Henri, Count of Paris

Henri of Orléans, Count of Paris (Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis Philippe d'Orléans; 5 July 1908 – 19 June 1999), was the Orléanist claimant to the throne of France as Henry VI from 1940 until his death.

He was born at the castle of Le Nouvion-en-Thiérache in Aisne, France to Jean, Duke of Guise (1874–1940), and his wife, Isabelle of Orléans (1878–1961). His family moved to Larache, Morocco in 1909, purchasing a plantation in the Spanish sector, Maarif, and one in the French sector, Sid Mohammed ben Lahsen, after Morocco became a French protectorate in 1912. Here, Henri rose at 4 am daily, accompanying his father to oversee livestock management and crop production on their scattered lands, later in the day being tutored by European governesses and his mother: He acquired fluency in French, Arabic, English, German, Italian and Spanish. He visited relatives in France often, spending the beginning of World War I in Paris while his father sought to fight on the side of the French. Being rebuffed by France, Belgium and the United Kingdom, Prince Jean finally took his family back to Morocco and farming.

In 1921 Henri's governesses were replaced with a series of preceptors, all coming from France. First among these was the abbé Carcenat from Auvergne. In 1923 the abbé Thomas took over Henri's instruction and, being less traditional in his approach, awakened in his charge a hitherto undetected thirst for knowledge. Using the wedding of the prince's sister that year in France as an opportunity, Thomas obtained permission to take Henri to the Parisian banlieues of Meudon and Issy-les-Moulineaux, then working class slums in which the abbé would volunteer to serve the needy daily, bringing Henri into close contact with day laborers. He would later write that this wretched urban experience profoundly affected his future political outlook and sense of justice, contrasting unfavourably with the deprivation to which he was accustomed in Morocco where, he observed, the poor were at least able to enjoy fresh air, space and sunlight while surrounded by relatives and neighbors who shared a near universal poverty, compared to the depressing grime, crowded conditions and anonymity in which Parisian workers toiled amidst extremes of wealth and deprivation. After a year Thomas, whose health suffered in Morocco, was replaced as Henri's preceptor by abbé Dartein, who accompanied the family to France in 1924, preparing the prince for his collegiate matriculation while they occupied an apartment near his parents in Paris.

Henri began a two-year study of mathematics and the sciences at the University of Louvain in 1924, studying the law for the two years following. His father, having become heir presumptive to the royal claims of the House of Orléans in 1924, betook the family to Europe again but, now banned by law from living openly in France, took up residence at the Manoir d'Anjou, a 15 hectare estate in Woluwé-Saint-Pierre near Brussels, Belgium that had been purchased in 1923 for 75,000 francs. From across the border in France came scholars and veterans of renown to coach Henri for his future role as a royalist leader, including jurist Ernest Perrot, military strategist General de Gondrecourt and Charles Benoist, a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques who would serve as his advisor from 1930.

In 1926, he became the Dauphin of France in pretence when his father became the Orléanist claimant to the throne.

In 1939, after being refused admission to both the French Armed Forces and the British Armed Forces, Henri was allowed to join the French Foreign Legion.
As historian Hal Vaughan notes in his book FDR's 12 Apostles (Guilford, CT.: Lyons Press, 2006), 224 & 296 n 489, in mid-November 1942, Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie, a Vichy intelligence official serving under Admiral Darlan (who had just signed an armistice with American & British forces that allowed Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa), attempted to promote a royalist coup, and had colleagues Abbe' Cordier and Master-Sergeant Sabatier (a French instructor at an OSS-SOE camp in Algiers) secretly bring Henri, Comte de Paris from Morocco to d'Astier's apartment in Algiers. Both Darlan and U.S. General Eisenhower nixed the idea, however.

In 1950, after the law of exile was rescinded, Henri returned to France.

On 8 April 1931, he married Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza. The wedding was celebrated in Palermo Cathedral in Sicily, the same church where their mutual ancestors, Louis Philippe of France and his Queen Maria Amalia, married in 1809. Guests at the wedding included official representatives of the Brazilian, Italian, Greek, Belgian, Danish, Spanish, and British Royal Families. The Count and Countess of Paris were the parents of eleven children. They separated in 1986.

During his tenure as pretender to the throne, Henri dissipated the majority of his family's great wealth, selling off family jewels, paintings, furniture and properties to support his political cause and large family, as well as establishments in Belgium, North Africa, Brazil, Portugal and France. The family château at Amboise now belongs to a trust he created. Conflict over the division of the family wealth (formerly worth over £40 million) led to court conflicts between him and five of his children, some of whom he unilaterally disinherited.

In 1984, Henri declared that his son, Henri of Orléans, had lost his rights of inheritance because he had divorced his first wife and married a second time, outside of the Roman Catholic Church. Henri gave his son the lesser-valued title comte de Mortain in place of comte de Clermont, and removed him from the line of succession. After a couple of years, Henri reinstated his son with his previous titles, including reestablishing him as heir and gave his new wife, Micaela Cousiño Quinones de Leon, the title "princesse de Joinville".

Henri deprived his sons Thibaut and Michel of their rights of succession to the throne, because one married a commoner and the other wed a noblewoman whose father had been compromised during the Vichy regime. Later, relenting somewhat, he recognised non-dynastic titles for their wives and children. His decision was later annulled by his son and successor, Henri.

Henri, Count of Paris, died of prostate cancer at Cherisy, near Dreux, France, aged 90.

Henri, Count of Paris, and his wife Isabelle had eleven children:

Multiple descent from Louis-Philippe

Henri's three great-grandfathers (Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, is a double great-grandfather) were sons of King Louis-Philippe, making Henri a quadruple great-great-grandson of the King, as well as being the grandson of four members of the House of Orléans. Henri's wife, Isabelle, was also a great-great-grandchild of Louis-Philippe (in the male line) and therefore their children are descended from Louis-Philippe five times as great-great-great-grandchildren.

• Knight of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (House of Savoy, 07/02/1948).