A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Orleans, Marie d'
ORLEANS, MARIE D',
Was the third daughter of Louis Philippe, the King of the French. Her genius was the pride of her family, and her early death was a sore affliction, for she possessed great loveliness of character, and her piety and intelligence made her truly beloved and respected. Early manifesting artistic talent, and having made good proficiency in drawing and painting, she essayed her powers as a sculptor. Several of her productions in marble won the critical commendation of the best judges, not over-willing to concede this laurel to a woman, even though a king's daughter. She finally determined to attempt a work which would be associated with the most wonderful epoch of French history, and one of the most noble heroines the world has ever produced. This was the figure of Joan of Arc, completed in 1836, which places the artist at the head of the French sculptors. It may very confidently be predicted that, in future years, when the political agitations and mutations in the Orleans family will occupy an unregarded page of general history, when the Ulyssean craft of the father and the "regal alliance" of the sons will be of no interest to mankind, then the immortal fruits of the genius of this unassuming young woman will cast a lustre over the name of Orleans.
In the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, amidst the disgusting barbarities, the perfidious warfare, the licentiousness, that form the annals of that most disgraceful period of French history, what name is it that we turn to with interest, what figure do we contemplate with some congeniality? Not the brute warriors, nor manœuvring statesmen, but the poet, Charles d'Orleans, whose verses, from their national spirit, paved the way to the deliverance and regeneration afterwards effected by the maiden of Domremy.