Henri, Count of Chambord


Prince Henri, Count of Chambord was disputedly King of France from 2 to 9 August 1830 as Henry V, although he was never officially proclaimed as such. Afterwards, he was the Legitimist pretender to the throne of France from 1844 until his death in 1883.
Henri was the only son of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, born after his father's death. The Duke was the younger son of Charles X of France, by his wife, Princess Carolina of Naples and Sicily, daughter of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies. As the grandson of Charles X, Henri was a Fils de France. He was the last legitimate descendant in the senior male line of Louis XV of France.

Early life

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 his 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, Henri was named Dieudonné. 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 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.

Pretender monarch

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, duc d'Angoulême, himself renounced his rights, in favour of the young duc de Bordeaux. Charles X urged his cousin Louis Philippe of Orléans, as Lieutenant général du royaume, to proclaim Henri as Henry V, King of France. Louis Philippe requested the duc de Bordeaux to be brought in Paris to have his rights recognized. The duchess of Berry was denied to escort her son, therefore both the grand-father and the mother refused to leave the child in France. As a consequence, after seven days, a period in which legitimist monarchists considered that Henri had been the rightful monarch of France, the National Assembly decreed that the throne should pass to Louis Philippe, who was proclaimed King of the French on 9 August.
Henri and his family left France and went into exile on 16 August 1830. While some French monarchists recognized him as their sovereign, others disputed the validity of the abdications of his grandfather and of his uncle. Still others recognised the July Monarchy of Louis Philippe. With the death 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 Orléanists, the supporters of the family of Louis Philippe.
Henri, who preferred the courtesy title of comte de Chambord, continued his claim to the throne throughout the July Monarchy of Louis Philippe, the Second Republic, the Second Empire of Napoléon III, and the Third Republic.
In November 1846, the comte de 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

In the early 1870s, as the Second Empire collapsed following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War at the battle of Sedan on 1 September 1870, the royalists became a majority in the National Assembly. The Orléanists agreed to support the aging comte de Chambord's claim to the throne, with the expectation that at his childless death he would be succeeded by their own claimant, Philippe d'Orléans, comte de Paris. Henri was then pretender for both Legitimists and Orléanists, and the restoration of monarchy in France seemed a close possibility. However, Henri insisted that he would accept the crown only on condition that France abandon its tricolour flag and return to the use of the white fleur de lys flag. 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.

Defeat

A temporary Third Republic was established, to wait for Henri's death and his replacement by the more liberal Comte de Paris. By the time this occurred in 1883, public opinion had however 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 be mockingly 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 sixty-two, bringing the Louis XV male-only line to an end. He was buried in his grandfather Charles X's crypt in the church of the Franciscan Kostanjevica Monastery in Gorizia, then Austria, now in Slovenian city of Nova Gorica. His personal property, including the château de Chambord, was left to his nephew, Robert I, Duke of Parma.
Henri's death left the Legitimist line of succession distinctly confused. On one hand, Henri himself had accepted that the head of the Maison de France would be the head of the Orléans line, i.e. the Comte de Paris. This was accepted by many Legitimists, and was the default on legal grounds; the only surviving Bourbon line more senior was the Spanish branch, which had renounced its right to inherit the throne of France as a condition of the Treaty of Utrecht. However, many if not most of Henri's supporters, including his widow, chose to disregard his statements and this law, arguing that no one had the right to deny to the senior direct-male-line male Bourbon to be the head of the Maison de France and thus the legitimate King of France; the renunciation of the Spanish branch is under this interpretation illegitimate and therefore void. Thus these Legitimists settled on Juan, Count of Montizón, the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, as their claimant to the French crown.

Gallery

Honours

Patrilineal descent

Henri's patriline is the line from which he is descended father to son.
Patrilineal descent is the principle behind membership in royal houses, as it can be traced back through the generations - which means that if Henri were to choose an historically accurate house name it would be Robertian, as all his male-line ancestors have been of that house.
Henri is a member of the House of Bourbon, a branch of the Capetian dynasty and of the Robertians.
Henri's patriline is the line from which he is descended father to son. It follows the Bourbon, Kings of France, and the Counts of Paris and Worms. This line can be traced back more than 1,200 years from Robert of Hesbaye to the present day, through Kings of France & Navarre, Spain and Two-Sicilies, Dukes of Parma and Grand-Dukes of Luxembourg, Princes of Orléans and Emperors of Brazil. It is one of the oldest in Europe.
  1. Robert II of Worms and Rheingau, 770–807
  2. Robert III of Worms and Rheingau, 808–834
  3. Robert IV the Strong, 820–866
  4. Robert I of France, 866–923
  5. Hugh the Great, 895–956
  6. Hugh Capet, 941–996
  7. Robert II of France, 972–1031
  8. Henry I of France, 1008–1060
  9. Philip I of France, 1053–1108
  10. Louis VI of France, 1081–1137
  11. Louis VII of France, 1120–1180
  12. Philip II of France, 1165–1223
  13. Louis VIII of France, 1187–1226
  14. Louis IX of France, 1215–1270
  15. Robert, Count of Clermont, 1256–1317
  16. Louis I, Duke of Bourbon, 1279–1342
  17. James I, Count of La Marche, 1319–1362
  18. John I, Count of La Marche, 1344–1393
  19. Louis, Count of Vendôme, 1376–1446
  20. Jean VIII, Count of Vendôme, 1428–1478
  21. François, Count of Vendôme, 1470–1495
  22. Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, 1489–1537
  23. Antoine, King of Navarre, Duke of Vendôme, 1518–1562
  24. Henry IV, King of France and of Navarre, 1553–1610
  25. Louis XIII, King of France and Navarre, 1601–1643
  26. Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre, 1638–1715
  27. Louis, Grand Dauphin of France, 1661–1711
  28. Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Petit Dauphin of France, 1682–1712
  29. Louis XV, King of France and Navarre, 1710–1774
  30. Louis, Dauphin of France, 1729–1765
  31. Charles X of France and Navarre, 1757–1836
  32. Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, 1778–1820
  33. Henri, Count of Chambord, 1820–1883

    Footnotes