Pretender to the French throne as Henry V (1844?83)
Henri, Count of Chambord and Duke of Bordeaux
(
French
:
Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonne d'Artois, duc de Bordeaux, comte de Chambord
; 29 September 1820 ? 24 August 1883)
[1]
was the
Legitimist
pretender
to the throne of France as
Henri V
from 1844 until his death in 1883.
Henri was the only son of
Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry
, born after his father's death, by his wife,
Princess Carolina of Naples and Sicily
, daughter of King
Francis I of the Two Sicilies
. The Duke himself was the younger son of
Charles X
. As the grandson of Charles X, Henri was a
Petit-Fils de France
. He was the last legitimate descendant of
Louis XV of France
in the male line.
Early life
[
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]
Henri d'Artois
was born on 29 September 1820, in the
Pavillon de Marsan
, a portion of the
Tuileries Palace
that still survives in the compound of the
Louvre Palace
in
Paris
. His father, the
duc de Berry
, had been assassinated seven months before Henri's birth.
At birth, Henri was given the title of
duc de Bordeaux
. Because of his birth after his father's death, when the senior male line of the
House of Bourbon
was on the verge of extinction, one of his middle names was
Dieudonne
(French for "God-given"). Royalists called him "the miracle child".
Louis XVIII
was overjoyed, bestowing 35 royal orders to mark the occasion. Henri's birth was a major setback for the
Duke of Orleans
' ambitions to ascend the French throne. During his customary visit to congratulate the newborn's mother, the duke made such offensive remarks about the baby's appearance that the lady holding him was brought to tears.
[2]
Titular King
[
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]
On 2 August 1830, in response to the
July Revolution
, Henri's grandfather, Charles X,
abdicated
, and twenty minutes later Charles' elder son
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angouleme
, himself renounced his rights, in favour of the young Duke of Bordeaux. Charles X urged his cousin Louis Philippe of Orleans, as
Lieutenant general du royaume
, to proclaim Henri as
Henry V, King of France
. Louis Philippe requested the Duke of Bordeaux to be brought to Paris to have his rights recognised. The duchess of Berry was forbidden to escort her son; therefore, both the grandfather and the mother refused to leave the child in France.
[4]
As a consequence, after seven days, a period in which legitimist monarchists considered that Henri had been the rightful monarch of France, the Chamber of Deputies decreed that the throne should pass to Louis Philippe, who was proclaimed King of the French on 9 August.
[5]
Henri and his family left France and went into exile on 16 August 1830. While some French monarchists recognised him as their sovereign, others disputed the validity of the abdications of his grandfather and of his uncle.
[
citation needed
]
Still others recognised the
July Monarchy
of Louis Philippe. With the deaths of his 79-year-old grandfather in 1836 and of his uncle in 1844, young Henri became the genealogically senior claimant to the French throne. His supporters were called
Legitimists
, to distinguish them from the
Orleanists
, the supporters of the family of Louis Philippe.
Henri, who preferred the courtesy title of
Count of Chambord
(from the
chateau de Chambord
, which had been presented to him by the
Restoration
government, and which was the only significant piece of personal property of which he was allowed to retain ownership upon his exile), continued his claim to the throne throughout the July Monarchy of Louis Philippe, the
Second Republic
and
Empire
of
Napoleon III
, and the early years of the
Third Republic
.
In November 1846, the Count of Chambord married his second cousin
Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este
, daughter of Duke
Francis IV
of
Modena
and Princess
Maria Beatrice of Savoy
. The couple had no children.
Hope of a restoration
[
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]
In 1870, as the Second Empire collapsed following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War at the
battle of Sedan
on 2 September 1870, the royalists became a majority in the National Assembly. The Orleanists agreed to support the Count of Chambord's claim to the throne, with the expectation that upon his death, with him lacking any sons, he would be succeeded by their own claimant,
Philippe d'Orleans, Count of Paris
. With Henri backed by both Legitimists and Orleanists, the restoration of monarchy in France seemed a likely possibility. However, he insisted that he would accept the crown only on condition that France abandon its
tricolour flag
(associated with the
French Revolution
) and return to the use of the
fleur de lys
flag,
[7]
comprising the historic royal arms of France. He rejected a compromise whereby the
fleur-de-lys
would be the new king's personal standard, and the tricolour would remain the national flag.
Pope Pius IX
, upon hearing Henri's decision, notably remarked "And all that, all that for a napkin!"
[8]
In 1873 another attempt to restore the monarchy failed for the same reasons. Henri traveled to Paris and tried to negotiate with the government, to no avail; and on 20 November, the National Assembly confirmed
Marshal
The 1st Duke of Magenta
as Chief of State of France for the next seven years.
[9]
Defeat
[
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]
The
Third Republic
was established (with then Chief of State,
the Duke of Magenta
, as
President of the Republic
) to wait for Henri's death and his replacement by his distant cousin, the more liberal
Count of Paris
, of the Orleanist branch of the House of Bourbon. Initially, the monarchist majority in Parliament believed this to be temporary, until such time as the Count of Paris could return to the throne. However, by the time this occurred in 1883, public opinion had swung behind the Republic as the form of government which, in the words of the former President
Adolphe Thiers
, "divides us least". Thus, Henri could mockingly be hailed by republicans such as
Georges Clemenceau
as "the French
Washington
" ? the one man without whom the Republic could not have been founded.
Henri died on 24 August 1883 at his residence in
Frohsdorf
,
Austria
, at the age of 62, bringing the male line of Louis XV to an end. He was buried in the crypt of his grandfather Charles X, in the church of the Franciscan
Kostanjevica Monastery
in
Gorizia
, Austria (now
Slovenia
). His personal property, including the
Chateau de Chambord
, was left to his nephew
Robert I, Duke of Parma
, son of Henri's late sister.
Henri's death left the Legitimist line of succession distinctly confused. On the one hand, Henri himself had accepted that the head of the
House of France
(as distinguished from the
House of Bourbon
) would be the head of the Orleans line, i.e.
Prince Philippe, Count of Paris
. This was accepted by many Legitimists, and was the default on legal grounds; the only surviving Bourbon male line more senior was the branch of the Kings of Spain, descended from
King Philip V
, which had however renounced its right to inherit the throne of France as a condition of the
Treaty of Utrecht
. However, several of Henri's supporters, including his widow, chose to disregard his statements and the Treaty, arguing that no one had the right to deny that the senior direct male-line Bourbon was the head of the House of France and thus the legitimate King of France; the renunciation of the Spanish branch would be, under this interpretation, illegitimate and therefore void. Thus the
Blancs d'Espagne
, as they would come to be known, settled on
Infante Juan, Count of Montizon
, the former
Carlist
pretender to the
Spanish throne
,
[10]
as their claimant to the French crown.
Gallery
[
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]
Honours
[
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]
Ancestry
[
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]
Ancestors of Henri, Count of Chambord
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See also
[
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]
- ^
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911).
"Chambord, Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonne, Comte de"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 822?823.
- ^
Bernard, J.F. (1973).
Talleyrand: A Biography
. New York: Putnam. p. 495.
ISBN
0-399-11022-4
.
- ^
Castelot, Andre (1988).
Charles X
. Paris: Perrin. p. 492.
ISBN
978-2-262-00545-0
.
- ^
Garnier, J. (1968). "Louis-Philippe et le Duc de Bordeaux (avec des documents inedits)".
Revue Des Deux Mondes (1829?1971)
, 38?52. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
JSTOR
44593301
- ^
Price, Munro (2007).
The Perilous Crown: France between Revolutions
. London: Macmillan. pp. 177, 181?182, 185.
ISBN
978-1-4050-4082-2
.
- ^
Smith, Whitney (1975).
Flags: Through the Ages and Across the World
. New York: McGraw-Hill. p.
75
.
ISBN
978-0-07-059093-9
.
- ^
D. W. Brogan,
The Development of Modern France (1870?1939)
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1945), pp. 83?84.
- ^
"The Humour of Pope Pius IX"
.
EWTN
.
- ^
Gabriel de Broglie,
Mac Mahon,
Paris, Perrin, 2000, pp. 247?251.
- ^
The
Semi-Salic law
of succession instituted by Philip V in 1713 had been suspended in Spain by the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1830
. Therefore, the actual king of Spain,
Alfonso XII
, was not the senior descendant of
Hugh Capet
in the male line.
- ^
"Toison Espagnole (Spanish Fleece) - 19th century"
(in French),
Chevaliers de la Toison D'or
. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
Further reading
[
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]
- Brown, Marvin Luther.
The Comte de Chambord :The Third Republic's Uncompromising King
. Durham, N.C.:, Duke University Press, 1967.
- Delorme, Philippe
.
Henri, comte de Chambord, Journal (1846?1883), Carnets inedits
. Paris: Guibert, 2009.
- Lucien Edward Henry (1882). "
The Royal Family of France
".
The Royal Family of France
: 49?51.
Wikidata
Q107258956
.
- "The Death of the comte de Chambord",
British Medical Journal
2, no. 1186 (September 22, 1883): 600?601.
External links
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- Louis had no children; he died aged 10 in 1795. His uncle, the future
Louis XVIII
, proclaimed himself regent but both titles were disputed.
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