Louise Marie Adélaïde Eugénie d'Orléans (Paris,élaïdedOrlé 23 August 1777 – Paris, 31 December 1847) was a French princess, one of the twin daughters of Philippe d'Orléans, known as Philippe Égalité during the French Revolution, and Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. She was titled Mademoiselle de Chartres at birth, Mademoiselle d'Orléans at the death of her older twin sister in 1782, Mademoiselle (1783–1812), Madame Adélaïde (1830). As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, she was a princesse du sang.
Biography
Adélaïde and her older twin sister Françoise were born at the Palais Royal on 23 August 1777 to Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. Her twin sister Françoise died in 1782, aged four. She was raised according to the liberal principles of her governess, Madame de Genlis, principles which also became her own political conviction. She received an excellent but also very hard and strenuous education; to harden herself, she learned to sleep on a hard bed and arise at six every day. She was deeply attached to her governess, and her mother's demand that de Genlis be replaced, though without success, was reportedly a cause of great worry for her. She was considered for marriage to the Duke of Angoulême, but the plans were prevented by queen Marie Antoinette. Later on, she was also considered for marriage to the Duke of Berry, which did not materialise either.
During the French Revolution, de Genlis on at least one occasion took her to the radical Cordelieres Club. In 1791, her father asked de Genlis to take her to England for her safety. The year after, he summoned them back to prevent Adelaide's name from being placed on the list of émigrés. When they arrived, however, de Genlis discovered that Adélaïde was already on the list and that her father, whose political situation had deteriorated, asked her to take Adélaïde out of the country again.
Adelaide received painting lessons from Pierre-Joseph Redouté and produced some highly regarded botanical studies as a result.
Life in exile
In 1792, she left France with de Genlis to the Austrian Netherlands and then to Switzerland, where she was placed in a convent in Bremgarten. During the Terror her father was guillotined, and her mother was banished to Spain. Sometime in the spring of 1794, Adélaïde moved to the home of her aunt, the Princess of Conti. They moved to Bavaria in 1798 and thereafter to Bratislava, and in 1801, she joined her mother in Barcelona in Spain. Her relationship with her mother was not good, as she disapproved of her mother's relationship with chancellor de Folmont.
On 25 November 1809, she and her mother attended the wedding of her brother Louis Philippe to Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily in Palermo on Sicily. After the wedding, she did not return with her mother to Spain, but preferred to live with her brother and sister-in-law at Palazzo Orléans in Palermo. She was described as completely devoted to her brother and his family: united with her sister-in-law in their mutual love and concern for him, and a second mother to his children.
Return to France
After the fall of Napoleon in 1814, she returned with her brother and his family to Paris and settled with them in Palais-Royal. During the Bourbon Restoration, Palais-Royal was described as a center of high society social life in the capital, and reportedly, despite the fact that custom dictated that she as an unmarried "spinster" was expected to live in the background, it was she rather than her more reserved sister-in-law who took the role of hostess.
She was described as firm, intellectual, and frank, and she was a leading force in the family councils of the House of Orléans. Her loyalty to her brother has been described as due to the fact that, early separated from her family, she was treated with reserve during her exile because of the political actions of her father during the revolution, and her brother was the first person she could lavish her affection upon. Louis Philippe, in turn, relied upon her intelligence and loyalty, made her his confidant and listened to her advice, and consequently, she came to exert great political influence upon him. Being brought up a liberal, she supported the idea of a constitutional monarchy and a representative government.