The directory «Plots»
Louis-Philippe
(1773 —1850)
Louis-Philippe of France served as the "Orleanist" king of the French from 1830 to 1848.
Born in Paris, Louis-Philippe, as the son of Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d'Orleans (known as "Philippe Egalité"), descended directly from King Louis XIII.
During the French Revolution and the ensuing regime of Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis-Philippe remained mostly outside France, travelling extensively, including in the United States where he stayed for four years in Philadelphia. His only sister, Princess Louise Marie Adelaide Eugènie d'Orleans, married in the U.S.
In 1809 Louis-Philippe married Princess Marie Amalie of Bourbon-Sicilies (1782–1866), daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies.
In 1830, the July Revolution overthrew the repressive regime of Charles X. Charles abdicated in favour of his grandson, whom monarchists regarded as the legitimate Bourbon king. (Supporters of the Bourbon pretender, called 'Henry V', came to be called Legitimists. His grandson was offered the throne again in the 1870s but declined over a dispute over the French tricolour.) Due to Louis-Philippe's Republican policies and his popularity with the masses, the Chamber of Deputies ignored the wishes of the legitimists that Charles's grandson be accepted as king and instead proclaimed Louis-Philippe as the new French king. The new monarch took the , a constitutional innovation known as Popular monarchy which linked the monarch's title to a people, not to a state, as the previous King of France's designation did. Louis-Philippe repudiated the legitimist theory of the divine right of kings.
In 1832, his daughter, Princess Louise-Marie Thérèse Charlotte Isabelle (1812–1850), became Belgium's first queen when she married King Leopold I.
For a few years, Louis-Philippe ruled in a unpretentious fashion, avoiding the arrogance, pomp and lavish spending of his predecessors. Despite this outward appearance of simplicity, Louis-Philippe's support came from the wealthy middle classes. At first, he was much loved and called the "Citizen King", but his popularity suffered as his government was perceived as increasingly conservative and monarchical. Under his management the conditions of the working classes deteriorated, and the income gap widened considerably. An economic crisis in 1847 led to the citizens of France revolting against their king once again.
Ajman, 1972, Louis Philippe
