King of France (1830–48). The son of the duc d’Orléans he, along with his father, renounced his titles and assumed the surname Égalité. On the restoration of Louis XVIII to the French throne he recovered his estates, and was elected King of the French, the ‘citizen king’, after the July Revolution in 1830. During his reign political corruption, judicial malpractices, and limited parliamentary franchise united liberals and extremists in a cry for reform. After 1840, a series of disastrous foreign ventures and alliances with reactionary European monarchies alienated the liberal opinion on which his authority had been based. His rule ended in February 1848 when, after popular riots, he agreed to abdicate, and escaped to England as ‘Mr Smith’.