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| | Though Philippe-Égalité openly condemned his son's actions in the National Convention, he and the entire Orléans family came under suspicion following Louis Philippe's departure. He was placed under house arrest (as were his younger sons, Louis Antoine and Louis Charles), and as a member of the nobility, became a target of the [[Committee of Public Safety]]. On November 6, 1793, he was executed by guillotine in Paris.<ref>Lewis, Gwynne. "Why Philippe Égalité Died on the Scaffold." TLS, no. 4900, 28 Feb. 1997, p. 30.</ref> For the rest of his life, Louis Philippe felt himself responsible for his father's death. | | Though Philippe-Égalité openly condemned his son's actions in the National Convention, he and the entire Orléans family came under suspicion following Louis Philippe's departure. He was placed under house arrest (as were his younger sons, Louis Antoine and Louis Charles), and as a member of the nobility, became a target of the [[Committee of Public Safety]]. On November 6, 1793, he was executed by guillotine in Paris.<ref>Lewis, Gwynne. "Why Philippe Égalité Died on the Scaffold." TLS, no. 4900, 28 Feb. 1997, p. 30.</ref> For the rest of his life, Louis Philippe felt himself responsible for his father's death. |
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| | + | ==Exile== |
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| | + | The execution of his father, which he learned of soon afterwards, made Louis Philippe the new Duke of Orléans (though neither it nor any other titles of nobility were being recognized by the French Republic). Still only 20 years old, he and the rest of his family appeared to be shunned by all sides: the Jacobins and other supporters of the Revolution considered him a traitor, while those loyal to the Bourbon monarchy considered the House of Orléans partly responsible for the death of Louis XVI. At the time, he was in [[Switzerland]], traveling under the assumed name of ''Monsieur Chabos''. Placing his sixteen-year-old sister Adélaïde in a Swiss convent, he spent a year teaching (under his alias) math and languages at a boys' school in the village of Reichenau, but was eventually forced to leave due to a scandal over his impregnating a girl working there. |
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| | + | Still shunned by the various communities of French ''émigrés'', Louis Philippe traveled through the German states and into Scandinavia, staying for a time in [[Finland]] (where he may have fathered another child) before backtracking to [[Denmark]]. By this time, the radical phase of the French Revolution had passed, and France was now in the hands of the [[Directory]]. In 1796, its agents located Louis Philippe in Denmark; hoping to clear away any members of the royal family who might serve as a focal point for counter-revolutionary efforts, they offered to release Louis Philippe's two younger brothers from prison if he would immediately emigrate to the [[United States of America|United States]]. (Louis Philippe's mother, however, would remain in France, as a guarantee of her sons' good behavior.) Louis Philippe accepted, and arrived in [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Philadelphia]] in early 1797, joined shortly thereafter by his brothers. |
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| | + | The position of the Orléans brothers improved in America; it was safe for them to live under their own names, and the French ''émigré'' communities there, being a mix of royalists, moderate republicans, and radicals, were too diverse to shun them entirely.<ref>Childs, Frances Sergeant. French Refugee Life in the United States: 1790-1800, an American Chapter of the French Revolution. Philadelphia: Porcupine, 1978. Print.</ref> Louis Philippe traveled during this time to [[New York City]] and [[Boston]], among other places, and met a number of prominent American statesmen, including [[George Washington]], [[Alexander Hamilton]], and [[John Jay]]. In late 1797, however, the Directory decided to expel his mother to Spain; now that she was no longer its potential hostage, Louis Philippe and his brothers made plans to return to Europe. After lengthy detours through Spanish Louisiana and [[Cuba]], they arrived in Great Britain in January 1800. Befriending Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a son of [[George III]], Louis Philippe obtained a pension from the British government, and taught math and geography at the Great Ealing School outside [[London]] for the next eight years. |
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| | + | During this period of exile in Britain, the Orléans family also reconciled with its Bourbon cousins. Louis XVI's younger brothers, the Count of Provence--now King [[Louis XVIII]]--and the Count of Artois--the future King Charles X. Though Louis XVIII, as official head of the Bourbon family, was deeply resentful and suspicious of the House of Orléans, and shared the belief that they were partly to blame for his brother's death, the two families agreed to set aside their differences, at least publicly, for the sake of presenting a united front in the campaign to restore the French monarchy. |
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| | ==References== | | ==References== |