The enthronement of the Duc d’Orléans was the strange termination of a revolution, carried out mainly by men who were animated by sentiments such as these. Even on the evening of the third day’s fighting, when the Royal troops had been driven from Paris and when the people were in possession of the Tuileries, the Duke’s name was still unmentioned. Most of the Liberal deputies were disposed to make their peace with their lawful king, and to be satisfied with the withdrawal of the unconstitutional ordinances and with the dismissal of the Prince de Polignac and his colleagues in the government. The extreme party, the old soldiers, the members of the former Carbonari lodges, the students of the polytechnique, the men who had borne the burden of the struggle, were not prepared with an immediate solution of the question. Beyond declaring that they would take up arms again, rather than accept any concessions at the hands of Charles X. or the Dauphin, they had no definite plan to bring forward. Louis Philippe was to owe his crown to a skilfully worded placard, the work of Laffitte the Liberal banker, and of Thiers, a clever young journalist, which on the following morning, greeted the Parisians at every street corner. In this proclamation the enthronement of the Duc d’Orléans was held up as the one solution which would restore public order without further bloodshed. A republic, it was declared, would entail both internal strife and war abroad, whilst Charles X., the monarch who had shed the blood of the people, must be adjudged unworthy to retain his crown. The Duc d’Orléans, on the other hand, was a prince devoted to the cause of the Revolution, who had never borne arms against his own countrymen, but who, on the contrary, had worn the tricolour at Valmy and at Jemappes. Let the people call for him and the Duke would come forward, content to accept the Charter and his crown from their hands.
The prospect of concluding the revolution in this fashion was eagerly adopted by the Liberal deputies and by the middle classes generally. But the more turbulent members of the so-called Hotel de Ville party indignantly repudiated the notion of allowing their glorious achievements to culminate in the enthronement of “another Bourbon.” The allusions in Laffitte’s and Thiers’ placard to the tricolour, to Valmy, and to the crown as the free gift of the people, left them cold. Nor were they to be mollified by a second proclamation, in which it was boldly asserted that the Duc d’Orléans was a Valois, not a Bourbon.[4] No sooner was the Duke put forward as a candidate for the throne, than the demagogues began to exhort the people to call upon La Fayette to assume the presidency of the republic. The old man was, as he had been forty years before, in command of the national guards, and was once more the hero of the mob. He was, however, little disposed to undertake the responsibility which his ultra-democratic friends wished him to assume. Under these circumstances, Rémusat and other of his colleagues in the Chamber, assisted, it is said, by Mr. Rives, the American minister, had little difficulty in persuading him that, were he to play the leading part in founding a Liberal monarchy, it would be accounted, throughout the Old and the New World, the most honourable act of his declining years. Accordingly, on the following day, July 31, 1830, he agreed to receive the Duc d’Orléans, the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, at the Hotel de Ville. Upon his arrival he led him to the window and, placing the tricolour in his hands, embraced him warmly before the dense crowd upon the Place de Grève. When this ceremony had been completed the elect of the people rode back in triumph to the Palais Royal, exchanging enthusiastic handgrips with citizens along the road. For the moment, even the most truculent democrats were willing to accept La Fayette’s assurance that in an Orleans monarchy they had found “the best of republics.” Ten days later, on August 9, 1830, the Duke having sworn fidelity to the Charter was formally invested with sovereign power in the Chamber of Deputies, under the title of Louis Philippe, King of the French.
At the time of the Revolution of July Louis Philippe was in his fifty-third year. He was the son of Egalité, and had been educated according to the Liberal views of his father and of Madame de Genlis. Although in 1794 he had deserted from the national armies along with Dumouriez, his commander-in-chief, he could assert truthfully that, throughout the long years of his subsequent exile, he had never turned his arms against his own country. During his wanderings in America and upon the continent, he had mixed with men of all sorts and all conditions. In Switzerland, indeed, he is said to have earned a livelihood by teaching in a school. In 1814 the idea of conferring the crown upon him, rather than upon Louis XVIII., had found favour in some quarters. But although, from this time forward, there had always existed some kind of a party, to which the name of Orleanist might have been applied, the Duke himself would appear to have been innocent of any participation in the proceedings of his adherents.
After Waterloo the plan of substituting him for Louis XVIII. had an increased number of supporters. Louis, who had never liked him, began from this moment to treat him with great suspicion. Both in England, where he continued to reside in a kind of disgrace till 1817, and at the Palais Royal, after his return to France, he was beset constantly by the spies of the police.[5] Charles X. had no share in his brother’s dislike and distrust of the Duc d’Orléans, and one of his first acts, after his accession, was to raise him to the rank of a Royal Highness. But, notwithstanding that, from the beginning of the new reign, more cordial relations were established between the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, there was never any real intimacy between the King and his sagacious relative. Charles was a man of limited intelligence and a bigot in religion. Politically he had not changed since the time when, as the Comte d’Artois, he had emigrated to Coblentz, and had called upon the Powers to assist him with men and with money to re-establish the old régime in France. The Duc d’Orléans, on the other hand, was a well-informed man of the world, a Liberal, who was neither a friend nor an enemy of the clergy.
It is clear that during the whole period of the Restoration the Duc d’Orléans was at pains to impress upon the public how greatly he differed in all matters, both great and small, from his cousins of the elder branch. When the return of Bonaparte from Elba compelled the Royal family to fly once more from France, he had not joined Louis XVIII. at Ghent, but had gone to England and had resided, throughout the Hundred Days, in complete retirement at Twickenham. Moreover, before quitting Lille he had addressed a farewell letter to the general officers serving under him, bidding them act, after his departure, in whatever manner might appear to them the most calculated to promote the highest interests of their country—an injunction which aroused as much indignation among the “pure Royalists” as it elicited commendation from the majority of Frenchmen. As they grew up, his sons, the young princes, were educated like ordinary citizens at the Lycée, and at the Palais Royal a simplicity was observed which contrasted strongly with the ceremony maintained, on all occasions, at the Court and in the apartments of the Dauphin. Nor could it fail to attract remark that men whose fidelity to the reigning dynasty was doubtful and prominent members of the Opposition were his habitual guests.
But, although there may be some circumstances of a suspicious nature in Louis Philippe’s conduct under the Restoration, it is improbable that he ever seriously harboured any thoughts of usurping the crown. His general behaviour