Louis Philip I, Duke of Orléans
| Louis Philippe I | |
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| First Prince of the Blood | |
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Portrait by Louis-Édouard Rioult, 1839
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| Duke of Orléans | |
| Tenure | 4 February 1752 – 18 November 1785 |
| Predecessor | Louis, Duke of Orléans |
| Successor | Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans |
| Born |
12 May 1725 Palace of Versailles, France |
| Died | 18 November 1785 (aged 60) Château de Sainte-Assise à Seine-Port, France |
| Burial | Val-de-Grâce, Paris |
| Spouse |
Louise Henriette de Bourbon (m. 1743–1759); her death Charlotte Béraud de La Haye de Riou (m. 1773–1785) |
| Issue |
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans Bathilde, Princess of Condé |
| House | Orléans |
| Father | Louis, Duke of Orléans |
| Mother | Johanna of Baden-Baden |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
| Signature |  |
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Royal styles of Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans |
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| Reference style | His Serene Highness |
| Spoken style | Your Serene Highness |
Louis Philippe d'Orléans known as le Gros (the Fat) (12 May 1725 – 18 November 1785), was a French prince, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the dynasty then ruling France. The First Prince of the Blood after 1752, he was the most senior male at the French court after the immediate royal family. He was the father of Philippe Égalité. He greatly augmented the already huge wealth of the House of Orléans.
Louis Philippe d'Orléans was born at the Palace of Versailles on 12 May 1725. As the only son of Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans and his wife Johanna of Baden-Baden, he was titled Duke of Chartres at birth. He was one of two children; his younger sister Louise Marie d'Orléans died at Saint-Cloud in 1728 aged a year and eight months. His father, who had been devoted to his German wife became a recluse and pious as he grew older.
Louise Marie was known as Mademoiselle in her short lifetime.
Louis Philippe was hardly fifteen when he and his young cousin Princess Henriette of France (1727–1752), the second daughter of King Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczyńska, fell in love.
After considering the possibility of such a marriage, Louis XV and his chief minister, Cardinal Fleury, decided against it because this union would have brought the House of Orléans too close to the throne.
In 1743, his paternal grandmother, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon the formidable Dowager Duchess of Orléans, and Louise Élisabeth, Dowager Princess of Conti arranged his marriage to his seventeen-year-old cousin, Louise Henriette de Bourbon (1726–1759), a member of the House of Bourbon-Conti, another cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. It was hoped this marriage would close a fifty-year-old family rift.
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Wikipedia