E-text prepared by D. Alexander
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from digital material generously made available by
Internet Archive
(http://www.archive.org/)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/louisphilippe00abboiala |
Makers of History
Louis Philippe
BY
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1904
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Copyright, 1899, by Susan Abbott Mead.
LOUIS PHILIPPE AT THE HÔTEL DE VILLE.PREFACE.
It would be difficult to find, in all the range of the past, a manwhose career has been so full of wonderful and exciting vicissitudeas that of Louis Philippe. His life covers the most eventful periodin French history. The storms of 1789 consigned his father to theguillotine, his mother and brothers to imprisonment, and himself andsister to poverty and exile. There are few romances more replete withpensive interest than the wanderings of Louis Philippe to escape thebloodhounds of the Revolution far away amidst the ices of NorthernEurope, to the huts of the Laplanders, and again through the almostunbroken wilds of North America, taking refuge in the wigwams of theIndians, and floating with his two brothers in a boat a distance ofnearly two thousand miles through the solemn solitudes of the Ohioand the Mississippi from Pittsburg to the Gulf.
Again we see the duke, on the recovery of a large portion of hisestates, enjoying the elegant retreat at Twickenham, fêted by thenobility of England, and caressed by the aristocracy of Europe.
Again the kaleidoscope of changeful life is turned. The Empire falls.The Bourbons are restored. Louis Philippe returns to the palaces ofhis fathers. In rank, he takes his stand next to the throne. Inwealth, he is the richest subject in Europe. At one moment he iscaressed by Royalty, hoping to win his support, and again he ispersecuted by Royalty, fearing his influence.
There is another change. The throne of the Bourbons is overthrown.Louis Philippe finds himself, as by magic, King of the French. Heexchanges his ducal coronet for a royal crown. He enters the regalmansions of the Tuileries, Versailles, Saint Clo