On Christmas Day, 1809, he married at Palermo the Princesse Marie Amélie, niece to Marie Antoinette, and aunt to the future Duchesse de Berri.
No breath of scandal ever disturbed the matrimonal happiness of Louis Philippe and Marie Amélie. They had a noble family of five sons and three daughters, all distinguished by their ability and virtues. I shall have to tell hereafter how devotion to the interests of his family was one cause of Louis Philippe's overthrow.
In 1814, when Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau; Louis Philippe left Palermo, attended only by one servant, and made his way to Paris and the home of his family, the Palais Royal. He hurried into the house, and in spite of the opposition of the concierge, who took him for a madman, he rushed to the staircase; but before he ascended it he fell upon his knees, and bursting into tears, kissed the first step before him.
This was probably the most French-like thing in Louis Philippe's career. He was far more like an Englishman than a Frenchman. Had he been an English prince, his faults would have seemed to his people like virtues.
Of course the son of Égalité could be no favorite with the elder Bourbons; but he soon became the hope of the middle classes, and was very intimate with Laffitte the banker, and with Lafayette, who, as we have seen, were both implicated in conspiracies seven years before the Revolution of 1830. He was for many years not rich, but he and the ladies of his house were very charitable. Madame Adélaïde, speaking one day to a friend[1] of the reports that were circulated concerning her brother's parsimony, said,—
"People ask what he does with his money. To satisfy them it would be necessary to publish the names of honorable friends of liberty who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited and obtained from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even three hundred thousand francs. They forget all the extraordinary expenses my brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to comply with. Out of his income he has furnished the Palais Royal, improved the apanages of the House of Orleans; and yet sooner or later all this property will revert to the nation. When we returned to France our inheritance was so encumbered that my brother was advised to decline administering on the estate; but to that neither he nor I would consent. For all these things people make no allowances. Truly, we know not how to act to inspire the confidence which our opinions and our consciences tell us we fully deserve."
[Footnote 1: M. Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie Amélie.]
LOUIS PHILLIPPE.
(Duke of Orleans.)
It is not necessary in a sketch so brief to go minutely into politics. Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the Chambers, having found the deputies unwilling to approve their acts, and a few days afterwards the king published his own will and pleasure in what were called Les Ordonnances du Roi. One of these restricted the liberty of the Press, and was directed against journalism; another provider new rules, by which the ministry might secure a more subservient Chamber.