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Page 4
This Equality Philip left as his representative in the world a son who
was twenty years old when his father was executed. The son was that
Louis Philippe who, under his surname of _Roi Citoyen_, or "Citizen
King," was destined after extraordinary vicissitudes to hold the
sceptre of France for eighteen years. Young Louis Philippe was a
soldier in the republican armies. That might well have saved him from
persecution; but his princely blood could not be excused. He was by
birth the Duke of Valois, and by succession the Duke of Chartres. As
a boy, eight years of age, he had received for his governess the
celebrated Madame de Genlis, who remained faithful to him in all his
misfortunes. At eighteen he became a dragoon in the Vendome Regiment,
and in 1792 he fought valiantly under Kellermann and Dumouriez at
Valmy and Jemappes. Then followed the treason, or defection, of
Dumouriez; but young Louis remained with the army for two years
longer, when, being proscribed, he went into exile, finding refuge
with other suspected officers and many refugees in Switzerland.
Thither Dumouriez himself had gone. Of the flight of young Louis,
Carlyle says: "Brave young Egalit� reaches Switzerland and the Genlis
Cottage; with a strong crabstick in his hand, a strong heart in his
body: his Princedom is now reduced to _that_ Egalit� the father sat
playing whist, in his Palais Egalit�, at Paris, on the sixth day of
this same month of April, when a catchpole entered. Citoyen Egalit� is
wanted at the Convention Committee!" What the committee wanted with
Equality Philip and what they did with him has been stated above.
Consider then that the Napoleonic era has at last set in blood.
Consider that the Restoration, with the reigns of Louis XVIII. and
Charles X., has gone by. Consider that the "Three Days of July,"
1830, have witnessed a bloodless revolution in Paris, in which the
House of Bourbon was finally overthrown and blown away. On the second
of August, Charles X. gave over the hopeless struggle and abdicated in
favor of his son. But the Chamber of Deputies and the people of France
had now wearied of Bourbonism in _all_ of its forms, and the nation
was determined to have a king of its own choosing.
The Chamber set about the work of selecting a new ruler for France. At
this juncture, Thiers and Mignet again asserted their strength and
influence by nominating for the throne Louis Philippe, Duke of
Orleans, representative of what is known as the Younger Branch of the
Bourbon dynasty. The prince himself was not loath to present himself
at the crisis, and to offer his services to the nation. In so doing,
he was favored greatly by his character and antecedents. At the first,
the Chamber voted to place him at the head of the kingdom with the
title of _Lieutenant-General_. The prince accepted his election, met
the Chamber of Deputies and members of the Provisional Government at
the Hotel de Ville, and there solemnly pledged himself to the most
liberal principles of administration. His accession to power in his
military relations was hailed with great delight by the Parisians, who
waved the tri-color flag before him as he came, and shouted to their
heart's content.
At this stage of the revolution the representatives of the overthrown
House and of the Old Royalty sought assiduously to obtain from Louis
Philippe a recognition of the young Count de Chambord, under the title
of Henry V. But the Duke of Orleans was too wily a politician to be
caught in such a snare. He at first suppressed that part of the letter
of abdication signed by Charles and Angoul�me in which reference was
made to the succession of the Duke of Berry's son; but a knowledge of
that clause was presently disseminated in the city, and the tumult
broke out anew.
Then it was that a great mob, rolling out of Paris in the direction of
the Hotel Rambouillet, gave the signal of flight to Charles and those
who had adhered to the toppling fortunes of his house. The Chamber of
Deputies proceeded quickly to undo the despotic acts of the late king,
and then elected Louis Philippe king, not of _France_, but of the
_French_. The new sovereign received 219 out of 252 votes in the
Deputies. His elevation to power was one of the most striking examples
of personal vicissitudes which has ever been afforded by the princes
and rulers of modern times.
THE COUP D'ETAT OF 1851.
With the overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848, what is known as the
Second Republic, was established in France. On the tenth of December,
in that year, a president was elected in the American manner for a
term of four years. To the astonishment of the whole world, the man so
elected was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who had since the downfall of
Napoleon been prisoner, exile and adventurer by turns. In the course
of President Louis Napoleon's administration, matters came to such a
pass between him and the National Assembly that one or the other must
go to the wall.
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