August 23, 1754: Birth of Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre

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Abolition of the Monarchy, Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Duke of Berry, French Revolution, Guillotine, King of the French, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, National Assembly

Louis-Augusté de Bourbon of France, (August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793) who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France, and the grandson of King Louis XV of France and Navarre and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska.

His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of August III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Louis-Augusté was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis-Joseph, duc de Bourgogne, who was regarded as bright and handsome but who died at the age of nine in 1761.

Louis-Augusté, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d’Artois. From an early age, Louis-Augusté was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.

Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre

When his father died of tuberculosis on December 20, 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Augusté became the new Dauphin.

On May 16, 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis-Augusté married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia (better known by the French form of her name, Marie Antoinette), his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and his wife, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia.

This marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France’s alliance with Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years’ War, in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America.

By the time that Louis-Augusté and Marie-Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie-Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner. For the young couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant.

Louis-Augusté’s shyness and, among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near total strangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the 15-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his 14-year-old bride.

His fear of being manipulated by her for imperial purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her in public. Over time, the couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedly consummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777.

Upon his grandfather’s death on May 10, 1774, Louis-Augusté became King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, he was nineteen years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despotic monarchy was on the rise. He himself felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation.

The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.

The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices.

In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime.

Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Navarre

This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France’s middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were viewed as representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille, during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.

Louis’s indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. On September 4, 1791, Louis XVI received the title of King of the French.

His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention.

The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of August 10, 1792. One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the First French Republic was proclaimed on September 21, 1792.

Louis was then tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason and executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793, as a desacralized French citizen under the name of Citizen Louis Capét, in reference to Hugh Capét, the founder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis’s surname.

Louis XVI was the only king of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse, was given over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war. In 1799 she married her cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, the eldest son of Charles, Comte d’Artois, future King Charles X of France and Navarre. She eventually died childless in 1851.

August 2, 1830: Abdication of Charles X, King of France and Navarre. Part II.

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Abdication, Chamber of Deputies, Charles X of France and Navarre, Comte de Chambord, Duke of Angoulême, Duke of Bordeaux, Duke of Orleans, Henri de Bourbon, King of the French, Louis Antoine, Louis Philippe, Usurper

Charles X’s reign of almost six years proved to be deeply unpopular from the moment of his coronation in 1825, in which he tried to revive the practice of the royal touch. The governments appointed under his reign reimbursed former landowners for the abolition of feudalism at the expense of bondholders, increased the power of the Catholic Church, and reimposed capital punishment for sacrilege, leading to conflict with the liberal-majority Chamber of Deputies.

Charles X also initiated the French conquest of Algeria as a way to distract his citizens from domestic problems, and forced Haiti to pay a hefty indemnity in return for lifting a blockade and recognizing Haiti’s independence.

He eventually appointed a conservative government under the premiership of Prince Jules de Polignac, who was defeated in the 1830 French legislative election. He responded with the July Ordinances disbanding the Chamber of Deputies, limiting franchise, and reimposing press censorship.

Within a week France faced urban riots which led to the July Revolution of 1830, which resulted in the abdication of King Charles X of France and Navarre.

Charles reluctantly signed the document of abdication on August 2, 1830. Charles initially abdicated the throne to his eldest son, Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême.

It is said that Louis Antoine spent the next 20 minutes listening to the entreaties of his wife (his first cousin, Marie Thérèse of France, the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the only member of the immediate royal family to survive the French Revolution) not to sign a similar document of abdication, while the former Charles X sat weeping. However, Louis Antoine also abdicated, in favour of his nephew, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux.

Technically the Duke of Angoulême was King Louis XIX of France and Navarre for about 20 minutes before he himself abdicated his rights to the throne to his nephew. Louis Antoine never reigned over the country, but after his father’s death in 1836, he was considered the legitimist pretender as Louis XIX. For the final time he left for exile, where he was known as the “Count of Marnes”. He never returned to France.

Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême

The boy who should have been King after Charles X was Henri, Duke of Bordeaux. He was the only son of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, the younger son of Charles X of France, and born after his father’s death in 1920.

The Duke of Bordeaux’s mother was Princess Carolina of Naples and Sicily, daughter of King Francesco I of the Two Sicilies and his first wife, Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria, the tenth child and third daughter of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain.

Princess Carolina of Naples and Sicily’s parents were double first cousins. The Two Sicilies Royal Family was a branch of the Spanish House of Bourbon. The grandson of Charles X, Henri was a Petit-Fils de France. He was the last legitimate descendant in the male line of Louis XV of France.

Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, King of the French (1830–1848)

Charles X named Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans (from the Orléans branch of the House of Bourbon descendants of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, the brother of King Louis XIV) Lieutenant général du royaume, and charged him to announce his desire to have his grandson succeed him to 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 of Deputies was aware of Louis Philippe’s 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 the regent for the young King Henri V of France and Navarre, his fifth cousin twice removed.

Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Bordeaux, Comte de Chambord,

Charles X and his family, including his grandson, went into exile in Britain. The young ex-king, Henri V, the Duke of Bordeaux, who, in exile, took the title of comte de Chambord, later became the pretender to the throne of France and was supported by the Legitimists.

Charles died in 1836 in Gorizia, then part of the Austrian Empire. He was the last of the French rulers from the senior branch of the House of Bourbon.

July 14, 1789: Louis XVI of France and Navarre and the Storming of the Bastille

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Bastille, Bastille Day, Citizen Louis Capet, Estates General, French Revolution, Jacques Necker, King of the French, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Marie Antoinette of Austria, National Assembly, Storming the Bastille

Louis XVI (Louis-Augusté; August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capét during the four months just before he was executed by guillotine.

Louis XVI was the son of Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV, and Maria Josepha of Saxony. Louis XVI’s mother was Maria Josépha of Saxony the daughter of Augustus III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Maria Josepha of Austria, an Archduchess of Austria, the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg. She was named for her father.

On May 16, 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis-Augusté married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (better known by the French form of her name, Marie Antoinette), his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Franz I and his wife, the Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

This marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France’s alliance with Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years’ War, in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America. By the time that Louis-Augusté and Marie-Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie-Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner.

Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria

When Louis Augusté’s father died in 1765, he became the new Dauphin. Upon his grandfather’s death on May 10, 1774, he assumed the title King of France and Navarre until September 4, 1791, when he received the title of King of the French until the monarchy was abolished on September 21, 1792.

The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.

The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis XVI implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices.

In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime.

This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France’s middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were viewed as representatives.

Tensions rose in France between reformist and conservative factions as the country struggled to resolve the economic crisis. In May, the Estates General legislative assembly was revived, but members of the Third Estate broke ranks, declaring themselves to be the National Assembly of the country, and on June 20, vowed to write a constitution for the kingdom.

On July 11, Jacques Necker, the Finance Minister of Louis XVI, who was sympathetic to the Third Estate, was dismissed by the king, provoking an angry reaction among Parisians.

Crowds formed, fearful of an attack by the royal army or by foreign regiments of mercenaries in the king’s service, and seeking to arm the general populace. Early on July 14, one crowd besieged the Hôtel des Invalides for firearms, muskets, and cannons, stored in its cellars.

That same day, another crowd stormed the Bastille, a fortress-prison in Paris that had historically held people jailed on the basis of lettres de cachet (literally “signet letters”), arbitrary royal indictments that could not be appealed and did not indicate the reason for the imprisonment, and was believed to hold a cache of ammunition and gunpowder. As it happened, at the time of the attack, the Bastille held only seven inmates, none of great political significance.

The crowd was eventually reinforced by mutinous Régiment des Gardes Françaises (“French Guards”), whose usual role was to protect public buildings. They proved a fair match for the fort’s defenders, and Governor de Launay, the commander of the Bastille, capitulated and opened the gates to avoid a mutual massacre. According to the official documents, about 200 attackers and just one defender died before the capitulation.

However, possibly because of a misunderstanding, fighting resumed. In this second round of fighting, de Launay and seven other defenders were killed, as was Jacques de Flesselles, the prévôt des marchands (“provost of the merchants”), the elected head of the city’s guilds, who under the feudal monarchy also had the competences of a present-day mayor.

Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, late in the evening of August 4, after a very stormy session of the Assemblée constituante, feudalism was abolished. On August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen) was proclaimed.

The Increasing tensions and violence and the storming of the Bastille, and the subsequent riots in Paris forced Louis XVI to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.

Louis XVI’s indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively.

His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention.

The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of August 10, 1792. One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the First French Republic was proclaimed on September 21, 1792.

Louis XVI was then tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason and executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793, as a desacralized French citizen under the name of Citizen Louis Capét, in reference to Hugh Capét, the founder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis’s surname.

Louis XVI was the only king of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse, was given over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war, eventually dying childless in 1851.

August 9, 1830: Accession of Louis-Philippe as the King of the French.

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Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, French Revolution, July Revolution, King Charles X of France, King of the French, Louis Philippe, Louis Philippe I of France, Marie Antoinette, Prince Edward Duke of Kent, Queen Marie Antoinette

Louis-Philippe I (October 6, 1773 – August 26, 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 and the last king of France.

Louis-Philippe was born in the Palais Royal, the residence of the Orléans family in Paris, to Louis Philippe II, 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 was descended from Louis XIV of France through a legitimized line.

Louis Philippe was the eldest of three sons and a daughter, Antoine-Philippe, Duke of Montpensier, Françoise d’Orléans (died shortly after her birth) Adélaïde d’Orléans, and Louis-Charles, Count of Beaujolais a family that was to have erratic fortunes from the beginning of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration.

Louis-Philippe struck up a lasting friendship with Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and moved to England, where he remained from 1800 to 1815.

In 1808, Louis-Philippe proposed to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George III of the United Kingdom. His Catholicism and the opposition of her mother Queen Charlotte meant the Princess reluctantly declined the offer.

In 1809, Louis-Philippe married Princess Maria-Amalia of Naples and Sicily, daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Archduchess Maria-Carolina of Austria, the thirteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Franz I. The ceremony was celebrated in Palermo November 25, 1809. The marriage was considered controversial, because she was the niece of Archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria, while he was the son of Louis-Philippe II, Duke of Orléans who was considered to have played a part in the execution of her aunt.

Maria-Amalia, Duchess of Orléans with her son Ferdinand-Philippe d’Orléans

Maria-Amalia’s mother, Archduchess Maria-Carolina of Austria, was skeptical to the match for the same reason. She had been very close to her younger sister, Archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria, and devastated by her execution, but she had given her consent after he 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.

In 1830, the July Revolution overthrew King Charles X of France and Navarre who abdicated in favour of his 10-year-old grandson, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, and, naming Louis-Philippe Lieutenant général du royaume, charged him to announce to the popularly elected Chamber of Deputies his desire to have his grandson succeed him. Louis-Philippe did not do this, in order to increase his own chances of succession.

Louis Philippe II d’Orléans (Father)

Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans (Mother)

As a consequence, because the chamber was aware of Louis-Philippe’s liberal policies and of his popularity with the masses, they proclaimed Louis-Philippe, King, who for eleven days had been acting as the regent for his young cousin, as the new French king, Henri V. With his accession the House of Orléans displaced the senior branch of the House of Bourbon.

Charles X and his family, including his grandson, went into exile in Britain. The young ex-king, the Duke of Bordeaux, who, in exile, took the title of comte de Chambord, later 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 August 9, 1830. Upon his accession to the throne, Louis-Philippe assumed the title of King of the French – a title already 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 August 13, 1830, the new king defined the manner in which his children, as well as his “beloved” sister, would continue to bear the territorial designation “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 only be styled Princesses of Orléans, not of France.

In 1832, his daughter, Princess Louise-Marie, married the first ruler of Belgium, Leopold I, King of the Belgians. Their descendants include all subsequent Kings of the Belgians, as well as Empress Carlota of Mexico.

Louis-Philippe and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia

Emperor Nicholas I of Russia

Louis-Philippe’s ascension to the title of King of the French was seen as a betrayal by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and it ended their friendship.

In 1815, Grand Duke Nicholas arrived in France, where he stayed with the duc d’Orleans, who soon become one of his best friends, with the grand duke being impressed with duc’s personal warmth, intelligence, manners and grace. For Nicholas the worst sort of characters were nobility who supported liberalism, and when the duc d’Orleans become the king of the French as Louis Philippe I in the July revolution of 1830, Nicholas took this as a personal betrayal, believing his friend had gone over as he saw it to the dark side of revolution and liberalism.

Nicholas hated Louis-Philippe, the self-styled Le roi citoyen (“the Citizen King”) as a renegade nobleman and an “usurper,” and his foreign policy starting in 1830 was primarily anti-French, based upon reviving the coalition of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain to isolate France. Nicholas detested Louis-Philippe to the point that he refused to use his name, calling him merely “the usurper.”

April 19, 1770: By Proxy marriage of Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France and Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria.

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Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, Dauphin of France, Dauphine of France, French Revolution, King Louis XV of France, King Louis XVI of France, King of the French, Louise-Auguste, Marie Antoinette, Queen of the French

Marie Antoinette of Austria was born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna of Austria (November 2, 1755 – October 16, 1793) she was the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungry, Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria and her husband Franz I, Holy Roman Emperor and Duke of Lorraine. Prior to her marriage she was known as Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria.

Maria Antonia was raised together with her sister, Maria Carolina, who was three years older, and with whom she had a lifelong close relationship. Maria Antonia had a difficult but ultimately loving relationship with her mother, who referred to her as “the little Madame Antoine”.

Under the teaching of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician. She learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. She sang during the family’s evening gatherings, as she had a beautiful voice. She also excelled at dancing, had “exquisite” poise, and loved dolls.

Despite the private tutoring she received, the results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of 10 she could not write correctly in German or in any language commonly used at court, such as French or Italian, and conversations with her were stilted.

Following the Seven Years’ War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, King Louis XV of France. Their common desire to destroy the ambitions of Prussia and Great Britain and to secure a definitive peace between their respective countries led them to seal their alliance with a marriage. On February 7, 1770, Louis XV formally requested the hand of Maria Antonia for his eldest surviving grandson and heir, Louis-Auguste, duc de Berry and Dauphin of France.

Louis-Auguste de France, (August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793) who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France, (1729-1765) and the grandson of Louis XV of France (1710-1774) and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Friedrich-August II, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

Louis-Auguste was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, duc de Bourgogne, who was regarded as bright and handsome but who died at the age of nine in 1761. Louis-Auguste, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English.

He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d’Artois. From an early age, Louis-Auguste was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.

Maria Antonia formally renounced her rights to Habsburg domains, and on April 19, 1770 she was married by proxy to the Dauphin of France at the Augustinian Church in Vienna, with her brother Archduke Ferdinand standing in for the Dauphin.

On May 14, Maria Antonia at the age of 14 met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Louis-August’s was aged 16. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. A further ceremonial wedding took place on May 16, 1770 in the Palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The couple’s longtime failure to consummate the marriage plagued the reputations of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for the next seven years.

The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was mixed. On the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on June 8, 1773 was a resounding success. On the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette, as did others who disliked her for more personal or petty reasons.

After eight years of marriage, Marie Antoinette gave birth to Marie Thérèse, the first of her four children. A growing percentage of the population came to dislike her, with the French libelles accusing her of being profligate, promiscuous, harboring sympathies for France’s perceived enemies—particularly her native Austria—and her children of being illegitimate. The false accusations of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace damaged her reputation further. During the Revolution, she became known as Madame Déficit because the country’s financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to the social and financial reforms of Turgot and Necker.

On May 10, 1774, her husband ascended the throne as King Louis XVI of France and Navarre and Marie Antoinette assumed the title Queen of France and Navarre, which she held until September 1791, when she became Queen of the French, as the French Revolution proceeded, a title that she held until 21 September 21, 1792 when the monarchy was abolished.

Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government had placed the royal family under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in October 1789. The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in the War of the First Coalition had disastrous effects on French popular opinion.

On August 10, 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the Assembly, and they were imprisoned in the Temple Prison on 13 August. On September 21, 1792, the monarchy was abolished. Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793. Marie Antoinette’s trial began on October 14, 1793, and two days later she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution.

On this date in History: August 9, 1830. Accession of Louis Philippe as King of the French.

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Duke of Orleans, House of Bourbon, House of Orléans, July Monarchy, July Revolution, King Charles X of France, King of France, King of the French, Louis Philippe, Louis XVIII

King Louis XVIII’s health had been worsening since the beginning of 1824. Suffering from both dry and wet gangrene in his legs and spine, he died on September 16, of that year, aged almost 69. Louis XVIII died without any issue making his younger brother, Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, now in his 67th year, the successor to the throne as King Charles X of France and Navarre. In his first act as king, Charles attempted to unify the House of Bourbon by granting the style of Royal Highness to his cousins of the House of Orléans, who had been deprived of this style by Louis XVIII because of the former Duke of Orléans’ role in the death of Louis XVI.

Charles X, King of France and Navarre.

The almost six year reign of King Charles X proved to be deeply unpopular from the moment of his coronation in 1825, in which he tried to revive the practice of the royal touch. The governments appointed under his reign reimbursed former landowners for the abolition of feudalism at the expense of bondholders, increased the power of the Catholic Church, and reimposed capital punishment for sacrilege, leading to conflict with the liberal-majority Chamber of Deputies. Charles X also initiated the French conquest of Algeria as a way to distract his citizens from domestic problems. He eventually appointed a conservative government under the premiership of Prince Jules de Polignac, who was defeated in the 1830 French legislative election. He responded with the July Ordinances disbanding the Chamber of Deputies, limiting franchise, and reimposing press censorship. Within a week France faced urban riots.

Masses of angry demonstrators demanded the abdication of Charles X and of his descendants. They sent a delegation to the Tuileries Palace to force his compliance. Charles X reluctantly signed the document of abdication on August 2, 1830. The next in line to inherit the throne was Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême (August 6, 1775 – June 3, 1844) the elder son of Charles X of France and the last Dauphin of France from 1824 to 1830. Louis Antoine was equally reluctant to sign the Instrument of Abdication.

It is said that Louis Antoine spent this time listening to the entreaties of his wife not to sign, while the former Charles X sat weeping. After 20 minutes, he also abdicated for himself in favour of his 10 year old nephew, Prince Henri, the Duke of Bordeaux. Louis-Antoine was technically King of France and Navarre for 20 minutes before he himself abdicated. After the death of Charles X in 1836, he was the legitimist pretender as Louis XIX.

Within days the legitimate king, Prince Henri, the Duke of Bordeaux (King Henri V of France and Navarre to the Legitimists) was supplanted by Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orléans, a scion of the House of Orléans.

The Rise of Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orléans as King of the French.

The 4th House of Orléans, sometimes called the House of Bourbon-Orléans to distinguish it from several branches of the Royal House of France that held that name. They were all descended in the legitimate male line from the dynasty’s founder, Hugh Capet. The incarnation of the 4th House of Orléans was founded by Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger son of Louis XIII and younger brother of Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” (1648-1715).

Louis Philippe III (October 6, 1773 – August 26, 1850) was born in the Palais Royal, the residence of the Orléans family in Paris, to Louis Philippe II, 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 was descended from Louis XIV of France through a legitimized line.

To explain the rise of Louis Philippe (III), Duke d’Orléans, to the French throne, I would like to briefly examine the fall from grace of the House of Bourbon and it begins with the fall of his father, Louis Philippe II d’Orléans.

Louis Philippe, King of the French

Louis Philippe II d’Orléans (13 April 1747 – 6 November 1793), most commonly known as Philippe, was born at the Château de Saint-Cloud. He was the son of Louis Philippe I Duke d’Orléans, Duke of Chartres, and Louise Henriette de Bourbon. Philippe was a member of the House of Orléans, a cadet branch of the French royal family. His mother came from the House of Bourbon-Condé. He inherited the title of Duke of Orléans at the death of his father, Louis Philippe I d’Orléans, in 1785 and also became the Premier prince du sang, title attributed to the Prince of the Blood closest to the throne after the Sons and Grandsons of France. He was addressed as Son Altesse Sérénissime (S.A.S.).

In 1792, during the French Revolution, he changed his name to Philippe Égalité. Louis Philippe II d’Orléans was a cousin of Louis XVI and one of the wealthiest men in France. He actively supported the Revolution of 1789, and was a strong advocate for the elimination of the present absolute monarchy in favor of a constitutional monarchy. He voted for the death of king Louis XVI; however, he was himself guillotined in November 1793 during the Reign of Terror. After his death, the term Orléanist came to be attached to the movement in France that favored a constitutional monarchy.

After the abdication of Napoleon, Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orléans, returned to France during the reign of his cousin Louis XVIII, at the time of the Bourbon Restoration. Louis Philippe III 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 the liberal opposition.

Louis Philippe III was on far friendlier terms with Louis XVIII’s brother and successor Charles X and with whom he socialized. However, his opposition to the policies of 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 son Louis Antoine who in turn abdicated his right to his 10-year-old nephew, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, and, naming Louis Philippe III Lieutenant général du royaume, charged him to announce to the popularly elected Chamber of Deputies his desire to have his grandson succeed him.

Louis Philippe III did not announce to the Chamber of Deputies that Prince Henri, the Duke of Bordeaux was now king. His refusal to do so was motivated to increase his own chances of succession. As a consequence, because the chamber was aware of Louis Philippe’s liberal policies and of his popularity with the masses, they proclaimed him King Louis Philippe I. Despite having been acting as the regent for his young cousin, as the new French king, his proclamation was a usurpation displacing the senior branch of the House of Bourbon.

Louis Philippe, King of the French

Charles X and his family, including his grandson, went into exile in Britain. The young ex-king, the Duke of Bordeaux, who, in exile, took the title of comte de Chambord, later became the pretender to the throne of France and was supported by the Legitimists.

Upon his accession to the throne, Louis Philippe assumed the title of King of the French – a title already 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 August 13, 1830, 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 only be styled Princesses of Orléans, not of France.

His ascension to the title of King of the French was seen as a betrayal by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and it ended their friendship.