t
afterwards, the sons of Louis-Philippe were by no means disposed to sit
down tamely under the insults levelled at the head of their house. In
fact, nearly the whole of Louis-Philippe's children had graphic talents
of no mean order. The trait came to them from their mother, who was a
very successful pupil of Angelica Kauffman. Princesse Marie, who died so
young, executed a statue of Jeanne d'Arc, which was considered by
competent judges, not at all likely to be influenced by the fact of the
artist's birth, a very creditable piece of work indeed. I never saw it,
so I cannot say, but I have seen some miniatures by the Duc de Nemours,
which might fairly rank with performances by the best masters of that
art, short of genius.

It is a curious, but nevertheless admitted fact that the world has never
done justice to the second son of Louis-Philippe. He was not half as
great a favourite with the Parisians as his elder brother, although in
virtue of his remarkable likeness to Henri IV., whom the Parisians still
worship--probably because he is dead,--he ought to have commanded their
sympathies. This lukewarmness towards the Duc de Nemours has generally
been ascribed by the partisans of the Orleanist dynasty to his somewhat
reticent disposition, which by many people was mistaken for _hauteur_.
I rather fancy it was because he was suspected of being his father's
adviser, and, what was worse, his father's adviser in a reactionary
sense. He was accused of being an anti-parliamentarian, and he never
took the trouble to refute the charge, probably because he was too
honest to tell a lie.[42] I met the Duc de Nemours for the first time in
the studio of a painter, Eugene Lami, just as I met his elder brother in
that of Decamps. In fact, all these young princes were sincere admirers
and patrons of art, and, if they had had their will, the soirees at the
Tuileries would have been graced by the presence of artists more
frequently than they were; but, preposterous and scarcely credible as it
may seem, the bourgeoisie looked upon this familiar intercourse of the
king's sons with artists, literary men, and the like, as so much
condescension, if not worse, of which they, the bourgeoisie, would not
be guilty if they could help it. It behoves me, however, to be careful
in this instance, for the English aristocracy at home was not much more
liberal in those days.

[Footnote 42: There was a similar divergence of dynastic
opini