of misfortune. He
was not a man of generous affections; the fearful discipline through
which he had passed rendered this almost impossible. He was greedy of
money, and exceedingly desirous of aggrandizing his family by such
matrimonial alliances as would strengthen his dynasty.

On the 13th of July, 1842, the king experienced one of the heaviest
calamities of his life--a calamity quite irreparable. His eldest son,
who, upon the enthronement of his father, had taken the title of the
Duke of Orleans, was a very noble young man, quite popular with the
people and in the army. He was believed to be far more liberal in his
views than his father. He was driving in his carriage from Paris to
Neuilly; the horses took fright, and the driver lost his control over
them. The duke endeavored to leap from the carriage; his head struck
the ground, and his brain was so injured that he breathed but a few
hours, in insensibility, and died. Thus sadly the direct heir to the
throne was cut off. The succession reverted to his son, the Count of
Paris--an infant child, then in the arms of its nurse.

This young man--who subsequently married his cousin, a daughter of
the Duke of Montpensier, and who has been residing much of the time
at Twickenham, in England--is, at the present writing, the Orleans
candidate for the throne of France. He is deemed a worthy man--has
two children, but never has been placed in circumstances to develop
any marked traits of character. As the Count of Chambord has no
children, upon his death the Count of Paris becomes the _legitimate_
candidate for the throne.

The Count of Chambord had married the Archduchess Maria
Theresa-Beatrice, of Modena, eldest sister of the reigning duke of
that principality, and the only prince in Europe who had refused to
recognize Louis Philippe. "It was a singular proof of the mutations
of fortune that the direct descendant of Louis XIV. deemed himself
fortunate upon being admitted into the family of a third-rate Italian
potentate."[AQ]

[Footnote AQ: Alison, vol. viii., p. 193.]

Louis Philippe, during his reign of about eighteen years,
encountered nothing but trouble. The advocates of legitimacy--of the
divine right of kings--regarded him as an usurper. As the voice of
the nation was not consulted in placing him upon the throne, the
masses of the people deemed themselves defrauded of their rights, and
hated him, as the representative only of the moneyed aristocracy of
Paris. The