378 The King of the French, [OcT. 



habits difficult to break through, and that prosperity was snatched from 

 me before I could either use or abuse it.' " 



A new reason was soon added to this manly propensity to struggle 

 for himself in the world. The Directory of France, fearing the return 

 of so popular a branch of the royal family, offered to liberate his brothers 

 on condition of his going to America. He instantly embraced the pro- 

 posal. The compact was kept by the Directory, and the duke and his two 

 brothers, to whom he was strongly attached, met in Philadelphia, in 

 1797. After a long tour through the lakes and forests, he passed down 

 the Mississippi, and remained at the Havannah for a year and a half, 

 waiting the King of Spain's permission to return and see his mother. 

 The permission never came. He now visited the Duke of .Kent at Halifax, 

 and by his advice sailed for England. Again he sailed for Spain, but 

 was not suffered to land. He returned to England, and was introduced 

 by the Count D'Artois to Louis XVIII. He took a house at Twicken- 

 ham, where he lost his brother, the Due de Montpensier, by a consump- 

 tion. His brother, Beaujolais, was seized with the 'same disease, and 

 the duke took him to Malta for change of climate ; but there he, too, 

 died. 



The history of this distinguished man almost exceeds the wanderings 

 of romance. In 1809 he went to Sicily, on a visit to the court. Leopold, 

 the king's second son, had entertained the idea of being chosen head of the 

 Spanish nation, in the absence of their king. He sailed with the duke 

 for Gibraltar ; but the governor, justly conceiving that a Sicilian prince 

 was not the proper head for a free insurrection, refused to suffer the 

 royal adventurer to land. The design perished on the spot. 



On his return to England he found his sister, and they sailed together 

 to meet their mother, who had escaped from Spain, and the French 

 army, to Port Mahon. With them he returned to Sicily, where he 

 married a daughter of the king, Ferdinand IV., in 1809. He remained 

 four years in Sicily, in the midst of hazard and insurrection. The 

 Spaniards offered him a military command in Catalonia, in 1810. But 

 when he arrived there he found that no command was provided. The 

 English general probably thought that the duke's presence might be 

 some impediment to the national objects. He was refused admission at 

 Cadiz, and he returned to Sicily. 



On the king's restoration he came to Paris, and was made colonel- 

 general of hussars. On Napoleon's landing, in March 1815, the Duke 

 went to Lyons to act with the Count D'Artois, but the troops revolted 

 and he returned to Paris. He was instantly sent to command in the north, 

 but there too the troops revolted he instantly made his decision, gave 

 up the command to Mortier, and followed the king in his way through Bel- 

 gium. In 1816 he returned with his family from England, and resided 

 in Paris, in a state of cool distance with the court, but usefully em- 

 ploying his vast and accumulating revenue, and patronizing public 

 works and literature. 



The story of the celebrated days of July is not now to be told. 

 On the 29th the white flag was replaced on the Tuilleries on the 

 31st the king abdicated, and on the 17th of August he arrived in 

 England. On the 7th of August the Duke of Orleans had been de- 

 clared by the Chamber of Deputies, by the style of " Louis Philippe 

 the First, King of the French." To this splendid elevation has 

 reached one of the most perilous, diversified, and manly courses of 



