944 



ORLEANS 



daughter. Ho took his Bhare in tlie intestine 

 struggles of the time, in alliance witli the infamous 

 Kermud d Armognac, and did his liest to avenge 

 on the Duke of Burgundy hi* father's murder. !! 

 commanded at Agineourt ( Molier I4I.~>), and thcic, 

 or shortly after, wan taken prisoner and carried to 

 England! where he spent over a quarter of a cen- 

 tury in easy i in prison men t at Windsor, I'ontofract, 

 Ampthill, WillgfteM in Suffolk, ami the Tower. 

 In his enforced lei-nre he hunted, hawked, admired 

 the English ladies, and amused himself with turn- 

 ing some hundreds of ballades and rondels, which, 

 conventional and shallow as they are, are easy and 

 graceful in versification, and informal with a 

 musical and tender melancholy that has a singular 

 charm for the reader. His long captivity had 

 made him a martyr to the eyes of Frenchmen it 

 was one of Joan of Arc's declared intentions to 

 deliver the captive duke, who, she assured her 

 judges, was beloved of God. His imprisonment 

 became ever more irksome to him, but he was 



Mary of Cloves. But it was soon discovered that 

 there was nothing of the heroic in his temper or 

 capacity, and he quickly sank again into political 

 insignificance. The last third of his life he -pent 

 mainly in great dignity and state at his seat at 

 Blois, where he maintained a kind of literary court 

 which was visited by all the elegant poets of that 

 rh vniing age. His latest act was a vain attempt to 

 defend the Duke of Brittany from the grasping 

 hand of Louis XI. He died at Amboise, 4th Jan- 

 uary 1465. His son became Louis XII. of France. 



The bent edition of the poems of Charles d'Orleani is 

 that of C. d'Hericault in the ' Nouvelle Collection Jan net' 

 (2 voU. Paris, 1874). The Debate betaern the Herald* of 

 France and England is assigned to him by Mr Henry 

 Pyne, its translator and editor ; bat M. Paul Meyer, in 

 his edition of the French text, has declared against his 

 authorship. See Beaufil's tmle ( 1861 ) ; and R. L Steven- 

 son, in familiar Studiei of Men and Bookt (1882). 



.IK AN BAPTISTS GASTON, DUKE OF ORLEANS, 

 was the third son of King Henry IV., was born in 

 1608, and was granted the title in 1626 on his 

 marriage with Marie of Bourbon, Duchess of Mont 

 pensier. His wife soon died, leaving one daughter, 

 'La Grande Mademoiselle.' He troubled trance 

 with incessant and bloody but fruitless intrigues 

 against Kichtilieu, and but for his royal birth would 

 have lost his head like Montmorency, Cinq-Mars, 

 and De Thou. The validity of his marriage with 

 Marguerite of Lorraine was only declared after a 

 long disputation among jurists and theologians. 

 After Richelieu's death a reconciliation was effected 

 between him and the king, and he was appointed 

 lieutenant-general of the kingdom during the 

 minority of Louis XIV. The duke, finding himself 

 ini|K>tent in the hands of Mazarin, placed him-rlf 

 at the head of the Fronde, but with his usual 

 seH'mhnesB soon threw over hi- fi lends and made 

 terms again with the court. Aficr Ma/arin's final 

 triumph he was confined to his castle of Itloi-. 

 where he died, 2d February 1600, leaving three 

 daughter* by his second marriage. See his Mtmoirtt 

 (Amsterdam, 1683). 



I'Hii.iri'K, I M-KE OP ORLEANS, regent of France 

 dating the minority of Louis XV., was the son of 

 the lint Duke Philippe, and the grandson of King 

 Low XIII., and wax liom 4th August 1674. He 

 possessed excellent talents, and acquired know- 

 ledge with rapidity, but his tutor, Mubois, after 

 wards cardinal, early demoralised him by mini-- 

 taring to hi" passion*, and, hardly vet grown up, 

 he gave himself up to debauchery, the king com- 

 pelled him to marry Mademoiselle de Blois, his 

 daughter .by Madame de Montespan. The young 



prince now began to alarm the court by an unsus- 

 i>eeted capacity for war, showed courage at 8 teen - 

 kirk and Neerwfakta, and commanded with success 

 in Italy and Spain. But his presence in Madrid 

 after his victories was disliked lioth by 1'hilip V. 

 and by Louis XIV. For some years thereafter he 

 lived in complete exile from the court, upending 

 his time by turns in profligacy, the practice of the 

 line arts, and the study of chemistry. Louis, 

 having legitimised his sons the Duke of Maine ami 

 the Count of Toulouse, appointed the Duke of 

 Orleans president of the regency only and not 

 regent . giving the guardianship of his grandson and 

 heir and the command of the household troop- to 

 the Duke of Maine ; but tliis arrangement was set 

 aside at his death (1710), and the Duke of Orleans 

 became sole regent. He was popular, and his first 

 measures increased his popularity; but the financial 

 affairs of the kingdom were perplexing, and the 

 regent's adoption of the schemes of Law led to 

 .lisa-irons le-ults. He favoured an English and 

 anti-Spanish alliance, and Anglomania, or a craze 

 for everything English, was one of the feature- of 

 his regime. Tlis alliance with England and Hol- 

 land, formed in 1717, was joined next year bv the 

 emperor, and this quadruple alliance succeeded in 

 effecting the downfall of Albcroni and his wildly- 

 ambitious schemes. At the instance of Lord Stair, 

 the English ambassador, he expelled the Pretender 

 from France. He put an end to the parliament of 

 Paris meddling with financial or political affairs, 

 and declared the legitimised sons of Louis XIV. 

 incapable of succeeding to the throne. Dubois 

 now uecanie prime-minister, and ere long Archbishop 

 of Cambrai and cardinal. To appease the Jesuits 

 he sacrificed the Jansenists, compelling the parlia- 

 ment in 1722 to recognise the bull Uniyenitu*. Yet 

 he was faithful to his trust, and the indolent young 

 prince on his coming of age (17231 rewarded him 

 try retaining him in power. But Dulmis died in 

 the August of the same year, and four months 

 later, Philippe's frame gave wav under the burden 

 of his delmucherics, 2d DeceniW 1723. See the 

 works by Piosseus (5 vols. 1749) and Caper! gue 

 (2 vols. 1838). 



LOUIS-PHILIPPE JOSEPH, DUKE OF ORLEANS, the 

 famous f.gtililf, was liorn April 13, 1747, and 

 succeeded to the title on his father's death in )7 S \ 

 having lieen I hike of Chartres since 1752. He 

 possessed good abilities, but early fell into a course 

 of debauchery which he never quitted till the end 

 of his career. In 1769 he married tlie heiress of 

 the Duke of Penthievre, and used her immense 

 wealth to advance hi- political interest. But he 

 was looked upon coldly at court, and still more 

 so after the accession of Louis XVI. (1774), who 

 abhorred bis morals, while Marie Antoinette grudged 

 him bis wealth and independent position and 

 hated (he criticisms of the ring of witty reprobates 

 who clustered round him. He fought at I '.-haul, 

 but was prevented from further service and pro- 

 motion to the rank of admiral by the jealousy of 

 the court. He visited London frequent ly, became 

 an intimate friend of the dissipated young Prince 

 of Wales, afterwards inglorious as Ceoige IV., and 

 infected \oung 1'ra.nce with Anglomania in the 

 form of hoiseraeing and haul drinking, He i: 

 himself widely popular by profuse charity and In- 

 Hinging o|>en to tnc poor tin; splendid gardens of 

 the Palais Itoyal. In the lit 1/1 juxtm of No\em 

 l>cr 17s7 he showed his lilirralisni boldly ngaiimt 

 the king, ami was sent 1>\ a liltrr 1/1- ttUOUt to big 

 chateau of Villors-Cotterets. A- the States-general 

 drew near be lavished lii- wealth in disseminating 

 throughout France books and papers by Sieves and 

 oilier advocates of lilieral ideas, and had himself 

 put up in as many as live l,,ii//;,i, /,-.<. but was elected 

 in but three, Crepy-le-Valois, Villers-CottereU, and 



