ll remove them more easily from my lifeless limbs." He examined
the keen edge of the knife, and was bound to the plank. The slide
fell, and his head dropped into the basket. Thus perished Louis
Philippe Egalite in the 46th year of his age. It was the 6th of
November, 1793, ten months after Louis XVI. had perished upon the
same scaffold. The immoralities of the Duke of Orleans were such that
it has often been said of him, "Nothing became his life so much as
his manner of leaving it." Louis Philippe Egalite, inheriting from
his ancestors vast opulence, had become, by his marriage with the
daughter of the immensely wealthy Duke of Penthievre, the possessor
of almost royal domains. His wife, the duchess, though aristocratic
in all her prepossessions, and sympathizing not at all with her
husband in his democratic views, was a woman of unblemished
character, of amiable disposition, and of devoted piety.

Having thus given a brief account of the origin of the Orleans
family, we must, at the expense of a little repetition, turn back to
the birth of Louis Philippe, the oldest son of the Duke of Orleans,
and the subject of this memoir.

Louis Philippe was born in the Palais Royal, in Paris, on the 6th of
October, 1773. In his early years, he, with the other children of the
ducal family, was placed under the care and tuition of the celebrated
Madame de Genlis. Until the death of his father, he bore the title of
the Duke of Chartres.

"The Duke of Chartres," writes Lamartine, "had no youth. Education
suppressed this age in the pupils of Madame de Genlis. Reflection,
study, premeditation of every thought and act, replaced nature by
study, and instinct by will. At seventeen years of age, the young
prince had the maturity of advanced years."

Madame de Genlis was unwearied in her endeavors to confer upon her
illustrious pupil the highest intellectual and religious education.
The most distinguished professors were appointed to instruct in those
branches with which she was not familiar. His conduct was recorded in
a minute daily journal, from which every night questions were read
subjecting him to the most searching self-examination. The questions
were as follows:

1. Have I this day fulfilled all my duties towards God, my
Creator, and prayed to Him with fervor and affection?

2. Have I listened with respect and attention to the
instructions which have been given me to-day, with regard to
my Christian du