France in the Nineteenth Century | Page 6

royal family of France. She
died in 1845.
But whoever the mother of Louis Philippe may have been, she whom
he and Madame Adélaide looked up to and loved as though she had
been their second mother, was Madame de Genlis. In her company
Louis Philippe witnessed, with boyish exultation, the destruction of the
Bastile. To her he wrote after the great day when in the Champ de Mars
the new Constitution was sworn to both by king and people: "Oh, my
mother! there are but two things that I supremely love,--the new
constitution and you!"
On Christmas Day, 1809, he married at Palermo the Princesse Marie
Amélie, niece to Marie Antoinette, and aunt to the future Duchesse de
Berri.
No breath of scandal ever disturbed the matrimonal happiness of Louis
Philippe and Marie Amélie. They had a noble family of five sons and
three daughters, all distinguished by their ability and virtues. I shall
have to tell hereafter how devotion to the interests of his family was
one cause of Louis Philippe's overthrow.
In 1814, when Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau; Louis Philippe
left Palermo, attended only by one servant, and made his way to Paris
and the home of his family, the Palais Royal. He hurried into the house,
and in spite of the opposition of the concierge, who took him for a
madman, he rushed to the staircase; but before he ascended it he fell
upon his knees, and bursting into tears, kissed the first step before him.
This was probably the most French-like thing in Louis Philippe's career.
He was far more like an Englishman than a Frenchman. Had he been an
English prince, his faults would have seemed to his people like virtues.

Of course the son of Égalité could be no favorite with the elder
Bourbons; but he soon became the hope of the middle classes, and was
very intimate with Laffitte the banker, and with Lafayette, who, as we
have seen, were both implicated in conspiracies seven years before the
Revolution of 1830. He was for many years not rich, but he and the
ladies of his house were very charitable. Madame Adélaïde, speaking
one day to a friend[1] of the reports that were circulated concerning her
brother's parsimony, said,--
"People ask what he does with his money. To satisfy them it would be
necessary to publish the names of honorable friends of liberty who, in
consequence of misfortunes, have solicited and obtained from him
sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even three hundred thousand francs.
They forget all the extraordinary expenses my brother has had to meet,
all the demands he has to comply with. Out of his income he has
furnished the Palais Royal, improved the apanages of the House of
Orleans; and yet sooner or later all this property will revert to the
nation. When we returned to France our inheritance was so encumbered
that my brother was advised to decline administering on the estate; but
to that neither he nor I would consent. For all these things people make
no allowances. Truly, we know not how to act to inspire the confidence
which our opinions and our consciences tell us we fully deserve."
[Footnote 1: M. Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie Amélie.]
[Illustration: LOUIS PHILLIPPE. (Duke of Orleans.)]
It is not necessary in a sketch so brief to go minutely into politics.
Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the Chambers, having found the
deputies unwilling to approve their acts, and a few days afterwards the
king published his own will and pleasure in what were called Les
Ordonnances du Roi. One of these restricted the liberty of the Press,
and was directed against journalism; another provider new rules, by
which the ministry might secure a more subservient Chamber.
As we have seen, these ordonnances even in foreign countries spread
dismay. The revolution that ensued was the revolution of the great
bankers and the business men,--the haute bourgeoisie. In general,

revolutions are opposed by the moneyed classes; but this was a
revolution effected by them to save themselves and their property from
such an outbreak as came forty years later, which we call the Commune.
The working-classes had little to do with the Revolution of 1830,
except, indeed, to fight for it, nor had they much to do with the
Revolution of 1848. It was the moneyed men of France who saw that
the resuscitated principles of the old régime had been stretched to their
very uttermost all over Europe, and that if they did not check them by a
well-conducted revolution, worse would be sure to come.
On July 26, 1830, the ordonnances appeared. The working-classes
seemed to hear of them without emotion; but their effect on all those
who had any stake in the prosperity of the country was very great.