1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orleans, Ferdinand Philip Louis Charles Henry, Duke of
ORLEANS, FERDINAND PHILIP LOUIS CHARLES HENRY, Duke of (1810–1842), born at Palermo on the 3rd of September 1810, was the son of Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, afterwards king of France, and Marie Amélie, princess of the Two Sicilies. Under the Restoration he bore the title of duke of Chartres, and studied classics in Paris at the Collège Henri IV. At the outbreak of the Revolution, which in 1830 set his father on the throne, he was colonel of a regiment of Hussars. He then assumed the title of duke of Orleans, and was sent by the king to Lyons to put down the formidable riots which had broken out there (1831), and then to the siege of Antwerp (1832). He was appointed lieutenant-general, and made several campaigns in Algeria (1835, 1830, 1840). On his return to France he organized the battalions of light infantry known as the chasseurs d’Orléans. He died as the result of a carriage accident at Neuilly, near Paris, on the 13th of July 1842.
The duke of Orleans had married (May 30, 1837) Helène Louise Elisabeth of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and had by her two sons, the count of Paris and the duke of Chartres. On the 24th of February 1848, after the abdication of Louis Philippe, the duchess of Orleans went to the Chamber of Deputies assembled in the Palais Bourbon in the hope of having her eldest son proclaimed and of obtaining the regency; but the threatening attitude of the populace forced her to flee. She took refuge in England, and died at Richmond on the 18th of May 1858. (M. P.*)