is
affability.--Noble sentiment.

The origin of the House of Orleans is involved in some obscurity. The
city of Orleans, from which the duke takes his title, was the
Aurelium of imperial Rome. The first Duke of Orleans with whom
history makes us familiar was Philip, the only brother of Louis XIV.
Louis XIII., the son and heir of Henry IV., married Anne of Austria.
Two children were born to them, Louis and Philippe. The first became
the world-renowned monarch, Louis XIV. His brother, known in history
as Monsieur, enjoyed the title and the princely revenues of the
dukedom of Orleans.

Monsieur married, as his first wife, the beautiful Henrietta Stuart,
daughter of the unfortunate Charles I. of England. Her mother was
Henrietta of France, the daughter of Henry IV., and sister of Louis
XIII. She died in the bloom of youth and beauty, of poison, after the
most cruel sufferings, on the 27th of June, 1669.[A] Philippe took as
his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Charles
of Bavaria. By this marriage he left a son, Philippe, who not only
inherited his father's almost boundless wealth and princely titles,
but who attained wide-spread notoriety, not to say renown, as the
regent of France, after the death of Louis XIV., and during the
minority of Louis XV. The regent was a man of indomitable force of
will. During his long regency he swayed the sceptre of a tyrant; and
the ear of Europe was poisoned with the story of his debaucheries.

[Footnote A: See Abbott's History of Louis XIV, p. 223.]

He married a legitimated daughter of Louis XIV., Marie Francoise de
Blois, a haughty, capricious beauty. His scandalous immoralities
alienated his duchess from him, and no happiness was to be found
amidst the splendors of their home. Dying suddenly, at the age of
fifty-one, his son Louis succeeded him in the vast opulence, the
titles, and the power of the dukedom of Orleans. The following list
of his titles may give some idea of the grandeur to which these
ancient nobles were born. Louis de Valois, De Chartres, De Nemours,
and De Montpensier, First Prince of the blood, First Peer of France,
Knight of the Golden Fleece, Colonel-general of the French and
Foreign Infantry, Governor of Dauphiny, and Grand Master of the
Orders of Notre Dame, of Mount Carmel, and of St. Lazarus of
Jerusalem.

Born, as this young man was, in the palace of splendor, and
surrounded by every allurement to voluptuous indulgence, two domest