's sons, they were also more restless. The very restraint in which
the policy of the reigning house kept them, condemned their idea or
their courage to inaction, and forced them to misapply, in
irregularities or indolence, the faculties with which nature had endowed
them, and the immense fortune for which they had no other occupation:
too great for citizens, too dangerous at the head of armies or in
affairs, they had no place either amongst the people or at court; and
thus they assumed it in opinion.

The Regent, a very superior man, long kept down by the inferiority of
his part, had been the most brilliant example of all the virtues and all
the vices of the blood of Orleans. Since the Regent, the princes
endowed, like himself, with natural wit and courage, had felt the glory
of great actions in their early youth. They had then again fallen back
into obscurity, pleasures or devotion, by the jealousy of the reigning
house. At the first show of brilliancy attached to their name, it had
been darkened. Guilty by their very merit, their name urged them on to
glory; and as soon as they proved themselves deserving, it was
forbidden to them. These princes were destined to transmit with their
family honours that impatience of a change of government which allows
them to be men.

Louis-Philippe Joseph, Duc d'Orleans, was born at the precise epoch,
when his rank, fortune, and character were to throw him into a current
of new ideas, which his family passions called on him to favour, and
into which, once drawn, it would be impossible for him to pause except
at the throne or the scaffold. He was twenty when the first symptoms of
the Revolution manifested themselves.

He was handsome, like all his race. Slender figure, firm step, smiling
countenance, piercing glance, limbs made supple by all bodily exercises,
with a heart disposed to love, and a splendid horseman, that great
accomplishment of princes; a condescension void of familiarity, a ready
eloquence, unquestionable courage, liberal to the arts, even to
extravagance; those faults which are only due to the luxuries of the
age, all marked him out as a popular favourite. He took every advantage
of it; and, perhaps, his early intoxication with it somewhat affected
his natural good sense. The love of the people appeared to him a means
of avenging himself for the contempt in which the court neglected him.
In his mind he braved the king of Versailles, feeling himself king of
Paris.