Prince of Orléans-Braganza

When Louis Gaston of Orléans, Count d'Eu, left for the Empire of Brazil in company with his cousin, Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to marry one of the two daughters of Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil,^[7] he received a suggestion from his father to make a declaration reserving his rights as a French dynast because he was the grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of France.^[8] He was also asked to make a declaration reserving his rights as a French dynast, because he was the grandson of Louis Philip I, King of France.

However, a few months after his landing in Rio de Janeiro, on 2 September 1864,^[9] Gaston disregarded his father's suggestion, stating in a letter dated 7 December 1864 that he had renounced his right to be in the line of Orleanist succession to the defunct royal throne of France and, consequently, the position of French dynast.^[8]

Gaston had been exiled from his homeland since the age of five and would only return to France as an adult, married to Isabel of Braganza, Princess Imperial of Brazil, and with two small children, in 1878.^[2]

In the decades he remained in Brazil, including when he visited France in 1878 and then when he resided there with his family from 1881 for three and a half years,^[2] at no time did he seek to regain his former position in the Royal House of France.^[8] The Count would change his position^[8] only after the fall of the Brazilian monarchy through the military coup of 15 November 1889.^[9]

Philippe of Orléans, Count of Paris and then head of the Royal House of France, wrote a letter dated 15 September 1893 to Ferdinand de Orléans, Duke of Alençon, younger brother of Gaston de Orléans, Count d'Eu, in which he revealed his opinion on the matter:

"My dear Alençon, [...] Gaston's possible claims to claim his position in the House of France and everything else related are absolutely unacceptable. You saw in my letter that I didn't even imagine that such rights even existed. When one leaves the House of France to become a foreigner, when one renounces a life of exile in expectation, hope and remaining sincere about France, in order to seek an official position on a foreign throne, such an act has irrevocable consequences... ...He cannot, thirty years later, say that he made a mistake, that the past does not exist, and claim among us a position which he intentionally left. Naturalisation in Brazil excluded him permanently from the House of France just as it excluded our uncle Montpensier and his male children. It is the fundamental law of heredity of the Capetingio branch, which in turn ascended the throne by virtue of that law. The law must be irrevocable, if not, it would be enough for one of these excluded persons to naturalize himself to get ahead of all the rest who have enjoyed the rights acquired in the meantime.''^[8]

However, the Count d'Eu insisted on the matter after the death of the Count of Paris, his cousin, and received a letter dated 15 July 1901 from Philippe, Duke of Orléans, his son and heir:^[8]

"For any sovereign family, fidelity to traditional rules is an indispensable condition of existence.

This fidelity is the only security of destitute sovereign families. Without it, there would only be whims and arbitrariness, with all the consequences: usurpation, violation of the rights of others, discord and ruin. In the House of France, the traditional rule that decides who has royal status also preserves the rights of younger princes.

This law exists independently of the king's will and it is not up to him to create or modify it. But it may become necessary in some cases to expose this rule, to declare it when questioned, to preserve its application, to maintain it and to defend it when it is attacked.

Leaving these principles firm, and basing myself on the fundamental law of the French monarchy in virtue of which the dynastic claim belongs to me, and by what circumstances make it my duty, I declare the following:

The Lord Count d'Eu, by having taken Brazil as his residence without intending to return in 1864, by the commitments which bound him to the Brazilian crown, by the formal renunciation of his succession rights as to the crown of France, by his adoption of the Brazilian nationality, has lost his rights to the succession to the crown of France and his status as a member of the Royal Family of France. The sons of the Count d'Eu, born Brazilian of Brazilian parents and Brazilian dynasties, were never princes of the House of France, a status only granted by birth and that can be lost but not gained. Therefore, they cannot become princes of the House of France, nor can their father recover his status, which he lost."

In 1909, members of the House of Orléans and the House of Orléans-Bragança signed a dynastic pact, known as the Pact of Brussels or Brussels Declaration, the Duke of Orléans being present. The treaty created the title of Prince of Orléans and Braganza for the Count d'Eu and his descendants, thus maintaining the princely status of his house, although this is considered a house distinct from the Royal House of France, and the Count d'Eu did not in fact recover his former position in the Orleanist line of succession to the French throne.^[8] The main items of the treaty are:^[10][11]

We declare that:

1º. Our dearest Uncle the Count d'Eu, acknowledged in the Note he sent us both, that his three sons, coming from his marriage celebrated in 1864, with the Imperial Princess Isabel, then immediate Heiress to the Throne of Brazil, are members of the Imperial House of Brazil and that they and their descendants constitute a House distinct from the House of Orléans, which composed the House of France. He asks us to recognize in France, to these Princes and to their descendants, male, princely and legitimate, the Honours of the Princes of the House of France.

It was represented to us, on the other hand, to motivate such request, that a feminine succession, admitted in Brazil, could make the Crown of Brazil leave the masculine descent of the Count d'Eu and affect very much the said descent of the access to the Brazilian Crown, so that the quality of Brazilian Princes would not be recognized to them anymore and that they would lose all princely quality.

Wishing to prevent such a possibility for Princes so recently and manfully originated from Our House.

Wishing also to assure, as far as we can, both the princely quality and the honours of Princes of the House of France.

Wanting equally - and this pleases Us - to give them, as well as our most dear Uncle, the Count d'Eu, a pledge of Our affection as a good and close relative, and a testimony of Our confidence in the loyalty of the commitments which they solemnly assume here and to which is attached what We have granted them.

We recognize to the Count d'Eu, his three sons and their male descendants, princely and legitimate, besides the titles of Imperial Highnesses or Highnesses which belong to them by right, the title of Royal Highnesses.

We recognize to the three children of the Count d'Eu and their male, princely and legitimate descendants the titles of Princes and Princesses of Orléans and Bragança.

2º. We recognize, according to the request made to Us by the Count d'Eu, the above Princes, sons of the Count d'Eu, presently fit for the Collation of French Princeship Titles, excluding Appanage Titles. This Collation depending however only on Our will and that of Our successors.

3º. We maintain and confirm Our Note of July 15th, in that it notes the order of accession to the Crown and regulates the order and precedence to be observed in all ceremonies having an official, political or French national character. This stated, We willingly consent to the request of Our Uncle, the Count d'Eu, about family reunions, to the effect that when the meeting or ceremony is exclusively family, or else when We decide that order should be taken, not by order of accession to the Crown, but by order of kinship, either in relation to Ourselves or in relation to the princely Persons, living or deceased, whom it is a matter of honouring, the Count d'Eu as well as his descendants, male, princely and legitimate, will be able to take the order that signals this kinship to them, as this has already occurred for other relatives or allies of Our Family, there included not princes and princes of Foreign Sovereign Houses.

4º. The Count d'Eu and his sons solemnly pledge by themselves and by their descendants, not to assert the claim to the Crown of France and to the position of Head of the House of France, except in the case of total extinction of all the French princely branches that currently compose the House of France. We record this solemn undertaking, which shall take effect and be established by the affixing of the signatures of these Princes to our present Declaration.

We declare this commitment as inviolable, as firm and unbreakable as if it were taken with oath before a competent Assembly of the Monarchy.

5º. The Count d'Eu and his sons equally undertake in their name and in the name of their descendants not to contest in anything to the branch of the Duke d'Alençon the possession of the title of Duke of Nemours.

The dynastic pact bears the signatures on the French side of the Duke of Orléans; the Duke of Montpensier; the Duke of Guise, representing his father, the Duke of Chartres; the Duke d'Alençon and his son, the Duke of Vêndome; and the Duke of Penthièvre. And on the Brazilian side, the Count d'Eu and his three sons

The fourth article of the declaration makes it clear that the Brazilian princes and their descendants had committed themselves to claiming the French crown only after the extinction of the branches that were part of the Royal House of France. If the Orléans and Bragança were, in fact, in the line of Orleanian succession to the French throne, it would not make sense for the Brazilian princes to be behind all the other French princes, even more so because there were younger branches than the French-Brazilian. For instance, there were the descendants of the younger brother of the Count d'Eu, the Duke of Alençon and also Pierre of Orléans, Duke of Penthièvre (son of Francis Ferdinand of Orléans, Prince of Joinville, younger brother of the Count d'Eu's father), who although not married, was alive when the declaration was signed.

Thus, strictly speaking, the Orléans and Braganza are not in the Orleanist line of succession to the French throne. What the Brussels Declaration provides for is only an undertaking by the descendants of the Count d'Eu not to claim the throne of France until the whole line of succession is over, and nothing about any guaranteed right of the Orléans-Braganza in the eventual case of the dynasty ending, where there is no new dynasty defined a priori. It is somewhat similar to what occurs in many monarchical countries, which provide for the creation of a new dynasty when the reigning dynasty is over - for example, the Brazilian imperial constitution of 1824 - the first constitutional charter of Brazil, provided that the General Assembly would choose a new dynasty when no legitimate descendants of Pedro I remained.

According to Isabel of Orléans-Bragança, Countess of Paris, daughter of Pedro de Alcântara and granddaughter of the Count d'Eu, her grandfather's real desire was in fact to keep her father in France so that a branch of the House of Orléans would emerge from his person - the "Orléans-Eu" - since he had renounced his position as heir to the imperial crown of Brazil in 1908. The Count d'Eu's wish would be frustrated after his death, since his eldest son, Pedro de Alcântara, travelled to Brazil with the intention of taking up residence, after the revocation of the Banishment Law in 1920, during the government of the then President of the Republic of the United States of Brazil, Epitácio Pessoa.