Louis Philippemakers of History Series

The dramatic saga of Louis Philippe, the "Citizen King" who navigated the bloodiest chapter in French history to seize the throne, only to lose it in another revolution. Born into the House of Orléans during the twilight of the old monarchy, Philippe witnessed his father executed during the Reign of Terror and spent twenty-one years in bitter exile, wandering through Switzerland, the United States, and England. Yet fate has a cruel sense of irony: in 1830, the same revolutionary wave that swept his Bourbon cousin from power lifted Philippe onto the throne of France. Abbott chronicles this extraordinary reversal of fortune with the narrative verve that made the Makers of History Series beloved by generations of readers. The book captures the paradox of Philippe's reign: a monarch who embraced the tricolor yet governed for the bourgeoisie, who embodied revolution yet feared it, who held power for eighteen years before the streets of Paris rose against him once more. For readers who crave narrative history that reads like a novel, Abbott's account reveals how one man embodied the turbulent century that birthed modern France.