Eye on France: The king is dead. Long live the king
The Count of Paris, Henri d’Orléans, died yesterday at the age of 85. The French national press is stunned and saddened.
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If the course of destiny had not been dramatically altered by the original gilets jaunes back in 1789, the year they had the Revolution and France still had a king, then the recently-deceased Henri d'Orléans would, probably, have been that man.
I realize that there are a lot of “ifs” and “would bes” and one "probably" in that last sentence, but that’s politics folks, especially in the cloak and dagger world where game of thrones was not a television series. Back then, they played for keeps.
It's tough at the top, especially for kinglets
Even in royalist circles, Henri was not the inevitable choice for the top job.
His claim to the no-longer-existent French throne was based on the fact that he was the direct descendant of Louis XIV’s brother, Phillipe.
The recently-departed Henri was also descended from the last king of France, the restoration monarch Louis-Philippe who was nominally in charge between 1830 and 1848.
In one of those ironies which keep historians and conspiracy theorists in business, Henri d’Orléans died on the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI, decapitated on 21 January, 1793, with another of our Henri’s relatives, Philippe-Egalité, among those having voted in favour of separating the monarch from his head.
Henri, mercifully, escaped the scaffold and died with his silk socks on. He leaves a son, Jean de France, who will, should the need arise, live up to his name and become the next French king.
A thoroughly modern monach-in-the-making
In a sign of the times, Jean de France announced his father’s death on Twitter, rather than by royal proclamation to be read by town criers. Let no one accuse the House of Burbon of failing to keep up with the times.
Jean is obviously sad to see Papa depart, and we offer our sincere condolences.
The movement Action Française, which would like to see a return to the old days of royalty, has also expressed its distress.
Certain ultra-conservative Catholic groups have reminded us that Count Henri’s last public utterance was a call (also on Twitter) for peaceful protest by the gilets jaunes. The hard-right Catholics have described that speech as “a moving public testament,” though they don’t mention the fact that Henri’s tweet cites Ghandi, hardly the most Catholic of pacifists.
An honourable servant of the Republic
Born in exile in Belgium, Henri d’Orléans was the second of a gang of eleven children, and had a bit of trouble with his father, who didn’t approve of his son’s divorce, before Henri got his starter’s orders in 1996. France didn’t have an opening in his line of work, but Henri was eminently qualified, just in case.
The royal family was not welcome on French soil in the early twentieth century, but they made an exception for Prince Henri so that he could come and study at Sciences Po, Paris.
He showed a certain nobility in joining the French army and going to Algeria at the height of the war of independence. Henri d’Orléans had a distinguished military career, as an officer, chief-of-staff, and leader of the first cavalry regiment on the French island of Corsica. He hung up his spurs in 1967 and became a highly successful merchant banker. If you can’t trust the man-who-would-be-king with your sponduliks, then who can you trust?
A colourful personal past
Henri’s wives sound like they were baptized for the job. His first missus was Marie-Thérèse de Wurtemberg, and she was followed by the no-less resonant Micaela Cousino Quinones de Leon. Blood hardly gets bluer than that.
Just to sort out the succession question. Henri’s son, Jean d’Orléans is the new man in line for only one group of royalists.
The other nostalgics for kingdom gone support the claims of the surviving first-born in the Capetian line, Louis of Anjou, who was born in Spain and has double nationality. He also has embarrassing links to Franco, who was his grand-uncle, and Louis has publicly regretted the way in which contemporary Spain is gradually erasing the memory of the general-dictator. That’s bad for Louis' image. The Spaniards do, though, have a king. That’s promising.
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