Page:Life of Louis Philippe, late king of the French.pdf/4

4 Italian, respectively, they soon learned to converse in these langnages. Their physical education also engaged much of her attention. She trained the young princes to endure all kinds of fatigue, and taught them a variety of useful and amusing exercises. Under the direction of a German gardener, they cultivated a small garden at St. Len, a country residence near Paris; and a medical gentleman, who attended them as a companion, instructed them in botany and the praetice of medicine. They also learned basket-making, weaving, carpentery, turning, and cabinet-making. The young Duke of Chartres took great pleasure in such pursuits, particularly in the last-mentioned business, in which he was so perfect, that, with only the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Montpensier, lie made up a handsome chest of drawers and a cupboard, for a poor woman in the village near which they resided.

A Journal kept by the Duke of Chartres has latterly been given to the public, and we are now in possession of many interesting particulars of his early life, as well as with the sentiments he then entertained. Madame de Genlis and her husband were warm adherents of the political movements of 1789, and, with the concurrence of the Duke of Orleans, they endeavoured to impress their sentiments on the mind of their charge; and, with this view, entered him a member of the Jacobin Club, whose sittings, as well as those of the National Assembly, he always attended; but, what was much more praiseworthy, he devoted a good deal of his time in acquiring a knowledge of surgery, and regularly visited the Great Public Hospital of Paris. In illustration of his youthful character and pursuits, a few entries from his Journal are here given :-

" Nov. 2 (1790).-I was yesterday admitted a member of the Jacobins, and much applauded. I re-