3-053-486 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Comte de Chambord, claimant of the throne of France, 1873. 'Prince Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné d'Artois, Comte de Chambord and Duc de Bordeaux...of the old Royal Bourbon House of France...is now likely to be brought forward by the Monarchist party as candidate for the throne with the title of Henri V...His father, Prince Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, Duc de Berri, younger son of Charles X., died by the hand of an assassin on Feb. 14, 1820, seven months before the birth of this son...The extraordinary circumstances of his birth, regarded almost as a miracle by the romantic enthusiasm of religious and political zealots, were celebrated under the Legitimist regime. The child was baptised with holy water of the Jordan, brought to France by Châteaubriand; and it was prophesied that his future reign would restore the ancient faith in Church and King...The personal character of the Comte de Chambord is respectable, and he has refrained throughout his life from conspiracies and incitations to civil war, and from any unpatriotic endeavour to direct foreign Powers against the French Governments of Louis Philippe, the Republic, and the Emperor Napoleon III. He has usually resided at Frohsdorf, near Vienna'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.