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The collapse of the [[Napoleonic Empire]] in 1813-14 renewed the potential for tension between the Bourbon and Orléans families. As a distant cousin and "prince of the blood," Louis Philippe had a claim to the French throne in case the elder Bourbon line should die out or become unavailable, and there were some who felt that he would do better as king than Louis XVIII. (This was an important reason for Louis' continuing coldness towards the duke.) However, Louis Philippe publicly stated that he would not seek the throne, and instead recognized Louis XVIII as the rightful monarch of France. After Napoleon's abdication and exile in April 1814, the duke and his family finally returned to Paris. In the interests of maintaining family unity, the king recognized Louis' title, making him officially "Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans," admitting him to the Chamber of Peers, the new upper house of the French legislature, and appointing him Lieutenant-General of the Realm. The family also received most of its properties back, including the Palais-Royal, the duke's birthplace and childhood home.
The collapse of the [[Napoleonic Empire]] in 1813-14 renewed the potential for tension between the Bourbon and Orléans families. As a distant cousin and "prince of the blood," Louis Philippe had a claim to the French throne in case the elder Bourbon line should die out or become unavailable, and there were some who felt that he would do better as king than Louis XVIII. (This was an important reason for Louis' continuing coldness towards the duke.) However, Louis Philippe publicly stated that he would not seek the throne, and instead recognized Louis XVIII as the rightful monarch of France. After Napoleon's abdication and exile in April 1814, the duke and his family finally returned to Paris. In the interests of maintaining family unity, the king recognized Louis' title, making him officially "Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans," admitting him to the Chamber of Peers, the new upper house of the French legislature, and appointing him Lieutenant-General of the Realm. The family also received most of its properties back, including the Palais-Royal, the duke's birthplace and childhood home.
The display of unity between Orléans and King Louis was severely strained during [[The Hundred Days]], Napoleon's brief return to power in 1815. In contrast to Louis' decision to go back into exile, Orléans announced he would remain in Paris unless ordered to do otherwise by the king. Louis suspected the duke of trying to position himself as a possible alternative for the throne, and commanded him to leave the city; Orléans then returned to Britain with his entire family, rather than join the royal court in the [[Netherlands]]. Though the king would remain suspicious of his cousin long after Napoleon's final defeat, the duke maintained his public recognition and support of Louis XVIII's title during and after the Hundred Days.<ref>Munro Price, ''The Perilous Crown'' (2008), p. 98.</ref>
During the so-called "Second Restoration" that followed the Hundred Days, Orléans' home in the Palais-Royal quickly emerged as a magnet for advocates of constitutional monarchy and other liberal opponents of Bourbon absolutism. He himself continued to align with a constitutionalist position, and in the Chamber of Peers openly opposed the so-called "White Terror" conducted by ultra-royalists against republicans and Bonapartists. Considering this a veiled attack on himself, Louis XVIII ordered the duke to leave the country; he thereupon went once more to London with his family, remaining there until allowed to return in 1817. After this, Orléans chiefly concerned himself with reconstructing the Palais-Royal and reacquiring the rest of the family's properties in France. He was also heavily involved in business affairs--his talent for which earning him the respect of the Parisian bourgeoisie--and continued to host liberal intellectuals and politicians at his home. By the mid-1820s, the duke was one of the richest men in France, and probably had a greater degree of personal popularity than the king himself.
Orléans' wealth, popularity, and royal blood caused many to continue to view him as an alternative to Bourbon rule, particularly as that dynasty stood in danger of extinction. After the assassination of Louis XVIII's nephew, the Duke of Berry, in 1820, the duke was third in line for the throne, preceded by the elderly Count of Artois and his middle-aged (and childless) son. The birth of the Duke of Berry's posthumous son (sometimes dubbed the "miracle baby") in September 1820, however, seemed to end the prospects of an Orléanist monarchy. Though he had repeatedly dismissed any idea of becoming king himself, Orléans was said to have cornered those present at the birth and demanded to know whether the birth was genuine. When they confirmed it, the duke cried out, "Then it is true: we will really count for nothing in this country!"<ref>[https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/3/3/a/33a909914d20610b/6.06-_The_Duc_dOrleans_Master.mp3?c_id=14924118&cs_id=14924118&expiration=1641682709&hwt=0ae52d82939cc1df1d6d2463d83f9af0 Revolutions Podcast Episode 6.06: The Duc d'Orleans]. 16 April 2017.</ref>
The relationship between the Bourbons and the Orléans family improved in 1824 with the death of Louis XVIII and the succession of his brother, the Count of Artois, as King Charles X. Though Charles was in fact much more of an ultra-royalist than Louis had been, and had no tolerance at all for the liberal opposition, he strongly desired genuine unity and reconciliation within the broader royal family, and openly welcomed the duke at court, even allowing him to style himself as "His Royal Highness" (a favor Louis had refused). Charles' increasingly antagonistic relationship with the liberal majority in the Chamber of Deputies, however, placed Orléans in a difficult position, and by the spring of 1830, he was worried that the king was undermining the stability of his own reign.
==References==
==References==