Friday 25 November 2005

Royal Second Son Syndrome - Part 3

Rise of the House of Orleans

Part I - Part II

The fortunes of the French royal house of Bourbon had rested on the expansive shoulders of their eldest prince Louis XIV, but as it had turned out, the major burdens had been dumped on said prince�s younger brother. This had been the case with Louis XIII and his younger brother Gaston. His Queen, Anne, neglected and angry with her husband�s bullying, had been accused of plotting with Gaston to overthrow the king and place Gaston himself on the throne. So Louis took Gaston down. When he had two sons himself he made sure that the eldest, Louis, would always know he was like a god on earth, and that everyone else believed it too. When he died he left a five-year-old to grow up under the Regency of his mother and Cardinal Mazarin. The Cardinal was charged with the job of bringing up King Louis XIV as an omnipotent being. However his little brother Philippe was the sole heir and would remain so until Louis married and produced his own heir. It was a fine line because Philippe proved to be more intelligent, braver and a better soldier than his brother.  

Louis believed his press and grew up to believe he truly was ruling by divine proclamation and he made sure that all obeyed him or else. Philippe, whose official title became Duc d�Orleans upon his brother�s ascending the throne at age 15, was the one who suffered the most. Louis kept him completely financially and emotionally dependent on him. He treated his brother worse than he treated his vast army of servants. Philippe, or Monsieur as he was called, fought back with his only weapon-his flagrant homosexuality. He dressed as a woman in public, kept his cheeks rouged and his eyes made-up. He sported massive black wigs, wore clothes covered with precious jewels and spent his time kowtowing to various men, all of whom bore a striking resemblance to Louis himself.  

Despite his genetic physical abhorrence of women, he was married twice. His first wife, Henriette, was the sister of England�s Charles II. It was a disastrous relationship, producing only two daughters that survived infancy. She died at 26, and Philippe was under suspicion for a bit of having poisoned her, but she had really succumbed to tuberculosis and anorexia nervosa. His second marriage, to the teenage daughter of the German Elector of the Palatinate, actually worked. She was a big strapping girl who possessed neither riches nor beauty, but perhaps because she was more man-like than her husband was they got along just fine. In fact they became fast friends and remained close long after their marital relations were thankfully ended. Liselotte had three children in three years, two sons and a daughter. The eldest boy died before his third birthday, and this left their second son, Philippe and daughter Elizabeth Charlotte, named after her mother. 

Monsieur (M. for the purposes of brevity) had proven himself on the battlefields of Flanders during France�s Dutch War, and in one decisive maneuver had defeated William of Orange. M. became a national hero but Louis was quick to suppress any ideas certain people may have had that perhaps the wrong brother was on the throne. Louis at 35 was at the height of his Sun King supremacy. He had a legitimate son, Louis the dauphin, and two sons and two daughters with his favourite mistress. After the dowager Queen died he pushed their legitimacy through the French parliament because he had major dynastic plans for them.  

M.�s son Philippe was born on August 2, 1674. Unlike his father and grandfather the young duke soon proved he was definitely a ladies man. His first arranged experience with sex was at age 13, and he fathered his first child with an actress at 14. This daughter was taken in and raised by Liselotte, who saw her well married when the time came. The King kept his eye on his nephew because as his own son was not exactly a chip off the old block, there could be trouble there down the line.  

In 1675 a young and beautiful widowed Madame Scarron was hired as governess to four young children of a noblewoman. The noblewoman was the king�s mistress and the children the king�s. The boys were named Louis Auguste, Duc de Maine and Louis Alexandre, Comte de Toulouse, born in 1678. It was not long until Louis created her the marquise de Maintenon, and she replaced her charges� mother in the king�s bed. In fact there are some sources, including the marquise herself, that acknowledge they were secretly married after the Queen's death in 1683. Naturally her interests became the advancement of her �boys�. With only four years between them Toulouse and Orleans were always pitted against each other.  

When he was 61 M. suffered a stroke, the result of one last battle royal with the King over Louis� treatment of his son Philippe. Philippe was a talented, courageous young man, but he was cheating on his wife (who just happened to be the king�s youngest daughter), and this was intolerable. He was of course just finding excuses to force the young commander out of the army. M. died in his sleep two days later and Philippe II took his place as head of the House of Orleans. He could do this because his father had left him a very wealthy man. In a deal brokered by the king and his father Philippe had been married to his cousin Francoise-Marie. This arrangement had horrified Liselotte. 

In the meantime the dauphin had married and fathered three sons, the Duc du Bourgoyne, Philippe, and Charles Duc de Berry.  

By 1713 Louis was 75. That year the Treaty of Utrecht was signed and France�s lot was not a happy one. France had lost Flanders to the Dutch after all; the British (with which she was currently at peace) had decimated her sea power; and on top of that she was broke. Over a period of a few weeks the dauphin, his wife (whom the king was crazy about) and their eldest son all died of smallpox. This left only their two-year-old, the new dauphin, Philippe Duc d�Anjou, standing between Orleans and the throne. Louis planned carefully for his successor. There was a lot at stake. 

Hapsburg rule in Spain ended in 1700 with the death of King Charles II. He willed his throne to Louis XIV�s second grandson. If he did not accept the throne would go to the hated Archduke Charles of Austria. Austria did not like the idea of France and Spain both under Bourbon rule, but on the other hand the Hapsburgs would then have themselves a huge empire. Having settled on which was the least of the two evils Louis sent the new young King Philip V of Spain, who then outranked his own father the dauphin, into a nest of vipers. 

The Catalans began a civil war when they decided to recognize the Hapsburg claim. This was when Philippe, now Monsieur himself and a veteran at international intrigue, got the British to agree that if Philip was deposed he would be king of Navarre. Orleans, as we shall now call him, had been suspected of having poisoned the dauphin and his family, but no charges had been brought. He had also been secretly plotting with James Stuart to support the Scottish claim against the British.  

Philip had given the British commercial rights in Spain. Britain, France and Austria wanted Spain to join them in their Quadruple Alliance. The deal was that if the Austrian Emperor renounced his claim to Spain he would get Sicily and Sardinia in exchange. Britain was considering handing Gibraltar back to Spain (they still are). Philip, confident that France would defy Orleans and renounce support of the Jacobite cause, refused to sign the Alliance. An offended Britain sent Lord Byng to destroy Spain�s naval fleet so badly no ship remained afloat. 

The Jacobite cause lost, Orleans went on to other things. Meanwhile Philip married and had a son and a daughter. Orleans married, in the previously explained deal, his cousin Mlle de Blois. The King had appointed Orleans president of the regency council in his will, but he had this struck down and took full power over the little Louis XV. His enemy, Cardinal Dubois, worked hard to take the Regent�s power away and give it to Philip of Spain. He contrived to start a war with Spain, backed up by Britain, Austria and the Netherlands. France made peace in 1710. 

Philip gave up his claim to the French throne and stayed in Spain. It could be ceded to the Duc du Berry, but if he died without a son then� Both Orleans and Berry were coerced into renouncing their claims to the Spanish throne in an elaborate ceremony that neither of them could bring themselves to speak at, they were so angry. Berry sulked after about how mortified and stupid he�d been made to look. Then his newborn son died at three weeks.  

Famine, disease and unpaid marauding former soldiers plagued France. The Elector of Brandenburg became King of Prussia and Orleans� half-sister, Anne Marie, Duchess of Savoy, was now Queen of Savoy. It had been her elder sister Marie Louise, the dowager Queen of Spain, whose leaving no living children had opened up the throne to France�s claim. Anne Marie�s daughter Marie Adelaide, Duchess of Burgundy, was the mother of King Louis XV. In 1714 Philip�s queen died and he remarried with Elizabeth Farnese, stepdaughter to the Duke of Parma. Then Berry died at 28, and shortly after his pregnant wife miscarried their only child. In England Orleans� cousin-in-law George of Hanover had been designated George I upon the death of Queen Anne, as her closest Protestant relative. Now his conniving machine went into overdrive.  

He was second in line for the throne, and if he should outlive his own nephew Orleans would be king. That was something nobody wanted. Orleans may have been a scientist, artist and soldier but he was also bad news. Louis XV became king in 1723, when he was 13, and ordered that his uncle be First Minister, a post he held until he died ten years later. Orleans may have been brilliant but he was a first class crook and he had fostered one of the most corrupt periods in France�s history. Louis XIV had tried to raise his other sons up into the succession line by putting them on the Regency Council, but it was Orleans whom young Louis told everyone to obey as the governor of France. The Parisians wanted to love their new king but he preferred hunting to the Opera and he stayed in the country as much as possible, so they didn�t. 

Now Philip of Spain started planning for his own succession. He had made a deal with France that his daughter, the three-year-old Infanta Marie would marry Louis XV when she came of age. This meant that it would be at least 12 years before Louis could produce an heir of his own. Also in the deal was that his 13-year-old son, Don Carlos, Prince of the Asturias, would marry Orleans� daughter, Mlle de Montpensier, age 11.  

Philip had decided to abdicate before November 1, 1723. He had been having some mental problems, like going into religious frenzies, and so he thought it best to forget he didn�t trust the Regent. When 11-year-old Louis heard the news he didn�t take it too well. Philip V died on July 9, 1746, aged 63. Don Carlos, already king of both Naples and Sicily, became King Carlos of Spain. His younger brother Don Felipe, Duke of Parma, married Louis XV�s eldest daughter. Carlos� eldest died age 17 after a brief stint as King Luis. His widow at 15 went back to France, and died of gluttony and disease at age 33.  

Before he died the only male Louis XIV wanted near him was his son Toulouse. This young man was a talented musician. He and his elder brother the Duc du Maine were outranked by all the Princes of the Blood, and Louis had attempted to raise him and Maine into the succession in an attempt to protect them. Giving them royal rank would prevent Orleans from having all the power. Maine himself couldn�t care less about court or the world at large but the edict was signed in 1714. After his uncle died Orleans moved the whole court back to Paris from Marly. It was Louis XV who declared his uncle to be the supreme commander, and so he was.  

Toulouse proved himself a hard man to know. He headed the Council of the Navy but kept a low profile. He wanted to live it up, hunt and keep his myriad mistresses while keeping the question of marriage at bay as long as possible. In 1717 Orleans ordered both brothers out. They were busted out of the succession and down to mere dukes, below all the other dukes. Although for services rendered Toulouse was allowed to keep all his rights for life-Maine lost his. He died in 1737, a year after his brother. 

Louis XV died unlamented in 1774. In 1762 he had signed a secret Treaty of Fountainebleau, giving Spain all France�s territory in North America west of the Mississippi River, plus the Isle of Orleans, compensating them for their losses to the British. A week later the Seven Years War ended with the Treaty of Paris when Louis gave up their Canadian territories on the East Coast to Britain. England also got all their territory east of the Mississippi except for New Orleans. In return they got islands in the Caribbean, and Spain got Cuba back in exchange for land in Florida.  

Orleans� wife, Toulouse�s sister, outlived everyone in the family except her son Louis and her granddaughter Charlotte, Duchess of Modena. After a few years in Genoa Charlotte returned to Paris and successfully married off her own daughter to Toulouse�s son, the Duc de Penhierre, the richest man in France. The dauphin had three sons who became Kings of France pre and post Revolution: Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X. Charles X had two sons but neither had children. 

But it was through the House of Orleans that the throne of France continued. The French Revolution began in 1789 and Louis XVI was executed. Orleans� son Louis I had a son, Louis Philippe I, duke of Orleans. His daughter Louise�s son Louis, Duc d�Enghien, was shot at Vincennes in 1804. His son became Philippe Egalite. Egalite�s son, Duc d�Orleans became king of the French. His son Ferdinand, (duke of Chartres, then Orleans), had two sons. It is from that second son Robert that the line of France continues.  

Robert�s grandson Henry had 11 children. The eldest son Henry was excluded from the succession but Henry�s son Jean, Duc du Vendome is the current pretender to the throne of France. 

Through Orleans� sister, the duchess of Lorraine, are descended Francis III, Holy Roman Emperor, who married Maria Theresa of Austria. His sons Joseph II and Leopold II respectively succeeded him as Emperor. His daughter Marie is mother of the House of Bourbon of the Two Sicilies. His third son Ferdinand sired the House of Austria/Modena. His youngest daughter was Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, who was executed with her husband Louis XVI. Leopold�s son Francis sired Napoleon�s second wife Marie Louise; also the Emperor of Austria, the Empress of Brazil and through his second son Francis, the Hapsburg pretender.  

That Francis� eldest son Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo in 1914, setting off World War I. Leopold�s second son Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany sired the House of Austria/Tuscany. His daughter Maria Theresa, Queen of Sardinia had one son Victor Emmanuel II, king of Sardinia, then Italy. That House continued until the monarchy was deposed after WWII. Her daughter Cotilda, wife of Napoleon�s brother Jerome, is mother to the Bonaparte pretender. 

After Napoleon�s reign of terror ended Louis XVIII was restored to the French throne, but this time not as absolute monarch. Despite his real wish to carry on as his ancestors had, in 1814 he agreed to a constitutional monarchy. It was a combination of the British and French system, where the parlement and the monarch shared power. If it had been allowed to work French history would have been much different. But certain factions got impatient, wanting change now. The new king Charles X was furious at the constant obstructions to his government and revoked his brother�s charter in 1830. He wanted to resume absolute power, but the people threw him over for his cousin, Louis Philippe, Duc d�Orleans, who became Philippe, the �citizen king�. Three monarchies, three republics, three occupations and two world wars later France is a mess. Things have gotten so bad with ethnic, religious and race riots involving its young immigrant population that just this month the highest-ranking French politicians were kept from fulfilling long-planned international obligations in order to deal with a Paris, and other cities, beset by arson, attacks on police and murder. 

There are those who claim that the republican system is best, that having an elected head of state denotes a �grown-up� nation. Does it? A nation is only as successful as its leaders. Would a return to a constitutional monarchy be a solution for France�s woes? Would the designated heir want to be any kind of King under the current circumstances? 

In 1940, when his father Jean, Duke of Guise, died Prince Henri, Count of Paris, became Head of the House of France. Prince Henri named his grandson Jean Carl Pierre Marie, born on May 17, 1965 at Boulogne, eventual heir to the throne. The 40-year-old Duc du Vendome currently lives in Paris with his family. 

He is his father�s second son.

Anon.

- The Court Jester