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Henri, Count of Paris

Henri of Orléans
Count of Paris
Orleanist pretender to the French throne
Pretence 25 August 1940 – 19 June 1999
Predecessor Jean, Duke of Guise
Successor Henri, Count of Paris, Duke of France
Born (1908-07-05)5 July 1908
Died 19 June 1999(1999-06-19) (aged 90)
Burial Chapelle royale de Dreux
Spouse Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza
Issue Princess Isabelle, Countess of Schönborn-Buchheim
Prince Henri, Count of Paris
Princess Hélène, Countess of Limburg-Stirum
Prince François, Duke of Orléans
Princess Anne, Duchess of Calabria
Diane, Duchess of Württemberg
Prince Michel, Count of Évreux
Prince Jacques, Duke of Orléans
Princess Claude, Duchess of Aosta
Princess Chantal, Baroness de Sambucy de Sorgue
Prince Thibaut, Count of La Marche
Full name
Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis Philippe
House Orléans
Father Jean, Duke of Guise
Mother Isabelle, Duchess of Guise
Religion Roman Catholicism
Full name
Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis Philippe

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.


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