The Idea of Monarchy Today, in France

After the Carolingian era, it were the Capetians kings who became the third generation of the kings of Franks and their peoples. One of their most constant attitude was their relationships with merchants and their tendency to quarrel with Rome. By the 16th century, at the time of the Protestant Reform, the French kings, due to a ill-understood nationalism which wanted to defend itself against the constitution of the Austro-Spanish empire, are to facilitate the development and settlement of it through their hesitating! Capetian Bourbons eventually fell prey to the renewal of the liberal ideas during the 18th century, with the Enlightenment philosophers, and even the Greats tempted to a form of constitutional, English-type monarchy, led to the great conflaration of the French Revolution which annihilated both the French monarchy and the Roman Catholicism in France. After the varied episodes of the French Revolution (alternating between miscellaneous moderates and ultras) and the period of Napoleon with his empire -who reinstated a form of stability in France, gathering an array of relatively moderate revolutionaries down to liberal monarchists, but who lost his empire due to his agressive policy of conquests- the idea of monarchy in France weakened. The will of king Louis XVIII to mediate between things impossible to mediate -the French Revolution's ideals and the ultra-monarchists willing the return to the monarchy of divine right namely- just led by 1830 to the creation of a constitutionnal monarchy of a English scent by king Louis-Philippe, belonging to the line of the Orleans, the younger branch of the Capetian Bourbons which was known for its liberal stance since the French Revolution. 'Orleanists,' the Orleans proponents and 'Legitimists,' the ones to the Bourbons kept existing under the Second Empire with the Orleanists a political party and a intellectual lobbying group as the Legitimists mostly withholding from political life. After 1870 and the defeat of the Second Empire to the Germany of Bismarck, the fault of a agreement between Orleanists and Legitimists brought the attempt to restore the monarchy to fail. Which let room to coalitions of moderates and radical Republicans, as the concessions to the latters bringing to a swift progress of anticlericalism. Clerics were largely opposed to that policy. In 1890 however, Cardinal Lavigerie, in the French colony of Algeria, famously called the French Catholics to rally the Republican regime, according to the will of Pope Leo XIII. This was meant to avoid the destruction of France due to the depth attained by the struggles between Roman Catholics and their opponents at the time. Pope Leo XIII wanted French Catholics to enter politics and to have their ideas defended and put to work. That practically translated since 1893 into the government Casimir Périer-Spuller, and further still, in 1896, into the Méline one

The monarchism in France thus, since the end of the Second Empire, evolved according to the great strides of History. Count of Chambord, who was the last representative of the Bourbons, died in exile in the Austro-Hungarese empire by 1883. A majority of Legitimists then, rallied to Count of Paris, the representative to the Orleans' branch. A small part only passed to the Spanish line of the Bourbons which they consider the successors to the Crown of France due to the 'lois fondamentales du royaume' ('fundamental laws of the kingdom') which are customary laws ruling the succession as they were built over centuries and often resulting from contingencies. Orleanists proper however had passed to a moderate, Thiers-like Republicanism and then to the papal policy of Rally. The Count of Paris of the time further then delegated the monarchism defense to Charles Maurras, a proponent of a instrumentalized monarchy and distant from Rome. The Legitimists thus rallied to the 'Action Française,' Maurras' movement. The Action Française, as opposed to the Rally policy, participated into the struggles against anticlericals, which turned into the Dreyfus Case. Moderate conservatists thus had their efforts impeded and the extremes winning over, which eventually brought to the Law of Separation Between State and Church in France by 1905. That state of things, with moderates endeavouring to a agreement at the center with Republicans on the one hand, and the Maurrassan monarchists, on a other hand, lasted between both World Wars as it was also augmented with the question of rightists authoritarianisms. The chief of the Orleans line eventually passed to the US keynesianism by the end of World War II like the pope in Rome had done. Because such a choice was considered too liberal by Legitimists, who tended to turn towards the proponents of the Spanish Bourbonian line. Current pretendant to the Crown of France is Louis, Duke of Anjou, great cousin to king of Spain Juan Carlos, who, once king, would be titled Louis XX. The Spanish line proponents however are seen with strong links to the far-left or the conservative US Democrats

The current question related to monarchy in France, strictly, or the 'dynastic question,' is like the following. Until the French Revolution in 1789, the succession to the Crown of France was ruled by the 'lois fondamentales' ('Fondamental Rules') a set of customary laws. The next King of France had to be the legal heir to the previous, his oldest son, a male, a heir by the males only. The Crown was unavailable as no one could decide upon It. The next King had too to be a Roman Catholic as, should he have not been a French, that was not to stand against a Fundamental Law. The French Kingdom's Parliament was the keeper of Fundamental Laws. Those views kept despite the Treaty of Utrecht which, by 1713, made that Philip V of Spain, a potential heir to French Crown who had turned King of Spain, abandoned his rights, which meant that the succession order as determined by Laws can not be modified). By 1838 King Charles X of France, who represented a traditional monarchy, and Rome, was ousted by Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, who represented liberalism. That gave birth to two basic schools of view. The 'primitive' Legitimists were holding for the traditional monarchy and the Fundamental Laws as 'primitive' Orleanists were for constitutional monarchy and liberalism. In 1870, when the question of a possible restoration of monarchy in France occurred, primitive Orleanists already were not monarchists anymore but they had turned moderate Republicans, with Thiers. The question then is to know whether the legitimate heir, the Count of Chambord, descendant of King Charles X is to be re-established like the King of France, or the Orleanist heir, the Count of Paris, descendant to Louis-Philippe. As soon as then, the Count of Paris expressed, against primitive Orleanists, a unexpected attachment to monarchy according to Legitimists and wished to inscribe himself into proximity to the Count of Chambord. Legitimist and Orleanist monarchists of the time tended to a first gathering. The Count of Chambord died, with no heir, in 1883 and the question arose of who was to become the heir to the Crown of France and above all, of what room to let to Spanish descendants of Philip V. The Count of Chambord had made known his attachment to Fundamental Laws but he also had nearly named the Count of Paris like his successor, with no account taken of Spaniards as his decision had based upon misfortunes having brought both families of France closer to each other. Orléans Counts of Paris until in 1945 had the consent of a majority of Legitimists. Rallying of those however did not include their rally to liberalism as they were proponents of Mun or Social Roman Catholics like Tour du Pin. Legitimists and Orleanists further adhered to the political movement of the Action française, with Charles Maurras the representative of Count of Paris Philippe VII. Most of the minority of French Legitimists, in 1883, basing upon their refusal of Orleanists and because of their respect of Fundamental Laws, rallied, under the name of 'Blancs d'Espagne' ('Spanish Whites'), to Spaniard John of Bourbon who represented male descendancy to King of Spain Philip V. John of Bourbon however was not politically active. Legitimists who had rallied the Counts of Paris, as far as they are concerned, were termed 'Blancs d'Eu' ('Eu's Whites', from the name of the Orleanist residence). Then, by 1937, the Count of Paris at the time shook the Maurrassian guardianship, which was maybe done in relation with the excommunication of the Action française by papacy in 1926 (as the excommunication was removed by 1939). Such a move and the rally of Count of Paris to Rooseveltian social-democracy in 1945 brought a estrangement of Legitimists, who rallied to Spanish Whites, giving those a new dynamism. U.S. General Eisenhower, in Morocco by 1942 then French General De Gaulle later, had promised the Count of Paris the return of monarchy in France, which never occurred. That new state of the French Royalist movement now is thus divided into proponents of Counts of Paris and those of Spaniards. Proponents of Counts of Paris value themselves like the heirs to the Crown of France as the Spanish pretender is disqualified for cause of the Treaty of Utrecht and too of the 'arrêt Lemaître,' a French Parliament's decision in the 16th century A.D. who decided about the succession of King Henry III of France and which makes the Spanish pretender a foreigner. Other arguments are that Spaniards, with time, turned Spanish princes only. The contemporary Counts of Paris got distant from Fundamental Laws as one unheredited his son as the latter eventually re-established himself like a heir to the Crown and then confered the right to his youngest son (with the elder mentally disabled). Current Orleanist pretender is John of Orléans, Duke of Vendôme, who would be named King John IV of France in the case monarchy would be restored in France. Orléans, once excepted the Carlists (see below) may claim they are the legitimate successors to the Count of Chambord, as their line originates at Philippe, brother to King Louis XIV of France. Proponents of the Spanish line, from their side, are considering themselves heirs to the French Crown according to Fundamental Laws, as they are the heirs to King Philip V of Spain, the abandonment of his hereditary rights by him through the Treaty of Utrecht being void. Spanish pretenders are the elder line of Spanish kings, which abandoned their rights to Spanish Crown in 1933 (that explains why current King Juan Carlos of Spain, is belonging to the youngest line). Current Spanish pretender is Louis of Bourbon, Duke of Anjou who would be named King Louis XX of France. Proponents of the Spanish line may be blamed, on a other hand, of that they are descending from Philip V by women only as the Salic Law (one of the French Fundamental Laws imported in Spain by King Philip V) made appear in Spain another monarchist line, the 'Carlists' who are conservatives, opponents to liberal centralized monarchy and to the liberal trend in Roman Catholicism. Origin of Carlists lie with when, by 1830 King Ferdinand VII of Spain passed the crown to Isabella, his elder daughter. Carlists are rattached to Charles of Bourbon (1788-1855), youngest brother to the king and despite the Carlist wars until in 1876 could not re-acquire the Spanish Crown from. They representend a rightist opposition to General Franco in the 20th century as they however participated the Civil War in the conversative side. The pretender of the original Carlist branch, Alfunso-Charles I, died by 1936. The line was continued by a branch of Bourbon-Parme. Carlism nowadays divided into three lines. A one is favouring Self-managed socialism and Regionalism, with Charles-Hugh of Bourbon-Parme, who died by 2010, to whom his son Charles Xavier succeeded. Another is the 'Carlist Traditionalist Communion' which does not have any pretender and is mostly active in Spain. A third one, at last, the 'Traditionalist Communion,' the pretender of which is Sixte Henri de Bourbon-Parme, younger brother to the previous who does not have any heir (his proponents, by his death, could rally to Domingo de Hasburgo-Borbon y Hohenzollern, a branch issued from the original Carlist line and named "Carloctavist' which had been favoured by Franquists like opponents to Carlists before 1940 (as at the same time they had also, on a other hand, favoured both the legitimate Spanish kingly lines, the elder which descended from the elder son to Alfunso XIII and the younger, from the youngest son of him and the one of current King of Spain Juan Carlos)

The fate of monarchies and Christendom in Europe could only depend upon how history evolved since 1500 A.D., passing from the old world to the contemporary one. That began with the varied Protestantisms which turned into conflicting industrialisms as, by the 20th century A.D., the three clans of Socialism -Social-Democrats, Russian Stalinists, and Trotskysts- developed and acquired supremacy. Papacy since the Council of Trent in the 16th century A.D. condemned any political theories related to Protestantisms, industrial societies, political Liberalism, Socialism, Communism and Nazi National-Socialism. Church however, since 1945 and furthermore since the Council of Vatican II, was invaded by those three Socialist clans. A true Roman Catholic contesting of political and economic Liberalism began in the 18th century with authors such as Augustin Barruel as it continued in the 19th century with, for example, Louis-Gaston de Ségur or Jean-Joseph Gaume and eventually even perpetuated itself still, until about 1918 by the Sapinière movement. All of those writers were often Ultramontanes and even more often, they had the pope's approval. But that current of thought was already threatened at the time by a form of liberal influence which insinuated itself into (Montalembert, etc.). And what to say about the passage to the 20th century which, through the Bolshevik clans and their friends in the Church, caused at best a solution of continuity and the worst a manipulation of the continuors of these thinkers to the worst!