House of Orléans

HOUSE OF ORLÉANS. - In French history there are four different groups of people successively invested with the crown of the Duchy of O. The first was Philip, fifth son of King Philip of Valois, in 1344, who kept it only until 1375, the year in which he died without legitimate offspring. In 1392, King Charles VI invested with the Duchy of O. the second son of King Charles V, Louis. He was succeeded by his son Charles (1394-1465), who had to sustain hard struggles against the House of Burgundy; in 1414 he entered Paris with the Dauphin; at the battle of Agincourt he was taken prisoner by the English; in 1440 he was able to return to France. He was a refined poet of exquisite melancholy. From him the title passed by legitimate descent to Prince Louis who, on the death of Charles VIII (1498), ascended the French throne under the name of Louis XII (v.).

The Duchy of O. became an appanage of Gaston of France (1608-60), younger son of Henry IV and of Marie de' Medici. He was a typical representative of the old aristocracy in struggle against monarchical absolutism. When he died, without male descendants, the Duchy returned to the crown. The following year the Duchy of O. was given by Louis XIV to his brother Philip (1640-1701), one of the claimants to the throne of Spain at the death of Charles II, but who protested in vain against the testamentary provisions that instituted Philip of Anjou as heir. His son Philip (1674-1723) became, on the death of Louis XIV, regent of France, and remained such almost until his own death, when Louis XV reached his majority. Among the descendants of this house are remembered Louis Philip Joseph (1747-93), of democratic sentiments, who during the French Revolution assumed the name of Philippe Egalité and, as a deputy to the Convention, voted for the death sentence of Louis XVI, but then, suspected of treason, was himself guillotined; and his son Louis Philip (v.), who became king in 1830. The supporters of the O. constituted, after the abdication of Louis Philip, alongside the legitimists and the Bonapartists, the third French monarchist party, and after the death of Henry V, Count of Chambord, in 1883, they merged with the legitimists. The last to bear the title of Duke of O. was Louis Philip Robert (1869-1926).

Silvio Furlani