Fabelo1
Moeta Fabelo
George Joachim
HIS 101: Western Civilization to 1715
11/16/2017
The Man Who Would Be King
Becoming involved with a person who had been long dead was something Christine
Pevitt pursued as she had reason to wonder. The persistence of a biographer pursuing a subject
who left such a faint scene and remaining an enigma, became close to an obsession for the author
(1). Boarding a plane to Paris, Philippe d’Orleans became the subject of Christine’s obsession.
Intrigued with the history of her newly found residency in Paris, Christine followed a path deep
into the past which led to a man born in France in 1674 (2). Philippe d’Orleans played an
important part in the affairs associated of his time as the ruler of France for eight years until his
death at the age of forty-nine. Presenting factual events on the life of Philippe d’Orleans and the
time during his reign, while giving recognition to the ruler whose name had been forgotten, is the
goal of this book. One of which Christine Pevitt captures quintessentially.
Chistine Pevitt is far beyond an author. She is a biographer who searches for truth about
her subjects. Christine studied classics at Cambridge University (Harper Collins). She was
always intrigued by the ancient past surrounded by the study of the Greco- Roman world
including philosophy, history, and literature. She has also worked as a television reporter and
publisher in London and New York. Pevitt has always took such appeal to the writings of
biography especially as a teenager (Harper Collins). Her love for research and writings on
significant people in history, took place after reading Nancy Mitford’s biography of Pompadour
Fabelo2
(Pourover Press). This was the beginning of the appreciation Christine embraced for history and
pursuant of a subject who left a remarkable life deep in the past; Philippe d’Orleans.
Arriving in Saint- Cloud at her first destination, fate had ordained it as the 52 bus to the
Pont apartment. Saint Pont is just west of the city, where Philippe was born in 1674. The findings
of Philippe d’Orleans had become meant to be so Christine stopped at no limits to continue her
journey to uncover the past of a former ruler of France (3). Christine’s next recourse was the
Musee where the task was to connect the link between past and present. The museum had a
couple of rooms where paintings of the Chateau from its earliest days to the poignant
photographs of the smoldering ruins after the fine of 1870, which razed it to the ground. Along
these portraits were the family of Orleans, which included the cadet line of the ruling Bourbons
of France, from Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV, father of Philippe, to his great-great-great-
