n impressive chapter in the history of
Europe; and one of the most striking episodes in the narrative is the
checkered life of the last king of France--one week among the mightiest
monarchs on the loftiest pinnacle of ambition, he was, the next, an exile
in a foreign land--his past supremacy almost forgotten.

Louis Philippe died on the morning of the 26th of August, at Claremont,
in the presence of the Queen and several members of his family. He had
been made aware of his approaching dissolution early the previous day,
and receiving with calmness the melancholy intimation, prepared for the
final arrangements he wished to make. After a conversion with the Queen,
he dictated, with remarkable clearness, the concluding portion of his
Memoirs, and then, having caused to be assembled his chaplain, the Abbe
Gaelle, and all his children and grandchildren who were at Claremont, he
received, with resignation and firmness, the last rites of the Catholic
Church. Toward seven in the evening the debility that had oppressed him
appeared to pass off, and fever came on, which continued during the night
with much violence, but without disturbing his composure of mind.
At eight o'clock in the morning he expired, in the presence of his wife,
and of the Duchess of Orleans, the Count of Paris, the Duke de Chartres,
the Duke and Duchess de Nemours, the Prince and Princess de Joinville,
the Duke and Duchess d'Aureale, and the Duchess Augusta of Saxe-Coburg.
Thus ended the closing scene of the life of Louis Philippe of
Orleans,--the wise and judicious sovereign of a great people, the soldier
of one revolution, the conqueror of a second, and the victim of a third.

Louis Philippe was born in Paris, 6th October, 1773, the eldest son of
Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans (so well-known under the revolutionary
_soubriquet_ of Egalite), by Marie Louise Adelaide de Bourbon his wife,
daughter and heir of the wealthy Duke de Penthievre. At his birth he bore
the title of Valois; but after the death of his grandfather, in 1785, was
styled Duke of Chartres. The care of the young Prince's education was
assigned to Madame de Genlis, who ably and admirably performed her
important duties. From her guidance Louis Philippe passed at once to the
arena of active life. In 1791, the Prince, then Duke of Chartres, having
previously received the appointment of Colonel in the 14th Dragoons,
assumed the command of that regiment, and shortly after, quitting the
garrison