Aumale, Henri Eugene Philippe Louis D'orleans
AUMALE, HENRI EUGENE PHILIPPE LOUIS D'ORLEANS, Duc d' (1822-1897), French prince and statesman, fifth son of Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, afterwards king of the French, and of Marie Amélie, princess of the Two Sicilies, was born at Paris on the 16th of January 1822. While still young he inherited a large fortune from the prince de Condé. Brought up by his parents with great simplicity, he was educated at the college of Henri IV., on leaving which at the age of seventeen he entered the army with the rank of a captain of infantry. He distinguished himself during the conquest of Algeria, and was appointed governor of that colony, in which capacity he received the submission of the amir Abd-el-Kader. After the revolution of 1848 he retired to England and busied himself with historical and military studies, replying in 1861 by a Letter upon the History of France to Prince Napoleon's violent attacks upon the house of Orleans. On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War he volunteered for service in the French army, but his offer was declined. Elected deputy for the Oise department, he returned to France, and succeeded to the fauteuil of the comte de Montalembert in the French Academy. In March 1872 he resumed his place in the army as general of division; and in 1873 he presided over the court-martial which condemned Marshal Bazaine to death. About this period, being appointed commandant of the VII. army corps at Besançon, he retired from political life, and in 1879 became inspector-general of the army. By the act of exception passed in 1883 all members of families that had reigned in France serving in the army were deprived of their military positions; consequently the duc d'Aumale was placed on the unemployed supernumerary list. Subsequently, in 1886, another law was promulgated which expelled from French territory the heads of former reigning families, and provided that henceforward all members of those families should be disqualified for any public position or function, and for election to any public body. The duc d'Aumale protested energetically, and was himself expelled. By his will of the 3rd of June 1884, however, he had bequeathed to the Institute of France his Chantilly estate, with all the art-collection he had gathered there. This generosity led the government to withdraw the decree of exile, and the duke returned to France in 1889. He died at Zucco in Sicily on the 7th of May 1897. Of his marriage, contracted in 1844 with his first cousin, Caroline de Bourbon, daughter of the prince of Salerno, were born two sons: the prince de Condé (d. 1866), and the due de Guise (d. 1872). The due d'Aumale's principal literary work was an Histoire des princes de Condé, which he left unfinished.
See Georges Picot, M. le duc d'Aumale (Paris, 1898); Ernest Daudet, Le duc d'Aumale (Paris, 1898).
(M. P.*)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
