Princess Isabelle of Orléans (1900–1983)


Princess Isabelle Françoise Hélène Marie d'Orléans was a member of the House of Orléans and, by marriage, a member of the ducal Harcourt family and of the princely House of Murat.
She was one of the four children of Prince Jean, Duke of Guise, who would become the Orleanist pretender to the French throne in 1926, and his wife Princess Isabelle of Orléans. Although born in France, her parents moved the family to Morocco in 1909, then a French colony. She was with her mother and siblings visiting France when World War I broke out in 1914. While her father sought in vain to obtain permission from the French government to serve in the military, the rest of the family hastened back to Morocco.

Marriages

In 1923 the tradition of Orléans princesses marrying only other royalty was dispensed with, as nearly all of her relatives attended Isabelle's wedding at Amélie of Orléans château in Le Chesnay on 12 September to Count Bruno d'Harcourt, son of Count Eugène d'Harcourt and Armande de Pierre de Bernis. An automobile racer, Harcourt was killed during practice for the Moroccan Grand Prix, leaving his wife with four children:
As a widow, Isabelle remarried the Bonapartist Prince Pierre Murat in 1934, at Jouy-en-Josas, "upon renunciation of the rank and prerogatives appertaining to princesses of the House of France". Prince Murat was a great-grandson of Prince Lucien Murat. No children were born of this marriage. In 1940, as World War II began and when her father died, Isabelle again took refuge at the family estate, Larache, in Morocco, where she shared quarters with her mother, and her elder sister the widowed Princess Françoise of Greece, along with her brother Henri, Count of Paris and the latter's son, Prince Michel d'Orléans.

Ancestry