Louis-Philippe was the eldest son of Louis-Philippe Joseph de Bourbon-Orléans, Duke de Chartres, and Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre. At first styled Duke de Valois, he became Duke de Chartres when his father inherited the title Duke d'Orléans in 1785. On the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Louis-Philippe joined the group of progressive nobles who supported the Revolutionary government. He became a member of the Jacobin Club in 1790, and, when France went to war with Austria in April 1792, he joined the Army of the North, receiving a commission as lieutenant general in September. Within a year, however, in April 1793, he joined his commander, Charles-François Dumouriez, in deserting to the Austrians. He took refuge in Switzerland and taught under an assumed name at the college at Reichenau. He became Duke d'Orléans on the execution of his father by the Jacobin government in November 1793. After living in the United States for more than two years, Louis-Philippe decided to return to Europe. When he arrived in England in early 1800 and found that there was no hope of rallying opposition to Napoleon, he reconciled the house of Orléans with the elder branch of the Bourbon family, headed by Louis XVIII, the exiled titular king of France.

After a long residence at Twickenham in England, Louis-Philippe joined the Neapolitan royal family at Palermo, Sicily, in 1809; on November 25 he married Marie-Amélie, a daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples. He returned to France on the First Restoration of King Louis XVIII (1814) and regained possession of that portion of the Orléans estates that had not been sold after his emigration. When Napoleon again seized power in March 1815, he fled to England. After the Second Restoration of Louis XVIII (July 1815), Louis-Philippe was a consistent adherent of the liberal opposition.

In 1830 Charles X's attempt to enforce repressive ordinances touched off a rebellion (July 27–30) that gave Louis-Philippe his long-awaited opportunity to gain power. He was elected lieutenant general of the kingdom by the legislature on July 31, two days before Charles abdicated the throne. On August 9 Louis-Philippe accepted the crown.

The revolution that brought Louis-Philippe to power constituted a victory for the upper bourgeoisie over the aristocracy; the new ruler was titled Louis-Philippe, king of the French, instead of Philip VII, king of France. He consolidated his power by steering a middle course between the right-wing extreme monarchists (the Legitimists) on the one side and the socialists and other republicans (including the Bonapartists) on the other. The numerous rebellions and attempts on his life caused the king increasingly to resort to repressive measures; by the end of the 1830s his opponents had been either silenced or driven underground.

Meanwhile, Louis-Philippe was strengthening France's position in Europe. He cooperated with the British in forcing the Dutch to recognize Belgian independence. The industrial and agricultural depression of 1846 aroused widespread popular discontent at a time when the king had already embittered the lower bourgeoisie through his refusal to extend to them the franchise. Faced with an insurrectionary movement of proletarian and middle-class elements, Louis-Philippe abdicated on Feb. 24, 1848, and withdrew to Surrey in England, where he died.