Legitimists

French royalism largely receded to irrelevance in World War II and beyond. While before World War II, many French conservatives and other members of the right also harbored royalist aspirations, conservative movements dropped this platform during and after the war. Charles de Gaulle's center-rightist Gaullism explicitly repudiated monarchism, and far-right organizations disdained the old aristocratic elite. According to historian René Rémond's studies of right-wing factions in France, Legitimists strongly supported the Vichy regime;^{[citation needed]} nevertheless, they received little from the Vichy government, and the regime emphasized Catholic traditionalism rather than a return to aristocracy.

Legitimism revived after the Second World War for several reasons.

• In 1946, the senior Capetian heir, Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, the eldest surviving son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, whom 13 years earlier had renounced his rights to the throne of Spain on account of his deafness, took up up the courtesy title of Duke of Anjou.
• The academic work of historians like Hervé Pinoteau, jurists like Guy Augé and Stéphane Rials or genealogists like Patrick Van Kerrebrouck challenging the Orléanist theses have received a certain response from the public.
• The positions taken by
  Algerian independence and François Mitterrand
  shocked certain royalists.
• During the Capetian millennium of 1987, the then senior Capetian heir, Alfonso de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and Cadiz, elder son of the aforementioned Infante Jaime, made himself known by presiding over numerous commemorative ceremonies. In the wake of the Capetian millennium, media personalities like Thierry Ardisson popularized legitimist conceptions.

Since the accession of King Juan Carlos I of Spain in 1975, the senior Capetian heirs have not laid claim to the throne of Spain. The legitimist suitor having had French nationality (which he had had since birth, having a French mother) in 1987, and having passed it on to his son (the current suitor), certain arguments of the partisans of Orléans would have become obsolete.

According to René Rémond, Marcel Lefebvre's Society of Saint Pius X, founded in 1970, shares aspects with the Legitimist movement. Nevertheless, Legitimism is a largely spent force.

Legitimism from 1989 to present, under the pretendancy of Louis de Bourbon

Current legitimism has several instances:

• The private secretariat of Louis de Bourbon, which takes care of his public affairs (diary, outings and official participation in the various events to which he is invited).
• The Secretariat also manages the Prince's communication and in particular his official website www.legitimite.fr as well as his presence on social networks.
• On the cultural level, the Institute of the House of Bourbon (IMB) was founded in 1973 at the request of Jacques-Henri de Bourbon. It was recognized as being of public utility in 1997. Its honorary president is
  Duke of Bauffremont
  (born 1946), who succeeded his father in this position. In order to make better known the work of the kings who made France, the IMB organizes symposiums, conferences, travel exhibitions, and various commemorations. It also has a sponsorship and heritage protection action (commemorative plaques, restoration of graves, monuments, etc.)
• The Union of Legitimist Circles of France (UCLF), founded in 1979 by Gérard Saclier de La Bâtie. Its objective is to encourage the study of French historical legitimacy and to make the monarchy known. It brings together a large number of associations and circles and organizes political training days and demonstrations.
• Le Cercle d'action legitimiste (CAL), founded in 2012 by Loïc Baverel. Originally conceived as a branch of the UCLF, Loïc Baverel wanted to change militant methods by creating his own Circle. The objective of the CAL is political and aims to professionalize the militant approach in order to promote legitimist principles.

Spanish Bourbons

A remnant of Legitimists, known as the Blancs d'Espagne (Whites of Spain), by repudiating Philip V's renunciation of the French throne as ultra vires and contrary to the fundamental French monarchical law, upheld the rights of the eldest branch of the Bourbons, represented as of 1883 by the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne. This group was initially minuscule, but it began to grow larger after World War II due both to the political leftism of the Orléanist pretender Henri, Count of Paris and to the active efforts of the claimants of the elder line after extinction of the Carlist male line—Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, the disinherited second son of Alfonso XIII of Spain; and his son Prince Alphonse, Duke of Anjou—to secure Legitimist support, such that by the 1980s the elder line had fully reclaimed for its supporters the political title of Legitimists.^{[citation needed]}

The Spanish-born Prince Louis, Duke of Anjou is the Bourbon whom the French Legitimists consider to be the de jure king of France under the name Louis XX. A 1987 attempt^[2] by the Orléanist heir (and other Bourbons, none of the elder branch) to contest Louis-Alphonse's use of the Anjou title^[3] and to deny him use of the plain coat of arms of France was dismissed by the French courts in March 1989 for lack of jurisdiction (the courts did not address the merits of the claims). He is a French citizen through his paternal grandmother and is generally recognised as the senior legitimate representative of the House of Capet.

Dynastic arguments

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Legitimists consider the valid rationale for restoration and the order of succession to the French throne derives from fundamental laws of the

According to these rules, monarchy is the basic form of government and the monarch the indispensable executive of government, succession to the throne being hereditary and passing by Salic primogeniture. Thus, females and any male who is not the premier né (i.e. the legitimate eldest descendant of the most senior Capetian line) are excluded from the throne. The king must also be Catholic.

Other tenets of the legitimist position are the following:

• Continuity (or immediacy) of the crown as upon the death of a monarch his heir automatically and immediately becomes king without the need of any formal act of investiture and even if political circumstances would not allow him to actually take power.
• Unavailability (or inalienability) of the crown as it is not the personal property of the king, therefore nobody, not even the king himself, can alter the line of succession by abdication, renunciation, or appointment of an heir of his own choosing. This argument is crucial for Legitimists regarding the continuing validity of the rights of succession of the Spanish line of Philip V and his descendants. According to this view, Philip's renunciation of his rights of succession to the French throne in the
  Treaty of Utrecht
  of 1713 was null and void and therefore his descendants still retain their claim to the French throne ahead of the Orléans line.

It has been a point of contention within the Legitimist camp to what extent French nationality constitutes a precondition for royal succession. While adherents of the Spanish Anjou line argue that princes of foreign nationality can still succeed to the French crown,^[4] others hold that French nationality of both the claimant and his ancestors is a requirement.^[5][6]

List of Legitimist claimants to the French throne

In the 1870s the rival Legitimist and Orléanist claimants agreed for the sake of restoration of the monarchy in France to end their rivalry. Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris and grandson of Louis Philippe I, accepted the prior claim to the throne of Chambord, who remained childless; Chambord in turn acknowledged that Philippe would claim the right to succeed him as heir, and after his death many Legitimists accepted the descendants of Philippe as the rightful pretenders and became known as Unionists.^[7][8]

Those Legitimists who did not accept the Orléanist line as the successors of Chambord argued that the renunciation of the French throne by Philip V of Spain, second grandson of Louis XIV, was invalid and that in 1883 (when Chambord died childless) the throne passed by right to Philip V's heirs in the male-line. In 1883, the senior male of the Spanish branch of Bourbons was

Claimant	Portrait	Birth	Marriages	Death
Louis XVI of France 1792–1793		23 August 1754, Versailles Son of Louis, Dauphin of France and Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, Dauphine of France	Marie Antoinette of Austria 16 May 1770 4 children	21 January 1793 Paris Aged 38
Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France (Louis XVII) 1793–1795		27 March 1785, Versailles Son of Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette of Austria	Never married	8 June 1795 Paris Aged 10
Louis XVIII 1795–1824 (King of France 1814–1815, 1815–1824)		17 November 1755, Versailles Son of Louis, Dauphin of France and Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, Dauphine of France	Marie Joséphine of Savoy 14 May 1771 No children	16 September 1824 Paris Aged 68
Charles X 1824–1836 (King of France 1824–1830)		9 October 1757, Versailles Son of Louis, Dauphin of France and Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, Dauphine of France	Marie Thérèse of Savoy 16 November 1773 3 children	6 November 1836 Gorizia Aged 79
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême (Louis XIX) 1836–1844		6 August 1775, Versailles Son of Charles X and Marie Thérèse of Savoy	Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême 10 June 1799 No children	3 June 1844 Gorizia Aged 68
Henri, Count of Chambord (Henri V) 1844–1883		29 September 1820, Paris Son of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry and Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duchess of Berry	Marie Thérèse of Austria-Este 7 November 1846 No children	24 August 1883 Schloss Frohsdorf Aged 63
Infante Juan, Count of Montizón (Jean III) 1883–1887		15 May 1822, Aranjuez Son of Infante Carlos, Count of Molina and Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal	Maria Beatrix of Austria-Este 6 February 1847 2 children	21 November 1887 Hove Aged 65
Infante Carlos, Duke of Madrid (Charles XI) 1887–1909		30 March 1848, Ljubljana Son of Infante Juan, Count of Montizón and Maria Beatrix of Austria-Este	Princess Margherita of Bourbon-Parma 4 February 1867 5 children Princess Berthe de Rohan 28 April 1894 No children	18 July 1909 Varese Aged 61
Infante Jaime, Duke of Madrid (Jacques I) 1909–1931		27 June 1870, Vevey Son of Infante Carlos, Duke of Madrid and Princess Margherita of Bourbon-Parma	Never married	2 October 1931 París Aged 61
Infante Alfonso Carlos, Duke of San Jaime (Charles XII) 1931–1936		12 September 1849 London Son of Infante Juan, Count of Montizón and Maria Beatrix of Austria-Este	Infanta Maria das Neves of Portugal 26 April 1871 No children	29 September 1936 Vienna Aged 87
Alfonso XIII of Spain (Alphonse I) 1936–1941		17 May 1886, Madrid Son of Alfonso XII of Spain and Maria Christina of Austria	Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg 31 May 1906 7 children	28 February 1941 Rome Aged 54
Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia (Henri VI/Jacques II) 1941–1975		23 June 1908, Segovia Son of Alfonso XIII of Spain and Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg	First marriage Emmanuelle de Dampierre 4 March 1935 Rome Divorced on 6 May 1947[10] 2 children Second marriage (civil only, not recognized by the Church) Charlotte Luise Auguste Tiedemann 3 August 1949 Vienna No children	20 March 1975 St. Gallen Aged 67
Prince Alphonse, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz (Alphonse II) 1975–1989		20 April 1936, Rome Son of Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia and Emmanuelle de Dampierre	María del Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Franco 8 March 1972 Royal Palace of El Pardo Divorced on 1982 and annulled in 1986 2 children	30 January 1989 Beaver Creek Aged 53
Prince Louis, Duke of Anjou (Louis XX) 1989–present		25 April 1974, Madrid Son of Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz and María del Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Franco	María Margarita Vargas Santaella 5 November 2004 Caracas 4 children

Electoral results

These are the results for broadly Legitimist parties in French national elections.

Election year	No. of overall votes	% of overall vote	No. of overall seats won	+/–	Leader
1831	28,270	22.6	104 / 460	0	François-René de Chateaubriand
1834	4,218	3.3	15 / 460	89	Pierre-Antoine Berryer
1837	4,855	3.2	15 / 460	–	Pierre-Antoine Berryer
1839	8,655	4.3	20 / 460	5	Pierre-Antoine Berryer
National Assembly (French Third Republic)
1871	Unknown (2nd)	?	182 / 675	182	Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot
1876	332,470	4.5	24 / 553	158	Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot
1877	687,422	8.5	44 / 521	20	Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot

See also

References

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Legitimists".