Prince Pierre, Duke of Penthièvre

Pierre Philippe Jean Marie d'Orléans (November 4, 1845 — July 17, 1919) was Duke of Penthièvre and a grandson of French king Louis Philippe I. He was an officer in the Union Navy and the French Navy as well as an avid traveler.

Family
Prince Pierre d'Orléans was the son of François d'Orléans, Prince of Joinville, and his wife Princess Francisca of Brazil. By his father, he was the grandson of the French King Louis Philippe I. By his mother, he was also the grandson of Pedro I & IV, Emperor of Brazil and King of Portugal and the Algarves, after whom he was named.

Princess Françoise of Orléans (14 August 1844 – 28 October 1925), the older sister of Prince Pierre d'Orléans, is an ancestor of the three Orléanist pretenders to the throne of France since 1926: Jean III (her son), Henri VI, and Henri VII. Pierre d'Orléans also had a younger sister who was stillborn (30 October 1849).

Although he never married, Prince Pierre d'Orléans had two illegitimate children with Angélique Marie Augustine Lebesgue (d. 1881), a married woman:
 * Jeanne Angelique Marie Lebesgue (24 December 1879 – ????), who in 1903 would marry the Marquis Jean de Gouy d'Arsy, son of Count Antonin de Gouy d'Arsy and Wilhelmine (Minna) de Löwenthal;
 * Pierre Fernand Eugène Lebesgue (12 July 1881 – 23 September 1962), who in 1941 would marry Yvonne Patrigean.

From France to exile
Born in the Château de Saint-Cloud in 1845, Prince Pierre was expelled from France with his family when the Revolution broke out in 1848, which overthrew his grandfather, King Louis Philippe I. Prince Pierre had a happy childhood as a refugee in England, with the majority of the other members of the House of Orléans, despite the uncertainty of his condition as an exile. The education of Prince Pierre, along with that of his sister and cousins, was overseen by his father in England. Their education was at first organized by a tutor. In 1859, Prince Pierre and his cousin, Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Alençon, left for Scotland to pursue further studies at the prestigious Royal High School in Edinburgh.

Brazilian marriage proposal
At the beginning of 1860s, Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil, sought to marry his daughters, Princesses Isabella and Leopoldina, to ensure his succession. Turning his gaze to his European relatives, the Brazilian emperor asked his sister, Princess Francisca, and her spouse to give him advice on two young princes who could marry his daughters. The Joinvilles gave their best advice and, among all the names they proposed to the Emperor, he selected the Prince Pierre and Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders as potential husbands for his daughters. For the Emperor, the two young men indeed offered the benefit of belonging, respectively, to the French and Belgian royal families, each a dynasty with a liberal reputation. Further, Prince Pierre had the advantage of being a nephew of Pedro II. His mother was the Emperor's elder sister and, through her, Pierre had his own links to the Brazilian Imperial Crown.

Prince Pierre, however, wanted a career in the Navy more than anything, and thus declined his uncle's offer to marry Brazilian royalty. As for the Belgian Prince Philippe, he refused to leave Europe to settle in the Americas. In the end, Emperor Pedro II chose Prince Gaston d'Orléans and Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as his future sons-in-law.

In the United States
Desiring to follow the successful navy career of his father (who would retire as a vice-admiral), Prince Pierre expressed his wish to serve on the seas to his family. Despite his young age—he was only sixteen at the time—his father, the Prince de Joinville, began looking for a military academy that was willing to receive Prince Pierre as a cadet. Eventually, thanks to the intervention of U.S. President James Buchanan, Prince Pierre gained admission to study at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Arriving in the United States with his father and two cousins, Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, and his younger brother Prince Robert, Duke of Chartres, Prince Pierre began his studies at the Naval Academy on 15 October 1861. The Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres were both appointed assistant adjutant general and served in the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Because Annapolis was close to the front lines of the Civil War, Prince Pierre completed his studies at the Naval Academy's relocated facilities at Fort Adams and later the Atlantic House Hotel, both in Newport, Rhode Island.

After graduating, Prince Pierre served on the corvette USS John Adams (1799), which had been a training ship for midshipmen in Newport; he joined its crew while it was part of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and was stationed off Morris Island inside Charleston Bar. Unlike his father and his cousins, who left America on 7 July 1862, Prince Pierre would stay in the United States until 1864. He reached the rank of lieutenant on the John Adams. He would later resign his commission with regret, as Franco-American relations cooled with the French intervention in Mexico on the side of the Second Mexican Empire.

Illness and consequences
Before resigning from the U.S. Navy, Prince Pierre sailed with the John Adams to the Gulf of Mexico, where he contracted malaria. He was severely affected by the disease and was treated with heavy doses of quinine, which finally cured him but caused irreversible deafness.

Prince Pierre's deafness caused him increasing depression. Having returned to Europe, he confined himself to his studies, which would become his true passion. He thus become interested in chemistry, botany, astronomy and mechanical engineering.

Travels
Since the doors of France remained closed to the Orléans family due to the post-revolution Exile Law of 28 May 1848, Prince Pierre obtained permission, with the aid of his father, to embark for two years on the Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese naval ship on a mission in the Pacific. Aboard the Bartolomeu Dias, Prince Pierre served as an officer of the watch.

Thereafter, Prince Pierre continued his travels around the globe. With his relative and childhood friend, Count Ludovic de Beauvoir, and Albert-Auguste Fauvel, Prince Pierre embarked on a merchant ship for a tour around the Pacific, lasting from 1865 to 1867. The companions traveled to Australia, Java, Siam, China, Japan and California together. Fauvel and de Beauvoir would each subsequently publish several books about their travels. Afterward, he would complete other voyages elsewhere in the world.

Return to France
With the fall of the Second French Empire on 4 September 1870, Prince Pierre was finally able to return to France and become part of its Navy, which was marginally active during the Franco-Prussian War, which was essentially fought on land. Upon his entry into service for France, he was appointed lieutenant aboard the newly built (1870) frigate L'Océan, under the command of Admiral Renault.

On a personal level, Prince Pierre began a romantic relationship with a young married woman by the name of Angelica Lebesgue. He would father two children with her, named Jeanne and Pierre Lebesgue. Prince Pierre would raise young Jeanne and Pierre in his successive residences on Avenue d'Antin (today, Avenue Franklin-D.-Roosevelt) and Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. Despite the scandal caused by his relationship with Angelica Lebesgue, Prince Pierre remained close to his family and regularly visited the home of his sister, Princess Françoise.

Becoming fond of hunting, Prince Pierre also frequented the forest of Arc-en-Barrois, a wilderness area in the Chaumont Arrondissement containing a large game population, that he and his extended family owned.

Later life
In 1883, a new French law concerning the princes of former ruling houses obligated Prince Pierre to permanently leave the Navy. Despite the ingratitude of his country, Prince Pierre offered his château at Arc-en-Barrois, which he inherited upon his father's death in 1900, to the French army during World War I. The Château d'Arc-en-Barrois was used as a military hospital for wounded soldiers, especially from the Verdun and Argonne campaigns.

Prince Pierre died a bachelor in 1919 and, having no direct heirs, passed the Château d'Arc-en-Barrois to his nephew, Prince Jean, Duke of Guise (Jean III, the titular king of France). He is buried in the Royal Chapel of Dreux, in France.