Prince Of The Blood: The Betrayal Of Equality

“I grant you that the sans culottes,

 Who please themselves by cutting throats,

 Might well expect, if times should alter,

 To be rewarded with a halter;

 But they who loved the Constitution

Prepared the second Revolution;

’Twas they who led their hapless nation

Out of the road of her salvation,

To follow that fantastic scheme,

The rights of man; a boyish dream

Where words of vague, ambiguous sense 

Conduct to bloodiest consequence.

They pulled unhappy Louis down,

Then mock’d him with a paper crown

 Which any breath might blow away

 And leave him bare. In short, ’twas they

 Who, with a rage perverse and blind,

 Would fain have ruined all mankind.” - Gouverneur Morris1

Foreword:

Revolutions sit within the historical record as some of the most profound catalysts of sociological change. Often, these events are characterized by displays of nobility, intellect, and honor. Other times, they take on a more sinister character entirely. France's Revolution was no exception. In light of recent domestic events, examples of historic betrayal have been ever present within the author's mind. The focus of this essay will be one of history's deepest acts of betrayal. More specifically, we will examine the First Prince of the Blood, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, his role in initiating the French Revolution, and the fickle fortunes of fate. By analyzing this infamous act of betrayal, this essay aims to extract enduring insights about the political, social, and personal consequences of treachery during revolutionary days. 

The French Revolution was unquestionably one of the most important events in recorded history. An old world was killed, truly, by force; and a new one would be reconstituted, through blood and fire, from what remained. Over the course of this world-changing event, a plethora of eccentric characters have come down to us within the historical record. Our man, however, is known to a much lesser extent by the public than by scholars and historians. Americans, for whom the author primarily writes, are particularly unlikely to have heard this tale. Yet it is one that the author believes has preserved many eternal lessons. Ours is a tale of envy and betrayal; of faux goodwill, and of mean revenge.

What follows will be a deeply American interpretation of events:

I. The Duke 

II. The King 

III. La Révolution 

IV. The Flight 

V. The Spark 

VI. The Fall 

Meditations 

Ⅰ

The Duke

“Those who contend against a foe

 Of great resources strive to sow

 Dissension in his state; make friends,

 Who may contribute to their ends;

 And, easier conquests to obtain,

 Adopt the rule—divide and reign”  - Gouverneur Morris1

The French Revolution has come to be characterized by its radical violence and extremist acts. The spirit of the age was that of egalitarian liberalism, but the ancient institutions of France had failed to adapt to the new political realities within their kingdom. Louis Philippe II, despite his best efforts, was no exception to this rule. His actions during the French Revolution were as bewildering as they were to prove catastrophically destructive. To understand who Louis Philippe II was as a man, and why his actions played such a pivotal role during France’s revolution, we must first place him within the broader context of the time. Louis Philippe II was King Louis XVI’s first cousin. By 1785, not only did he hold the title Duke of Orléans, but he was also head of the House of Orléans and the Premier Prince du Sang — the First Prince of the Blood. This meant that if anything should happen to France’s King, Louis XVI, Louis Philippe II would be in line for the throne behind only the King's immediate family. Naturally, Louis Philippe II was one of the most powerful and wealthy individuals in the entire kingdom of France. This relationship is crucial to understand as we describe the proceeding events.

The Duke had gone to great lengths to cultivate his image as a “noble on the side of the people.” Whether these gestures were sincere remains a point of contention. What we do know is that he was a champion of the liberal values of the day, supporting not only tax reform but also voting by head instead of by estate, the cause over which the Third Estate would become so incensed. Additionally, in 1784, he had opened his Palais-Royal, one of the grandest buildings within Paris, to the public, opening cafés, maintaining gardens, and, most consequentially, enabling it to serve as a hub for political thought. Here, people openly debated politics, while stalls with speakers and pamphlets populated its spaces. Later, during the Revolution, this vast public space quickly became a central hub for many of France's most dangerous revolutionaries. Jacobins would freely meet within the palace grounds. Elite clubs, like the Society of 1789, were happy to share the space, though the Jacobins despised them. As Schama describes the palace:

Cafés of every kind flourished, from the staid Foy to the risqué Grotte Flamande. One could visit wigmakers and lace makers; sip lemonade from the stalls; play chess or checkers at the Café Chartres; listen to a strolling guitar-playing abbé (presumably defrocked) who specialized in bawdy songs; peruse the political satires (often vicious) written and distributed by a team of hacks working for the duke (136).2

The Duke also wielded immense power. As one of the wealthiest men in France, he employed his vast resources like a needle, always maintaining plausible deniability through obfuscation and subversion. He became famous for distributing money to crowds, supporting writers, journalists, and other propagandists; paid retainers and political organizers were even “rumored” to be on his payroll.3 As France was descending into crisis, with food shortages and disorder rapidly spreading, the public flocked to him. But the Duke did none of these things in the spirit of charity or out of the kindness of his heart. He was effectively “buying” the public, positioning himself, many believed, to be a replacement for his cousin as France’s new constitutional monarch. As we will continue to see, these accusations were far from baseless.

The motivations behind the Duke's actions become even clearer when we analyze his personal relationship with his cousin, the King, and the King's family. Tension within France's House of Bourbon, of which the House of Orléans was a cadet branch, had long been strained. The Duke would routinely challenge royal authority, sometimes subtly and at other times in quite overt displays. As early as the 1770s, he had taken the side of the Parlements, elite judicial councils, which had resisted reforms unilaterally imposed by the Crown. This open challenge to the King's authority already put him directly at odds with not only his own family, but also much of the monarchy as an institution, and thus the nobility of France. As early as 1787, before the initiation of the Revolution, the Duke was already openly advocating for a British-style constitutional monarchy, as opposed to the French-style absolute monarchy.

In 1787, the King convened his Assembly of Notables, an elite council, to resolve France's economic crisis in an effort to avoid calling the Estates General into session. This council consisted of 144 handpicked nobles, clergy, and magistrates; Louis Philippe II was one of those members. King Louis XVI was attempting to bypass established French law to force his tax reforms through, since the Parlement of Paris refused to register them. It is here that the first explosive clash between the King and the Duke would take place. On November 19, 1787, Louis ordered the registration of loans that were being discussed, even though they lacked the Parlement of Paris’s approval. Though the original exchange was likely phrased in far more formal and legalistic French, this is how the following events unfolded. Expressing strong criticism of the proceeding, the Duke reportedly shot up and declared to the King:

“C’est illégal.” (“This is illegal.”)

He argued that the King was violating the laws of the Kingdom by attempting to ram his tax reforms through without approval from the Parlement or the Estates General. The King, astounded, is reported to have replied:

“C’est légal parce que je le veux.” (“It is legal because I wish it.”)4

A high prince of royal blood had publicly challenged the legality of the King's actions and had done so in front of the highest court in France. This was simply unprecedented. Immediately, the King issued a lettre de cachet, which was essentially a broad royal warrant authorizing imprisonment or exile of an individual without formal trial. The very next day, the Duke was forced into comfortable exile at his countryside estate, the Villers-Cotterêts. However, the King was no man of mean spirit or petty revenge. By April 1788, he had forgiven the bold Duke and allowed him to return. This gesture of goodwill and loyalty would not be repaid in kind.

Ⅱ

The King

“An easy task it is to blame.

 And when a general’s measures fail,

 The world is privileged to rail;

 But would you, whilst men wound and curse you,

 Present them naught but Christian mercy?

 Mildness to those abandoned wretches!

 The men of Paris without breeches,

 With due submission to your meekness.” - Gouverneur Morris1

In 1789, King Louis XVI accidentally changed the world. That spring, after more than 150 years, he opened his Estates General. France was facing an economic crisis. It had still not fully recovered from its catastrophic loss in the Seven Years’ War and was further indebted when the King authorized France's intervention into the American Revolutionary War. Though that intervention saved America's cause, inflicting a major defeat upon the British Empire while founding a new nation, it simultaneously damned the King and the French monarchy that had stood for nearly 1,400 years. King Louis XVI, however, was no unhinged tyrant. Far from it, in fact. Yet French law stood in the way of his attempted reforms. Before a tax could be collected, it had to be legally registered by regional high courts called the Parlements. When the King tried to bypass the Estates General and force a tax on land, the Parlements refused, asserting that only the Estates General had the authority to approve new taxation. Thus, forced into a corner, and in a pattern that will soon become familiar, he relented. On May 5, the Estates General formally convened. The King’s aim from this meeting was to work with the three estates of his kingdom: the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commoners to find a solution that might avert France's impending fiscal crisis. By 1789, roughly 50% of France's entire national budget was flowing towards interest payments on this debt.5 The situation had become untenable, and the crisis had grown too large to contain. Critically, during the months preceding this meeting, Louis Philippe II was elected as a member of the Second Estate, the body which represented the nobility.

Traditionally, the body's votes would be counted by “estate.” In other words, each of the three estates would get one vote on all matters of importance. This arrangement satisfied the King, as it heavily favored the Clergy and Nobility, who usually outvoted the commoners. The Duke of Orléans found himself in the spotlight of these unfolding events when he entered the hall on the first day of the Estates General. Though King Louis XVI himself was met with warm applause, the crowd remained largely silent as the hated Queen Marie Antoinette was seen, and once more cheered with enthusiasm when they saw the Duke of Orléans. In the words of Gouverneur Morris — the American Founding Father who penned the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, later a diplomat, and a witness present at Versailles on May 5, 1789: 

“When M. Necker comes in he is loudly and repeatedly clapped and so is the Duke of Orléans.”6

At this early stage, the Duke of Orléans was extremely popular with the people. However, the dissatisfaction with this arrangement by the Third Estate was palpable. Consisting of roughly ~97% of France's population, it was only granted a singular vote. The King offered to double their representation, increasing their deputies from the traditional roughly 300 to 600, and promised meetings of the Estates General at regular intervals. But here, the King stopped. He insisted that the Estates would still vote “by order,” and that each would retain their traditional singular vote. But the spirit of the age had changed. It was 1614, the last time the Estates General convened, no longer. Confronted with the systemic theft of any true say in matters, the Third Estate instead withdrew from the Estates General. This was now truly uncharted territory. Thus, on June 17, 1789, the Third Estate declared itself France's new National Assembly. King Louis XVI and the French Monarchy were now sitting on a tremendous powder keg. It is in these opening days that Louis Philippe II begins to alter the very course of history, damning not only France, but himself, to the unwavering retribution of fate.

This was the step that pushed France from the Precipice. The National Assembly had just claimed that the true source of political authority came from the Nation, not the King nor the Monarchy as an institution. This spelled profound change; at this stage, Kings had ruled in France since shortly after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. French society was still very much structured around monarchical feudalism, as it was in the Middle Ages. Europe had never seen such an open declaration against the authority of Kings from one of its great powers. Though Charles I of England had been deposed and executed during the English Civil War a century and a half earlier, that conflict was much less about the institution of the monarchy itself than it was about the King’s frankly humorous obstinacy in the face of innumerable opportunities for compromise. At his own trial, the presiding judges, many parliamentary commissioners, and army leaders still wished to avoid executing him. They meant to force him to enter a plea to establish the legitimacy of the court and force the King into compromise, regardless of whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. But King Charles I, in a famous act of defiance, instead stated:

I would know by what authority, I mean lawful; there are many unlawful authorities in the world—thieves and robbers by the highways—but I would know by what authority I was carried from place to place, and I know not what.7

Then he simply refused to enter a plea at all. From there, history bears the events that would soon follow. His son, King Charles II, was even invited back by Parliament, and sat on the English throne within just 11 years. As will rapidly become clear, what was happening within France starting in 1789 was of a very different character than what had happened in England in the century before.

Populist Nationalism began to proliferate through French society at an ever-increasing rate. On June 20, the Assembly arrived at their usual meeting hall in Versailles and were infuriated to find the doors barred. The hall, they were told, was being refurbished in preparation for a royal session. To many of the deputies, this was a clear sign that King Louis XVI meant to dissolve the Assembly by force.8 Undeterred, the deputies squeezed into a nearby indoor tennis court, and on that fateful day, led by Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, they swore an oath not to separate until France had a constitution.8 In a matter of three days, the Third Estate had essentially gone from a symbolic body existing only by the explicit permission of the King to a national body aimed at nullifying the power of the Monarchy and claiming constitutional authority. Naturally, this “Tennis Court Oath” would become a foundational legend of the Revolution.

Three days later, on June 23, King Louis XVI held a formal royal session at Versailles. Ceremonies, armed guards, members of the aristocracy, and all symbols of royal authority surrounded him. In this session, he would annul the formation of the National Assembly and issue his “Declaration of the Intentions of the King, 23 June 1789”:

The King wishes that the ancient distinction of the three orders of the state be preserved in its entirety, as essentially linked to the constitution of his Kingdom; that the deputies, freely elected by each of the three orders, forming three chambers, deliberating by order, and being able, with the approval of the sovereign, to agree to deliberate in common, can alone be considered as forming the body of the representatives of the nation. As a result, the King has declared null the resolutions passed by the deputies of the order of the Third Estate, the 17th of this month, as well as those which have followed them as illegal and unconstitutional.

Further, the declaration continued:

No new tax shall be established, no old one shall be continued beyond the term fixed by the laws, without the consent of the representatives of the nation. [...] As the borrowing of money might lead to an increase of taxes, no money shall be borrowed without the consent of the Estates-General, under the condition, however, that in case of war, or other national danger, the sovereign shall have the right to borrow without delay, to the amount of one hundred millions [livres]: for it is the formal intention of the King never to make the safety of his realm dependent upon any person.

Continuing, he outlined his intended reforms:

When the formal dispositions announced by the clergy and the nobility, to renounce their pecuniary privileges, shall have become a reality by their deliberations, it is the intention of the King to sanction them, and there will no longer exist any kind of privileges or distinctions in the payment of taxes.

The King wishes that to consecrate a disposition so important, the name of taille be abolished in the Kingdom, and that this tax be joined either to the vingtièmes, or to any other land tax, or finally that it be replaced in some way, but always in just and equal proportions and without distinction of estate, rank and birth.

The King then spoke to the representatives of his flock directly:

The King, desiring to assure the personal liberty of all citizens in the most solid and durable manner, invites the Estates-General to seek for and to propose to him the means that may be the most fitting to conciliate the orders known under the name of lettres de cachet, with the maintenance of public security and with the precautions necessary in some cases to guard the honor of families, to repress with celerity the beginning of sedition or to guarantee the state from the effects of criminal negotiations with foreign powers.

The Estates-General shall examine and make known to His Majesty, the means most fitting to reconcile the liberty of the press with respect due to religion, custom, and the honor of the citizens.

And ending, in all his regal majesty, with:

Alone I will assure the well-being of my people, alone I will consider myself as their true representative; and knowing your cahiers, knowing the perfect accord which exists between the most general wish of the nation and my kindly intentions, I will have all the confidence which so rare a harmony ought to inspire and I will advance towards the goal that I wish to attain with all the courage and firmness that it ought to inspire in me. [...] so I am the natural guarantee of your respective rights, and all the orders of the state can depend upon my equitable impartiality. All distrust upon your part would be a great injustice. It is I, at present, who am doing everything for the happiness of my people, and it is rare, perhaps, that the only ambition of a sovereign is to come to an understanding with his subjects that they may accept his kindnesses.9

Upon the conclusion of this speech, the King formally ended the session and left the hall. His declaration closed with an order to his deputies to leave, and the royal officials still present, including the Master of Ceremonies, reminded the deputies of their duty to obey. According to tradition, they were to obey the order immediately. The nobility and most of the clergy withdrew. Yet the deputies of the Third Estate remained defiantly seated. Under absolutism, overtly disobeying the King's order, particularly in public, was unheard of. At that moment, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, an aristocrat by birth, reportedly stood and exclaimed:

“Go tell your master that we are here by the will of the people and will leave only at the point of bayonets.”8

In effect, the Assembly had declared that royal commands no longer carried unquestioned legitimacy, that political authority was derived from the Nation, and that they, as the nation’s representatives, would be the executors of said authority. This entire dramatic episode was a moment of profound symbolism; as a titanic clash of worlds began to rapidly develop, flashes of France's fate through the 26 years that stood before it began to be seen.

Ⅲ

La Révolution.

“France, in Freedom’s mantle gay,

 Her former state disdains,

 Yet proud her fav’rite Bard t’obey

 Tho’ dead, his spirit reigns.

 The common road to power he trod,

 Cried, “pull all tyrants down”

 And, making of the mob a god,

 Has gained from them a crown.” - Gouverneur Morris10

On the 25th of June, the Rubicon was crossed. That day, a group of 47 liberal nobles, about 15% of the Second Estate, made the fateful decision to join the National Assembly. Chief among them, and by far the man of highest standing, was the Duke of Orléans, Louis Philippe II.3 The day before, a group of the lower clergy had also defected to the National Assembly. Now, for the first real time, the very legitimacy of King Louis XVI had become an open question. On the 23rd, the King's authority was publicly defied; on the 24th, members of his First Estate defected; and on the 25th, members of his Second Estate defected too.11 The old system wasn't being challenged or bent; functionally, this was, to it, a mortal blow. From that moment on, no single man could stop what had been set in motion.

On the 27th, yet again, the King relented. Though still in command of his armed forces, the King, an indecisive and often timid figure, chose to give in an inch. Unfortunately for him, and tens of thousands of others, that inch would soon cost many miles. The National Assembly was ignoring his commands and functioning without him. They were meeting, making decisions, and acting like an actual government. It seemed to many, at this stage, that if the King failed to act, the system would collapse anyway, with or without him. Consequently, on that day, he instructed the remaining deputies of the First and Second Estates to join the Assembly. This marked a profound moment of transition, whether the men involved at the time knew it or not. The King had just legitimized the burgeoning revolution, and in ordering the remaining deputies to join the Assembly, he had effectively admitted he was no longer in control of the political system. Over the course of those dramatic days, political legitimacy transferred from the monarchy to the nation.

On June 30, the first frightful sign of things to come occurred. That day, the Paris mob, using the Duke’s Palais-Royal as their “command center,” sprang into action. It was rumored that 11 soldiers of the Gardes Françaises — the French Guards — an elite royal infantry regiment, had been thrown into the jail at Abbaye prison of Saint-Germain-des-Prés for insubordination after refusing orders to turn their weapons on civilians at Versailles in the weeks before.12 The crowd, acting on the “authority” of the meeting at the Palais-Royal, broke down the doors to the prison and liberated the soldiers. It is critically important to understand that this mob acted on its own authority, without authorization or prior knowledge of the National Assembly. After escorting the soldiers from the prison on the night of June 30, 1789, the disorder was thought to have finally subsided. In an effort to mediate tensions, on July 2, the National Assembly intervened.

At this stage, it was clear that France was bordering on total anarchy. To try and defuse the situation, the National Assembly sent the Archbishop of Paris, Antoine-Éléonor-Léon Leclerc de Juigné, to ask the King to pardon the Guards who had been forcibly liberated from the Abbaye prison.13 The King, with characteristic measure and eloquence, warned that the growing “spirit of license and insubordination” was “destructive of every bond” and that he foresaw it as a mounting danger to both the happiness of the people and the Assembly’s own work.13 At this critical juncture, rather than reinstitute order in Paris through force, the King once again allowed this disorder to go unpunished, choosing to pardon the Guards who had been freed by the mob. The King's orders and authority had yet again been publicly ignored. The King condemned the anarchy and warned of the precedent being set, but did nothing else and, in effect, retreated. The stage was now set for one of the more famous moments from France’s revolution. Two weeks later, the Bastille was stormed, heralding the Revolution's transition from a political crisis into a full-blown social collapse.

             On July 12, 1789, Paris exploded. The day before, King Louis had dismissed his extremely popular Finance Minister, Jacques Necker. Necker was widely seen as a leading advocate for reform within the King’s court. His dismissal, yet again, signaled to many that the King intended to crush the National Assembly by force.14 Though, as we have seen of the King thus far, this was surely not true. On the 12th, on the grounds of the Duke’s Palais-Royal, young lawyer and revolutionary Camille Desmoulins mounted a table outside the Café de Foy. There, a crowd 6,000 strong faced him. Reportedly framing the violence that the mob now saw as inevitable as a new St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, he said, in effect, that the people were about to be crushed by force unless they armed themselves, and began shouting:

“Aux armes! Aux armes!” (“To arms! To arms!”)15

The crowd then set off toward Versailles, presumably with the intent of surrounding the Royal Court. Incredibly, as this mob marched, busts of not only Necker were seen, hoisted above the many frenzied heads, but also the esteemed bust of Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orléans, himself. The Duke, whether he had meant it or not, had officially become a symbol of the Revolution. The chaotic mass would make it as far as the Tuileries before being confronted by elements of Prince Lambesc’s Royal-Allemand cavalry. From here, Desmoulins describes what happened next:

The noise from the tumult reached the camp; the Cravates, the Swiss, the Dragoons, the Royal-Allemand all arrived. Prince Lambesc, leading the regiment of Royal-Allemands, entered the Tuileries on horseback. He personally cut down an unarmed French guardsman with his sword, and knocked over women and children. The crowd became furious, and from that point on, there was but a single cry heard across Paris: ‘To Arms!16

As a result of this incursion by Prince Lambesc, the mob had dispersed by force. The first direct confrontations between the old system and the new were starting to unfold, but as was illustrated plainly, the coming anarchy was not inevitable. At this stage, order could still be reinstated by force.

The atmosphere in Paris the next day, the 13th, was dense. Barriers were being erected, and Paris continued to arm itself. Crowds reportedly stormed into gunsmiths, shops, and armories; poles and axes were seized, and anything that could be used as a weapon was happily furnished to the Revolution.

On the 14th, abstract visions of liberty then descended into unadulterated murder. By this stage, the mob had acquired more than 30,000 muskets, but had to deal with an acute shortage of both ball and powder. To them, the solution was obvious. The Bastille, a fortress that was built in the 14th century, stood as an imposing symbol of royal power in the center of Paris. Historically, it had functioned as a political prison, but by 1789 the fortress was primarily used as an armory, and only a handful of prisoners were actually housed within its walls. But to the crowd, the fortress stood as an infallible symbol of royal tyranny. In seizing it, they meant to adequately equip themselves and to free the many political prisoners they believed were housed inside.

            By this stage, the mob had grown to include not only Parisian citizens, but also elements of local militias and even some soldiers of the Gardes Françaises. Factions of the Royal Army itself were beginning to defect. Through delegates, the mob's demands were presented to the fort's governor, Bernard-René de Launay. The mob demanded that the fort's gunpowder and arms be handed over, that its cannons be spiked or withdrawn completely, and that the fort’s garrison not fire on the people. De Launay, however, refused, arguing he would not surrender the fortress under any circumstances without royal orders. Shooting began shortly after and would carry on throughout the day. Around 5 p.m., de Launay sent out a formal letter dictating that he was open to surrender, but that if the garrison was not permitted to evacuate the fortress unharmed, he would detonate its powder stocks. Immediately, it became clear that the fort’s garrison had no leverage and that none of de Launay’s demands would be met. In recognition of the fort’s dwindling supplies and of the mob’s dismissal of his demands, de Launay elected to surrender. As the gates opened, the mob flooded in. De Launay was seized, beaten, and dragged outside. There, a discussion over poor de Launay's fate commenced. De Launay reportedly shouted, “Enough! Let me die!” and proceeded to assault the nearest member of the mob. De Launay was then savagely murdered, stabbed to death by the implements of the untold hordes around him. Swords, bayonets, and kitchen knives were employed for this heinous cause, and poor de Launay’s head was then cut off and put atop a pike.17 According to Doctor Edward Rigby, an English traveler in Paris that day:

[We] perceived two bloody heads raised on pikes, which were said to be the heads of the Marquis de Launay, Governor of the Bastille, and of Monsieur Flesselles, Prévôt des Marchands. It was a chilling and a horrid sight! ... Shocked and disgusted at this scene, [we] retired immediately from the streets.18

The meetings of the Estates General and all the political drama surrounding it surely acted as the opening chapter of the Revolution. But it was no longer a political revolution. Now it had poured out onto the streets. And though the Duke did not organize or command this attack, the road to the Bastille did not begin out front of that fortress. Indeed, it ran straight to the center of his Palais-Royal.

After the events of July, the Revolution began to accelerate with ferocity. Over the summer and fall of that year, France’s social structure was dramatically altered through revolutionary force. The Great Fear, from July through August, saw panic and mob violence spread throughout rural France; feudal lands were pillaged, feudal records burned, and the countryside began to descend into revolutionary disorder. On August 4, the Assembly abolished feudal privileges, a titanic blow to the Ancien Régime. Later that month, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, influenced, in part, by a certain Thomas Jefferson, was adopted by the National Assembly.

That fall, on the 5th of October, the Women’s March on Versailles took place, where an attempt on Marie Antoinette’s life was made. Though there is no direct evidence linking Orléans to the event, it was widely speculated that he was behind it. The Queen's daughter even pronounced:

the principal project [of the attack] was to assassinate my mother, on whom the Duc d'Orléans wished to avenge himself because of offenses he believed he had received from her (Fraser 295).19

At this stage, the Marquis de La Fayette, who, as commander of the Paris National Guard, had expended much effort attempting to keep the Revolution within rationality’s bounds, believed Orléans and his popular influence were growing dangerous. Reportedly, beginning that month, the mob began hailing the Duke as “our father.” Stunningly, chants of “Our father is with us: Long live King Orléans” were even heard during the Women’s March on Versailles.20 This Bourbon Prince was going mainstream. His image as an alternative to the King was gaining real mass appeal. The Duke himself was growing inseparable from the Revolution.

           Lafayette, whose grip on control was growing precarious, then concluded that Orléans must leave Paris if any semblance of order was to be maintained. He had come to suspect that agents of the Duke were actively funding and encouraging mob agitation; that the instigation of the Women’s March on Versailles was provoked by him; and that he was positioning himself to replace his cousin, the King. Lafayette was rather explicit in his suspicions, confronting the Duke directly and saying:

I have reason to believe that you aspire to the throne. I opposed despotism as much as I could; but now that the power of the monarch will be placed within its just and legitimate limits, I will defend his person and his right to the last drop of my blood. If, then, your designs are what I have reason to believe them to be, one of three things must happen: either my head must be cut off, or yours, or you must leave this country.21

Thus, immediately following October's unrest, Lafayette convinced the Duke to go to Britain on state business. Orléans was reluctant, but Lafayette, wisely, framed the trip as a “mission” of important public service rather than what it really was: political exile. Later that month, the King would formally order the Duke to England on official state business. The Duke was forced into a corner. If he stayed and disregarded the King's orders so flagrantly, he would effectively be admitting he meant to remain in Paris for political and factional reasons. This would all but prove the many accusations leveled in his direction. So, under immense suspicion, the Duke elected to follow the King's commands. In his diary on October 14, Gouverneur Morris writes of this trip:

He tells me that the Duke of Orleans is off for England; he [General Dalrymple] wants to know my opinion as to his journey. I am surprised at this, but conclude that some transactions of his Royal Highness have been discovered which would involve disagreeable consequences, and that the King has desired him to go off by way of avoiding inquiry. It is said that he has gone on business of a public nature, but this, I think, must be an excuse, because no man in France is more personally disagreeable to the King of England [...] Go to the club and inquire a little about the departure of the Duke of Orleans, who certainly is sent by the King in a diplomatic capacity, but there must be some reason not diplomatic.22

Gouverneur Morris’s firsthand accounts become invaluable at this stage. When he writes of the Duke, he speaks as if it is common knowledge within high Parisian society that he is financing the growing discontent. As if his involvement in the spreading chaos is self-evident, Morris writes in his diary on the 17th: “It is affirmed by Madame [de Chastellux], on good authority, that the Duke is stopped.”22 And once more, in an October 17 letter to Lafayette, Morris describes the Duke’s trip as “the retreat of the Duke of Orleans.”22 Further, he adds, “[it] is called by some his flight, and by others his banishment.”22 In England, the Duke would remain until July of the following year. Immediately after the Duke’s diplomatic removal, the chaos and violence in Paris subsided. Though it did not come to a full stop, no more would there be mobs storming palaces or prisons. The reader can draw their own conclusions from this. 

IV

The Flight

“Tis said that kings, with wild ambition fired,

 To pow’rs despotic always have aspired,

 Like untam’d coursers, whose indignant soul

 Spurns at restraint and scorns all weak control.

 Hence British Senators, with patriot skill,

 Have strove to check and curb the monarch’s will;

 But Gallic statesmen take a wiser course,

 And make the bridle stronger than the horse.” - Gouverneur Morris23

Before leaving Paris in 1789, the Duke commanded immense influence. Not only due to his royal title, but on the streets, and especially in politics. By the time the Duke had settled back into the ebbs and flows of Paris in late 1790, his situation had changed dramatically. The Revolution, in nearly every way, had outgrown him. His ambiguity towards the Ancien Régime and the carefully crafted status he created foisted him into the minds of the many people his influence had reached before his departure. But at this stage, he, and the importance of his Palais-Royal was dimming. The National Assembly, Paris Commune, the National Guard, revolutionary clubs, and newspapers of Paris were operating freely. No more did they need his sheltered harbor to scheme upon their designs. In the early days of France’s political troubles, he had become a rallying point for much of the energy oscillating between the people and the nobility. Now the Revolution had become institutional; never again would he prove able to unilaterally sway the tides of politics within Paris as he had before his departure.

Worse yet, in his absence, the National Assembly abolished hereditary and noble titles. He was not returning to France as a triumphant revolutionary prince. Quite the opposite; in fact, he returned as a man whose old rank and status had already been, in many ways, hollowed out. Though Louis Philippe II was no longer the Duke of Orléans, his most astounding change would not occur until months later. On top of all this, unlike the masses he had spent so much energy and resources to influence, members of the government and of Paris’s high society remembered him well, and still viewed him with an aura of suspicion when interacting within these social circles. As Gouverneur Morris notes on multiple occasions in his diary, the Duke of Orléans and his involvement in fomenting France's political crisis were an open secret routinely discussed within Parisian high society:

The Vicomte de Ségur comes in and tells us that the Baron de Besenval has discovered that England gives two millions sterling to make mischief in this country. I dispute the matter, which is, I am sure, impossible. He insists with great warmth that it is true, and thence concludes that the tales circulated to the prejudice of the Duke of Orleans are false. There is a great deal of absurdity in all this, and if he makes such a defence for the Duke everywhere, he will convict him. Madame de Ségur takes me aside at going out, to remark on this, and adds her persuasion that the Duke was the distributor of the money given for these wicked purposes.24

The very government his instigation helped establish was now, in all but action, casting him aside. The Revolution he had worked so hard to ignite had outgrown both his aims and any need for him. As such, the chaos he had let loose was now truly out of his control. This diminishment of influence, power, and status would only continue through 1791.

For Louis Philippe II, 1791 remained rather stagnant, but for the King, it was catastrophic. The King believed his position had grown precarious. At this stage, though still a King by title, he no longer believed he was truly a king in any meaningful sense. King Louis XVI, who began this whole epic chapter as a vocal advocate for, albeit tempered, reform, believed the Revolution had moved far beyond reason. Having been dragged back to Paris with his entire family by the mob, he came to believe he was now nothing more than a political prisoner. Furthermore, a devout Catholic who held his faith in tremendous esteem, he was horrified when the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was presented to him. This law, in short, subordinated the Catholic Church within France to the revolutionary government. The King reached out to the Pope for guidance on his situation, but by this time, there was nothing the Bishop of Rome could do to help King Louis XVI. Under extreme duress he signed it into law.

By June 1791, the King had seen enough. On the night of the 20th, he made the fateful decision to flee Paris with his family, meaning to reach Montmédy, near the eastern frontier on the border of the Austrian Netherlands, where loyal troops under the Marquis de Bouillé could protect him. King Louis XVI then hoped to negotiate with the Assembly from a position of strength to expose that his acceptance of the course the Revolution had taken was coerced. Before his departure, the King left a document called “Louis XVI Declaration of Louis XVI to the French People, on Leaving Paris, June 20, 1791,”25 in an effort to explain his decisions. Unfortunately, this document is far too long to be included in full here, but the author will do his best to distill its primary message:

The June 20 declaration was Louis XVI’s explanation of what he perceived to be his captivity. He claimed that the Revolution had not created liberty, but had transferred power from the Crown to political clubs, committees, mobs, and ideological factions. The King insisted that he had yielded again and again to preserve peace, only to find himself stripped of authority, surrounded by enemies, and reduced to the ceremonial mask of a monarchy already gutted in substance. Varennes was therefore not, in his mind, an act of betrayal against France, but an attempted escape from a revolutionary panopticon built in France’s name. Many times, In the document he speaks directly to his people:

People of France – is that what you intended when you sent your representatives to the National Assembly? Did you wish for the anarchy and despotism of the clubs to replace the monarchical government, under which the nation prospered for 1,400 years? Did you wish to see your king showered with insults, and deprived of his liberty, while his only goal was to establish yours?25 

His thinking and feelings become even clearer once we read the closing paragraphs of the letter: 

From all these reasons, and the impossibility where the King is now to operate the good and to prevent the evil which is committed, is it astonishing that the King sought to recover his freedom and to put himself safe with his family?

[France], and you especially Parisians, you inhabitants of a city that the ancestors of His Majesty liked to call the good city of Paris, beware of the suggestions and lies of your false friends, return to your King, he will always be your father, your best friend. What a pleasure it will be to forget all [his] personal insults, and to meet again in your midst when a Constitution which [he] will have freely accepted will make that our holy religion will be respected, that the government will be established on a stable and useful base [...] and that finally freedom will be posed on firm and unshakable bases.25

Donning disguises, the royal family and their servants loaded into several carriages and set off. Tainted with aristocratic hubris, this trip was doomed from the start. At Sainte-Menehould, the plan unraveled. The King was recognized from his likeness on the money throughout France, and the local postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, knew it was him. Correctly guessing where the procession would pass through next, Drouet hurriedly rode ahead to Varennes to raise the alarm.26 

With the advanced warning having foiled the planned escape, Varennes then became a bottleneck. To reach Montmédy, the procession had to cross a bridge over the Aire River, but the local officials and citizens had mobilized. Erecting barriers preventing the King’s crossing, the King and his family were stopped, brought to the house of a local municipal officer, and, though poorly disguised, immediately identified. This was a catastrophe for the King. Before this trip, though there was much discussion of the King's role in the new France, there was never any real mass appeal in debasing him, or even jailing him, let alone execution. Before this, he was effectively a symbolic constitutional monarch; now he was seen by many as a traitor to his nation. By trying to all but abandon France, in effect, he was decrying the Revolution.

By the time representatives of the National Assembly arrived to take command of the situation, France was finishing its historic transition out of the Middle Ages and into the epoch of the modern world. Bringing with them a massive escort force of 6,000 national guardsmen and citizens, the Assembly’s representatives then began their trip back to Paris. Once more, in an effort to avert confrontation, King Louis XVI had changed more than he could have ever imagined. Traveling in broad daylight, the now truly massive procession took days to reach Paris. On this trip, the King and his family sat in plain view as they passed through the many towns on their route. Though it may not have been the intention, this journey served to publicly degrade the image of the earnest, though fool-hearted, King. But the greatest humiliation was yet to come.

The royal family reached Paris on the 25th of June. Paris was in a state that perhaps had never been seen. The city already knew everything. The press and the political clubs had gone to great lengths to spread the news, and now, even the people were turning upon the King. The crowds had been ordered to silence, enforced by the National Guard; cheering, insults, and general disorder would not be tolerated. As Montgomery accounts:

As they passed through the streets on their way to the Tuileries… There was profound silence. Government placards conspicuously posted [by Lafayette] notified the public as follows: ‘Whoever applauds the king shall be flogged; whoever insults him shall be hanged.27

In near total silence, with their hats firmly remaining on as a defiant sign of disrespect, an immense crowd looked on as the royal family was escorted into the Tuileries palace. Again, we are confronted with a profound moment of symbolism here. The revolutionary government wasn't vying for power or reform any longer. No; now they were illustrating plainly, through their open display of organization, force, and the people's compliance, that it was they who controlled France.

V

The Spark

“And found in arms ’twas better die

 Than to surrender, or to fly.

 Thus Brunswick was oblig’d to fight,

 Both with the party Jacobite

 And with the Feuillantins their foes,

 Who but for him had come to blows

 Before this hour; and thus the nation,

 United by his proclamation,

Displayed at once uncommon force.” -  Gouverneur Morris1

On April 20, 1792, France's Legislative Assembly, created under the Constitution adopted in September 1791, declared war on the Habsburg Austrian Empire, Europe’s greatest continental monarchy. Soon after, the continent's other great German power, Prussia, joined its ally Austria and declared war on France. The Revolution that began on the political level in a tennis court had now drawn some of Europe’s greatest powers into open war. The chaos it had unleashed within the Kingdom of France escaped its borders, and now the stage was set for a conflict that would soon spread across all of Western civilization. On July 25, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, commanding a massive Prussian-Austrian invasion force, issued his “Brunswick Manifesto,” declaring with the confidence of an old soldier:

The city of Paris and all its inhabitants shall be required to submit at once and without delay to the King, to place that Prince in full and complete liberty, and to assure to him… the inviolability and respect which the law of nature and of nations demands of subjects toward sovereigns… If the chateau of the Tuileries is entered by force or attacked, if the least violence be offered to their Majesties, and if their safety and their liberty are not immediately assured, [we] will inflict an ever memorable vengeance by delivering over the city of Paris to military execution and complete destruction, and the rebels guilty of the said outrages to the punishment that they merit.28

Though the intent in issuing this manifesto was to intimidate the radical revolutionary factions that were nearing total control over France and to reassure those untold millions with love still for their king, in doing so, he had just sealed King Louis XVI’s fate. Now two foreign armies were on the very doorstep of France with the stated goal of intervening to annihilate the Revolution and to save the King. For many, especially those closest to power within France, this was all that they needed to see. To them, the King was now a protected ally of foreign armies. Paired with the King’s doomed flight late in the year before, the King was now looked upon as a traitor to his nation. The fear was simple: if Paris harmed Louis, foreign armies would harm Paris. To revolutionaries, this sounded like proof enough that the King and Europe had joined against France. The Revolution reacted with reflexive shock. Soon after, on August 10, almost as if taunting the Prussian Duke, the mob surrounded the Tuileries and laid siege. Protected by a small contingent of Swiss Guards, the King fled, finding refuge with the Legislative Assembly. Here, again, another profound moment of symbolism passed. As a symbol of royal authority, the palace was defended doggedly, but the King was no longer even there! In France, there was no longer a sovereign commander.

Here, for one final time, the King blundered. Fighting began to rage within the palace grounds. The Swiss Guard, though massively outnumbered by the mob, was a fiercely loyal and highly competent fighting force, able to effectively defend the palace. Yet, unbelievably, the King, hearing the sounds of the battle from his refuge in the Legislative Assembly, issued a letter ordering the Guard to lay down their arms and retire to their barracks.29 Even at this late hour, the King still hoped his piety could prevent the escalating bloodshed, horrified by the prospect of Civil War above all else. It is likely he also wanted to save his loyal Swiss Guards as well, though from his hideout, he could have never known the situation on the ground. And it was precisely this uncertainty that turned this episode into such a catastrophic blunder. Elements of the Swiss Guard, having received their commands, began to withdraw in due order; but in the chaos unfolding across the 25 hectares of the palace grounds, not all had received their orders. As a result, the frenzied revolutionary mob overwhelmed the remaining defenders and began a massacre. Abandoned by the collapse of the royal regime, the remnants of the Swiss Guard were slaughtered, with roughly 600 of the 900 men present falling on that day.29 Later that same day, the Legislative Assembly, a body that only existed as a consequence of King Louis’s aversion to confrontation, suspended his royal authority. No longer was there even the illusion of France having a King. The royal family was seized, kept under armed guard, and moved to the medieval fortress-prison known as the Temple. It is here the poor King would remain until meeting his unjust end.

By September, the Revolution had passed from suspicion into savagery. The monarchy had fallen on the 10th of August; the King and his family were prisoners in the Temple; Paris had been seized by frenzied paranoia, horrified by war, invasion, and treason. Thus, the city turned upon the helpless captives of the Revolution, in what has been termed the “September Massacres.” Among these victims was the Princesse de Lamballe, friend and faithful attendant of the Queen, a woman whose only crime was proximity to Marie Antoinette. Dragged before the revolutionary mob at La Force, she was commanded to renounce the King and Queen. She would not, and for this display of loyalty she was butchered, her body mutilated, and her head raised upon a pike and carried through the streets of Paris. The malevolent procession came before the Palais-Royal, in view of the Duke of Orléans. There, it is said, the Duke looked upon the severed head of the murdered princess and calmly remarked:

“Oh, it is Lamballe’s head; I know it by the long hair. Let us sit down to supper.”30

And then he carried on as if nothing was out of order. Orléans had learned to watch the destruction of his own order not with horror or concern, but with detached carelessness. September saw great change in France’s governing bodies as well. On the 21st the National Convention, then took the reins, replacing the Legislative Assembly, and formally abolished the monarchy. That same day, France was proclaimed a republic. 

VI

The Fall

“’Tis something more than hope, and yet ’tis prayer; 

’Tis confidence and resignation too. 

The eye appears, with chastened glance, to view

 On high the throne of everlasting day.

 The silent semblance speaks. It seems to say:

 ‘Vouchsafe, O Father, to accept in me

 The willing victim of thy firm decree;

 Be in my death fulfilled redemption’s plan,

 And these the pledges between God and man.’” - Gouverneur Morris31

The monarchy had officially fallen, and now there was blood in the water. This violence, whose seeds were sown so many years before, was not going to stop at the streets. That much was clear to all. The new Republic now had to make a decision on what to do with its former King. It was here, finally, that the former Duke of Orléans stepped fully into the role history would remember him for. Amid the chaos and quickening occurring within Paris, and with the arrest of his cousin the King, the former Duke of Orléans saw the writing on the wall. In all his vapid ingratiation, Louis Philippe II made the decision to formally change his name. Renouncing the name of Orléans, he instead chose “Philippe Égalité,” or, in English, Philip Equality.

The Revolution itself had adopted the slogan “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” and many viewed his choice of name as nothing more than opportunistic, self-serving pandering.

Yet we have finally arrived at our moment. The fate of King Louis XVI, now simply referred to as Louis Capet (though the author will continue to refer to him by his regal title) was in the air. Factions of the National Convention, more specifically the Montagnards, with their more radical deputies openly associated with the Jacobins, the Paris Commune, and Robespierre, were the leading advocates for execution. Their argument, banal in its simplicity, was that the King was not simply a criminal citizen for trying to collude with foreign armies, but that his continued presence was a threat to the very Republic itself. They believed he could be a dangerous symbol, serving as a rallying point for counterrevolutionaries and royalists. After all, two massive armies had already invaded France in the name of King Louis XVI. Thus, the Montagnards vehemently moved for death, immediate execution, with no appeal to the people. More moderate factions of the Convention, like the Girondins, were not so easily convinced of this course of action. Many of them favored imprisonment, exile, or letting the very people of France decide his fate, rather than submitting to the dictates of obscure radical revolutionaries who had stumbled their way into the highest levels of French power.

Thus, in December of 1792, King Louis XVI’s trial began. Louis was charged with 33 offenses, largely stemming from the discovery of his secret correspondence, the armoire de fer, and evidence of his collusion with foreign powers to save his kingdom from the chaos of real, protracted war. On January 15, 1793, the former King of France, Louis XVI, was found guilty of conspiracy against public liberty and attacks against the security of the state. From January 16–17, debate thus commenced upon the fate of the forsaken King. Amazingly, the former Duke of Orléans, now Philippe Égalité, was himself still involved at the highest levels of French politics as a member of the National Convention. Each deputy present was called by name and had to proclaim his vote publicly. There was no illusion of anonymity; each man who voted for execution put his name beside the King’s mortal life and death.

Still, opinions were dramatically varied. 721 deputies would cast their votes upon the King’s sentence over those fateful days. A bare majority was needed to decide the King’s sentence; 361 deputies was all that was needed to condemn the forlorn King. The results, in an almost unbelievable display of Providence, came down to the very last votes. 360 deputies cast their votes in favor of delayed sentencing or various lesser penalties for their former King. 361 deputies voted for immediate death.32 The King had been condemned to die by one vote…

In an act so alien to the author that he struggles to describe it, Philippe Égalité, Philip Equality, the former Duke of Orléans, voted for the death of his own cousin, the King, stating:

“Solely governed by my duty, convinced that all those who have attacked, or shall attack, the sovereignty of the people deserve death, I vote for death.”32

The King had been condemned to death by one vote. Had Philippe Égalité been noble, loyal, or even politically savvy, the entire course of human history might have been dramatically altered. Instead, in another contemptuous display of self-preservation, he decided to pander to the radicals; the very people Égalité had enabled to destabilize the country were now exponentially more powerful than him. Soon, the monster he had so willingly unleashed would turn on him too.

When King Louis XVI received news of his condemnation, he reacted with characteristic restraint and dignity. As noted by Jean-Baptiste Cléry, Louis XVI’s valet at the Temple prison, in his Mémoires de M. Cléry, valet-de-chambre de Louis XVI, after becoming aware that his own cousin had voted in favor of his death, the King calmly remarked:

“Je ne cherche aucun espoir… mais je suis bien affligé de ce que M. d’Orléans, mon parent, a voté ma mort. Voyez cette liste.”

(“I seek no hope… but I am deeply afflicted that M. d’Orléans, my kinsman, voted for my death. Look at this list.”)33

With his composure absolute, resolute in his infallible innocence, he did not fall to his knees, he did not beg, he did not cry. Instead, he requested three things:

1.      A delay of three days before execution, so he could prepare himself spiritually (The King was a devout Catholic) for death.

2.      Permission to see a priest of his own choosing, the Abbé Edgeworth de Firmont.

3.      Permission to see his family privately.34

For his role in this demented plot, Égalité was to receive the just retribution of a traitor. For obvious reasons, the former Duke was insecure in his own station. He had already changed his name to satiate the mob he, personally, helped to unleash. But this was not enough. The very presence of the royal blood flowing in his veins left him under immense suspicion. Égalité’s decision was undoubtedly made in an effort to save himself. By showing the Revolution he had become a true “equal,” in debasing himself, spitting in the face of God, and damning the very head of his own house's ancient dynasty, he hoped the Revolution would see him as one of them. Truly, this tactic could not have worked further against him.

The Convention had refused the King’s first request; there would be no delay in his execution. They did, however, grant his other two requests. On the dreadfully cold morning of January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI heard Catholic Mass with Abbé Edgeworth de Firmont, receiving the Catholic sacraments. Shortly thereafter, he made his trip through Paris from the Temple to the Place de la Révolution, formerly Place Louis XV.34 The King gracefully climbed the scaffold as a crowd thousands strong watched on. He attempted to give a final speech, stating with astonishing prescience:

“I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge. I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France.”34

Though he had more to say, the National Guard drummers were ordered to beat, drowning out the doomed King’s true final message. The crowd reacted with characteristic fervor, and the meaning of the execution was clear to all. On that January day, Louis, by the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre, fell victim to the Revolution his cousin had worked so hard to bring forth. Égalité had seemingly always aimed to maneuver around King Louis XVI to find a route to the throne; that he ever foresaw where that road might lead is very much in doubt. At this stage, intent was irrelevant anyway; the Revolution was now carrying on through its own momentum.

Égalité’s vote in favor of his cousin’s death would not be rewarded or validated. There was universal moral disgust around the repugnant decision. Even among the deputies of the Montagnards, his vote won him no favor. As Gouverneur Morris notes in his diary:

 “The Duke of Orleans is loaded with universal contempt.”23 

On April 1, the Convention passed a vague, sweeping decree ordering the arrests of those people with “strong presumptions of complicity with the enemies of liberty”; with an impressive lack of self-awareness, Égalité himself voted to pass this decree.35 On the 5th, General Charles-François Dumouriez, along with Égalité’s son Louis-Philippe, Duke of Chartres — who was reportedly horrified to hear of his father’s vote in favor of the King’s execution — saw which way the winds were blowing and defected to Austria. Though Égalité’s son would go on to live a long life, becoming the last King of France — King Louis-Philippe — this defection finally damned the duplicitous Duke.

On April 6, the revolutionary government began to arrest Égalité and the members of his family. Falling under the exact same suspicion that damned his cousin, Égalité was accused of conspiring with foreign powers against the liberty of France. Though there is no evidence Égalité was involved in his son’s flight, the very Revolution Égalité had set in motion was now well beyond the need for evidence. Now Égalité, like his cousin before him, was seen as a potential figure for counterrevolutionaries or foreign powers to rally behind. Thus, he had become a loose end that the Convention had every intention of tying. Charged under the very law he voted to pass a mere five days before, Égalité was arrested and sent to Fort Saint-Jean in Marseille, where he would remain until November of that year. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson later that month, Gouverneur Morris writes, “The Duke of Orleans is in the way of reaping the fruits of his conduct, being, as you will see, sent a prisoner to Marseilles.”35

On November 6, Égalité was brought before a revolutionary tribunal and condemned to death. With an eerie calm, as if he had already accepted his fate, and certainly having already confronted his own actions, which did so much to bring him to that moment, he requested of the revolutionary tribunal that his execution not be delayed but carried out the same day.36 Shortly after, Égalité was allowed a final meal, dining on a lavish platter of oysters, ribs, and Bordeaux wine. Powdering his hair and dressing in the aristocratic style he tried so hard to pretend he despised, he would then travel to the very site of his cousin's execution, this time, however, for his own.36 On his way to execution, Égalité was taken past his Palais-Royal, once the true seat of his power and the Revolution's influence. Once in view of the Palace, the mob seized the horses’ reins, stopping the wagon, so the former Duke could see “Republic, one and indivisible; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. This is National Property,” painted in blue, white, and red letters upon it.37 Answering this, Égalité replied, “How they applauded me once!”38 Though described as having the same uncommon courage of his cousin, it seems that he was less resolute in the morality of his actions and instead decided, as the man who meant to be King, that he would rather die than live amongst the mongrels he had done so much to frenzy.

As he ascended the scaffold that day, at the very place he had sent his cousin to die, the crowds taunted him, saying, “I vote for death.”39 The damned Duke was unnaturally composed as his death approached. Seemingly bothered by life, as he was fastened into the guillotine, the executioner began to cuff his boots. In response to this, Égalité urged:

“They will come off better after: let us have done”40

Another version of the story has him simply saying:

“Get on with it.”

No political speech. No repentance. No dramatics. No remorse. Thus was the end of Égalité: a man high-born who, through vanity, envy, and deceit, met his end in very low circumstances. A man of many faces and many names: Égalité, the Duke of Orléans, Louis Philippe II, First Prince of the Blood; betrayer.

Meditations: 

Wow! What a story!

It is difficult to know where to even start. From this story, history furnishes us with two things: first, an unbelievable historic drama, rife with the stuff of legends; and second, innumerable lessons acting as a window into the minds of the actors operating at the end of another civilizational cycle, so detached from our own. America itself was born during the turning of that last great civilizational cycle, which birthed the modern world; but it was France that firmly closed it, dragging the rest of Western civilization along with it. The very world, as it existed then, turned upside down. France went through a societal transition simply unparalleled in scale and ferocity in the storied history of the Western world. It is only natural that this profound disturbance in human affairs would ultimately spread to the very corners of Western civilization. The American Revolution was very different in nature from that of the French. For America’s revolution founded a nation. Frances unwound an ancient one and totally reordered it. The events in America were leading up to something brand new, while in France, nothing occurred outside the broader context of what was old. Ultimately, it was what the French Revolution set in motion which became profoundly more significant than the revolution itself. For out of the chaos and bloodshed of the day, one of the greatest human beings who has ever lived would rise far above the crowd: The Emperor.

From a King to an Emperor, France went, in only 11 years. Is this not an inherent contradiction? Yes, it most definitely is! But such is the nature of this reality in which you, the reader, and I, the author, have found ourselves within. Did the King deserve to die? Hardly. While it is true that he was naive to an almost childlike extent, he was no tyrant or deranged killer. In fact, quite the opposite. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson on Dec. 21, 1792, Gouverneur Morris echoes this sentiment:

To a person less intimately acquainted than you are with the history of human affairs, it would seem strange that the mildest monarch who ever filled the French throne, one who is precipitated from it precisely because he would not adopt the harsh measures of his predecessors, a man whom none could charge with a criminal act, should be prosecuted as one of the most nefarious tyrants that ever disgraced the annals of human nature.41

Had King Louis XVI been the “monster” the Revolution feared, had he exercised his monopoly on force during the opening days of the chaos as France’s legitimate ruler, it seems highly likely that order may have been maintained. The King wasn’t even disliked! He was loved by almost all at the outbreak of this whole epic, and even at his end, half of his country’s representatives refused to immediately condemn him. That this whole monumental chapter of history might have been stalled before ever leaving the barn, and that the King himself might have kept his head, had he embraced his role as sovereign ruler, seems highly probable. Piety, innocence, and gentleness are the virtues of women! For a man of action, a king no less, these are the vices that invite one’s own destruction. King Louis XVI clearly did not understand this. A king, when met with open disorder and growing chaos in his realm, has a duty to fulfill to God, his nation, and posterity in protecting the ancient order of European affairs. Categorically, then, it can be declared that King Louis XVI failed. A pious and kind man? Maybe. An effective King? Clearly not.

And now, the crux of this entire piece: the Duke of Orléans. Again, it is difficult to know where to even start. What a strange relationship the Duke had with the King. Clearly, it was wrought with envy and insubordination, going back as far as records of their public interactions date. What we have witnessed through this entire grand narrative, in the most literal sense, was a deathly serious game of thrones. But why? It is not like the Duke was poor, ineffectual, or sitting in his cousin’s shadow. He began this grand tragedy as one of the richest and most powerful men in all of France, and through the onset of this great tumult, he was truly adored by the masses. What, then, possessed him so greedily, with an inherent lack of consideration for the other members of his station, to go after the throne? This is very difficult to ascertain, as the Duke left us no substantive memoirs explaining his motivations. All that he left to us was his 1791 The Memoire of M. Louis-Philip-Joseph, Duke d’Orleans, where he attempted to defend himself from accusations of involvement in the events of 1789.⁴² The document is empty in substance, erroneous in argumentation, and way too long. A writing produced by a man clearly trying to save his ass. Then, suppose we are to assume he was motivated only by the prospect of attaining the pinnacle of power. There seems to be little else the Duke lacked, and being born in such proximity to absolute power must have spurred many dreams of grandeur.

So we can safely presume that he sought to obtain power as France’s head of state at the expense of his cousin, King Louis XVI. That he intended for the King to die, we cannot say, but that he meant to be king himself seems beyond doubt. Did the Duke hate the King? Envy appears to be a better description than hatred, especially as the King showed nothing but kindness to the Duke, even to the point of the King's own personal expense. So, what, then, are we to learn from this grand tragedy, and the Duke who flew too close to the sun?

1.Traitors are never rewarded:

A man who betrays his trust may be useful once, but he has forever tainted himself with faithlessness. Duplicity done unto others invites duplicity done unto you. This is a principle with truly ancient origins. Traitors are never happily invited into the new order; they are used and removed, so that they may not now betray the new rulers. The Mongols’ practice of this principle was especially striking. Genghis Khan’s great rival, Jamukha, was betrayed by his own companions in the opening days of the Khan’s domination. Jamukha was brought before the Khan, and according to tradition, Genghis then ordered Jamukha’s captors mercilessly slaughtered, while Jamukha was granted an honorable and bloodless death.⁴³ Treason may see short-term gains and the mirage of status, but in the end, betrayal of one’s base of power only leaves one baseless and powerless.

 2. Weakness in authority invites vulnerability:

This lesson is nearly impossible to escape. As King Louis XVI illustrated to us time and time again by backing down even when he did not have to, the perception of weakness eroded the legitimacy of his authority down to the nub. Countless times, the King sought compromise or dialogue, and each time, he was met with even more flagrant displays of insubordination. Power, when not used, will be seized. And if you go after a king, you had better kill him. These are eternal maxims of the human condition.

3. Legitimacy, once transferred, is almost impossible to recover: 

As King Louis XVI sought to compromise and avoid any direct confrontation, he made a fatal mistake. With each step backward he took on the road to compromise, the King gave up ground. Ground that he was never able to get back. As he relented, the Revolution gained more and more metaphysical territory, and eventually, the King was confronted with the fact that it had become more powerful than him. Men are not quick to give up that which they have gained. Especially not after immense struggle or tribulation. If legitimacy is seen to falter, what was constructed through centuries of triumph, drama, and blood can be lost within a matter of months.

4. Appeals to contrived morality and public virtue do not appease radicals: 

This is perhaps the most darkly humorous lesson. Appealing to the fashionable virtues of a revolutionary movement is almost always futile. In such dynamic days, the morality of one week may be denounced as treason in the next. This is not to say that revolutionary movements believe in nothing, but rather that their standards rarely remain stagnant long enough for any man attempting to satiate them. This mistake was Égalité’s final humiliation. Louis Philippe II was not a common peasant from the streets of Paris. He was a Duke—a Bourbon—and one of the highest-born men in the entire Kingdom of France. Yet, in a futile effort to distort his royal status, he shamefully renamed himself “Equality,” pandering to the very people most inclined to despise him. In the end, the Revolution’s promise of equality was fulfilled. The former Duke met his end as an equal. Not among citizens, but among the condemned.

5. Symbols are eternal:

Specificities of argumentation and diction, or displays of intellectual prowess, are easily forgotten. Images, however, stay within the mind of man forever. Thus, literacy is no impediment to proliferating information to mass groups of people. The King’s head, the Bastille, the tricolor, the guillotine—these are what people remember. Not the endless debates and speeches contrived by ineffectual lawyers. That this essay chose image over argument through its body—a Prince, a cousin, a single vote—was not accidental. Who is morally right in argumentation rarely wins over an adversary employing potent symbols.

6. Providence, fate, or karma— whatever one calls it — has a coherent grammar: 

The final lesson is also likely the most important. The astute reader can probably tell by now that, over the course of our story, something of greater proportions was at play. Call it Providence. Call it Fate. Call it God. There was a subtle structure governing affairs and doling out punishments. Some, like the King, did not “deserve” to die. Yet the very question of what he deserved was almost a foregone conclusion. Once the King allowed the disintegration of his Estates General, he then found himself on a narrow path, with his death sitting at the end, unavoidable through mere mortal agency. The Duke, whose actions led to the destruction of the King’s authority, later found no authority existed anymore to protect him. Throughout the story, the Duke was repaid in kind for his own disloyalty. It was almost too on the nose, as if his punishment was divine in employment. He voted for the death of the King; he was answered with death himself. He helped normalize the aura of suspicion in Paris, only for suspicion itself to later condemn him. He sought power through dishonor, and in turn received only dishonor without power. This lesson is more challenging to distill than the others. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen over differences in their religious beliefs. But God, the supreme entity, whatever you choose to call it, is real. By spitting in the face of that great creator that governs all of man’s affairs, in challenging courses divinely set into stone, and in attempting to distort one’s destiny, men are met with only one thing: crushing defeat. Thus is the structure of God’s divine stage. Betrayal may succeed for a season, but it is rarely allowed to govern during the harvest.

So how does any of this pertain to our own time?

Well, reader, I am glad you asked!

What is treason? We have spoken of it continuously throughout this piece, but what does it entail to be a traitor? Well according to Article III Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”44

Mariam Webster defines it as:

“The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.”45

If we use these descriptions, then it can confidently be declared that the Duke was indeed a traitor. Yet the history of the modern world is filled with examples of saboteurs, subversion, and outright treason. The Duke’s example may be less rarified than most modern examples of egregious betrayal, but it definitely does not stand alone.

When we survey the West as it stands today, the astute observer immediately arrives at a series of unfortunate conclusions. Though militarily, through paper money, and through economic coercion, it does still wield tremendous global power. The very cohesion of the nations that make up our civilization is being mercilessly assaulted from all sides, always, on the orders of those “elites” who have nakedly betrayed their people. Every single Western nation. None have been spared from this. Who, then, have our “leaders” betrayed us to? Well, that answer is quite obvious these days, for anyone paying attention to domestic events or the geopolitical stage. In a word, the seat of Western fealty lies no longer within either the European or American continents. How do we know this? Just look around. A century ago, the West dominated the planet. Today, in every one of our Western nations, their native inhabitants are being ethnically cleansed. Maybe not overtly, not in camps or with firing squads, but through something far more insidious, equating to literal ethnic cleansing nonetheless. Every year, more and more “migrants” are brought to our countries. No number of protestations, no amount of voting, no amount of political action by the nations themselves, as opposed to the states, has proved able to stop this. And it is being done by design.

But let us zoom back in for a moment. Before we can speak seriously of saving this civilization, our nation must first be dragged up for air. The 21st century has seen a dramatic decline in the quality of life of many Americans. While GDP increases, while financial derivatives traded on international markets balloon, Americans’ quality of life has plummeted. Their share in the country’s wealth has precipitously declined, and has never been lower than it is today.⁴⁶ All the while, they are being told to be satisfied with those untold millions who are meant to replace them, as more arrive each day. This paradigm is continuing, right now, as you are reading this. Congress has an approval rating sitting at 10%,⁴⁷ and the Pentagon siphons wealth from the nation to launder it, failing eight consecutive audits in a row.⁴⁸

Americans, can we not safely declare to have lost our consent of the governed?

The U.S. federal government has morphed into a monster, infinitely more tyrannical than the Crown was in 1776, dominated by foreign interests and powers, and has laid its sights upon us, the people. There is a war being waged upon this civilization, a real war. As the most powerful member of this civilization, it is being waged particularly hard here, within the U.S. You know this. It may be difficult to vocalize, but deep down, we all know what I have just stated is true.

This should not discourage you. Not necessarily. We may, now, be losing, but in confronting the very fact that we have been betrayed, we take our first steps down the road to progress. More than progress. Righteous reconquest. Have we yet even begun to put up a unified front? America is a Nation, not an economic zone, and it is definitely not the state, that all-pervasive entity that has almost exclusively interpenetrated within all sectors of our lives in negative ways. In America, we are approaching our precipice. The energy has oscillated for too long. More than a decade of frustration manifested into political action has been all but nullified by an Administration seemingly more interested in catering to its donors and foreign entities, which in many cases are one and the same, than in putting the American nation first. Something will break. The energy has nowhere else to go, and it has been made clear to all that we will not escape our crisis through mere voting.

Yet, before we continue, the reader would do well to remember one critical thing. You and I have found ourselves within the most heavily armed nation in all of recorded human history. On top of this, tens of millions of vassals of our enemies are armed too and roaming our country. This is true. But so is the overwhelming reality that no force yet conceived of could pacify almost 200 million Americans presenting a united front. Something will happen; this is no longer in doubt. Any student of history, and particularly of Western affairs, can recognize it. If the “fourth turning” hasn’t already begun, it will surely begin soon. So, what are we to do? How are we to rightfully reassert our sovereignty without igniting a full-blown social collapse?

This is the hidden question that this whole long account has been approaching the entire time.

The natural American inclination when confronted with these realities is extremely dangerous for our cause. Righteous indignation? Of course! But we can hardly imagine the levels of implacable fury that will begin to pour forth. This is not to say that this instinct is wrong, but rather that it has the potential to prove catastrophically destructive. If we are to go in “guns blazing” and engage in overt confrontations with the government, we may hand them exactly what they want. Sporadic acts of violence across millions of square miles, with no grander aims, are exactly how we let the controlling apparatus divide and crush us. No; 1861 is not the answer this time. Maybe we should take our cue from the Third Estate.

Now the reader may be asking themselves how I, the author, can state this with confidence after what you have just read. It is not my intention to moralize the Revolution, to justify its outbreak, or to applaud its outcomes. This should be obvious to you, the reader, who has read the entire narrative just to get to this point. Undeniably, what the Third Estate started escaped the bounds of reason and control rather quickly. Though, of course, it did have “friends” in high places instigating disorder.

So just what is it that the Third Estate did that I find so prescient?

On June 17th, 1789, the Third Estate withdrew from the Estates General. 

In doing so, it established parallel legitimacy with the old system. The world as we know it could not have been without this profound act of agency. In withdrawing, they told the system that they would no longer be participating in the rigged “game” and set off to establish a government of their own. The King couldn’t kill them; they had technically committed no heinous crime. The King couldn’t ignore them; they were acting as a functioning government without him or his approval. Thus, it was the King, the system, in the end, that was forced to come to them.

That is how we are to prosecute the reconquest of our national borders while mitigating the catastrophic risks of civil war and anarchy. If we elect to do nothing, the country is lost. If we attempt to confront the system directly, we may deliver unto it exactly what it wants. So, with no options left, what else are we supposed to do? This is our country, and we do not have to continue tolerating the engineered decline of this truly glorious Nation. I see no clearer solution. If the government wants to replace you and me, let them collect their revenues from the “new Americans.” We will have no further part in it. What was that old revolutionary slogan again?

“No taxation without representation!”

This was done to us. On purpose. By design. It was organized by traitors within our own ranks and by the agents of overtly hostile foreign powers. It is difficult, at first, to recognize this reality, but we are under siege! They have drawn it out as long as possible, as subtly as it could be done, so as not to alert the American nation. The frog and the pot. The die must be cast; our only alternative is to accept a disgraceful death. The model is admittedly imperfect, but the direction is clear. We must make the system come to us. If the government refuses to bend to our will, it is time to establish one of our own. The alternatives seem hopelessly depressing or indescribably volatile.