Pierre d'Orléans, Duc de Penthièvre

A carte-de-visite portrait of Pierre d'Orléans, Duc de Penthièvre (1845-1919), son of François, Prince de Joinville and Françoise de Bragance. Born at St. Cloud in 1845, he died in Paris in 1919. He never married, but had two illegitimate children by Angelique Lebesque; Pierre Lebesque (1881-1962) and Jeanne Lebesque (born 1879).

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, in 1861 the Prince de Joinville travelled to America with his son Pierre and two of his nephews (the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres), to offer his services to the American government. Pierre and his cousins were enrolled in the naval academy at Annapolis, while the Prince de Joinville joined the staff of General McClellan. When difficulties arose between France and the United States with regard to the affairs of Mexico, the Orléans princes withdrew from the American army and returned to Europe.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London in 1860.