More on French Royalism

Image: Wikipedia 

I have posted twice in recent days about commemorations in France of King Louis XVI, and of course once ventures onto the Internet the algorithm starts finding related videos.

Here then are a few more, starting with a Requiem Mass celebrated in Grenoble, which can be seen at Messe de requiem pour Louis XVI - Mardi 21 Janvier 2025 - Collégiale Saint André de Grenoble

The Count of Paris - King Jean IV - is shown attending a Mass at Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, which was the parish church for a couple of centuries for the Louvre, and he is briefly interviewed by the presenter, at Je vais à l’Hommage au roi Louis XVI et j'interview le comte de Paris ! 

There is an interview with the then Prince Jean from 2018, before the death of his father, which  can be seen at Interview Prince Jean d'Orléans, Comte de Paris - Complément d'Enquête

There is a recent two part interview with the Count which can be seen at Prince Jean de France : La question de la République est posée - Les Conversations n°51 - TVL and at Prince Jean : un roi pour la République ? (2ème partie) - Les Conversations de P.-M. Coûteaux n°52

Finally there is his equivalent of a reigning monarch Christmas or New Year broadcast on which can be seen at Voeux de Noël 2024 | PRINCE JEAN D'ORLEANS, COMTE DE PARIS

Vive Le Roi !

• 
  

Commemorating King Louis XVI

Since I posted about the Solemn Requiem celebrated fo King Louis XVI on the anniversary of his death and linked to the video of the Mass I have found some other related videos that may be of interest. They represent both the Orleanist and the Legitimist traditions within French Royalism.

From the Orleanist side there is film of the Count of Paris - King Jean IV - attending a Mass on the anniversary at Le comte de Paris commémore le roi Louis XVI | 21 janvier 2025

His wife, the Countess of Paris, is seen in another video attending Mass elsewhere and being interviewed about King Louis XVI. That can be seen at La comtesse de Paris rend hommage au roi Louis XVI

Meanwhile on the Legitimist front there is a longer video covering a march by young French Royalists in Paris on, I assume, one evening before the anniversary, and on the Sunday beforehand a Mass at the Chapelle Expiatoire erected on the site of the original burial place of the murdered King and his Queen. This was attended by the Duke of Anjou - King Louis XX - and can be seen at Marche pour Louis XVI et commémoration du Roy Martyr en à la Chapelle Expiatoire and at Louik XX commémore Louis XVI à Paris - 19 janvier 2025

Another commemorative event in what is now the Place de la Concorde ( formerly the Place Louis XV, and then the Place de la Revolution ) where the King was killed is covered at Commémoration: 232 ans de la décapitation de Louis XVI - 21 janvier 2025

Now I would not go so far as to predict an imminent restoration, but the presence of so many young people for what many might dismiss ae a minority interest, is striking. Nevertheless given the mess the current government(s) and, indeed, present constitution has got France into the French could certainly do a lot worse than restoring the monarchy - though that would require deciding which of the two claimants to recognise as the undoubted King.

Vive Le Roi!

Requiem for King Louis XVI in Paris

Rorate Caeli has a post with a really quite splendid, and beautiful, set of photographs of a Solemn Requiem Mass celebrated last year on 220th anniversary of his death for King Louis XVI in the church of St Eugene in the Archdiocese of Paris. 

The slide show from Flickr on the blog begins part way through the Mass, but if you play it through it comes to what is, I assume, the intended beginning, with pictures of a cataphalque bearing a crown and the riband of the Order of the Holy Ghost. The series continues through the traditional liturgy to the absolutions at the cataphalque and a group image of the altar party. It can be seen at  This is the Mass.

As I commented recently at the beginning of my post Commemorating King Louis XVI French Royalism displays a vitality of which few in this country seem to be aware.

News from France

Last night I had dinner with a friend who Twitters on line. One of his themes therein is French Royalism and he was flattered to find that he has recently gained a new member in his group of 3000 plus followers the Orleanist claimant to the throne, the Comte de Paris, or, as one thinks of him, King Henri VII.

This fortuitously links in with an interesting new post on Rorate Caeli which can be read at "The Reactionary Generation": traditional Catholic values sweep French politics.

The other week another friend introduced me to the blog Riposte-catholique: La réinformation catholique au quotidien. This is a collaborative effort from various contributors and highlights attacks on the Church in France and threats to Catholicism, both external, and internal through abuses of power and administration.

It  does look as though traditionalsm in various forms has quickened with the advent of a left-of- centre government and the questioning of some of the hitherto accepted principles of French political life - including the development of French Euroscepticism and the significant scale of the protests over same- sex marriage legislation there - which were, interestingly, hardly reported at all this side of the Channel. Funny that.

My own visits over the years to France always give me the sense of there being two Frances - that of the modern state and that of an older Catholic realm, by no means dead, but still alive, still breathing, and maybe, somehow,waiting. Waiting for what for may indeed be the question, but more than 200 years after the events of 1789, that older France - dare I call it an Ancien Regime? -  is more potent, more significant than many might think.

" Son of St Louis ascend to Heaven"

Whether he had said "Son of St Louis ascend to Heaven" to King Louis XVI on the scaffold was something the Abbé Edgeworth could not recall afterwards such was his own fraught state, but it is one of those things which if it was not said ought to have been.

The phrase links the King to his illustrious and sainted ancestor and to the whole tradition of French sacral kingship which was being killed in the person of King Louis XVI on this day in 1793. Both in destroying the traditional institutions of governance and in destroying the man who was King the revolutionaries perpetrated a great act of injustice not only to a decent man who had sought to fulfill his obligations as monarch in an ever more difficult situation surrounded by mounting horrors - and therein lies his and his family's martyrdom - but also to the whole of the French people by depriving them of their corporate inheritance and means of self definition.

The farewell of King Louis XVI to his family in the Temple on the evening of January 20 1793

Image:catherine delours.blog

Whatever the need for genuine reform and renewal within the French system the onslaught on Throne and Altar, the deliberate seeking of the destruction of all that had been handed down - even to the ridiculous calendric reforms - went infinitely beyond what was required into a world of barbarism, insanity, and only partially rescued by a parvenu military dictatorship under the Corsican ogre. Bernard Fay concluded his biography of the King by saying that France has been morning ever since the moment the guillotine cut off his head. A powerful image which has remained with me. Once out of its bottle the genie of revolt and revolution and their vapid and spurious ideals has, alas, remained within the French political process - hence all the disorders since 1830 when the restored monarchy was overthrown.

To see this in action just observe the antics we shall find ourselves watching in the forthcoming "French Presidential Election." Admit it, you know I'm right.

My posts from last year can be read at King Louis XVI and The Orders worn by King Louis XVI.

I also commend to you this Prayer for the King of France.

Prayer for the King of France

A friend has sent me the text of the following prayer - I have revised the English translation into "English" English from its previous American Franglais ...

Prière à Notre Seigneur JÉSUS-CHRIST vrai Roi de France,
pour le retour de son Lieutenant le Roi très chrétien
et le retour de la France à sa vocation d’origine.

Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Vrai Roi de France ; Souvenez-Vous de votre

peuple de prédilection ; Souvenez-Vous de la Mission que Vous lui

avez confiée dans le monde ; Souvenez-Vous de l’Alliance que Vous

avez scellée avec Clovis au Baptistère de Reims et confirmée par Saint

Rémi et Sainte Jeanne d’Arc, puis renouvelée à chacun des Sacres de

ses Rois très Chrétiens. Cette Alliance a été brisée, la France officielle

a renié ses engagements envers Vous depuis qu’elle a assassiné son roi.

Faites lui la grâce, Seigneur Jésus, de réparer ses erreurs et ses fautes,

afin qu’elle revienne au plus tôt à sa vocation première qui est la

défense de l’Église Romaine qui est Votre seule Église. Vos desseins

sont impénétrables, mais nous croyons que la prière des hommes est

puissante sur Votre Coeur. Soumis à Votre Sagesse et confiants en

Votre Bonté, nous osons Vous supplier que la France revienne à ses

origines par l’Alliance de l’Autel et du Trône restauré.

Seigneur Dieu, comme au temps de Jeanne d’Arc, Rendez à la France

son Roi très Chrétien, afin que, recevant à Reims son digne sacre, il

soit en toute vérité Votre Lieutenant temporel, le ministre de Vos

saintes Volontés pour le bien de l’Église, de la Patrie et de l’humanité.

Nous Vous demandons cette grâce au nom de Votre Sacré-Coeur qui

aime toujours les Francs, au nom de Votre Très Sainte Mère, notre

Reine bien-aimée, au nom de Saint Michel, l’Ange Gardien de la

France, de Sainte Jeanne d’Arc, la grande martyre de Votre Royauté en

France, au nom de nos Saints protecteurs et de tous les Saints de la

Maison Royale de France.

Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Donnez nous un Roi.

Ainsi soit il.

Prayer to Our Lord JESUS CHRIST true King of France

for the return of his most Christian King and Lieutenant

and the return of France to its original vocation.

Lord Jesus Christ, True King of France;

Remember your chosen people ;

Remember the Mission You have entrusted to them in the world.

Remember the covenant that You

have sealed with Clovis at the Baptistry of Reims and confirmed by St.

Remi and St. Joan of Arc, and then repeated at each of the Coronations of

its very Christian Kings.

This covenant was broken, official France has

reneged on its commitments to you since she murdered her king.

Make him the means of grace, Lord Jesus, to repair its errors and faults,

so that it returns to its original purpose which is the

defence of the Roman Church which is your One Church.

Your designs are impenetrable, but we believe that the prayers of men

work powerfully opon Your Heart.

Submitted to your wisdom and confident in Your goodness, we dare to beg you that France returns to its

origins , to restore the Alliance of the Altar and the Throne.

Lord God, as in the days of Joan of Arc, return to France

its Most Christian King, and that, receiving his sacred dignity at Rheims, he

will in very truth be Your temporal Lieutenant, the Minister of Your Holy Will

for the good of the Church, the Fatherland and of humanity.

We ask you this favour on behalf of Your Sacred Heart which

still loves the Franks, in the name of Your Blessed Mother, our

Beloved Queen, on behalf of St. Michael, the Angel Guardian of

France, Saint Joan of Arc, the great martyr of Your Kingship in

France, on behalf of our patron Saints and of all the Saints of the

Royal House of France.

Lord Jesus Christ, Give us a king.

So be it.

The prayer concentrates upon the sacrosanct office of King of France and does not express a preference between the two claimants, King Henri VII and King Louis XX.

The original Sainte Ampoule in its reliquary

New Blogs

Browsing through the internet continues to turn up interesting blogs. I came across Le Fleur de Lys too recently. This is devoted, as its name suggests, to the French Royalist cause, in the person of King Louis XX rather than King Henri VII, and has some very interesting posts. I thought it a little unfair in picking up a Daily Mail report on the Prince of Wales' recent speech here in Oxford on Islam and the Environment, which sounds to have been innocuous enough, whilst discussing important ideas - but some people seem , quite unfairly, to take issue with whatever the Prince says or does. That aside the blog is very good and informative.

I also came across Supremacy and Survival which deals with English Reformation and recusant history. This follows a pattern of an anniversary of the day for its postings and has some good reminders of the events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in particular - though today's is about G.K. Chesterton who died on June 14 1936. The postings about the Reformation era do raise a number of those what-might-have-been questions, which give one pause for thought.

I have added both to the blogroll.