put up in as many as five bailliages, but was elected in but three, Crèpy-le-Valois, Villers-Cotterets, and
Paris. In October (1788) he promulgated his Délibérations, written by Laclos, to the effect that the tiers état was the nation, and in June 1789 he led the forty-seven nobles who seceded from their own order to join it. There is no doubt that, guided by Adrien Duport and others, he dreamed of some day becoming constitutional king of France, or at least regent, but it is no less certain that the indolent debauchee was to a great extent the mere dupe of a party, and at no time the deep designing villain he was believed to be at court. There the blame of everything was cast upon his head, even of such great outbursts of the revolutionary fever as the fall of the Bastille and the march of the women on Versailles. Orleans gradually lost influence, and felt so hopeless of the Revolution that he would willingly have gone to America had his mistress, the abandoned Comtesse de Buffon, consented to accompany him. From October 1789 to July 1790 he was absent in England on a mission, and after his return he took a smaller share in political matters than before, while his efforts to come to an understanding with the court were still met with repulse. In September 1792 all hereditary titles being swept away, he demanded a new name from the Paris electors, and adopted that of Philippe Egalité, suggested by Mannel. He was elected the twentieth deputy for Paris to the Convention, and gave his vote of death for the king, which sent a shudder to the heart even of the Mountain. His eldest son, the Duke of Chartres, afterwards King Louis-Philippe, was a brave and active officer on the staff of Dumouriez, and rode over with his chief into the Austrian camp. Egalité was at once arrested with all the Bourbons still in France, and, after six months' durance at Marseilles, was brought to Paris for trial. He was found guilty of royalism and conspiracy and guillotined the same day, 6th November 1793, dying with courteous phrases on his lips and all the high courage of the old régime.
See Baschet's Histoire de Philippe Egalité, the elaborate work by Tourneux (2 vols. 1840-43), and Mrs Elliott's Journal (1859).