chief afterwards Earl Roberts, and joined his regiment at Chakrata. After seeing service, the duke ceased his connexion with the Indian army in February 1889, and returned to England. On attaining his majority, he entered Paris (February 7, 1890), and proceeding to the mairie, expressed his desire, as a Frenchman, to perform his military service. This act caused great excitement, and he was arrested in conformity with the law of 1886, which forbade the soil of France to the direct heirs of the families which had reigned there. He was tried, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment; but he was liberated by President Garnot after a few months’ nominal incarceration (June 4), and conducted to the Swiss frontier. This escapade won for him the title of “Le Premier Conscrit de France.” After the comte de Paris’s funeral (September 12, 1894) the duke received his adherents in London, and then removed to Brussels, as being nearer France. On the 5th of November 1896 the duke married the archduchess Maria Dorothea Amalia of Austria, the ceremony taking place at Vienna. It was alleged that some of his followers were implicated in the conspiracies against the French Republic in 1899. A letter which the duke wrote in 1900, approving the artist whose caricatures were grossly insulting to Queen Victoria, excited great indignation both in England and in many French circles, and estranged him from many with whom he had formerly been upon friendly terms; but after Queen Victoria’s death it was allowed to become known that this affair had been forgotten and forgiven by the British royal family. The duke of Orleans made several long exploring journeys, being particularly interested in polar discoveries. In 1905 he published Une croisière au Spitzberg, and, later, another account of his travels, under the title A traverse la Banquise.
ORLEANS, PHILIP I., Duke of (1640–1701), son of the French king Louis XIII., was born at St Germain-en-Laye on the 21st of September 1640. In 1661 he was created duke of Orleans, and married Henrietta, sister of Charles II. of England; but the marriage was not a happy one, and the death of the duchess in 1670 was attributed to poison. Subsequently he married Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Louis, elector palatine of the Rhine. Having fought with distinction in Flanders in 1667, Monsieur, as Orleans was generally called, returned to
military life in 1672, and in 1677 gained a great victory at Cassel and took St Omer. Louis XIV., it was said, was jealous of his brother’s success; at all events Orleans never commanded an
army again. He died at St Cloud on the 8th of June 1701,
leaving a son, Philip, the regent Orleans, and two daughters:
Anne Marie (1669–1728), wife of Victor Amadeus II., duke
of Savoy; and Elizabeth Charlotte (1676–1744), wife of Leopold,
duke of Lorraine. His eldest daughter, Marie Louise
(1662–1689), wife of Charles II. of Spain, died before her father. (M. P.*)
ORLEANS, PHILIP II., Duke of (1674–1723), regent of France, son of Philip I., duke of Orleans, and his second wife, the
princess palatine, was born on the 2nd of August 1674, and had
his first experience of arms at the siege of Mons in 1691. His
marriage with Mile de Blois, the legitimized daughter of Louis
XIV., won him the favour of the king. He fought with distinction
at Steinkerk, Neerwinden and Namur (1692–1695). During
the next few years, being without employment, he studied
natural science. He was next given a command in Italy (1706)
and in Spain (1707–1708) where he gained some important
successes, but he cherished lofty ambitions and was suspected of
wishing to take the place of Philip V. on the throne of Spain.
Louis XIV. was angry at these pretensions, and for a long time
held him in disfavour. In his will, however, he appointed him
president of the council of regency of the young King Louis XV.
(1715). After the death of the king, the duke of Orleans went to
the parlement, had the will annulled, and himself invested with
absolute power. At first he made a good use of this, counselling
economy, decreasing taxation, disbanding 25,000 soldiers and
restoring liberty to the persecuted Jansenists. But the inquisitorial
measures which he had begun against the financiers led to
disturbances. He was, moreover, weak enough to countenance
the risky operations of the banker John Law (1717), whose
bankruptcy led to such a disastrous crisis in the public and
private affairs of France.
There existed a party of malcontents who wished to transfer the regency from Orleans to Philip V., king of Spain. A conspiracy was formed, under the inspiration of Cardinal Alberoni, first minister of Spain, and directed by the prince of Cellamare, Spanish ambassador in France, with the complicity of the duke and duchess of Maine; but in 1718 it was discovered and defeated. Dubois, formerly tutor to the duke of Orleans, and now his all-powerful minister, caused war to be declared against Spain, with the support of the emperor, and of England and Holland (Quadruple Alliance). After some successes of the French marshal, the duke of Berwick, in Spain, and of the imperial troops in Sicily, Philip V. made peace with the regent (1720).
On the majority of the king, which was declared on the 15th of February 1723, the duke of Orleans resigned the supreme power; but he became first minister to the king, and remained in office till his death on the 23rd of December 1723. The regent had great qualities, both brilliant and solid, which were unfortunately spoilt by an excessive taste for pleasure. His dissolute manners found only too many imitators, and the regency was one of the most corrupt periods in French history.
See J. B. H. R. Capefigue, Histoire de Philippe d’Orleans, regent de France (2 vols., Paris, 1838); A. Baudrillart, Philippe V. et la cour de France, vol. ii. (Paris, 1890); and L. Wiesener, Le regent, l’abbé Dubois et les Anglais (3 vols., Paris, 1891–1899). (M. P.*)
ORLEANS, a city of north central France, chief town of the department of Loiret, on the right bank of the Loire, 77 m. S.S.W. of Paris by rail. Pop. (1906), town, 57,544; commune, 68,614. At Les Aubrais, a mile to the north, is one of the chief railway junctions in the country. Besides the Paris and Orleans railway, which there divides into two main lines—a western to
Nantes and Bordeaux via Tours, and a southern to Bourges and Toulouse via Vierzon—branches leave Les Aubrais eastwards for Pithiviers, Châlons-sur-Marne and Gien, north-west for
Chateaudun and Rouen. The whole town of Orleans is clustered
together on the right bank of the river and surrounded by fine
boulevards, beyond which it sends out suburbs along the various
roads. It is connected with the suburb of St Marceau on the
left bank by a handsome stone bridge of nine arches, erected in the
18th century. Farther up is the railway bridge. The river is
canalized on the right, and serves as a continuation of the
Orleans Canal, which unites the Loire with the Seine by the
canal of the Loing.
Owing to its position on the northernmost point of the Loire Orleans has long been the centre of communication between the Loire basin and Paris. The chief interest of the place lies in its public buildings and the historical events of which it has been the scene. Proceeding from the railway station to the bridge over the Loire, the visitor crosses Orleans from north to south and passes through the Place du Martroi, the heart of the city. In the middle of the square stands an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, in bronze, resting on a granite pedestal surrounded by bas-reliefs representing the leading episodes in her life. In 1855 it took the place of an older statue executed in the beginning of the century, which was then transferred to the left bank of the Loire at the end of the bridge, a few paces from the spot where a simple cross marks the site of the Fort des Tourelles captured by Joan of Arc in 1429. From the Place du Martroi, the Rue Jeanne d’Arc leads to the cathedral of Ste Croix. This church, begun in 1287, was burned by the Huguenots in 1567 before its completion. Henry IV., in 1601, laid the first stone of the new structure, the building of which continued until 1829. It consists of a vestibule, a nave with double aisles, a corresponding choir, a transept and an apse. Its length is 472 ft., its width at the transept 220 ft. and the height of the central vaults 112 ft. The west front has two flat-topped towers, each of three storeys, of which the first is square, the second octagonal and the third cylindrical. The whole front is Gothic, but was designed and constructed in the 18th century and exhibits all the defects of the period, though its
