Louis-Philippe-Robert, duke d’Orléans

French pretender

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Born:: Feb. 6, 1869, Twickenham, Middlesex, Eng.

Died:: March 28, 1926, Palermo (aged 57)

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Louis-Philippe-Robert, duke d’Orléans (born Feb. 6, 1869, Twickenham, Middlesex, Eng.—died March 28, 1926, Palermo) was a pretender to the French throne during the Third Republic.

The eldest son of Louis-Philippe-Albert, comte de Paris, and great-grandson of King Louis-Philippe, Orléans was banished from France in 1886 as a threat to the republican regime. Returning in 1890, he was arrested and given a prison sentence but was released after a few months and escorted out of the country. He subsequently travelled in Europe and the Middle East.

After his father’s death (September 1894), the Duc d’Orléans was recognized by most French royalists as their rightful king. He undertook voyages to the Arctic in 1905, 1907, and 1919 and travelled in British East Africa in 1922–23, bringing back zoological specimens that he bequeathed to France. During World War I he had vainly sought permission to serve in either the French or an Allied army.

Orléans had no children by his marriage (Nov. 5, 1896) to the Austrian archduchess Maria Dorothea Amalia, so that when he died his pretensions passed to his cousin Jean d’Orléans, Duke de Guise (1874–1940).

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