The New Student's Reference Work/Louis Philippe

Louis Philippe (lo͞o′ē fē-lēp′), born at Paris on Oct. 6, 1773, was the oldest son of the duke of Orleans. With his father he renounced his titles and called himself Philippe Egalité (Equality). He became a member of the Jacobin Club, and, being proscribed for liberal views, was an exile for 20 years. In Switzerland he taught school, and spent three years in the United States. In 1814 he returned to Paris, when he received his great estates which the royal government had taken. Louis XVIII received him with much distrust, the court regarded him with jealousy, but he was popular in Paris. The Revolution of 1830 having ended, he was appointed lieutenant-general, mainly on the proposal of Lafitte and Lafayette. On Aug. 9, he accepted the throne and was called to be king of the French. In 1848 he was compelled to abdicate, and thus ended a reign remarkable for the wave of liberalism in which it took its rise and for the whirlwind of democracy that swept it away. He spent the remainder of his life in England, where he died on Aug. 26, 1850. See Memoirs of a Minister of State by Guizot and Rise and Fall of Louis Philippe by Poore.