Prinz Henri, Graf zu Chambord

Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné d’Artois was born on September 29, 1820, at the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and died on August 24, 1883, at Frohsdorf Castle near Lanzenkirchen in Austria. He was a prince of the French royal house, the grandson of King Charles X, and the last male member of the senior French branch of the House of Bourbon. Known by the courtesy title Count of Chambord, he was claimed by his supporters as Henri V and regarded from 1844 until his death as the legitimist claimant to the French throne. Henri was the posthumous son of Charles-Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, the younger son of the future King Charles X, and his wife, Marie-Caroline of Naples and Sicily. His father had been assassinated in February 1820 by the Bonapartist Louis-Pierre Louvel. A few months later, his pregnant mother gave birth to a son whose arrival was celebrated in monarchist circles as a providential event. The poet Alphonse de Lamartine therefore called him the “child of the miracle.” At birth, Henri received the title Duke of Bordeaux. A national subscription enabled the château of Chambord to be presented to him on October 11, 1820. Henri was initially educated together with his older sister Louise. Later, Baron de Damas took charge of his education, which placed strong emphasis on religion as well as basic academic subjects, German and Italian, physical exercise, and pistol shooting. When his grandfather ascended the throne as Charles X in 1824, Henri moved higher in the dynastic order of succession. The Revolution of 1830 ended the prospect of his actually ruling. On August 2, Charles X abdicated in favor of his grandson after Henri’s uncle, the dauphin Louis-Antoine, had also renounced his rights. Henri, then nine years old, was thus intended to become King Henri V. The Duke of Orléans, however, did not assume the regency. Instead, he had himself elected king by the chambers and ruled as Louis-Philippe I. The family of Charles X went into exile on August 16, 1830. Henri thereafter used the title Count of Chambord, named after the château that had been given to him. The family initially lived at Holyrood in Scotland and moved to Prague in 1832. That same year, Henri’s mother unsuccessfully attempted to provoke an uprising in France on behalf of her son. After her arrest and subsequent exile, Henri and his sister were placed in the care of the Duchess of Angoulême. In 1833, when Henri reached the age of majority at thirteen, he received legitimist supporters and made a solemn protest against Louis-Philippe’s rule. After Charles X died at Görz in 1836, Henri’s uncle was initially regarded by legitimists as Louis XIX. When he died in 1844, Henri became head of the House of Bourbon and was recognized by the legitimists as Henri V. From 1844 onward, Henri lived with his aunt Marie-Thérèse at Frohsdorf Castle, southeast of Vienna. There he closely followed French and international affairs, read newspapers and books, received visitors from France, and maintained contacts with legitimist figures. In 1846, he married Marie-Thérèse of Modena. The marriage was considered close, but it remained childless because of a physical deformity suffered by his wife. After the February Revolution of 1848 and the fall of Louis-Philippe, Henri did not expect an immediate political triumph. When Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte became president and later prepared the establishment of the Second Empire, the Count of Chambord reaffirmed his dynastic rights. He rejected both the republican and Bonapartist orders, viewing a hereditary, Christian monarchy as the surest path to stability and national unity. At the same time, he developed political ideas that included a written constitution, civil and religious liberties, a bicameral parliament, broad voting rights, and extensive decentralization. The king, in his view, should actively lead the government, appoint and dismiss ministers, and direct the administration, while parliament should primarily oversee legislation, the budget, and taxation. Henri combined his monarchist ideas with social and economic reform proposals. He supported freedom of education and assisted religious educational institutions. He advocated judicial independence, a smaller professional army, and a stronger navy. He wanted agriculture and peasant property to be supported through protective measures. In relation to workers, he initially emphasized Christian charity and mutual-aid societies, but later also supported associations representing employees’ shared interests. At Frohsdorf, he had two schools built for the children of the castle staff and the local parish. He also traveled throughout Europe and undertook a two-and-a-half-month pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1861. After the collapse of the Second Empire in 1870, the restoration of the monarchy appeared possible. The National Assembly elected in 1871 had a monarchist majority, but it was divided between legitimists and Orléanists. Henri reached a basic reconciliation with the House of Orléans, but he refused to replace the white Bourbon flag with the French tricolor. For him, the white flag symbolized dynastic continuity and the monarchist order. His insistence on retaining it ultimately prevented the planned restoration. Negotiations in the autumn of 1873 also failed, although preparations had been made for a constitutional monarchy with guaranteed freedoms and a bicameral system. When Henri publicly reaffirmed that he would never accept the tricolor, the restoration project lost its parliamentary majority. Henri returned to Frohsdorf and witnessed the consolidation of the republic. He died in 1883, without descendants, after an illness affecting his digestive tract. He was buried at the Kostanjevica monastery near Görz, close to Charles X, his uncle, and his sister Louise. His death brought the senior French branch of the Bourbons to an end. A dispute then arose among royalists—one that continues to have an afterlife—over whether the dynastic claims should pass to the Spanish Bourbons or to the House of Orléans. The majority of French royalists eventually rallied to the Count of Paris from the House of Orléans, while a minority supported the claim of the Bourbons of Spain.