1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Joinville, François Ferdinand Philippe Louis Marie, Prince de

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 15
Joinville, François Ferdinand Philippe Louis Marie, Prince de
21744251911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 15 — Joinville, François Ferdinand Philippe Louis Marie, Prince de

JOINVILLE, FRANÇOIS FERDINAND PHILIPPE LOUIS MARIE, Prince de (1818–1900), third son of Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans, afterwards king of the French, was born at Neuilly on the 14th of August 1818. He was educated for the navy, and became lieutenant in 1836. His first conspicuous service was at the bombardment of San Juan de Ulloa, in November 1838, when he headed a landing party and took the Mexican general Arista prisoner with his own hand at Vera Cruz. He was promoted captain, and in 1840 was entrusted with the charge of bringing the remains of Napoleon from St Helena to France. In 1844 he conducted naval operations on the coast of Morocco, bombarding Tangier and occupying Mogador, and was recompensed with the grade of vice-admiral. In the following year he published in the Revue des deux mondes an article on the deficiencies of the French navy which attracted considerable attention, and by his hostility to the Guizot ministry, as well as by an affectation of ill-will towards Great Britain, he gained considerable popularity. The revolution of 1848 nevertheless swept him away with the other Orleans princes. He hastened to quit Algeria, where he was then serving, and took refuge at Claremont, in Surrey, with the rest of his family. In 1861, upon the breaking out of the American Civil War, he proceeded to Washington, and placed the services of his son and two of his nephews at the disposal of the United States government. Otherwise, he was little heard of until the overthrow of the Empire in 1870, when he re-entered France, only to be promptly expelled by the government of national defence. Returning incognito, he joined the army of General d’Aurelle de Paladines, under the assumed name of Colonel Lutherod, fought bravely before Orleans, and afterwards, divulging his identity, formally sought permission to serve. Gambretta, however, arrested him and sent him back to England. In the National Assembly, elected in February 1871, the prince was returned by two departments and elected to sit for the Haute Marne, but, by an arrangement with Thiers, did not take his seat until the latter had been chosen president of the provincial republic. His deafness prevented him from making any figure in the assembly, and he resigned his seat in 1876. In 1886 the provisions of the law against pretenders to the throne deprived him of his rank as vice-admiral, but he continued to live in France, and died in Paris on the 16th of June 1900. He had married in 1843 the princess Francisca, sister of Pedro II., emperor of Brazil, and had a son, the duc de Penthièvre (born in 1845), also brought up to the navy, and a daughter Françoise (1844–) who married the duc de Chartres in 1863.

The prince de Joinville was the author of several essays and pamphlets on naval affairs and other matters of public interest, which were originally published for the most part either unsigned or pseudonymously, and subsequently republished under his own name after the fall of the Empire. They include Essais sur la marine française (1853); Études sur la marine (1859 and 1870); La Guerre d’Amérique, campagne du Potomac (1862 and 1872); Encore un mot sur Sadowa (Brussels, 1868); and Vieux souvenirs (1894).