French royal claimant cannot call himself Bourbon, court rules

AFP ^ | Thu, Oct 02, 2003

[presidio9]

Henri d'Orleans, count of Paris and rival pretender to the throne of France, is banned from using the ancient royal name of Bourbon because it was abandoned by his family in the 17th century, France's high court of appeal ruled.

The decision scuppered Orleanist hopes of reclaiming the dynastic title, which will now remain with the senior branch of the royal house -- represented by Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, duke of Anjou and the other contender for the throne.

The Cour de Cassation confirmed a lower court answer to a plea lodged by the 70 year-old count of Paris shortly after he inherited his position in 1999, in which he asked for the right to call himself Henri de Bourbon.

Both courts found that the name had been dropped by Henri's ancestor Philippe d'Orleans, the younger son of King Louis XIII, who was born in 1640. Henri had "no proven legitimate interest in reclaiming possession of the name of Bourbon," the judges said Thursday.

The Orleans and Bourbon families have conducted a bitter and fruitless contest for the right to claim the throne of France ever since the last king -- the Orleanist Louis-Philippe -- lost power in 1848.

While the Orleans line comes through Louis XIII's younger son, the Bourbons pass through the elder -- Louis XIV -- whose descendants ruled till Louis XVI's execution in the revolution. After the restoration Louis XVI's brother Charles X, who reigned from 1824 to 1830, was the last Bourbon king of France.

[AnAmericanMother]

Where are the Duke and the Dolphin when you really need 'em?

Paging the Royal Nonesuch . . . paging the Royal Nonesuch . . .

[The Great RJ]

Perhaps a new title--His Most Deluxe and Imperial Self

How about the Dixie Chicks as the King's fools?

[presidio9]

Paging the Royal Nonesuch . . . paging the Royal Nonesuch . .

Shhhh... polite Americans are no longer allowed to talk about that book. It's racist donchaknow...

[CatoRenasci]

It's been 30+ years since I did 19th c. French history, but IIRC, the convention was prepared to agree on either the Bourbon or Orleanist pretender. (The bonapartists were never in serious contention) However, as the negotiations proceeded, said pretender would not accept the tricolor, insisting on the fleur d'lis flag (so maybe it was the Bourbon), the bonapartists and republicans in the convention were not willing to give up the tricolor, and so the resulting compromise was the Third Republic. And, as you say, each group figured it could undermine the Republic (which they did, but unsucessfully) as it nurtured a chance at revanche against the pefidious Prussians for marching up the Champs d'Elysee and putting the soon-to-be Kaiser Wilhem I up at Versailles.

[.cnI redruM]

BWAHHHHH!!!!

[CatoRenasci]

From historychannel.com,

But for the intransigence of Henri, comte de Chambord (the legitimist pretender), France might again have become a monarchy.

Source: The Expanded Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright© 2003. Columbia University Press.

[CatoRenasci]

Further from the same source:

Chambord, Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonne, comte de, 1820-83......In 1871, after the fall of the Second Empire, Chambord's prospects improved, and in 1873 the Orleanist pretender relinquished his claims in Chambord's favor. However, his stubborn adherence to the Bourbon flag in preference to the national flag, destroyed his chance of recognition. He died without issue, and his claims passed to the house of Bourbon-Orleans.

It's really hard to be sympathetic with these bozos....

[Oberon]

He should call himself Merovingian, since France is decadent and in utter decline.

Ironically, the Merovings are almost certainly among his ancestors.

[capitan_refugio]

Maybe it has something to do with the French food laws!

[.cnI redruM]

No doubt, however with the exception of Elanor of Aquitaine, all the good French bloodlines definately went to England in 1066.

[pankot]

et in Arcadia Ego....

[aristeides]

No group ever quite got around to pulling a coup and the Third Republic tottered on until Hitler put it to bed in 1940.

Isn't it strange that in 1940, nobody, as far as I know -- not Pétain, not Laval, not even the crazies on the fringes of Vichy -- thought of restoring the monarchy? For all Vichy's talk about a "National Revolution."

DeGaulle came from a Catholic monarchist family. I wonder why he didn't attempt something along those lines. (Well, in a sense he made himself king.)

[Paladin2b]

DeGaulle came from a Catholic monarchist family. I wonder why he didn't attempt something along those lines. (Well, in a sense he made himself king.)

Apparently he really was going to try at first. The plan was something along these lines: de Gaulle first rescues the Fourth Republic from its corruption and incompetence in the late 1950s, and the Constitution for the new Fifth Republic (1958, the one they still use today) created a very strong Executive (the French Presidency in the Third (1873-1940) and Fourth (1946-1958) Republics was a weak ceremonial office) with a seven year term that de Gaulle obviously intended to fill first (to save France as only he thought he could).

It seems the original plan was for de Gaulle to groom and put forth the Orleanist pretender, Henri, as his annointed candidate for the second presidential term beginning in 1965, and that once in office, Henri could gradually win hearts and minds leading up to an eventual national plebescite on restoring the monarchy.

But for one reason or another de Gaulle decided that he was still needed at the helm when the second election rolled around, and so whatever vision he had of restoring the King melted away. Even if he had stuck to the plan, I can't imagine that a plebescite held in the late 60s or early 70s wouldn't have been very good for the royalist cause. People in 1958 just had no idea what a tumultuous decade they were on the cusp of.

[Earl B.]

Is this some sort of sick joke? How pathetic. Offers a bit of a peek into why France is in so much trouble. Living waaaaaayyy in the past.

[Verginius Rufus]

The Bourbons are descended from the Capetians...Louis XVI toward the end was Citizen Capet, and Marie Antoinette after his death was the Widow Capet. Louis XVI was also a descendant of Charles I of England, beheaded in 1649.

Charles X is buried in the Kostanjevica Monastery in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, of all places.

[royalcello]

Sorry to bother you long after you'd probably forgotten about this thread, but I didn't see it in time. As you may remember from our previous debate, there is no subject closer to my heart than monarchy. However, for once I have to agree with you: the Compte de Chambord should not have insisted on the fleur-de-lis flag (although I myself have one hanging proudly on my wall). Even Pope Pius IX, not exactly known for his compromises with liberalism, remarked that the French throne seemed like "a lot to give up for a napkin," or something to that effect.

But the French Republic is still wrong, as is any republic which is the direct result of the abolition of a monarchy integral to a country's heritage. And it's interesting to note that the current Count of Paris has said he would accept the tricolor flag.

[royalcello]

Living waaaaaayyy in the past.

And what on earth is wrong with that? I realize that American conservatism is different from the European right-wing tradition. But I don't understand how any conservative can be so contemptuous of the West's past, of which monarchy is an essential part. Vive le roi!

[CatoRenasci]

No bother, my dear fellow. Indeed, we are in hearty agreement that the Comte de Chambord was (can I say it nicely.. no:) a damned fool for insisting on the fleur-de-lis flag. I suspect the French might have been better off with a constitutional monarchy, but there is the counterargument that it would only have fed French delusions of grandeur. Pius was right on with his comment. Oh, how, the value of the French throne had falled from Henry of Navarre's "Paris is worth a Mass."

[Guelph4ever]

The Bourbon flag was simply a symbol of larger issues. What Chambord was saying was that he was not going to be a figure-head king over a liberal country simply to keep the conservatives quiet. If he was going to put his name and his honor on the line, it was going to be for a traditional, conseravtive and Church-based monarchy in the old style, not the mongrel Citizen-king bourgeois monarchy of Louis Phillipe. He was a man of principle and France, like a few other countries, could use more like him.

Vive le roi!

[CatoRenasci]

It was a symbol of larger issues to be sure, but he surely misread the temper of French society if he thought the French were looking for another Charles X. I studied this period with Roger Williams, the distinguished mid-20th century historian of the Second Empire and early Third Republic. A small group of his graduate students and I had several discussions about the 'lost Orleanist moment'. Chambord was a damned fool in the view of most serious French historians.