Madame de Genlis and Louis Philippe
M.L. Clarke profiles an enterprising governor in the education of Louis Philippe for eight years, until 1790.
Few princes in history can have had so unusual an education as Louis Philippe, the future King of the French, who was placed on the throne by the Revolution of 1830 and removed from it in that of 1848. Other princes, and princesses too, have been educated by men, by philosophers, scholars and divines. He was put in the charge of a woman, and a woman who had her own somewhat unorthodox ideas about education.
He was born in 1773, heir to the Dukedom of Orleans, which was held by the junior branch of the Bourbon family. His father, kept out of affairs by the King, flirted with liberal and democratic ideas, and when the Revolution broke out threw in his lot half-heartedly with it, from Duke of Orleans became Philippe Egalite, and was among those who voted for the death of Louis XVI. This did not save him from being himself condemned to death and executed.
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