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Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
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Philippe Charles d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, (2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723), was a member of the royal family of France. At the death of his uncle, king Louis XIV, he was the regent during the minority of the five-year old new king Louis XV, from 1715 to 1723, an era known as the Regency.
hilippe Charles d'Orléans was born at the Château de Saint-Cloud, some ten kilometers west of Paris. He was the only son of Philippe de France, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIV, and his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (1652–1722).
He was titled Duke of Chartres as the heir of his father.
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Philippe Charles d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, (2 August 1674 – 2 December 1723), was a member of the royal family of France. At the death of his uncle, king Louis XIV, he was the regent during the minority of the five-year old new king Louis XV, from 1715 to 1723, an era known as the Regency.
Life
Philippe Charles d'Orléans was born at the Château de Saint-Cloud, some ten kilometers west of Paris. He was the only son of Philippe de France, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIV, and his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (1652–1722).
He was titled Duke of Chartres as the heir of his father. As a grandson of King Louis XIII of France, he was a petit-fils de France.
As a child, Philippe had an education focused on a military career along with some diplomatic instruction. His main interests were history, philosophy, art and the sciences. From his birth, Philippe was the the third in line to the throne after his cousin, the Louis of France and his father; this changed greatly during the years of 1682 - 1686 with the birth of the Dauphins 3 sons:
Military career
Philippe had his first experience of arms at the siege of Mons in 1691. He fought with distinction at the Steenkerque, at the Neerwinden and at the Namur in 1692. Subsequently, being without employment, he studied natural science.
He was next given a command in Italy (1706) and in Spain (1707–1708) where he gained some important successes. In his will, Louis XIV appointed him president of the council of regency for the young king Louis XV.
Marriage
Constant wars with many of the major powers in Europe made a significant marriage with a foreign princess unlikely, or so Louis XIV told his brother, Monsieur, when persuading him to accept the king's legitimised daughter, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon (known as Mademoiselle de Blois), as wife for Philippe. The king offered a dowry of two million livres with his daughter's hand, as well as Palais-Royal to the Duke and Duchess of Orléans. Upon hearing that her son had agreed to the marriage, Philippe's mother slapped his face in full view of the court. Nonetheless, on 18 February 1692 the cousins were married. The young couple, mismatched from the start, never grew to like each other, and soon the young Philippe gave his wife the nickname of Madame Lucifer. In spite of this, they had eight children (see below).
Duke of Orléans
On the death of his father in 1701, Philippe inherited the dukedoms of Orléans, Anjou, Montpensier and Nemours, as well as the princedom of Joinville..
Louis XIV's will
On 29 July 1714, upon the insistence of his morganatic wife, the marquise de Maintenon, Louis XIV elevated his illegitimate children to the rank of Princes of the Blood, which "entitled them to inherit the crown if the legitimate lines became extinct". Thus, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine and Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse were officially inserted into the line of hereditary succession following all of the legitimate, acknowledged princes du sang.
Mme de Maintenon would have preferred Philip V [King of Spain] to be Regent and the duc du Maine to be Lieutenant Général and consequently in control. Fearing a revival of the war, Louis named the duc d’Orléans President of a Regency Council, but one that would be packed with his enemies, reaching its decisions by a majority vote that was bound to go against him. The real power would be in the hands of the duc du Maine, who was also appointed guardian of the young sovereign.
On 25 August 1715, a few days before his death, Louis XIV added a codicil to his will:
He sent for the Chancellor and wrote a last codicil to his will, in the presence of Mme de Maintenon. He was yielding, out of sheer fatigue, to his wife and confessor, probably with the reservation that his extraordinary action would be set aside after his death, like the will itself. Otherwise he would have been deliberately condemning his kingdom to perpetual strife, for the codicil appointed the duc du Maine commander of the civil and military Household, with Villeroy as his second-in-command. By this arrangement they became the sole masters of the person and residence of the King; of Paris ... and all the internal and external guard; of the entire service ... so much so that the Regent did not have even the shadow of the slightest authority and found himself at their mercy.
The evening of 25 August, Louis XIV had a private audience with the Duke of Orléans, his nephew and son-in-law, re-assuring him:
You will find nothing in my will that should displease you. I commend the Dauphin to you, serve him as loyally as you have served me. Do your utmost to preserve his realm. If he were to die, you would be the master. [...] I have made what I believed to be the wisest and fairest arrangements for the well-being of the realm, but, since one cannot anticipate everything, if there is something to change or to reform, you will do whatever you see fit...
The Regency
Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715, and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. On 2 September, the Duke of Orléans went to meet the parlementaires in the Grand-Chambre du Parlement in Paris in order to have Louis XIV's will annulled and his previous right to the regency restored. After a break that followed a much-heated session, the Parlement abrogated the recent codicil to Louis XIV's will and confirmed the Duke of Orléans as regent of France.
On 30 December 1715, the regent decided to bring the young Louis XV from the château de Vincennes to the Tuileries Palace in Paris where he lived until his return to Versailles in June 1722. The regent governed from his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal.
Philippe disapproved of the hypocrisy of Louis XIV's reign and opposed censorship, ordering the reprinting of books banned during the reign of his uncle. Reversing his uncle's policies again, Philippe formed an alliance with England, Austria, and the Netherlands, and fought a successful war against Spain that established the conditions of a European peace.
He acted in plays of Molière and Racine, composed an opera, and was a gifted painter and engraver. Despite his atheism, Philippe favoured Jansenism which, despite papal condemnation, was accepted by the French bishops, and he revoked Louis XIV's compliance with the bull Unigenitus.
At first he decreased taxation and dismissed 25,000 soldiers. But the inquisitorial measures which he had begun against the financiers led to disturbances, notably in the province of Brittany where a rebellion known as the Pontcallec Conspiracy unfolded. He countenanced the risky operations of the banker John Law, whose bankruptcy led to a disastrous crisis in the public and private affairs of France.
On 6 June 1717, under the influence of Law and the duc de Saint-Simon, the Regent persuaded the Regency Council to purchase from Thomas Pitt for £135,000 the world's then largest known diamond, a 141 carat (28.2 g) cushion brilliant, for the crown jewels of France. The diamond was known from then on as Le Régent.
Cellamare Conspiracy
There existed a party of malcontents who wished to transfer the regency from Orléans to his cousin, the young king's uncle, King Philip V of Spain. A conspiracy was formed, under the inspiration of Cardinal Alberoni, the first minister of Spain. It was directed in France by the Prince de Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador, with the complicity of the Duchess of Orléans' older brother, the duc du Maine, and the latter's wife. In 1718, the Cellamare conspiracy was discovered and its participants exiled. Two years later its aims were revived in the Pontcallec Conspiracy, four leaders of which were executed.
Guillaume Dubois, formerly tutor to the Duke of Orléans, and now his chief minister, caused war to be declared against Spain, with the support of Austria, England and the Netherlands (Quadruple Alliance). After some successes of the French marshal, the Duke of Berwick, in Spain, and of the imperial troops in Sicily, Philip V made peace with the regent (1720).
End of Regency and Death
On 15 June 1722, Louis XV and his entourage left the Tuileries Palace in Paris for the Palace of Versailles where the young king wanted to reside. The decision had been taken by the Duke of Orléans who, after the fall of Law's System, was feeling the loss of his personal popularity in Paris.
On 25 October of that year, the twelve-year old Louis XV was anointed King of France in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims. It is said that at the end of the ceremony, he threw himself in the arms of his uncle. On the majority of the king, which was declared on 15 February 1723, the Duke stepped down as regent. At the death of Cardinal Dubois on 10 August of that year, he offered to the young king to be his prime minister, and remained in that office until his death a few months later.
The regent died in Versailles on 2 December 1723. On 3 December, his body was taken to Saint-Cloud where funeral ceremonies began the following day. His heart was taken to the Val de Grâce church in Paris and his body to Saint-Denis Basilica, (about 10 km north of Paris), the necropolis of the French kings and their family.
The heart of the Duke of Orléans is now at the Chapelle Royale de Dreux, the necropolis of all the members of the Orléans family, built in 1816 and finished during the reign of his great-great-grandson, Louis-Philippe, King of the French.
Legacy
Children
- Mademoiselle de Valois (17 December 1693 – 17 October 1694), who died in childhood.
- Marie Louise Élisabeth of Orléans (20 August 1695 – 21 July 1719), Mademoiselle d'Orléans. who wed Charles, duc de Berry.
- Louise Adélaïde of Orléans (13 August 1698 – 10 February 1743), after 1710 Mademoiselle d'Orléans, then Abbess of Chelles from 1719-1734.
- Charlotte Aglaé of Orléans (20 October 1700 – 19 January 1761), Mademoiselle de Blois III, who wed Francis III, Duke of Modena.
- Louis of Orléans (4 August 1703 – 4 February 1752), who succeeded his father as Duke of Orléans in 1723.
- Louise Elisabeth of Orléans (11 December 1709 – 16 June 1742), Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who wed Luis I, King of Spain, and returned to France a childless widow.
- Philippine Élisabeth of Orléans (18 December 1714 – 21 May 1734), Mademoiselle de Beaujoulais, engaged to the future Carlos III of Spain.
- Louise Diane of Orléans (27 June 1716 – 26 September 1736), Mademoiselle de Chartres, who wed Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti.
Philippe also had several illegitimate children with various women, three of whom he acknowledged.
- By Florence Pellerin:
- Charles de Saint-Albin (1698-1764)
- By Marie Louise Le Bel de La Boissière:
- Jean Philippe batard d'Orléans (1702-1748)
- By Christine Charlotte Desmares:
Gallery
Ancestors
Titles and Styles
- August 2, 1674 - June 9, 1701 His Royal Highness Monseigneur le duc de Chartres
- September 2 1715 - February 15 1723 His Royal Highness Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans
- June 9, 1701 - December 2, 1723 His Royal Highness Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans, Régent de France et de Navarre
Sources
- Antoine, Michel, Louis XV, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1989 (French).
- Dufresne, Claude, Les Orléans, CRITERION, Paris, 1991, (French).
- Erlanger, Philippe, Louis XIV, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 1965, reprinted by Librairie Académique Perrin, Paris, 1978, (French).
- Erlanger, Philippe, Louis XIV, translated from the French by Stephen Cox, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970, (English).
- Haggard, Andrew C.P., The Regent of the Roués, Hutchison & Co, London, 1905, (English)
- Lewis, W. H., The Scandalous Regent, Andre Deutsch, London, 1961, (English).
- Meyer, Jean, Le Régent (1674-1723), Editions Ramsay, Paris, 1985, (French).
- Petitfils, Jean-Christian, Le Régent, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1986, (French).
- Pevitt, Christine, Philippe, Duc d'Orléans: Regent of France, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1997, (English).
- Shennan, J. H., Phillippe, Duke of Orleans: Regent of France, Thames and Hudson, London, 1979, (English).
Titles
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