In one of her earlier letters, she wrote: "The Duke of Chartres has greatly improved in disposition during the past year. He was born with good inclinations, and has now become intelligent and virtuous. Possessing none of the frivolities of the age, he disdains the puerilities which occupy the thoughts of so many young men of rank--such as fashions, dress, trinkets, follies of all kinds, and a desire for novelties. He has no passion for money, is disinterested, despises glare, and is, consequently, truly noble. Finally, he has an excellent heart, which is common to his brothers and sister, and which, joined to reflection, is capable of producing all other good qualities." [Illustration: STORMING THE BASTILE.] During the boyhood of Louis Philippe, revolutionary principles were rapidly spreading over France; and, as he approached manhood, they had reached their maturity. The example of his father, and the teachings of Madame de Genlis, inclined him strongly in the direction of popular rights, though his mother did not at all sympathize with these revolutionary principles. When the exasperated people rose and demolished the Bastile--the symbol and the instrument of as great despotic power as ever existed upon earth--Madame de Genlis took her pupils into Paris to witness the sublime drama. In describing the scene, she writes eloquently: "This redoubtable fortress was covered with men, women, and children, working with unequalled ardor, even on the most lofty parts of the building and on its turrets. The astonishing number of these voluntary laborers, their activity, their enthusiasm, their delight at seeing the fall of that terrible monument of tyranny--these avenging hands, which seemed consecrated by Providence, and which annihilated with such rapidity the work of many centuries--all this spoke at once to the imagination and the heart." When the Duke of Chartres was informed that the Assembly had annulled all the rights of primogeniture--thus depriving him, as the first-born, of his exclusive right to the title and the estate--he threw his arms around his brother, the Duke of Montpensier, and said, "Now, indeed, we are brothers in every respect." The unconcealed liberal opinions of the young prince increased the exasperation of the court against the whole Orleans family. And when, guided by his radical father, and in opposition to the advice of Madame de Genlis, the young duke became a member of the Jacobin Club--then numbering, as it was estimated, four hundred thousand in France--the indignation of the court reached its highest pitch.