HRH Prince Henri d’Orléans, The Count of Paris, Duke of France, pretender to the throne of France has died at the age of 85.

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French pretenders, Henri Count of Paris, House of Orléans, King of France, Louis-Philippe of France

HRH Prince Henri d’Orléans, The Count of Paris, Duke of France (Henri Philippe Pierre Marie d’Orléans; June 14, 1933 – January 21, 2019), was head of the House of Orléans as the Orléanist pretender to the defunct French throne as King Henri VII of France.

Prince Henri was descendant in the male-line of France’s “Citizen-King” Louis-Philippe I (ruled 1830–1848), he was also recognized as the legitimate claimant to the throne by those French royalists, called Unionists, who regard him as the rightful heir of Prince Henri de Bourbon, Count of Chambord, the last patrilineal descendant of King Louis XV. Henri was a retired military officer as well as an author and painter.

He was the first son of Henri, Count of Paris (1908–1999), and his wife Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza, and was born in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. From October 1959 to April 1962, Prince Henri worked at the Secretariat-General for National Defence and Security as a member of the French Foreign Legion. He transferred from there to a garrison in Germany, he took up a new assignment as military instructor at Bonifacio in Corsica, where his wife and children joined him early in 1963.

HRH Prince Henri d’Orléans, The Count of Paris, Duke of France

Returning to civilian life in 1967, Prince Henri and his family briefly occupied the Blanche Neige pavilion on his father’s Manoir du Coeur-Volant estate at Louveciennes before renting an apartment of their own in the XVe arrondissement. In the early 1970s Prince Henri managed public relations for the Geneva office of a Swiss investment firm while dwelling in Corly.

Marriages and children

On July 5, 1957, Henri married Duchess Marie Therese of Württemberg (born 1934). Marie Therese was the fifth child and fourth daughter of Philipp Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg, and his second wife, Archduchess Rosa of Austria, Princess of Tuscany. She was born at Altshausen Castle, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Five children were born from this union:

1. Princess Marie Isabelle Marguerite Anne Geneviève d’Orléans of France (born 3 January 1959 in Boulogne-sur-Seine)
2. Prince François, Count of Clermont (7 February 1961 in Boulogne-sur-Seine – December 30, 2017)
3. Princess Blanche Elisabeth Rose Marie d’Orléans of France (born 10 September 1963 in Ravensburg).
4. Prince Jean Charles Pierre Marie d’Orléans of France, (born 19 May 1965, Boulogne-sur-Seine), Duke of Vendôme.
5. Prince Eudes Thibaut Joseph Marie d’Orléans of France (born 18 March 1968, Paris), Duke of Angoulême.

In 1984, Prince Henri and Princess Marie-Thérèse were divorced. On October 31, 1984 Prince Henri entered a civil marriage with Micaëla Anna María Cousiño y Quiñones de León (born on 30 April 1938), daughter of Luis Cousiño y Sebire and his wife Antonia Maria Quiñones de Léon y Bañuelos, 4th Marquesa de San Carlos. For remarrying without consent Henri’s father initially declared him disinherited.

Tensions lessened over the years and on March 7, 1991 the Count of Paris reinstated Henri as heir apparent and Count of Clermont, simultaneously giving Micaëla the title “Princesse de Joinville”.

Head of house

Until he succeeded his father as royal claimant, Prince Henri and his second wife occupied an apartment in Paris. On June 19, 1999, Prince Henri’s father died and Henri became the new head of the House of Orléans. He took the traditional title, Count of Paris, adding an ancient one, Duke of France, which had not borne by his Orléans or Bourbon forebears, but used a thousand years ago by his ancestors before Hugh Capet took the title of King of France. His wife assumed the title “Duchess of France”, deferring to the continued use of “Countess of Paris” by Henri’s widowed mother until her death on July 5, 2003, whereupon Micaela started to use the title Countess of Paris.

Prince Henri recognised his disabled eldest son François as heir, with the title Count of Clermont. He was the Dauphin of France in Orleanist reckoning. However, his mother had been infected with toxoplasmosis during her second and third pregnancies, and the pre-natal exposure left both Prince François and his younger sister, Princess Blanche, developmentally disabled.

HRH Prince Jean, Duke of Vendôme

Prince Henri maintained that his eldest son would exercise his prerogatives as head of the dynasty under a “regency” of his middle son, Prince Jean, Duke of Vendôme. However, with François’ death on December 30, 2017, Prince Jean became the Dauphin of France within the family’s claim to the throne. Prince Jean succeeds to the claim of King of France and Monarchists recognize him as King Jean IV of France.

Pretenders to the Throne ~ France, Part II.

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Comte de Chambord, Duke of Anjou, France, French pretenders, Henri VII, Kingdom, Louis XX, Napoleon, Napoleon III, Third Republic

Picking up where we left of yesterday we saw Louis Philippe mount the throne of France. While I do admit that his succession was in violation of the traditional laws of the kingdom he did come to power during a revolution and it seems that in revolutions most laws are off the books and it in a time of upheaval the revolutionaries get to set the new rules.

Louis Philippe’s reign lasted about 18 years when once more revolution struck France and the king fell from power. The heir to the French throne, Prince Ferdinand Duc d’Orléans died in a carriage accident in 1842 leaving his son, grandson of the king, Prince Philippe d’Orléans as heir. The National Assembly of France was willing to accept Philippe as king but the tide of opinion toward the monarchy was very negative and instead France was once again proclaimed a Republic.

The second Republic was replaced by the second Empire under Napoleon III. Once that regime collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 France once again turned toward the House of Bourbon with the intent of restoring the royal line of French kings. The vast majority of French monarchists accepted the claims of Henri V, Comte de Chambord as the legitimate pretender to the throne. Henri was childless and not likely to father any children so many regarded Philippe d’Orléans as Henri’s eventual and rightful heir. The National Assembly and Henri could not reach agreement on the nature of his rule and what rights and powers he would have. Also, Henri, insisted he reign under the white flag of the House of Bourbon and not the tri-colored flag of the revolution. Unable to reach agreement a Third Republic was proclaimed. There was a belief that a restoration of Philippe to the French throne would occur after Henri’s death but Henri lived until 1883 and by that time support for the monarchy had declined (they lost the majority in Parliament in 1877) to the point where a continuation of the Third Republic was the most favorable option.

The vast majority of French monarchists supported the Orléans claimant while a faction of those that did not support the Orléans claim supported the descendents of Felipe V of Spain. These supporters, called Legitimists, believe in the fundamental laws of the kingdom and that a French prince cannot legally give up his rights to the throne. Therefore the renunciation of Philippe Duc d’Anjou (King Felipe V of Spain) of his rights were invalid according to the laws of France at the time. With the death of Henri V in 1883 the Legitimist pretender was Juan, Count of Montizón who was the senior heir general to King Louis XIV. Spain was also experiencing civil discord with the Carlists War, which did not legally recognize Queen Isabel II’s right to the Spanish throne due to Felipe V instituting the Salic Law in Spain, which was abolished by King Fernando VII in 1829 by his wife, Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, in order for their daughter Isabel to succeed to the Crown.

Today the representative of the Spanish line for the French crown is HRH Prince Louis Alphonse of Bourbon, Duke of Anjou. He is a great-grand son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and through his mother he is a great-grandson of Spain’s former dictator Francisco Franco. He is first cousin once removed to Spain’s current king, Juan Carlos. To his Legitimist supporters he is King Louis XX of France. All titles he holds are in pretense as he does not hold any legal title in Spain and is not a member of the Spanish Royal Family. He is married to María Margarita Vargas Santaella and they have three children, twin boys, Louis and Alphonse and a daughter Eugénie.

The Orléans representative is HRH Prince Henri VII d’ Orléans, Comte de Paris, Duc de France. He is a descendent of King Louis Philippe. His first marriage was to Duchess Marie Therese of Württemberg, daughter of HRH Prince Philipp Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg (himself a claimant to the throne of Württemberg) and Archduchess Rosa of Austria, Princess of Tuscany. They had five children. The eldest son, Prince François of Orléans, Count of Clermont, is not heir to his father’s claim due to mental difficulties developed because of toxoplasmosis during pregnancy. Henri’s heir is his second son, Prince Jean, Duke of Vendôme, and is married to Philomena de Tornos Steinhart and they have two children, Prince Gaston and Princess Antoinette.