Henri, Count of Chambord
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| Henri V | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| King of France Count of Chambord Duke of Bordeaux | |||||
.jpg) Photograph c. 1870 | |||||
| King of France as Henri V | |||||
| Pretence | 2 August 1830 – 9 August 1830 | ||||
| Predecessor | Louis XIX | ||||
| Successor | Louis Philippe I (as King of the French) | ||||
| Legitimist pretender to the French throne as Henri V | |||||
| Predecessor | Louis XIX | ||||
| Successor | Philippe VII or Jean III | ||||
| Born | 29 September 1820 Tuileries Palace, Paris, France | ||||
| Died | 24 August 1883 (aged 62) Schloss Frohsdorf, Frohsdorf, Austria-Hungary | ||||
| Burial | |||||
| Spouse | |||||
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| House | Bourbon | ||||
| Father | Prince Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry | ||||
| Mother | Princess Maria Carolina of Naples and Sicily | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Henri, Count of Chambord and Duke of Bordeaux (French: Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné d'Artois, duc de Bordeaux, comte de Chambord; 29 September 1820 - 24 August 1883), the Duke of Bordeaux , better known by his courtesy title of Count of Chambord was a prince of the French Royal Family, and head of the Capetian House of Bourbon. Grandson of King Charles X, he was the head and last representative of the senior and French branch of the House of Bourbon, and was the Legitimist pretender to the Crown of France from 1844 until his death under the name of Henri V.
The name Artois given to him by King Louis XVIII, and was the one which appeared on his birth certificate, but he no longer used it after 1844 (after the death of his uncle the Duke of Angoulême, the last Dauphin of France ), considering from then on to bear de jure the name "of France".
From the same date he opted for the name "Bourbon" in his relations with foreign states, and it was also under this name that he had himself represented by his lawyers in France, in certain civil proceedings . Under the Restoration, Henri d'Artois bore the title of Duke of Bordeaux, which Louis XVIII gave him in homage to the first city which rallied to the Bourbons in 1814.
Though designated as King of France and Navarre in 1830, at the age of nine, in the act of abdication of his grandfather, Charles X, and of abdication of his uncle, the titular Louis XIX, he did not exercise this function due to the accession of the Duke of Orléans to the throne after seven days. He then went into exile with his entire family in England . From 1830 until his death, he bore the courtesy title of Count of Chambord, which was given to him at the age of nine, by the deposed royal family leaving for exile, from the name of the castle which had been offered to him by a national subscription. His supporters considered him as Henri V.
Returning to France after the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, he rallied the royalist majority of the new National Assembly, reconciled with the Orléans branch (which nevertheless posed as heir to the elder branch of the Bourbons), and witnessed the failure of a restoration project, following the refusal of the majority of deputies to accept the white flag, and his own refusal to adopt the tricolor flag.
He was the last legitimate male-line descendant of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska. His childless death in 1883 marked the extinction of the Artois branch of the Capetian House of Bourbon and the beginning of a quarrel between the Houses of Bourbon-Anjou and Orléans over which had the most legitimacy to the Crown of France.
Early life
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Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, was the great-nephew of King Louis XVIII of France. At birth, he was third in line to the throne after his grandfather, the Count of Artois—the future Charles X (widower of Princess Marie-Thérèse of Savoy)—and his uncle Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angoulême .
Nicknamed by the poet Alphonse de Lamartine the "child of the miracle", he was the posthumous son of Charles-Ferdinand d'Artois, Duke of Berry, younger son of the Count of Artois, and his wife Marie-Caroline of the Two Sicilies. The Duke of Berry was assassinated on the night of 13 February1820, by the Bonapartist Louis-Pierre Louvel who wanted to "destroy the line" of the Bourbons . Already the mother of a daughter, the Duchess of Berry, pregnant at the time of the tragedy, gave birth seven and a half months later to a son, the long-awaited future heir to the throne.
Baptized from birth, between three and four o'clock in the morning of September 29, by his first chaplain Marc-Marie de Bombelles, bishop of Amiens , under the name of "Henri, Charles, Ferdinand, Marie, Dieu-donné d'Artois, duke of Bordeaux." Henri was baptized on 1 May 1821 at the Notre-Dame de Paris; his godfathers were his uncle, the Duke of Angoulême and his great-grandfather King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. His godmothers were his aunt the Duchess of Angoulême and his grandfather's wife, Maria Isabella of Spain.
On October 11, 1820, a national subscription allowed the prince to be given the Château de Chambord. He was initially placed, like his elder sister Louise, under the responsibility of the Duchess of Gontaut. In 1827, Auguste-Marie Agard de Maupas became his deputy governor. In 1828, his grandfather, who had become king in 1824 under the name of Charles X , entrusted his education to the Baron de Damas. This educator attached great importance to religious learning ; he also took care to choose tutors who introduced the prince to basic subjects, modern languages — German, Italian — physical exercises and pistol shooting .
The prince had an older sister, Louise d'Artois (1819-1864). On his father's side, he had two legitimate half-sisters: Charlotte, Countess of Issoudun (future Princess of Faucigny-Lucinge) and Louise, Countess of Vierzon (future wife of Baron de Charette, general of the Papal Zouaves), as well as several illegitimate half-brothers and sisters, some of whom were born posthumously. His mother's remarriage to Ettore Lucchesi-Palli, 8th Duke della Grazia produced five more legitimate half-brothers and sisters.
Titular King
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On 25 July 1830, Charles X promulgated ordinances which provoked the Revolution of 1830. July 30, 1830, a group of Parisian politicians launched the candidacy for the throne of Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans . On 2 August 1830, Charles X abdicated in favor of his grandson Henri d'Artois. The order of succession, however, gave the throne to the king's eldest son, the dauphin Louis-Antoine of France, who was called to reign under the name of Louis XIX. He was forced to countersign his father's abdication. Thus, the Crown would pass to the young Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, who would become Henri V. Charles X sent this act of abdication to the Duke of Orléans, entrusting him de facto with the regency, having already appointed him from 1 August 1830 as Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. In this dispatch, he expressly trusted him with proclaiming the accession of Henri V. Louis-Philippe d'Orléans does not consider himself regent from 2 August ; he simply registered the abdication of Charles X and the renunciation of his son, without proclaiming Henri V. On 7 August, the Chamber of Deputies and then the Chamber of Peers called the Duke of Orleans to the throne, who took the oath on August 9, under the name of Louis-Philippe I. Nevertheless , from 2 August to 9 August, the legitimists to referred to the young Henri, as Henri V. The royal family went into exile in England on 16 August 1830.
During the July Monarchy (1830–1848)
[edit]From Great Britain to Austria
[edit]The deposed royal family settled in the Holyrood Castle, Scotland. In April 1832, the Duchess of Berry, mother of the Duke of Bordeaux, landed in France in the hope of provoking an uprising in western France , which would give the throne to her son. Her attempt failed. She was arrested in November 1832, and imprisoned in the citadel of Blaye, where she gave birth to a daughter there whom she presented as the fruit of a secret marriage with the Count of Lucchesi-Palli. Discredited, she went into exile and the former King Charles X entrusted the education of his grandchildren to his other daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Angoulême , daughter of the late Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette of Austria.
In October 1832, the family of Charles X left the United Kingdom to settle in the Royal Palace of Prague, in Bohemia. The education of the Duke of Bordeaux was entrusted to Bishop Denis Frayssinous. On 27 September 1833, for his majority, set at thirteen years by the laws of the kingdom, Prince Henri received a group of legitimists, who greeted him with the cry of "Long live the king!". On their return to France, the latter were pursued by the government of Louis-Philippe, but acquitted by the court of assizes. The first act that the Duke of Bordeaux performed on the occasion of his majority was that of a "solemn protest against the usurpation of Louis-Philippe."
In October 1836, the former royal family had to leave Prague for Goritz, where Charles X died on 6 November. His son, the dauphin, became Louis XIX, in the eyes of the legitimists.
On 28 July, 1841, the Count of Chambord was the victim of a horse riding accident, which forced him into a long convalescence and left him with a limp.
In October 1843, he went to London, where he met many legitimists from France, among whom was François-René de Chateaubriand, in Belgrave Square. These followers would be "branded" by the July Monarchy
Head of the House of Bourbon
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The death of the titular Louis XIX occurred on 3 June, 1844, leading his supporters to rally to the Count of Chambord, who became the eldest of the House of France and was henceforth recognized under the name of Henri V by all the legitimists, who remained in opposition of the July Monarchy, the Second Republic and the Second Empire .
The first act of the pretender to the throne of France was to assert his rights:
- "Having become, by the death of the Count of Marnes, head of the House of Bourbon, I consider it my duty to protest against the change that has been introduced into the legitimate order of succession to the Crown and to declare that I will never renounce the rights that, according to French law, I hold by birth. These rights are linked to great duties that, with the grace of God, I will be able to fulfill; however, I only wish to exercise them when, in my conviction, Providence calls me to be truly useful to France. Until that time, my intention is to take, in the exile in which I am forced to live, only the name of Count of Chambord; the one I adopted on leaving France . "
In 1844, the Count of Chambord and his aunt, Marie-Thérèse of France , moved to Frohsdorf Castle, located southeast of Vienna.
From Frohsdorf, the Count of Chambord kept abreast of French and international affairs. "He read several titles from the French and foreign press every day, read the brochures and books sent to him, received travelers from France, and maintained correspondence with Legitimist figures."
Marriage
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For many years, the Count of Chambord and his entourage sought a bride for the man who would one day inherit the throne of France. However, as an exile and with virtually no chance of succeeding to the throne, their requests were refused. Louis-Philippe I blocked Henri's marriage proposals as much as he could. Over the years, the Count of Chambord became interested in the following princesses:
- Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia. The Duchess of Berry sent the Count of Choulot to ask for the princess's hand, but the Duchess of Angoulême refused, as Olga was not Catholic and came from a family with a weak lineage.
- Archduchess Maria Beatrice of Modena. Henri was interested in her, but the young princess was already engaged to Henri's cousin, the former Infante of Spain, John of Bourbon, Count of Montizon, future pretender to the thrones of Spain and France.
- Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Sicily. The fallen royal family was interested for a time in this princess, Henri's maternal aunt. However, she was not retained.
- An Archduchess of Austria. The Duchess of Angoulême likely desired an alliance with the centuries-old House of Austria. However, Chancellor Metternich refused to avoid the displeasure of the French King.
Finally, on 15 November, 1846, the Count of Chambord married Maria Theresa of Modena, with whom he was to form a united couple. The father of this twenty-nine-year-old princess, Duke Francis IV of Modena , was the only European sovereign not to have recognized the July Monarchy . The Duchess, born Princess Mary Beatrice of Savoy, was the heir of the Stuarts to rule Great Britain , but excluded from the succession because of the anti-Catholic Act of Settlement of 1701. The marriage would remain without issue due to a malformation of the archduchess.
The Second Republic (1848-1852)
[edit]In February 1848, the French Revolution of 1848 occurred; Louis-Philippe abdicated on the 24th; and the Second Republic was proclaimed. The Count of Chambord saw the fall of the Orléans as just punishment, but refrained from any public demonstration of joy. Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was elected President of the Republic in December 1848. However, in May 1849, the elections brought a monarchist majority to the National Assembly. The prince-president soon came into conflict with it. By the coup d'état of December 2, 1851, he retained power and, in October 1852, suggested an imminent restoration of the Empire. The Count of Chambord intervened with a manifesto dated 25 October 1852, in which he stated:
"The genius and glory of Napoleon were not enough to establish anything stable; his name and memory would be even less enough. Security is not restored by shaking the principle on which the throne rests [...]. The monarchy in France is the royal house of France indissolubly united to the nation. [...] I therefore maintain my right which is the surest guarantor of yours, and, taking God as witness, I declare to France and to the world that, faithful to the laws of the kingdom and to the traditions of my ancestors, I will religiously preserve until my last breath the deposit of the hereditary monarchy whose custody Providence has entrusted to me, and which is the only port of safety where, after so many storms, this France, the object of all my love, will finally be able to find peace and happiness. "
Immediately after signing this manifesto, the Count of Chambord clarified to his supporters the line of conduct he expected of them, if the Empire was re-established: they should not participate in public life, abstain from voting and from standing for elected office.
In June 1848, he took the initiative of a first gesture of reconciliation with the Orléans family. In 1850, on the death of Louis-Philippe, he had a mass celebrated in memory of the deceased and wrote to his widow, Queen Marie-Amélie . Steps were taken between the two families, but their union did not come to fruition .
In 1851, the Count of Chambord inherited the Château de Frohsdorf from his aunt, Marie-Thérèse. He lived there and kept royal memorabilia: portraits of the royal family; white flags given to Charles X in August 1830; and gifts offered by legitimists.
He had two schools built on the Frohsdorf estate, for the children of the castle staff and the parish.
He sometimes left Frohsdorf Castle to travel to Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Germany and Greece. In 1861, he made a two and a half month journey to the Orient, which allowed him to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
From 1848 to 1866, he also resided during the winter in Venice, at the Cavalli-Franchetti Palace, where he had major works carried out. During his stays in Venice, the prince enjoyed being able to hunt in the lagoon. In 1866, the annexation of Veneto following the Treaty of Vienna, brought an end to Austrian domination over the city of Venice and forced the Count of Chambord to sell the palace.
Her sister, Princess Louise, had been married in 1845 to the Hereditary Prince of Lucca, Ferdinand Charles of Bourbon, who later became Duke Charles III of Parma . He was assassinated in 1854 after five years of reign. Duchess Louise was appointed regent for her son Robert I but had to flee before the Sardinian troops who invaded the duchy in 1860. She died prematurely in 1864, entrusting the guardianship of her children to her brother. The Count of Chambord had a great influence on his nephews and nieces.
Development of a political project under the Second Empire (1852-1870)
[edit]During the Second Empire , the Count of Chambord maintained regular contact with representatives of the Legitimist party in France, with whom he exchanged clandestine correspondence. From 1862 onward, he made his doctrine and political project known through manifestos addressed to the French people, calling for a monarchy that would achieve "the much-desired alliance of strong authority and wise freedom", he advocated administrative and political decentralisation. He also considered the social question.
Constitution
[edit]The Count of Chambord wanted the king to be accessible without distinction of social rank and to make "all the talents, all the high characters, all the intellectual forces of all the French people compete." The grandson of Charles X intended that this declaration of principle find it concrete in the constitution of the kingdom by the affirmation of the equality of rights between all French citizens and the equal access of all to public charges and responsibilities as well as to social advantages. A supporter of a written constitution, the pretender disavowed certain counter-revolutionary thinkers and said he was in favor of organic laws guaranteeing public freedoms and defining the workings of the government. The Count of Chambord detested Adolphe Thiers' formula: "The king reigns and does not govern." For him, the king appointed and dismissed ministers, gave them directives, made them work together, and controlled their actions.
The role of parliament is one of control which did not extend to overthrowing the government: it consisted of the annual vote on taxes and the budget and in participating in the drafting of laws. The Count of Chambord feared that ministerial responsibility before the chambers would be a source of chronic instability. He was also in favour of bicameralism. On the other hand, he believed the king would have the right to dissolve the chamber without limitation.
Universal suffrage and decentralization
[edit]The Count of Chambord was in favor of universal suffrage; he believed, as Villèle had told him, that his grandfather would have retained his throne if he had appealed for it. His ideas were close to those of the Marquis de Franclieu, who sent him a study entitled Le Suffrage universel fidèlement pratique in 1866 and made this public in 1874 in the form of a Report to the King . According to Franclieu, a popular vote proved more conservative than an elitist vote. Franclieu favored two avenues: family suffrage and the representation of economic and social interests. This text, which provided for granting the right to vote to women, inspired a bill by the Count of Douhet according to which "the accumulated vote of families" would be established. Heads of families would have as many votes as children, with large families being considered "more stable, wiser and more deserving." The representation of economic and social interests would be achieved by introducing into the composition of the Upper House a dose of professional representation: "agriculture, property, industry, commerce, labor, science."
The Count of Chambord subsequently provided details of his own conception: a broad suffrage but with several degrees. "Universal suffrage is absurd only in its application, it is certainly not in its principle. I mean that, philosophically speaking, it is not absurd that the members of the social body take part in the government of this body. [...] Let everyone vote, but only on what they are capable of appreciating, and let one have a vote only where one is capable of having an opinion."
The question of suffrage seemed to him inseparable from that of decentralization, as he advocated the creation of territorial communities whose representatives would come from universal suffrage: "There still remains in France a municipal life, a provincial life, a national life to re-establish. Each of these lives must correspond to its own organization." The electoral system advocated is based on a complete universal suffrage with three levels and direct only for the first; the entire population elects the municipal councilors, who elect the provincial councilors, who elect the national councilors, in other words the deputies.
Freedom of education
[edit]The Count of Chambord considered religious freedom to be "inviolable and sacred", he intended to guarantee it but did not intend for the bishops to interfere in temporal affairs, which would be "no less contrary to the dignity and interests of religion itself than to the good of the State". But the prince did not specify whether this would not result in the negotiation of a new concordat.
According to him, public authorities had to keep their distance from education, which must remain free. He didn't see why the State would prohibit religious congregations from fulfilling their educational mission. With the private teachers who, in Paris, had formed a society, he regularly exchanged ideas and advice. Through his offerings, he contributed to the construction and financing of several diocesan establishments. In this area, he clarified his thinking in the form of a manifesto letter, that of 30 January 1865, saying that education should be placed at the forefront of the country's needs, but it is conceived as primarily "religious and moral." He intended not to reestablish the state monopoly on the universities, and planned to develop a network of congregational establishments and to reinstate the control of the clergy over public schools.
Justice, army, foreign and colonial policy
[edit]On 6 January 1855, he strongly affirmed his attachment to the independence of the judiciary in a letter of principle to a magistrate forced by the government to retire .
He also asserted his attachment to the professional army. He criticized conscription for, "tearing away arms that could cultivate the land and enrich the country; spending money on equipping conscripts that would be better used to perfect heavy equipment and fire techniques; disgusting poor young citizens with the effort for the fatherland; renouncing an achievement of civilization, namely the sacrifice made by the military for the civilian." He was in favor of a tight-knit, very technical, strongly hierarchical army, .
He was hostile to the foreign policy of Napoleon III, which he considered adventurous, hostile to the strengthening of Prussia and the destruction of the Papal States, he planned to retake Alsace-Lorraine from the German Empire by a secret and long-prepared lightning attack, and to work to obtain guarantees for the independence of the papacy without specifying which ones, or how to obtain them. He wanted to orient the foreign policy of France in the direction of a fight against the muslims, both within the framework of the French strategy in the south and in the East. From his trip to the Ottoman Empire, he retained the idea that the Muslim world must be pushed back as far as possible.
From 1856 , he studied the Algerian dossier in detail and published the synthesis of his reflections in his Letter on Algeria on 30 January 1865, a letter in which he hopes that schools will be built, public works will be developed, and agricultural, commercial and industrial associations will be experimented with. He insisted on the need to serve the interests of civilization and Christianity in Algeria and received the approval of Pope Pius IX. The prince affirmed the need not to leave the monopoly of the sea to England, that France had to strengthen the navy and to better train the administrators of the colonies.
Agriculture and peasantry
[edit]In his Letter on Agriculture , published on 12 March 1866, the Count of Chambord recalled the great values of the land and their links with royalty and reviewed the different cultures and their difficulties; he advocated for protectionism, not seeing the interest in lowering customs barriers. He evoked the avenues to explore in the form of questions which are as many priorities, however never specified the answers to be provided.
Labor policy
[edit]In 1848, he wrote: "to assist the French who are suffering is to serve me." On 30 October 1846, the Count of Chambord asked the Marquis de Pastoret to establish charity workshops in Chambord and in the forests that belonged to him, offering work for the winter to the most deprived inhabitants. The idea would inspire the institution of the National Workshops in 1848.
The memoirs of the French legitimists fuel the pretender's thinking on the social question, notably those of the Viscount of Chabrol-Chaméane, the Viscount of Bouchage, the Baron of Rivière and especially Alban de Villeneuve-Bargemon, who was the companion in arms of the Duchess of Berry. For Villeneuve-Bargemon, charity was necessary but not sufficient, that it was necessary to act on legislation in the face of selfishness and social cynicism. The Count of Chambord gave his support to the Marquis of La Rochejacquelein in 1849, who wanted to create an association for the benefit of the working classes. From there, he encouraged the creation of associations formed in the interest of the working class. But for them it was a question of managing charitable works and not of making them instruments of social negotiations. He believed in associations of aid and mutual aid, and supported the creation by of the Charitable Economy Society by Armand de Melun, which offered several types of services: assistance in the event of illness, nurseries, assistance for apprentices, and the fight against unsanitary housing.
He believed in the formula of association, which he observed in various European countries and which he considered promising in a note from 12 June 1855. In France, a decree of March 1852 granted the right to freely form mutual aid societies, private law associations which organize solidarity between members in the event of illness or work accident.
In his Letter on the Workers from 20 April 1865, he took an important step by affirming the necessity of the existence of a contradictory social dialogue based on the unions. He thus wished that the workers would organize themselves into associations inspired by the corporations, "for the defense of their common interests." Otto von Bismarck said "Only I and the Count of Chambord have possessed the social question. He has certainly apprehended it from the angle of Christian charity owed by the great to the relief of the misery of the people, but also perceived the link between standard of living and work status. The requirement of charity didn't disappear, but was now distinguished from social dialogue, which according to him must have its own instruments. His faith in social dialogue made him underestimate the proper role of the State to regulate everything that could not be left to collective bargaining. He does not fear to use the term "emancipation" of the working class."
The Restoration attempt (1870-1873)
[edit]From Sedan to the end of exile (August 1870-July 1871)
[edit]In August 1870, while Napoleon III 's France suffered serious defeats in the war against Prussia, the Count of Chambord left Frohsdorf with the intention of enlisting; he launched on 1 September a call to "repel the invasion, save at all costs the honor of France, the integrity of its territory."
On 4 September 1870, the Second Empire collapsed after the defeat at Sedan. Bismarck demanded to negotiate the future peace treaty with a government resulting from the suffrage of the French, and legislative elections were organized in February 1871; the new Assembly had 240 republican deputies against 400 monarchists, divided between Legitimists and Orleanists .
Meeting in Bordeaux on 18 February, the Assembly appointed Adolphe Thiers the head of the executive power of the French Republic"; at the same time, it invested itself with constituent power, but announced that it would only exercise it later. It did not want to consider the restoration of the monarchy until France was liberated from German occupation.
On 8 May 1871, the Count of Chambord published a letter in response to one of his supporters, Carayon-Latour, in which he condemned political intrigues, placed the events in the context of French history, affirmed his faith in eternal France and called for unity. The letter accelerated the process of uniting the royalists and the princes of Orléans ordered the Count of Paris to step aside for Henri V.
Nevertheless, the Legitimist pretender refused to renounce the white flag . For him, it was a question of principle, which concerns the very idea he had of the monarchy. In a letter from 24 May 1871, the Count of Chambord affirmed that he didn't want to abandon the flag of his fathers which for him meant "respect for religion, protection of all that is just, of all that is good, of all that is right, united with all that the demands of our time demand, while the tricolor flag represents the flag of the revolution in all its aspects and that in addition it fills the arsenals of the foreigner, its conqueror." If he compromised with the heritage of the Revolution, he would be powerless to do good.
On 8 June 1871, the Assembly abolished the laws banishing the Bourbons from France. In July 1871, the Count of Chambord returned for a few days to France. But he postponed a meeting with the Count of Paris, which disappointed the Orleanists. On 5 July, he received a delegation of royalist deputies bringing together the heirs of three of the greatest houses of the monarchy, Gontaut-Biron, La Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia and Maillé, as well as Dupanloup, bishop and deputy of Orléans, who tried to convince him to adopt the tricolor flag. The Count of Chambord also received at the Château de Chambord many representatives of his supporters from all social classes and these discussions with them convinced him that the people of France were not so attached to the tricolor flag. He left France again and launched a manifesto, published in L'Union on 8 July, in which he stated:
- "I cannot forget that monarchical law is the nation's heritage, nor decline the duties it imposes on me towards it. I will fulfill these duties, believe me on my word as an honest man and a king. […] I am ready to do anything to raise my country from its ruins and to resume its place in the world; the only sacrifice I cannot make is that of my honor. […] I will not let the standard of Henry IV, Francis I and Joan of Arc be torn from my hands . […] I received it as a sacred trust from the old king, my ancestor, dying in exile; it has always been inseparable for me from the memory of the absent homeland; it fluttered over my cradle, I want it to shade my grave."
Overall, this letter aroused incomprehension and Daniel Halévy said about it: "This prince, who echoed the verses of a poet, was he doing his duty as king? The Germans were at Saint-Denis, the treasury was empty, every minute had its demands. What Capetian would have understood it? [...] Chambord was not a man of old France, his act is in no way connected with the very realistic tradition of our kings. Chambord is a child of the émigrés, a reader of Chateaubriand. [...] The decision of the Count of Chambord is, in its order, a revolutionary act: by it, one of the most solid supports of the old ruling classes is broken [...]. By it, the French Monarchy leaves the earth, becoming legend and myth. " The legitimists were divided, some publishing a collective note to affirm their attachment to the tricolor flag. Adolphe Thiers claimed that the Count of Chambord was the founder of the Republic and that posterity will call him the "French Washington. The Viscount of Meaux stated in his memoirs that if the grandson of Charles X had remained at Chambord, had received the princes of Orléans there, and had said he was ready to come to an agreement with the most monarchist assembly that the country could elect, the monarchy would have been quickly restored.
The procrastination of the Thiers presidency (August 1871-May 1873)
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Despite this, the royalists believed that the monarchy could be restored. On 18 September 1871, the deputies discussed a bill aimed at having all central administrations set up in Versailles, which was voted about on 8 October, with the Count of Chambord having announced to Lucien Brun, then perceived as the possible president of the council of ministers of Henri V, that once the restoration was completed, he would settle in Versailles.
In November 1871, the police prefect appointed by Thiers, Léon Renault, declared that with one hundred thousand francs, he would cover Paris with white flags.
Some Orleanists like the Count of Falloux wanted to obtain a formal abdication from the Count of Chambord or to bring his supporters to consider his succession as open, which would allow the Count of Paris to be called to the throne. But the Count of Chambord opposed this and clarified his thoughts again on 25 January 1872, by a manifesto in which he proclaims:
- "I do not have to justify the path I have chosen. [...] I will not allow the monarchical principle, the heritage of France, the last hope for its greatness and its freedoms, to be undermined, after having kept it intact for forty years. [...] I am not raising a new flag, I am maintaining that of France [...]. Apart from the national principle of monarchical heredity without which I am nothing, with which I can do everything, where will our alliances be? [...] Nothing will shake my resolutions, nothing will tire my patience, and no one, under any pretext, will obtain from me that I consent to become the legitimate king of the Revolution."
In the spring of 1872, the Count of Chambord opposed the idea of the Duke of Aumale's candidacy for the presidency of the Republic. The latter denigrated him by nicknaming him "Monsieur de Trop" and released on 28 May 1872 a statement in favor of the tricolor flag, described as the "cherished flag" during a discussion in the Assembly ; he is credited with this formula: "The French are blue, and they see red when you show them white."
In January 1873, the princes of Orleans made a gesture towards the Count of Chambord while attending a mass in memory of Louis XVI at the expiatory chapel .
In May 1873, the President of the Republic, Adolphe Thiers , declared that "the monarchy is impossible" and that the Republic was preferable. The royalist majority of the Assembly then put him in the minority, causing his resignation 24 May 1873. He was immediately replaced with Marshal Mac Mahon, who was in favor of the restoration of royalty.
The failure of the Third Restoration (June-November 1873)
[edit]The death of Napoleon III in January 1873, whose only son and dynastic heir was exiled with his mother to Great Britain, the departure of the republican Thiers in May, and the evacuation of German troops in September created a climate conducive to restoration. The government, supported by the Church, which increased the number of pilgrimages where long processions sang "Save Rome and France in the name of the Sacred Heart!", maintained this climate.
5 August 1873, the Count of Paris, grandson of Louis-Philippe, went to Frohsdorf to meet his cousin, the Count of Chambord and to salute him as the "sole representative of the monarchical principle"; he added that if France wanted to return to the monarchy, "no competition would arise in our family." This reconciliation of Henri V and the Count of Paris in principle encouraged the Orleanist deputies to join their Legitimist colleagues in voting for the restoration of the monarchy. Pius IX then instructed the Apostolic Nuncio of Vienna to inform the Count of Chambord that the Holy See attached great importance to the restoration in France and that the color of the flag was a subject on which common ground must be found.
On 4 October, the royalist deputies appointed a commission to agree with the Count of Chambord on a draft of a future constitution, prior to the vote on the restoration of the monarchy. The commission appointed the deputy of the Basses-Pyrénées, Charles Chesnelong to meet the pretender. On 14 October 1873, in Salzburg, the Count of Chambord approved the constitutional project presented to him by Chesnelong. The Count of Chambord raised no objection to the lines already outlined: the recognition of hereditary royal law as an integral part of national law and not placed above it, the development of a constitution discussed by the Assembly and not granted by the king, the separation of powers and bicameralism, the political responsibility of ministers, the guarantee of civil and religious liberties. On the subject of the flag, the two men agreed on a text stating that "the Count of Chambord does not ask that anything be changed in the flag before he has taken possession of power; he reserves the right to present to the country, at the time he deems appropriate, and undertakes to obtain from it, through its representatives, a solution compatible with his honor and which he believes will satisfy the Assembly and the nation. The Count of Chambord, however, did not hide from his interlocutor that he would never accept the tricolor flag . The "solution" envisaged by the Count of Chambord, for the flag, is unknown .
The accession to the throne of the Count of Chambord then seemed very close to completion. Alphonse Daudet wrote: "Let him come quickly, our Henri... We are so longing to see him ." The commission prepared a text which would be submitted to the vote at the first session of the Assembly on 5 November and which stated in its first article that “the national, hereditary and constitutional monarchy is the government of France”.
At the end of October 1873, preparations begin for the return of the King to France. Negotiations were taken seriously at the Paris Stock Exchange, which rose after news.
Duke Gaston d'Audiffret-Pasquier intended to inform the French people by means of a press release which stated that changes to the flag could only be made with the agreement of the future king and the national representation, without mentioning a replacement. Furthermore, the minutes of a meeting of Centre-Right deputies drawn up by Charles Savary attribute to the Count of Chambord remarked that he did not make during his meeting with Chesnelong, namely that he would "happily" salute the tricolour flag upon its entry into France. It is considered that Savary's report was intended to provoke a reaction from the Count of Chambord which would cause the restoration to fail.
Due to Charles Savary 's distortion of the Count of Chambord's words, some newspapers even went so far as to say that the pretender had definitively rallied to the tricolor flag. Not wanting to be bound, the Count of Chambord then decided to deny this interpretation in a Letter to Chesnelong, dated 27 October 1873, which he had published in the legitimist newspaper L'Union . He noted that "public opinion, carried away by a current that I deplore, claimed that I finally consented to become the legitimate king of the revolution. [...] The pretensions of the day before give me the measure of the demands of the day after, and I cannot consent to inaugurate a restorative and strong reign by an act of weakness." The Count of Chambord reaffirmed his attachment to the white flag. No longer able to hope to obtain a majority, the commission which was preparing the restoration of the monarchy ended its work on 31 October.
The Count of Chambord, who did not expect this result, then took steps to regain his chances: he went incognito to France on 9 November 1873, and settled in Versailles, with one of his supporters, the Count of Vanssay. On 12 November, he asked the Duke of Blacas to meet Marshal Mac Mahon, President of the Republic. He was in no doubt thinking of entering the Chamber of Deputies, leaning on the President's arm, and obtaining from the enthusiastic parliamentarians the restoration of the monarchy. But Mac Mahon refused to meet the pretender, believing that his duty as head of the executive forbade him to do so.
In the night of 20 November, the Assembly, unaware that the Count of Chambord was in France, voted for a seven-year presidential mandate, thus extending Mac Mahon's powers. For the Orleanists, this delay was to allow them to wait for the death of the Legitimist pretender, after which his cousin, Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris, grandson of Louis-Philippe, could ascend the throne, accepting the tricolor flag, the Republic then being considered only as a temporary regime. This word then circulated in Orleanist circles: "My God, please open the eyes of the Count of Chambord, or close them to him!"
Later years and death
[edit]
Upon learning of the vote for the seven-year term, the Count of Chambord returned to Frohsdorf so as not to be a source of unrest. He did not lose hope, but the news reaching him from France indicated only the dwindling and then disappearance of the royalist majority, in the face of successive republican victories. The Republic was established in January 1875 by the Wallon amendment, and the constitutional laws of February and then July organized its operation. In 1879, with the resignation of President Mac Mahon, all powers belonged to the republicans.
At Frohsdorf, the Count of Chambord and his wife Maria Theresa of Modena were surrounded by a miniature court of two dozen servants, including Adhéaume de Chevigné, his wife Laure de Chevigné , and Robert de Fitz-James. A strict etiquette similar to that of Versailles in the time of Louis XIV reigned in this court. The stables contained one hundred pairs of thoroughbred horses whose whiteness was supposed to evoke the fleur-de-lis, the emblem of the royal family .
In June 1883, the Count of Chambord suffered from a digestive tract disease, from which he died in exile in Frohsdorf on 24 August 1883s. The funeral of Henri V took place on 3 September, in the cathedral of Gorizia, and he was buried next to his sister Louise and Charles X, the dauphin and dauphine, outside the city, in the convent of Kostanjevica.
The dynastic question after the Count of Chambord
[edit]Since the Count of Chambord had no children, the royalists were torn between two possibilities.
According to some Legitimists, the crown should have returned to the Bourbons of Spain, who descended from a grandson of Louis XIV; the latter, who ascended the throne of Spain in 1700, under the name of Philip V, had renounced his rights to the throne of France, for himself and all his descendants, during the Treaties of Utrecht in 1713, but any renunciation was considered null according to the principle of unavailability of the Crown. Moreover, many clauses of the treaty were subsequently violated.
For the Unionist Legitimists, with Philip V having renounced the throne of France, the crown should instead return to the head of the house of Orléans, by virtue of the bilateral renunciations of the treaties of Utrecht and in application of a principle of exclusion of princes who had become foreigners and their descendants from the succession to the throne.
The Count of Chambord's opinion on his dynastic succession was the subject of contradictory testimonies, some in favor of the Bourbons, others for the Orléans.
Among the supporters of the House of Orléans, Viscount Émile de La Besge wrote in his memoirs that as early as 1862, the Count of Chambord had told him: "it is the princes of Orléans who are my legitimate heirs." And according to the Marquis de Dreux-Brézé — who had been, from 1872 until the death of the Count of Chambord, the intermediary between the head of the House of Bourbon and the royalist committees in 55 departments, more than half of France, before rallying to the Count of Paris: "If, in his mind, the right to his succession as King of France had rested on a head other than that of the Count of Paris, the Count of Chambord, who, more than anyone, knew the dispositions of mind of his party, would certainly have fought the opinion which, among the royalists, prevailed, to the extent we were just talking about, in favor of this prince. He would not have allowed an assessment to take root which, in his eyes, was erroneous; he would have refused, with the loyalty of his character, to take a part, even tacitly, in the coming triumph of what he judged to be a usurpation; he would have sought, through his authorized representatives, to enlighten his faithful, to direct their gaze and their devotion towards the prince called to become their King, or, at least, that of their children. " [...] "After the death of the Count of Chambord, the royalists, deprived of their leader, recognized almost immediately, faithful in this to their principles, the rights of all time, in my opinion incontestable, of the Count of Paris to the crown of France. Some legitimists, however, tried to contest these same rights and refused to confer on the Count of Paris the title of heir to the King. In the face of this double fact and because of the noise that arose for several months around this opposition to the almost universal conduct of the royalist party, I can consider myself authorized to intervene, in my turn; I am allowed to record here, at least for my own, my feeling on the opinion of Monseigneur with regard to the rights of the Count of Paris and the reasons on which I base this feeling. Monseigneur has always admitted, this is my certainty, the right of the Count of Paris to succeed him on the throne of France. He was always convinced that the almost unanimous legitimists would consider him, after his death, as his heir." And the marquis, to castigate this "attempt to oppose to the right of the Count of Paris, an intimate thought of the Count of Chambord, a thought moreover presented to the public, for the first time,after the death of Monseigneur only.
Some of Chambord's "intimate advisors", the Count of Blacas, the Baron of Raincourt, the Count of Monti, the Count of Chevigné and the Count of Damas, made it known that they "recognized the rights of the Count of Paris to the succession of the Count of Chambord," in a letter published by Le Figaro on 6 September 1883. Blacas, Raincourt, Monti, Chevigné and Damas, who had not wanted to be associated with the "Whites of Spain" - the nickname given to the supporters of the Bourbons by the Orleanist Eugène Reynis on 2 January 1884, and which flourished - forming what the Orleanists called "the little church" - gathered around the widow of the pretender, in her residence in Frohsdorf -, brought "a formal denial to the assessments made by the alleged intimate advisor [of the deceased prince], Maurice d'Andigné, who could, in any case, only speak in his own name" by taking the side of the new eldest of the Bourbons. Two days after the funeral of the Count of Chambord, the newspaper Le Temps spoke of"a group of intransigents, who are already looking, among the relatives of the Count of Chambord, for a pretender to oppose the Count of Paris"- while some legitimists were going to convert to survivalism, hoping for a hidden royal line, founded by Louis XVII, which would have perpetuated itself in the shadows.
On the side of the legitimists who rallied to the new elder branch of the Bourbons, Joseph du Bourg (one of the secretaries of the Count of Chambord) declared from the 16 October 1883, in the newspaper Les Nouvelles that "the legitimate succession to the throne of France rested on the descendants of the Duke of Anjou" .
The Count of Viefville wrote on 20 November to his friend the Count of Touchimbert, "Although the King, my beloved master, never spoke before me, his reservations, his silence, have often proven to me that he did not think differently from us on this question. Thirty-two years of service had taught me to understand him, even when he said nothing. I therefore challenge anyone to quote me a word from the King affirming the supposed right of the d'Orléans. Moreover, a few days before his end, foreseeing everything, he said: "I do not want my coffin to serve as a bridge for the d'Orléans . "
The chaplain of the Count of Chambord, Abbé Amédée Curé, wrote in the journal L'Ami du clergé — speaking of the supposed rights of the Orléans to succeed the Count of Chambord — that "no, [Henri d'Artois] did not recognize them, he had never recognized them and had even always forbidden his supporters to affirm them publicly." Abbé Curé confirmed that the Count of Chambord was for the Anjou and that "he made no secret of it to the people who shared this way of seeing things." And in 1905, Amédée Curé reported a letter from 19 March 1872, that he had received from the Count of Cibeins, Léonor de Cholier, a few days after an interview with the pretender Henri V in the newspaper La Liberté . Cholier wrote: "the King did not pronounce on the thoughts of the heir and I had understood, for my part, that without a Dauphin sent from God, this heir was the prince who would be declared Duke of Anjou, that is to say Don Carlos or Don Alphonse, according to the option of the elder between the two Crowns." The Abbé Curé showed these lines to the Count of Chambord, who approved: "this letter is perfect. I would sign it from one end to the other" .
The pretender's confessor, Father Prosper Bole , reported that it was the Count of Chambord himself who had informed him of the rights of the Anjou branch, descended from a grandson of Louis XIV, when Father Bole had until then believed in the validity of the renunciation of Philip V.
Maurice d'Andigné, who had been one of the secretaries and a close advisor to the Count of Chambord, created the on 22 December 1883, with other former advisers or intimate secretaries of the Count of Chambord a new party, the Legitimist Propaganda Committee, which held its first congress on 27 July 1884 in Paris. On this occasion, d'Andigné, interviewed on 26 July by the journalist Fernand Xau, declared that the heir of the Count of Chambord was currently Prince Jean de Bourbon, and stressed that to be a Legitimist was to "accept the Salic law without discussion. [...] Now, what does the Salic law say? That the heir to the throne of France is the firstborn . Is the Count of Paris the firstborn ? Certainly not!"
The Countess of Chambord, who hated the Orléans whom she often described as "vultures", made a will in favor of a Bourbon of Spain, the future Duke of Anjou and Madrid, leaving him her archives, the silverware with the arms of France, the collars of the royal orders and the standards entrusted in 1830 to Charles X.
The question had been put to the Count of Chambord, who had replied that his successor would be "the one who has the right." According to one author, he held to the traditional law of succession and did not approve of those who designated the Count of Paris as his successor .
Upon the death of the prince, a minority of legitimists, supported by his widow, the Countess of Chambord, recognized as the rightful king Jean de Bourbon , Count of Montizón, descendant of the grandson of Louis XIV , now eldest of the Capetians, and former Carlist pretender to the crown of Spain. For these legitimists, the House of Orléans could only claim the succession of the King of the French , Louis-Philippe .
In fact, a majority of French royalists placed their hopes of restoration on Philippe d'Orléans , Count of Paris, a grandson of Louis Philippe I.
Gallery
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The Duchess of Berry and her children by François Gérard, 1822 -
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The young Duke of Bordeaux in a military uniform, by Alexandre-Jean Dubois-Drahonet, 1828 -
The Duchess of Berry and her son by François Gérard, 1828 -
Detail of portrait, c. 1830 -
Portrait, c. 1833
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Honours
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House of Bourbon: Grand Master and Grand Croix of the Order of the Holy Spirit
Spain: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (1823)[2]
Ancestry
[edit]| Ancestors of Henri, Count of Chambord |
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See also
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]- ^ Castelot, André (1988). Charles X. Paris: Perrin. p. 492. ISBN 978-2-262-00545-0.
- ^ "Toison Espagnole (Spanish Fleece) – 19th century" (in French), Chevaliers de la Toison D'or. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
Further reading
[edit]- 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 inédits. 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
[edit]
- Works by or about Henri, Count of Chambord at the Internet Archive
- The Birth of the Duc de Bordeaux
- Obituary in The Times
The first generation are the children of Henri IV; these males held the rank of Son of France or Grandson of France; | ||
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1 Actually reign twice: first from 1814-1815, second from 1815-1824 2 Actually reigned from 1824-1830 3 Orléanist pretender from 1848-1873 as Louis Philippe II 4 Reigned as King of Spain from 1886-1931 as Alfonso XIII 5 Briefly restored and then deposed in 1815 6 Actually reigned from 1852-1870 | |||||||
