Louis Philippe I

Louis Philippe I, more commonly Louis Philippe (1773-1850), was King of the French from 1830 until his overthrow in 1848. He was the penultimate monarch of France, and the last to bear the title of "King."

Styled Duke of Orléans after the death of his father in 1793 during the French Revolution, Louis Philippe became king in July 1830 as a result of the "July Revolution," in which the previous king, his distant cousin Charles X, was overthrown and went into exile. His reign, sometimes known for this reason as the "July Monarchy," has sometimes been described as a bourgeois monarchy, in that the king governed in accordance with the desires of the urban upper-middle class, even adopting their dress and mannerisms to a considerable degree. Though originally fairly popular thanks to his humane attitude and genuine commitment to the principles of constitutional monarchy, Louis Philippe and his ministers gradually lost support due to economic downturns and their unwillingness to further democratize the political system. Upon the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848, the king agreed to abdicate the throne, and went into exile in Great Britain, where he died two years later.

Louis Philippe's abdication was followed by the proclamation of the Second French Republic in early 1848, which lasted only a few years before being replaced by the Second French Empire under Napoleon III.