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171-479: Before Adolphe Thiers built the fortress, Mont Valérien was home to hermits. Since the 15th century a community of hermits lived on the slope of Puteaux similar to the one of Chartreux: private cells, communal holy Mass and holy Office, perpetual silence. Manual labor and prayer divided the days equally. The fortress defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War , and remained the strongest fortress protecting

342-689: A British prison hulk during the American Revolutionary War . In 1839, while reflecting on his visit to the United States, Louis Philippe explained in a letter to François Guizot that his three years there had a large influence on his political beliefs and judgments when he became king. In Boston, Louis Philippe learned of the coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797) and of the exile of his mother to Spain. He and his brothers then decided to return to Europe. They went to New Orleans , planning to sail to Havana and thence to Spain. This, however,

513-674: A Revolution in the winter, and they won't overthrow the Monarchy for a banquet." As the day advanced, the demonstrators raised more barricades and confronted the army. The leaders of many of the National Guard units informed the Prefect of police that they wanted reform and would not support the army against the population. A crowd of 600–800 National Guards threatened to storm the National Assembly building. Thiers addressed them, reminding them that

684-458: A boys' boarding school. The school, owned by a Monsieur Jost, was in Reichenau , a village on the upper Rhine in the then independent Grisons league state, now part of Switzerland. His salary was 1,400 francs and he taught under the name Monsieur Chabos . He had been at the school for a month when he heard the news from Paris: his father had been guillotined on 6 November 1793 after a trial before

855-546: A career as a writer. In 1821, the 24-year-old Thiers moved to Paris with just 100 francs in his pocket. Thanks to his letters of recommendation, he was able to get a position as a secretary to the prominent philanthropist and social reformer, the Duke of La Rochefoucalt-Liancourt . He stayed only three months with the Duke, whose political views were more conservative than his own, and with whom he could see no rapid avenue for advancement. He

1026-525: A constitutional monarchy under a Bourbon king, and the Orleanists, who wanted a king from the family of Louis-Philippe. The socialists were impatient with the slow pace of change; led by Ledru-Rollin, they staged an uprising in Paris, which was quickly suppressed by the army. Ledru-Rollin fled to London. In 1849 a cholera epidemic struck Paris; among the victims was Thiers' father-in-law. Thiers and his wife inherited

1197-531: A constitutional monarchy. The King responded, however, on 25 July with new decrees dissolving the Chamber of Deputies, changing the election laws, and putting restrictions on the press. The King, confident in his popularity, neglected to put the army on alert or to bring in soldiers to maintain order. Thiers reacted immediately and forcefully. On the front page of his newspaper, the National , he declared: "The legal regime

1368-622: A disused chapel , and later taken to be shot in a clearing 100 metres away. The bodies were then buried in various cemeteries in the Paris area. More than 1,000 (some figures say 4,500) hostages and resistants were executed by the Nazis. The 1,014 recorded executions by the Wehrmacht at Mont-Valérien between 1941 and 1944 were all men as a French law, observed by the Germans, prohibited execution of women by firing squad. Olga Bancic , condemned to death as

1539-470: A grave setback for the ideas of order; if I won, I would be obliged to embrace the ideas of the Republic, and, in truth, I am too honest a lad to marry such a bad woman." Instead, he made the major mistake of his political career; he decided to support Louis-Napoleon, certain that he could control him. He believed that Louis-Napoleon's term would be a failure, which would open the way for Thiers to run in 1852. On

1710-399: A huge success, selling twenty thousand copies in a few weeks. The book was criticized by Chateaubriand , who called it "an odious advertisement for Bonaparte, edited in the style of a newspaper" It had the unplanned effect of raising even further the prestige of Napoleon's nephew and Thiers' future enemy, Louis-Napoleon. In December 1840, Thiers helped secure the election of Victor Hugo to

1881-479: A king rendered the bourgeoisie enthusiastic. He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of Mont-Saint-Michel , built by Louis XI , and used by Louis XV . He was the companion of Dumouriez, he was the friend of Lafayette ; he had belonged to the Jacobins' club; Mirabeau had slapped him on the shoulder; Danton had said to him: "Young man!" What is there against him? That throne. Take away Louis Philippe

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2052-568: A literary career, but in August 1829, when the King appointed the ultra-royalist, Polignac as his new prime minister, Thiers began to write increasingly fierce attacks on the royal government. In a celebrated article, he wrote that "The King rules, but does not govern," and called for a constitutional monarchy. If the King did not accept it, he proposed simply changing the King, as the English had done in 1688. When

2223-463: A long time." His family urged him to remain and fight. The King turned to his marshals and generals and to Thiers and asked if there was any alternative, but they were silent. The King slowly wrote out and signed his act of abdication, changed from his uniform into civilian clothes, and left through the gardens of the Tuileries. A carriage took him out of Paris to Saint-Cloud, and soon afterwards he crossed

2394-520: A majority. For three months France was without a government. The most radical French revolutionaries, Barbés and Blanqui, saw this as the moment to launch a violent revolution. They had formed a secret organization, the Societé des Saisons , with about fifteen thousand members. On Sunday, 12 March 1839, when the center of Paris was deserted, they formed armed columns, and successfully seized the Palais de Justice and

2565-480: A man he was certain would soon fail; Adolphe Thiers. On the subject of Thiers, Louis-Philippe told Victor Hugo, "He (Thiers) has spirit, but he is spoiled by the spirit of a parvenu ; he has shown himself to be insatiable." Louis Philippe cited what he said was Talleyrand's view of Thiers: "You will never make anything of Thiers, but nonetheless he will be an excellent instrument. But he is one of those men whom you can make use of only if you give them satisfaction; but he

2736-529: A member of the Groupe Manouchian , was then deported to Stuttgart where she was beheaded by axe. The immense majority were members of the French Resistance , including: The site now serves as a national memorial. On 18 June 1945, Charles de Gaulle consecrated the site in a public ceremony. The area in front of the " Mémorial de la France combattante ", a reminder of the French Resistance against

2907-466: A monastery by monks who believed them to be young vagabonds. Another time, he woke up after spending a night in a barn to find himself at the far end of a musket, confronted by a man attempting to keep away thieves. Throughout this period, he never stayed in one place more than 48 hours. Finally, in October 1793, Louis Philippe was appointed a teacher of geography, history, mathematics and modern languages, at

3078-541: A more opportune moment. Thiers had been considered a leftist republican in the government of Louis-Philippe, but after the political earthquake of the 1848 revolution and the influx of new deputies, he appeared relatively conservative. While he was out of the Assembly, he published an essay in defense of capitalism and private property which won him the support of the French business community and middle class. Thiers took his seat as

3249-467: A new ring of fortresses around Paris. Palmerston did not attack Egypt, and crisis ended. The fortifications begun by Thiers during crisis were eventually finished, and became known as the Thiers wall , which later became (and remain today) the city limits of Paris. After the end of the crisis, tensions remained between the King and Thiers, who drafted the King's annual address to the Chamber of Deputies, adding

3420-515: A political crisis between France, Russia and Britain because of France's support for the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali , a long-time ally. (In 1829 he had donated the Luxor obelisk, now standing in the Place de la Concorde .) Lord Palmerston was convinced that the French would not fight, and sent a fleet to bombard Beirut and threaten Egypt. The French cabinet was divided, fearing that France was not ready for war;

3591-588: A razor that had been left in his possession, taking to the grave his secret and that of a great part of the affaire Dreyfus . (See Resolution of the Dreyfus affair .) During the Second World War , the fortress was used, from 1940 to 1944, as a prison and place of execution by the Nazi occupiers of Paris. The Germans brought prisoners to the prison in trucks from other locations. The prisoners were temporarily confined in

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3762-461: A reduction of salaries, led to riots and the death of 170 workers and 130 police and soldiers. Shortly afterwards, on 13 April, barricades went up in the Marais district in Paris. The army was summoned and launched forty thousand soldiers against the barricades. On rue Transnonain, a sergeant was wounded by a gunshot from a building. The soldiers attacked the building, killing the twelve inhabitants. Thiers

3933-541: A residence on Place Vendôme. The first appearance of Louis-Napoleon at the Assembly, his Germanic accent and awkward speaking style, persuaded Thiers and other Deputies that he was minus habens ; an imbecile. This was also the view of Ledru-Rollin and the socialist deputies. The new Assembly voted to hold elections for a new President of the Republic, the first in which all Frenchmen with residences could vote. Elections were set for 10 December 1848. Thiers considered running, but told Falloux, another Deputy: "If I lost it would be

4104-609: A seat in the Académie française in 1834. It was less appreciated by British critics, in large part because of his favorable view of the French Revolution and of Napoleon Bonaparte. The British historian Thomas Carlyle , who wrote his own history of the French Revolution, complained that it "was far as possible from meriting its high reputation", though he admitted that Thiers is "a brisk man in his way, and will tell you much if you know nothing". The historian George Saintsbury wrote in

4275-465: A seat in the chamber of deputies, not just a government position. But to be eligible to run, he needed to own property important enough that he paid taxes of at least one thousand francs a year. His intimate friend, Madame Dosne, spoke to her husband, a wealthy businessman. Dosne arranged a loan of one hundred thousand francs to Thiers so that he could buy a lot and build a house in a new real estate development at Place Saint-George. In return, Dosne received

4446-410: A substantial fortune. In a speech in the Assembly in 1849 Thiers explained his political philosophy: "Unlimited liberty leads to a barbaric society, where the strong oppress the others, and only the strongest have unlimited liberty... The liberty of one person stops at the liberty of other. Laws are born from this principle, and a civilized society. No one person has it in his power to instantly achieve

4617-627: A supporter of Order, Casimir Périer . Thiers was out of the government, and left only with his position as Deputy, which had no salary. The funeral of an anti-government figure, General Lamarque , in June 1832, later immortalized by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables , turned into the June Rebellion against the monarchy, with barricades raised in the Saint-Merri district. After it was suppressed, Thiers

4788-559: A wood, and retreated in disorder. Lt. General Louis Philippe rallied a group of units, dubbing them "the battalion of Mons", and pushed forward along with other French units, finally overwhelming the outnumbered Austrians. Events in Paris undermined his budding military career. The incompetence of Jean-Nicolas Pache , the new Girondist appointee of 3 October 1792, left the Army of the North almost without supplies. Soon thousands of troops were deserting

4959-784: A year he stayed in Muonio , a remote village in the valley of the Tornio river in Lapland . He lived in the rectory under the name Müller, as a guest of the local Lutheran vicar. While visiting Muonio, he supposedly fathered a child with Beata Caisa Wahlborn (1766–1830) called Erik Kolstrøm (1796–1879). Louis Philippe visited the United States ( c.  1796 to 1798), staying in Philadelphia (where his brothers Antoine and Louis Charles were in exile), New York City (where he most likely stayed at

5130-470: A year. Thiers and the Assembly rejected his request. Louis-Napoleon also sought an amendment to the Constitution to allow him to run for a second term; the vote was held on 21 July 1851. Louis-Napoleon's proposal won a majority of the Assembly, but not the two-thirds required by the Constitution. Blocked by the National Assembly, Louis-Napoleon decided to take a different route. In public he blamed Thiers and

5301-472: Is marching with giant steps toward a catastrophe. There will be a civil war, a revision of the Charter, and perhaps a change of personnel at the highest level. If Napoleon II were alive, he would take the place of the present King." The left opposition declared that they would hold an enormous banquet on the Place de la Madeleine on 22 February. Fearing trouble, Guizot declared the banquet illegal, and ammunition

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5472-453: Is never satisfied. The misfortune, for you and for him, is that you cannot make him a cardinal." Thiers accepted the position, and chose a government, keeping for himself the position of Foreign Minister. He told the Chamber of Deputies, "Our country is in the middle of the greatest perils, and we must fight the disorder with all of our force. To save a revolution, we must preserve it from its own excesses. Whether these excesses are produced on

5643-446: Is over; that of force has begun; in the situation in which we are placed, obedience has ceased to be an obligation." He persuaded the editors of the other major liberal newspapers to publish a joint declaration of opposition, which was published on the morning of 27 July. Later that morning, the prefect of police arrived at the National with orders to put the newspaper out of business. He brought workers who seized key mechanical parts of

5814-550: The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911): "Thiers' historical work is marked by extreme inaccuracy, by prejudice which passes the limits of accidental unfairness, and by an almost complete indifference to the merits as compared with the successes of his heroes." A new King, Charles X , had come to the French throne in 1824 with a strong belief in the divine right of kings and the worthlessness of parliamentary government. Thiers had been planning

5985-543: The Arc de Triomphe , and arranged the return to France of the remains of Napoleon from Saint-Helena . He was first a supporter, then a vocal opponent of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (who served from 1848 to 1852 as President of the Second Republic and then reigned as Emperor Napoleon III from 1852 to 1871). When Napoleon III seized power, Thiers was arrested and briefly expelled from France. He then returned and became an opponent of

6156-708: The Army of the North . In the days after Napoléon entered Paris (March 20), Louis XVIII fled to Belgium and Louis Philippe resigned his commission, choosing to join his family in exile in England. This brought him further scorn from royalists because he did not join Louis XVIII in Belgium. Napoléon was soon defeated in the Battle of Waterloo and Louis XVIII was restored to power, but Louis Philippe and his family only returned to France in 1817, after

6327-506: The Constitutionel hesitated to publish some of his more energetic attacks on the government, Thiers, with Armand Carrel , Mignet , Stendhal and others, started a new opposition newspaper, the National , whose first issue appeared on 3 January 1830. The government responded by taking the newspaper to court, charging it with attacks on the person of the King and that of the royal family. It

6498-679: The Constitutionnel . Most important for his future career, he was introduced to Talleyrand , the famous diplomat, who became his political guide and mentor. Under the tutelage of Talleyrand, Thiers became an active member of the circle of opponents of the Bourbon regime, which included the financier Lafitte and the Marquis de Lafayette . He began his celebrated Histoire de la Révolution française , which founded his literary reputation and boosted his political career. The first two volumes appeared in 1823,

6669-650: The French Revolution looming, the young Louis Philippe showed his liberal sympathies when he helped break down the door of a prison cell in Mont Saint-Michel , during a visit there with the Countess of Genlis. From October 1788 to October 1789, the Palais Royal was a meeting-place for the revolutionaries. Louis Philippe grew up in a period that changed Europe as a whole and, following his father's strong support for

6840-784: The German occupation forces, has been named Square Abbé Franz Stock . During the German occupation, Stock took care of condemned prisoners here, and he mentioned 863 executions at Mont Valérien in his diary. There is also an American military cemetery on the site, which contains the remains of 1,541 American soldiers who died in France during the First World War . Adolphe Thiers Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( / t i ˈ ɛər / tee- AIR , French: [maʁi ʒozɛf lwi adɔlf tjɛʁ] ; 15 April 1797 – 3 September 1877)

7011-533: The Girondists moved to arrest him and the two younger brothers of Louis Philippe, Louis-Charles and Antoine Philippe ; the latter had been serving in the Army of Italy . The three were interned in Fort Saint-Jean (Marseille) . Meanwhile, Louis Philippe was forced to live in the shadows, avoiding both pro-Republican revolutionaries and Legitimist French émigré centres in various parts of Europe and also in

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7182-580: The Hôtel de Ville . From the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, Barbés read a decree announcing the creation of a revolutionary government. But the army reacted immediately, and by the evening the revolution was reduced to a few barricades in the Faubourg Saint-Denis. Barbés and Blanqui were arrested and sentenced to confinement for life in the prison on Mont-Saint-Michel. Thiers saw his moment and ran for President of

7353-498: The Joseph Fouché of the regime (the name of Napoleon's chief of the secret police) and became Minister of Trade and Public Works. As a Deputy, he opposed the proposal for an income tax on the rich, arguing that it was a Jacobin idea of the French Revolution. This position won him the support of the growing French business class. In 1833, he was nominated for an open seat in the Académie française , based on his ten-volume history of

7524-704: The Paris Commune in 1871. The National Guard failed to secure it after the first withdrawal of the regular army from Paris. After their return on March 21, the army used the fort as an important base for the subjugation of the Commune during the Semaine Sanglante , or 'Bloody Week.' Colonel Henry of army intelligence, a key player in the Dreyfus affair , was confined at the prison of Mont Valérien in 1898. The day after being confined, 31 August 1898, he cut his throat with

7695-639: The Republic over its decision to execute King Louis XVI . He fled to Switzerland in 1793 after being connected with a plot to restore France's monarchy. His father Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Égalité), fell under suspicion and was executed during the Reign of Terror . Louis Philippe remained in exile for 21 years until the Bourbon Restoration . He was proclaimed king in 1830 after his cousin Charles X

7866-555: The Rhine . Dumouriez praised Louis Philippe's performance in a letter after the battle. Louis Philippe was recalled to Paris to give an account of the Battle at Valmy to the French government. He had a rather trying interview with Georges Danton , the Minister of Justice, which he later told his children about. Shortly thereafter, he was made Governor of Strasbourg. While in Paris, he was promoted to

8037-593: The Somerindyck family estate on Broadway and 75th Street with other exiled princes), and Boston . In Boston, he taught French for a time and lived in lodgings over what is now the Union Oyster House , Boston's oldest restaurant. During his time in the United States, Louis Philippe met with American politicians and people of high society, including George Clinton , John Jay , Alexander Hamilton , and George Washington . His visit to Cape Cod in 1797 coincided with

8208-504: The Vendôme Column in 1833, and the Arc de Triomphe , a monument to Napoleon's victories, was inaugurated in 1836. Louis Philippe also commissioned the creation of a national history museum at the Palace of Versailles , where famous Napoleonic battles were painted by important artists. In parliament, the narrow, property-qualified electorate of the time (only about 1 in every 170 citizens

8379-441: The conquest of Algeria , which he was certain would increase his popularity at home, and called for new elections, which he was certain he would win. The French flag was hoisted over Algiers on 5 July 1830, and new elections were held from 13 to 19 July. The elections were a disaster for the King; the opposition won 270 seats, against 145 supporters of the King. The opponents were, for the most part, not republicans; they simply wanted

8550-516: The regent for the young Henri. Charles X and his family, including his grandson, went into exile in the United Kingdom . The young ex-king, the Duke of Bordeaux, in exile took the title of Comte de Chambord . Later he became the pretender to the throne of France and was supported by the Legitimists . Louis Philippe was sworn in as King Louis Philippe I on 9 August 1830. Upon his accession to

8721-749: The Académie Française, despite the opposition of the more conservative members. Hugo was accepted only on the fifth ballot, by a single vote. When elected, Hugo sent a copy of his new poem about Napoleon to Thiers, declaring to Thiers that Thiers was "a man I honor and love; your spirit is one of those that seduces my own. One feels that before you entered the world of great affairs, you traversed that of great ideas. With my full sympathy, high estime and vivid admiration." From 1840 through 1844, Thiers traveled around Europe, crisscrossing Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Spain and visiting he battlefields where Napoleon fought and meeting people who had witnessed them. In

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8892-510: The Assembly for restricting the right to vote and for refusing to alter the Constitution for a second term, and secretly brought loyal army forces to Paris. Early in the morning of 2 December 1851, in what became known as the December 1851 coup d'état , the army took up positions in key positions in Paris, and at six a.m. the commissioner of police, Hubault, appeared at his residence at Place Saint-Georges and placed him under arrest. "But don't you know

9063-522: The Austrian army. He first moved to Switzerland under an assumed name, and met up with the Countess of Genlis and his sister Adélaïde at Schaffhausen . From there they went to Zürich , where the Swiss authorities decreed that to protect Swiss neutrality, Louis Philippe would have to leave the city. They went to Zug , where Louis Philippe was discovered by a group of émigrés . It became quite apparent that for

9234-423: The Austrian camp. They were intercepted by Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Nicolas Davout, who had served at the Battle of Jemappes with Louis Philippe. As Dumouriez ordered the Colonel back to the camp, some of his soldiers cried out against the General, now declared a traitor by the National Convention. Shots rang out as the two men fled toward the Austrian camp. The next day, Dumouriez again tried to rally soldiers against

9405-456: The Chamber, but was narrowly defeated by a vote of 213–206. Louis-Philippe, who by this time detested Thiers, said with satisfaction that Thiers "had the effect of a melon striking a stone". but Thiers still had a strong following in the chamber. In offering him the position of head of the government, Louis-Philippe told Thiers, "Here I am obliged to submit to you, and accept my dishonor. You have been forced upon me. You will put my children out onto

9576-483: The Channel to exile in England. Once the King was gone, Thiers and the other Deputies moved quickly to the Chamber of Deputies to decide what to do next. They had not been there long before an immense crowd invaded the Chamber, shouting "Long live the Republic!" Thiers fled on foot, and made his way back to his house. A new government was quickly formed by the republicans Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin , but Thiers had no part in it. The new interim government quickly decreed

9747-434: The Citizen King , was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France . He abdicated from his throne during the French Revolution of 1848 , which led to the foundation of the French Second Republic . As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the French Revolutionary Wars and was promoted to lieutenant general by the age of nineteen, but he broke with

9918-426: The Consulate and Empire, in twenty volumes. Rather than making the request public, he wrote to a personal English friend, Lord Clarendon , who was a member of the British government, saying: "to keep a cadaver as a prisoner is not worthy of you, nor is it possible on the part of a government such as yours. The restitution of these remains is the final act of putting behind us the fifty years that have passed, and will be

10089-408: The Duke of Biron, along with several officers who later gained distinction. These included Colonel Louis Alexandre Berthier and Lieutenant Colonel Alexandre de Beauharnais (husband of the future Empress Joséphine ). After the Kingdom of France declared war on the Habsburg monarchy on 20 April 1792, Louis Philippe first participated in what became known as the French Revolutionary Wars within

10260-419: The Duke's residence in Neuilly, but found that the Duke had left and was in hiding at another chateau in Raincy. Thiers talked instead to the Duke's wife, Marie-Amélie , and his sister, Madame Adélaïde . Thiers explained that they wanted a representative monarchy and a new dynasty, and that everyone knew that Louis-Philippe was not ambitious and had not sought the crown for himself. Madame Adelaide agreed to take

10431-419: The French Revolution, and other books he had written on the law and public finance, and the 1830 monarchy, and the Congress of Verona . He was elected on the first ballot, with twenty-five votes; at age thirty-six, he was the second-youngest member elected in the 19th century. In July 1833, Thiers dedicated a new Paris landmark, the column in Place Vendôme . After 1833, his career was bolstered by his marriage to

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10602-432: The French army was already engaged in the long, expensive military conquest of Algeria . The King made it clear to Thiers that he wanted peace. Thiers offered to resign, but the King refused his resignation, arguing that he wanted the British to believe that France would fight. When Thiers drafted a note to Britain warning that a British ultimatum to Egypt would upset the global balance of power, and he ordered construction of

10773-454: The French-occupied Austrian Netherlands at Boussu on about 28 April 1792. He was next engaged at Quaregnon on about 29 April 1792, and then at Quiévrain near Jemappes on about 30 April 1792. There he was instrumental in rallying a unit of retreating soldiers after French forces had been victorious at the Battle of Quiévrain (1792) two days earlier on 28 April 1792. The Duke of Biron wrote to War Minister Pierre Marie de Grave , praising

10944-419: The Hotel de Ville. Louis-Philippe, wrapped in a tricolor flag, was presented to the huge and cheering crowd in front of the Hotel de Ville by LaFayette. King Charles X withdrew his proposed new government and offered to negotiate, but it was too late. He and his son departed the Chateau of Saint-Cloud and left France for exile in England. When the new government was formed, Thiers, with no government experience,

11115-474: The King that it would cost twenty thousand lives; the King told Bugeaud that the price was too high, and called off the attack. The army columns began to disintegrate, as the soldiers joined the demonstrators. Thiers urged the King to flee to Saint-Cloud, but the King insisted on having his regular breakfast at 10:30 a.m., and then put on the uniform of a Lieutenant General to review the four thousand regular soldiers and two legions of National Guards gathered in

11286-434: The King's cousin, Louis-Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, whose family had been sympathetic to the French Revolution. Without consulting with Louis-Philippe, whom he had never met, Thiers immediately had posters printed and put up around Paris declaring that the Duke of Orleans was a friend of the people, and he should take the crown. With the painter Ary Scheffer , a friend of Louis-Philippe, he rode on horseback immediately to

11457-423: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the corner of Boulevard des Capucines and rue Cambon. The volunteer members of the Garde Nationale were summoned to support the army, but few turned out. Thiers toured the streets on foot, and was recognized and cheered by many of the demonstrators. The demonstrations resumed on 23 February, under a freezing rain. The King remained calm, telling his sister, "The Parisians never make

11628-400: The Orléans family. Philippe Égalité spoke in the National Convention , condemning his son for his actions, asserting that he would not spare his son, much akin to the Roman consul Brutus and his sons. However, letters from Louis Philippe to his father were discovered in transit and were read out to the Convention. Philippe Égalité was then put under continuous surveillance. Shortly thereafter,

11799-451: The Restoration and the Revolution, to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power ... He had been proscribed, a wanderer, poor. He had lived by his own labor. In Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had sold an old horse in order to obtain bread. At Reichenau, he gave lessons in mathematics, while his sister Adelaide did wool work and sewed. These souvenirs connected with

11970-512: The Revolution, he involved himself completely in those changes. In his diary, he reports that he took the initiative to join the Jacobin Club , a move that his father supported. In June 1791, Louis Philippe got his first opportunity to become involved in the affairs of France. In 1785, he had been given the hereditary appointment of Colonel of the Chartres Dragoons (renamed 14th Dragoons in 1791). With war imminent in 1791, all proprietary colonels were ordered to join their regiments. Louis Philippe

12141-460: The Revolutionary Tribunal. After Louis Philippe left Reichenau, he separated the now sixteen-year-old Adélaïde from the Countess of Genlis, who had fallen out with Louis Philippe. Adélaïde went to live with her great-aunt the Princess of Conti at Fribourg , then to Bavaria and Hungary and, finally, to her mother, who was exiled in Spain. Louis Philippe travelled extensively. He visited Scandinavia in 1795 and then moved on to Finland. For about

12312-468: The army had only sixteen thousand men available; they were short of ammunition and exhausted. During the night, more barricades had appeared all over Paris. Thiers proposed withdrawing the army to Saint-Cloud, gathering his forces, and marching back into Paris with a full army (the strategy he followed in 1871 during the Paris Commune), but Marshal Bugeaud wanted to attack the barricades immediately; he told

12483-477: The army. Louis Philippe was alienated by the more radical policies of the Republic . After the National Convention decided to put the deposed King to death, Louis Philippe began to consider leaving France. He was dismayed that his own father, known then as Philippe Égalité , voted in favour of the execution. Louis Philippe was willing to stay to fulfill his duties in the army, but he became implicated in

12654-415: The assembly was democratically elected. The guardsmen stopped their assault, and gave the parliament members a petition demanding reforms. Within the Tuileries, the King was uncertain what to do. His prime minister, Guizot, advised him to form a new government under Molé, but Molé declined and suggested Thiers have the job. "The house is burning," Molé told the King. "You have to call on those who can put out

12825-552: The bar in 1818; Thiers made a precarious living as a lawyer for three years. Thiers, who showed a strong interest in literature, won an academic prize of five hundred francs for an essay on the Marquis de Vauvenargues . Nonetheless, he was unhappy with his life in Aix-en-Provence. He wrote to his friend Teulon, "I am without fortune, without status, and without any hope of having either here." He decided to move to Paris and to try to make

12996-563: The bas-reliefs for the Arc-de-Triomphe, and selected Eugène Delacroix to paint murals for the library of the French Senate and frescoes on the walls of the church of Saint-Sulpice, despite the opposition of Louis-Philippe, who disliked Delacroix's painting. In January 1836, the unpopular government of the Duke of Broglie lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and the King needed a new Prime Minister. As he had done in 1830, he chose

13167-525: The center right. Thiers returned to the Deputies and in January 1839 delivered of series of speeches denouncing the government of the King, led by Molé . The government was assaulted from all sides, from the extreme right, extreme left, and center. Molé was forced to resign and call for new elections, which were held on 2 March 1839. The opposition won the elections, but because of their diverse views struggled to form

13338-471: The center-left deputies, began to take a more active part in the Chamber of Deputies. He told a colleague, "The King is easily frightened. He will only call on me when he is in danger. I will only take the ministry if I can be the master of it." A proposal to make a larger number of citizens eligible to vote was rejected by Guizot and his government: Guizot declared to the Chamber, "the day will not come for universal suffrage." The last parliamentary session of

13509-460: The city, withstanding artillery bombardments that lasted several months. The surrender of the fortress was one of the main clauses of the armistice signed by the Government of National Defense with Otto von Bismarck on 17 January 1871, allowing the Germans to occupy the strongest part of Paris' defences in exchange for shipments of food into the starving city. Mont-Valèrien played a key role in

13680-464: The constitutional monarchy began on 28 December 1847 with the announcement of a military success; the resistance to French rule in Algeria had been defeated. But immediately, opposition to the government grew. Since political meetings were forbidden, the left opposition began to organize banquets, large dinners in public places which were really opposition meetings. Thiers declared to the Chamber, "Our country

13851-500: The convention; however, he found that the artillery had declared itself in favour of the Republic. He and Louis Philippe had no choice but to go into exile when Philippe Égalité was arrested. At the age of nineteen, and already ranked as a Lieutenant General, Louis Philippe left France. He did not return for twenty-one years. The reaction in Paris to Louis Philippe's involvement in Dumouriez's treason inevitably resulted in misfortunes for

14022-673: The counter-revolutionary offensive of the Ultra Royalists ." He also wrote a twenty-volume history of the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte ( Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire ). In 1834 he was elected to the Académie Française . Adolphe Thiers was born out of wedlock in Marseille on 15 April 1797, during the rule of the Directorate . His father, Pierre-Louis-Marie Thiers,

14193-525: The courtyard of the Tuileries. As he rode by, the regular soldiers cheered the King, but the National Guardsmen called out "Down the Ministers! Down with the system!" and shook their weapons at the King. The King abruptly turned around rode back to Palace, where he sat in an armchair, head in his hands. "Everything is lost," he said to Thiers, "I am overwhelmed." Thiers responded coldly, "I've known that for

14364-592: The daughter of his intimate friend, Madame Dosne, which allowed him to pay off his one hundred thousand franc loan from her father, finally giving him financial security. It also caused problems for him, because the aristocracy of Paris refused to receive her, since she was not one of them. He returned to the Interior Ministry in 1834–36, and had to deal with discontent of the growing working class in France's large cities. A workers' revolt in Lyon on 9 April 1834, caused by

14535-461: The design of the tomb and the plan of the parade that would carry it to the tomb, constructed within Les Invalides . The return of the ashes was a huge success, attracting enormous crowds in Paris. But by the time it took place Thiers was no longer in the government. More unexpected news arrived on 5 August, while the remains of Napoleon were still en route from St. Helena to Paris. Louis-Napoleon,

14706-556: The division of the town of Eastham into two towns, one of which took the name of Orleans, possibly in his honour. During their sojourn, the Orléans princes travelled throughout the country, as far south as Nashville and as far north as Maine . The brothers were even held in Philadelphia briefly during an outbreak of yellow fever . Louis Philippe is also thought to have met Isaac Snow of Orleans , Massachusetts, who had escaped to France from

14877-473: The electoral laws, which required that voters have lived in their residences for at least three years, and required a certain minimum income. He declared to the Assembly: "Our goal is not to exclude the poor from voting, but to exclude the vile multitude, those who have handed over the liberty of so many republics to so many tyrants over the years." The law was approved, removing one-third of the voters in France from

15048-563: The end of the term of Louis-Napoleon; under the Constitution, he could not run again. Thiers began looking for other candidates to replace Louis-Napoleon, perhaps with the Duke of Joinville, from the Orleans family. Thiers and the other conservative leaders of the Assembly also rebelled against the high cost of Louis-Napoleon's household; he requested 175 new staff for the Palace, and asked funding for an additional twenty grand dinners and twelve grand balls

15219-526: The eve of the vote, Thiers hosted Louis-Napoleon at his home for dinner. In the December 1848 elections, the moderate republican Lamartine received just 18,000 votes; the socialist Ledru-Rollin received 371,000, and the conservative General Cavaignac received 1,448,000 votes. Louis-Napoleon received 5,345,000 votes, or three-quarters of the votes cast. On 11 December, shortly after the elections, Louis-Napoleon invited Thiers to his home for dinner, and they discussed

15390-563: The fire." The King reluctantly agreed, and sent for Thiers, but another event that evening changed the course of the Revolution; a unit of the army fired without orders on demonstrators outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Boulevard des Capucines, killing sixteen and wounding dozens. Early in the morning of 24 February, Thiers arrived at the Tuileries and met with the King, who was in despair. He met also with Marshal Bugeaud , and learned that

15561-504: The first and only time in his career, was defeated. However, on 15 May, the more radical socialists staged effort to seize the government; they invaded the chamber and proclaimed a new government. This time, the Republican National Guard responded quickly to defend the government, recapturing the hall and the government. The socialist deputies who had taken part were expelled from the Assembly, leaving open seats. New elections for

15732-548: The first journalist to write a glowing review for a young new painter, Eugène Delacroix . When a revolution broke out in Spain in 1822, he traveled as far as the Pyrenees to write about it. He soon collected and published a volume of his articles, the first on the salon of 1822, the second on his trip to the Pyrenees . He was very well paid by Johann Friedrich Cotta , the part-proprietor of

15903-463: The freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, and called for new parliamentary elections, in which all men over the age of 21, who had been resident in their home for six months, could vote, raising the number of eligible voters from 200,000 to nine million. The Chamber was expanded to a National Assembly with nine hundred members. New elections were held; Thiers ran as a candidate in Marseille, and, for

16074-617: The future government. Louis-Napoleon offered the position of President of the Council of Ministers to Thiers, but Thiers refused. He wanted to retain his independence as a deputy. He and his wife dined frequently with Louis-Napoleon in the new presidential residence, the Élysée Palace . Under the new Constitution, new elections for the National Assembly were held on 13 May 1849. The new Assembly had 750 members, of whom 250 were republicans, including 180 radicals or socialists. There were 500 monarchists, divided about equally between Legitimists, who wanted

16245-572: The government. Following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War , which Thiers opposed, he was elected chief executive of the new French government and negotiated the end of the war. When the Paris Commune seized power in March 1871, Thiers gave the orders to the army for its suppression. At the age of seventy-four, he was named President of the Republic by the French National Assembly in August 1871. His chief accomplishment as president

16416-564: The guardian of the city archives, as well as secretary-general of the city administration, though he lost that post during the French Revolution . He was of Greek ancestry on his maternal grandmother's side; his grandfather Claude Amic left Marseille for Constantinople around 1750 to work for the Seymandi trading post , and while there married a Catholic Greek woman named Marie Lhomaka, whose paternal family originally hailed from Chios and claimed "Frankish" descent. Her father, Antoine Lhomaka,

16587-455: The happiness of nations." On social issues he became more conservative; formerly a critic of the role of the church in education, he supported the Falloux Laws of 1850, which established a mixture of both Catholic and public schools, and for the first time required that each Commune of over five hundred persons have a school for girls. The most conservative measure he proposed was a change in

16758-531: The head of the Finance Committee, and leader of the conservative republicans. In the tense and sometimes violent political climate, he took up the habit of always carrying a loaded pistol. In September Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris and took part in the legislative elections. Though he stayed in London, was a Swiss citizen, and did not campaign, he was overwhelmingly elected in five departments. He took

16929-411: The heir to the throne, was killed in an accident. His grandson, the new heir, was only a child. Opposition to the King continued to grow; he was the target of two more assassination attempts in 1846. In the spring of 1846, Louis-Napoleon, disguised as a stonemason, escaped from the prison at Ham and fled to England, where he waited for an opportunity to make a grand return to France. Thiers, the leader of

17100-466: The idea of writing a history of that city. He rented a villa at Lake Como and began collecting documents for his research. He went to Italy two more times in 1837, renting the Villa di Castello and going through the archives. In the meanwhile, Louis-Philippe was increasingly unpopular. He survived three more assassination attempts, and new elections on 4 November showed gains for the center left, and losses for

17271-485: The king, there remains the man. And the man is good. He is good at times even to the point of being admirable. Often, in the midst of his gravest souvenirs, after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the continent, he returned at night to his apartments, and there, exhausted with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit , considering it something to hold his own against Europe, but that it

17442-425: The last two (of ten) in 1827. The complete work of ten volumes sold ten thousand sets, an enormous number for the time. It went through four more editions, which earned him 57,000 francs (the equivalent of more than a million 1983 francs). The history of Thiers was particularly popular in liberal circles and among younger Parisians. It praised the principles, leaders and accomplishments of the 1789 Revolution (though not

17613-469: The later Terror ), and condemned the monarchy, aristocracy and clergy for their inability to change. The book played a notable role in undermining the legitimacy of the Bourbon regime of Charles X , and bringing about the July Revolution of 1830. The work was praised by the French authors Chateaubriand , Stendhal and Sainte-Beuve , was translated into English (1838) and Spanish (1889), and won him

17784-524: The law?" Thiers protested. "Do you know that you're violating the Constitution?" Hubault replied, "I do not have the mission of discussing this with you, and moreover you have more knowledge than me." A carriage took Thiers to Mazas Prison . From his jail cell he could hear the sound of gunfire as the soldiers loyal to Louis-Napoleon secured the city. On 9 December, he was transported to the German border and sent into exile. Louis Philippe Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed

17955-514: The left, class oppression of the poor and rule in the interests of the rich." In foreign affairs it was a quiet period, with friendship with Great Britain. In October 1844 he paid a visit to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle . This made him the first reigning French king to set foot on English soil since Jean II was imprisoned there after the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Throughout his reign, Louis Philippe faced domestic opposition from various factions, ranging from Legitimists , who supported

18126-473: The liberal opposition. Upon his return to Paris in May 1814, the Duke of Orléans was restored to the rank of lieutenant-general in the army by Louis XVIII. He was denied the title of Altesse Royale ( Royal Highness ), although it was accorded to his wife. Louis Philippe had to settle for the lesser Altesse Serenissime ( Serene Highness ). Less than a year after returning to France, he and his family were uprooted by

18297-414: The line, "France is strongly attached to peace, but it will not purchase peace at a price unworthy of the nation and its King," and would not sacrifice the "sacred independence and national honor which the French Revolution had put into his hands." Louis-Philippe removed this line from the speech, considering it too provocative to other European rulers. Thiers promptly offered his resignation, and this time it

18468-444: The maximum number of reforms as soon as possible; and the conservative Party of Order, who, once the new government was installed, wanted no further turbulence. Louis-Philippe made Jacques Laffitte , an advocate of rapid reform, his chief minister, in the anticipation that he would soon fail and would have to be replaced, which was exactly the result. After four and half months of turmoil, The King dismissed Laffitte and replaced him with

18639-467: The meanwhile, his chief political rival, Guizot , the leader of the right wing in the Deputies, headed the government. He called new elections in July 1846, which Guizot's party narrowly won, with 266 seats of 449. However, in an ominous sign, ten of the twelve deputies from Paris opposed the government. As the King's unpopularity grew, he suffered also a personal tragedy with great political implications; his son,

18810-517: The monument on 29 July 1836. The relationship between Thiers and Louis-Philippe became more and more strained. The King blocked many of Thiers' diplomatic initiatives, and conducted his own foreign policy. Thiers suggested to the King that France should follow the British model, and allow the Prime Minister to conduct all of the diplomatic and military affairs. Louis-Philippe refused, insisting that France

18981-567: The nephew of the Emperor, had landed at Boulogne with a small force of soldiers, and had tried to spark an uprising by the army to overthrow Louis-Philippe. The soldiers in Boulogne refused to change sides; Louis-Napoleon was captured, taken to the Conciergerie in Paris, and put on trial. He was sentenced to life in prison, and sent to serve his sentence to the fortress of Ham. The year 1840 also brought

19152-446: The new king defined the manner in which his children, as well as his "beloved" sister, would continue to bear the surname "d'Orléans" and the arms of Orléans, declared that his eldest son, as Prince Royal (not Dauphin ), would bear the title Duke of Orléans , that the younger sons would continue to have their previous titles, and that his sister and daughters would be styled Princesses of Orléans , not of France . His ascent to

19323-466: The next fifteen years. During these years, Louis Philippe taught mathematics and geography at the now-defunct Great Ealing School , reckoned, in its 19th-century heyday, to be "the best private school in England". In 1808, Louis Philippe proposed to Princess Elizabeth , daughter of King George III . His Catholicism and the opposition of her mother Queen Charlotte meant the Princess reluctantly declined

19494-540: The offer. In 1809, Louis Philippe married Princess Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily , daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria . The ceremony was celebrated in Palermo 25 November 1809. The marriage was controversial because her mother's younger sister was Queen Marie Antoinette , and Louis Philippe's father was considered to have a role in Marie Antoinette's execution. The Queen of Naples

19665-554: The open seats were held on 4 June, and Thiers was elected in four departments; Seine, Gironde, Orne, and Seine-Inferieure. He chose to be deputy for Seine-Inferieure. At the same time, a familiar name reappeared in French politics; Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte , the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, resident in London, was elected to a seat in Paris by 80,000 votes, and also to seats in three other departments. The more radical republican deputies contested his election; Louis-Napoleon promptly withdrew his candidacy and remained in London, waiting for

19836-415: The people. An industrial and agricultural depression in 1846 led to the 1848 Revolutions , and Louis Philippe's abdication. The dissonance between his positive early reputation and his late unpopularity was epitomized by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables as an oxymoron describing his reign as "Prince Equality", in which Hugo states: [Louis Philippe had to] bear in his own person the contradiction of

20007-655: The plot Dumouriez had planned to ally with the Austrians, march his army on Paris, and restore the Constitution of 1791 . Dumouriez had met with Louis Philippe on 22 March 1793 and urged his subordinate to join in the attempt. With the French government falling into the Reign of Terror about the time of the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal earlier in March 1793, Louis Philippe decided to leave France to save his life. On 4 April, Dumouriez and Louis Philippe left for

20178-514: The podium, and he spoke with a strong Provençal accent, which made the Parisians smile. The long, carefully prepared speech was greeted at the end with silence, though the content was approved. Thiers worked very hard to improve his speaking style, and eventually became a very effective orator. The new government faced many difficulties. It gradually divided into two informal parties: the so-called Party of Movement, to which Thiers belonged, which wanted

20349-468: The policies of Joseph de Villèle and later of Jules de Polignac caused him to be viewed as a constant threat to the stability of Charles' government. This soon proved to be to his advantage. In 1830, the July Revolution overthrew Charles X, who abdicated in favour of his 10-year-old grandson, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux . Charles X named Louis Philippe Lieutenant général du royaume , and charged him to announce his desire to have his grandson succeed him to

20520-457: The popularly elected Chamber of Deputies . Louis Philippe did not do this, in order to increase his own chances of succession. As a consequence, because the chamber was aware of his liberal policies and of his popularity with the masses, they proclaimed Louis Philippe as the new French king, displacing the senior branch of the House of Bourbon . For the prior eleven days Louis Philippe had been acting as

20691-520: The position of Receiver-General in Brest . A seat for Aix-en-Provence in the chamber of deputies was vacant. Now that he was eligible, Thiers ran and was elected on 21 October 1830. Ten years after his arrival in Paris, he began his political career. He gave his first speech in the Chamber of Deputies, on the financial situation of the country, a month after his election. He had no experience as an orator; because of his small stature, his head barely appeared over

20862-531: The printing presses, and locked the building. As soon as the prefect left, the same workers who had locked the building and disabled the presses re-opened it and put the presses back into service. Anti-royalist demonstrations broke out in many parts of Paris. Thiers and his allies briefly left the city to avoid arrest, but soon came back. Thiers noticed that the anti-royalist demonstrators had attacked shops which had signs showing that they were patronized by Charles X, but not those which advertised they were patronized by

21033-457: The proposition to the Duke. The Duke returned to Neuilly at ten in the evening and learned what had happened from his wife. He put on a tricolor ribbon, the symbol of the opposition, and rode to the Palais-Royal, where Thiers, the Marquis de Lafayette and Jacques Laffitte were waiting. Together, they persuaded him to take the throne and discussed how it would be done. That afternoon, they rode to

21204-555: The rank of lieutenant general. In October Louis Philippe returned to the Army of the North, where Dumouriez had begun a march into the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium ). Louis Philippe again commanded a brigade, even though he held the rank of lieutenant general. On 6 November 1792, Dumouriez chose to attack an Austrian force in a strong position on the heights of Cuesmes and Jemappes to the west of Mons . Louis Philippe's division sustained heavy casualties as it attacked through

21375-521: The reign of his cousin Louis XVIII , at the time of the Bourbon Restoration . Louis Philippe had reconciled the Orléans family with Louis XVIII in exile, and was once more to be found in the elaborate royal court. However, his resentment at the treatment of his family, the cadet branch of the House of Bourbon under the Ancien Régime , caused friction between him and Louis XVIII, and he openly sided with

21546-510: The republican movement, Victor Hugo and Léon Gambetta , who, at the time of his death, were his allies against the conservative monarchists. He was also a notable popular historian. He wrote the first large scale history of the French revolution in 10 volumes, published 1823–1827. Historian Robert Tombs states it was, "A bold political act during the Bourbon Restoration...and it formed part of an intellectual upsurge of liberals against

21717-522: The return of Napoléon from Elba, known as the Hundred Days . On 6 March 1815, after the news of Napoléon's return to France reached Paris, Louis Philippe was dispatched to Lyon with the Comte d'Artois (the future Charles X) to organize a defense against the Emperor, but the hopelessness of the situation soon became apparent and he was back in the capital by the 12th. Thereafter, Louis XVIII made him commander of

21888-510: The same day, another crowd threatened to harm the priests. Louis Philippe put himself between a peasant armed with a carbine and the priests, saving their lives. The next day, Louis Philippe dived into a river to save a drowning local engineer. For this action, he received a civic crown from the local municipality. His regiment was moved north to Flanders at the end of 1791 after the 27 August 1791 Declaration of Pillnitz . Louis Philippe served under his father's crony, Armand Louis de Gontaut

22059-406: The seal placed on our reconciliation, and our close alliance." The British prime minister, Lord Palmerston , considered and accepted the request. The transfer was opposed by some in the French parliament, including Lamartine, who feared that it would stir republican sentiment in France, but it was welcomed by the population. A warship was dispatched to Saint Helena, and Thiers worked on the details of

22230-524: The senior branch of the Bourbons over the Orléans branch, to Republicans . This opposition, however, was weak and fragmented. In the spring of 1832, a terrible outbreak of cholera in Paris fueled resentment against the July Monarchy and reignited revolutionary fervor. Many Parisians blamed Louis Philippe and his government for their perceived inaction in the face of the epidemic. This resentment culminated in

22401-402: The short-lived Republican uprising called the June Rebellion , in which insurrectionists took over a portion of central Paris. The rebellion was quickly crushed by a huge force of soldiers and National Guards who descended on the city. Louis Philippe showed a cool resolve throughout the crisis, coming to Paris as soon as he was informed of the disturbances, greeting the troops, and going amongst

22572-535: The streets or in the abusive use of institutions, I will contribute, through force and by the laws, to put them down." He was given the support of the Deputies by a vote of 251 to 99. His new government proposed the construction of the first railroad in France, from Paris to Saint-Germain (though Thiers privately described it as "A toy for the Parisians") and suppressed the national lottery on the grounds of morality. Violent opposition to Louis-Philippe increased. A gunman named Alibaud attempted to shoot Louis-Philippe, who

22743-410: The streets. But finally I am a constitutional king, and I have no choice but to go through with it." As President of the council or Prime Minister, Thiers kept for himself the title of Foreign Minister. His most notable accomplishment was to obtain from Britain the return of Napoleon's ashes from Saint Helena . The idea was particularly pleasing to Thiers, because he had just begun writing a history of

22914-637: The three brothers spent a year in Cuba (from spring 1798 to autumn 1799), until they were unexpectedly expelled by the Spanish authorities. They sailed via the Bahamas to Nova Scotia , where they were received by the Duke of Kent , son of King George III and (later) father of Queen Victoria . Louis Philippe struck up a lasting friendship with the British prince. Eventually, the brothers sailed back to New York, and in January 1800, they arrived in England, where they stayed for

23085-744: The throne of France should the senior branch die out. Louis Philippe's father was exiled from the royal court, and the Orléans confined themselves to studies of the literature and sciences emerging from the Enlightenment . Louis Philippe was tutored by the Countess of Genlis , beginning in 1782. She instilled in him a fondness for liberal thought; it is probably during this period that Louis Philippe picked up his slightly Voltairean brand of Catholicism. When Louis Philippe's grandfather died in 1785, his father succeeded him as Duke of Orléans and Louis Philippe succeeded his father as Duke of Chartres. In 1788, with

23256-451: The throne, Louis Philippe assumed the title of King of the French , a title previously adopted by Louis XVI in the short-lived Constitution of 1791 . Linking the monarchy to a people instead of a territory (as the previous designation King of France and of Navarre ) was aimed at undercutting the Legitimist claims of Charles X and his family. By an ordinance he signed on 13 August 1830,

23427-557: The title of King of the French was seen as a betrayal by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia . Nicholas ended their friendship. In 1832, Louis' daughter, Princess Louise-Marie , married the first ruler of Belgium, King Leopold I . Their descendants include all subsequent Kings of the Belgians, and Empress Carlota of Mexico . Louis Philippe ruled in an unpretentious fashion, avoiding the pomp and lavish spending of his predecessors. Despite this outward appearance of simplicity, his support came from

23598-435: The unruly Chamber of Deputies, and named a fervent royalist, Jules de Polignac as his new prime minister. On 19 March 1830, he raised the temperature, warning that if the deputies put obstacles in his path, he would "find the force to overcome them in my resolution to maintain the public peace, with the full confidence of the French and the love they have also shown toward their King." He also launched an overseas expedition for

23769-427: The voting lists. Thiers did not foresee that Louis-Napoleon, elected by universal suffrage, would later use this law as a weapon against the Assembly to reinforce his own rule. When a friend of Louis-Napoleon asked him if he wasn't afraid of losing power without universal suffrage, he replied, "Not at all. When the Assembly is hanging over the precipice, I will cut the cord." As 1852 approached, Thiers looked forward to

23940-514: The wave of repression and recriminations had faded. Louis Philippe was on far friendlier terms with Louis XVIII's brother and successor, Charles X, who acceded to the throne in 1824, and with whom he socialized. Charles X granted him the Altesse Royale title, and permitted Louis Henri, Prince of Condé to make Louis Philippe's fourth son, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale , heir to the domaine of Chantilly . However, Louis Philippe's opposition to

24111-444: The wealthy bourgeoisie . At first, he was much loved and called the "Citizen King" and the "bourgeois monarch", but his popularity suffered as his government was perceived as increasingly conservative and monarchical. Because he owed his elevation to a revolution in Paris and a faction of liberal deputies in the parliament of Charles X, Louis Philippe's rule "lacked...the mystical appeal of its Divine Right predecessor. Support for it

24282-451: The women to settle peacefully anywhere, they would have to separate from Louis Philippe. He then left with his faithful valet Baudouin for the heights of the Alps , and then to Basel , where he sold all but one of his horses. Now moving from town to town throughout Switzerland, he and Baudouin found themselves very much exposed to all the distresses of extended travelling. They were refused entry to

24453-525: The young colonel, who was promoted to brigadier general ; he commanded the 4th Brigade of cavalry in Nicolas Luckner 's Army of the North . In the Army of the North, Louis Philippe served with four future Marshals of France: Étienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald , Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier (who would later be killed in an assassination attempt on Louis Philippe ), Louis-Nicolas Davout and Nicolas Oudinot . Charles François Dumouriez

24624-658: Was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France and first President of the Third Republic . Thiers was a key figure in the July Revolution of 1830, which overthrew King Charles X in favor of the more liberal King Louis Philippe , and the Revolution of 1848 , which overthrew the July Monarchy and established the Second Republic . He served as a prime minister in 1836 and 1840, dedicated

24795-504: Was a businessman and occasional government official under Napoleon, who led a life of debauchery and was frequently in trouble with the law. On 13 May 1797, his previous wife having died 2 months prior, his father married his mother Marie-Madeleine Amic, with Adolphe thereby becoming a legitimate child, undergoing a baptism by a refractory priest . Nevertheless, the father abandoned Adolphe and his mother not long after. He showed no interest towards Adolphe, and only contacted him in 1825 when he

24966-416: Was a model officer, and demonstrated his personal bravery in two famous instances. First, three days after Louis XVI's flight to Varennes , a quarrel between two local priests and one of the new constitutional vicars became heated. A crowd surrounded the inn where the priests were staying, demanding blood. The young colonel broke through the crowd and extricated the two priests, who fled. At a river crossing on

25137-610: Was a still greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner. Louis Philippe survived seven assassination attempts. On 28 July 1835, Louis Philippe survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Mario Fieschi and two other conspirators in Paris . During the king's annual review of the Paris National Guard commemorating the revolution, Louis Philippe was passing along the Boulevard du Temple , which connected Place de la République to

25308-627: Was a troubled journey, as Spain and Great Britain were then at war . While in colonial Louisiana in 1798, they were entertained by Julien Poydras in the town of Pointe Coupée , as well as by the Marigny de Mandeville family in New Orleans. They sailed for Havana in an American corvette , but a British warship intercepted their ship in the Gulf of Mexico . The British seized the three brothers, but took them to Havana anyway. Unable to find passage to Europe,

25479-618: Was a wealthy jeweler who supplied the Imperial Harem , and in 1722 accompanied Mehmet Efendi to Paris as a dragoman . Claude Amic later took his family to Marseille in 1770. His mother's uncle, born Ange-Auguste Lhomaka, later converted to Islam, became known under the name "Hadj Messaoud" and moved to the Indies . Adolphe's mother was also a first cousin of the poet André Chenier . His mother, born in Bouc-Bel-Air , had little money, but Thiers

25650-454: Was able to receive a good education thanks to financial aid from an aunt and a godmother. He won admission to a lycée of Marseille through a competitive examination, and then, with the help of his relatives, was able to enter the faculty of law in Aix-en-Provence in November 1815. While studying at the faculty of law he began his lifelong friendship with François Mignet . They both were admitted to

25821-506: Was accepted. A month later, he rose in Parliament to denounce the King's foreign policy, declaring that France had lost its influence in the Middle East, and had a duty to defend Egypt against Britain, and Turkey against Russia. Once outside of the government, he devoted much of his time to writing Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire , the first volume of which appeared in 1845. The book was

25992-507: Was appointed to command the Army of the North in August 1792. Louis Philippe continued to command his brigade under him in the Valmy campaign. At the 20 September 1792 Battle of Valmy, Louis Philippe was ordered to place a battery of artillery on the crest of the hill of Valmy. The battle was apparently inconclusive, but the Austrian- Prussian army, short of supplies, was forced back across

26163-478: Was becoming famous in the Paris journalism scene, to ask him for money. Adolphe responded to the letter saying he feels love and duty only towards his mother, and that only if Pierre can prove he needs the money to stay alive and not for "the most ignoble excesses", would he see what he can do. His paternal grandfather, Louis-Charles Thiers, was an attorney in Aix-en-Provence , who moved to Marseille to become

26334-567: Was born in the Palais-Royal , the residence of the Orléans family in Paris, to Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres ( Duke of Orléans , upon the death of his father Louis Philippe I ), and Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon . As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon , he was a Prince of the Blood , which entitled him the use of the style " Serene Highness ". His mother was an extremely wealthy heiress who

26505-437: Was brought back into the government as Minister of the Interior. He helped put down a Quixotic armed rebellion of the Legitimists under the Duchess de Berry who wanted to put the Bourbon dynasty back on the throne. She was hiding in a secret room behind a fireplace in Nantes , and was captured when the police looking for her, wishing to stay warm, started a fire, forcing her to surrender. In 1833 he declared he did not want to be

26676-399: Was descended from Louis XIV through a legitimized line. Louis Philippe was the eldest of three sons and a daughter, a family that was to have erratic fortunes from the beginning of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration . The elder branch of the House of Bourbon, to which the kings of France belonged, deeply distrusted the intentions of the cadet branch, which would succeed to

26847-449: Was enfranchised at the beginning of the reign) provided Louis Philippe with consistent support. Under his management, the conditions of the working classes deteriorated, and the income gap widened considerably. According to William Fortescue, "Louis Philippe owed his throne to a popular revolution in Paris, he was the 'King of the Barricades', yet he went on to preside over a regime which rapidly gained notoriety for political repression of

27018-507: Was fined three thousand francs. The writer Lamartine left a vivid description of Thiers, with whom he had dinner at this time: "He spoke first; he spoke last; he hardly listened to the replies; but he spoke with an accuracy, with an audacity, with a fecundity of ideas, that excused his volubility of words from his lips. It was his spirit and heart which spoke....There was enough gunpowder in his nature to explode six governments." In August 1829, Charles X had decided to show his authority over

27189-488: Was forced to abdicate after the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848 . He lived for the remainder of his life in exile in the United Kingdom. His supporters were known as Orléanists . The Legitimists supported the main line of the House of Bourbon, and the Bonapartists supported the Bonaparte family . Among his grandchildren were the monarchs Leopold II of Belgium , Empress Carlota of Mexico , Ferdinand I of Bulgaria , and Queen Mercedes of Spain . Louis Philippe

27360-505: Was forced to abdicate by the July Revolution . The reign of Louis Philippe is known as the July Monarchy and was dominated by wealthy industrialists and bankers. During the period 1840–1848, he followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of French statesman François Guizot . He also promoted friendship with Great Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, notably the French conquest of Algeria . His popularity faded as economic conditions in France deteriorated in 1847, and he

27531-483: Was given a lesser position, that of undersecretary of state for Finance, under Laffitte, but was also awarded the Legion of Honor and the position of state counselor, which had a substantial salary. He ranked as one of the Radical supporters of the new dynasty, in opposition to the party of which his rival François Guizot was the chief literary man, and Guizot's patron, the duc de Broglie , the main pillar. To have real influence and independence, Thiers knew that he needed

27702-429: Was given to the army garrison, and they prepared for trouble. Thiers, believing that the government was too strong to allow an uprising, advised caution and said he would not attend the banquet. The army commander, Marshal Bugeaud , put squadrons of dragoons on the streets. The day began peacefully, but by midday groups of demonstrators were raising barricades on the Champs-Élysées and hurling rocks at soldiers in front of

27873-427: Was not England and he was the chief diplomat and head of the army. Thiers felt he had no alternative but to resign as prime minister, which he did on 29 August 1836. His place was taken by a conservative royalist, Louis-Mathieu Molé . Out of office, he traveled in Italy. He went first to Rome, where his friend Ingres , the Director of the Villa Medici , gave him a tour of the monuments, then to Florence, where he had

28044-400: Was one of the most-read journalists in the city. He wrote about politics, art, literature, and history. His literary reputation introduced him into the most influential literary and political salons in Paris. He met Stendhal , the Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt , the famed banker Jacques Laffitte , the author and historian Prosper Mérimée , the painter François Gérard ; he was

28215-447: Was opposed to the match for this reason. She had been very close to her sister and devastated by her execution, but she had given her consent after Louis Philippe had convinced her that he was determined to compensate for the mistakes of his father, and after having agreed to answer all her questions regarding his father. After the abdication of Napoleon, Louis Philippe, known as Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans , returned to France during

28386-430: Was original, polemical and aggressive, and caused a stir in Paris literary and political circles. Etienne commissioned Thiers as a regular contributor. At the same time that Thiers began writing, his friend from the law school in Aix, Mignet, was hired as a writer for another leading opposition journal, the Courier Français , and then worked for a major Paris book publisher. Within four months of his arrival in Paris, Thiers

28557-446: Was saved by the armored walls of his carriage. The police linked Alibaud to a secret revolutionary group called "Les Familles", by Armand Barbès and Louis Blanqui . Both were arrested and imprisoned, but later released, and went on to much more ambitious revolutionary projects. Because of the new threat of terrorist attacks, Louis-Philippe decided not to inaugurate the newly completed Arc de Triomphe , begun by Napoleon. Thiers dedicated

28728-453: Was then introduced to Charles-Guillaume Étienne , the editor of the Le Constitutionnel , the most influential political and literary journal in Paris at the time. The newspaper was the leading opposition journal against the royalist government; it had 44,000 subscribers, compared with just 12,800 subscribers for the royalist, or legitimist, press. He offered Etienne an essay on the political figure François Guizot , Thiers' future rival, which

28899-402: Was thereafter blamed by republicans and socialists for the "Massacre of rue Transnonain." Thiers also played an active role in the decoration of Paris; he cleared the space in front of the eastern colonnade of the Louvre , so visitors could have a clear view, and ordered the restoration of the Salon of Apollo, which became the setting for the famous Paris salon art exhibitions. He commissioned

29070-408: Was to a much greater degree conditional." Unlike his predecessor, he did not have a dynastic legacy to draw on, so he turned to the glories of Napoleon I to prop up his own regime. He supported the return of Napoleon's remains to France and his son, the Duke of Joinville , brought the remains from Saint Helena for reinterment at Les Invalides . The statue of Napoleon was returned to its spot atop

29241-401: Was to achieve the departure of German soldiers from most of French territory two years ahead of schedule. Opposed by the monarchists in the French National Assembly and the left wing of the republicans, he resigned on 24 May 1873, and was replaced as president by Patrice de MacMahon . When he died in 1877, his funeral became a major political event; the procession was led by two of the leaders of

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