I’m not sure who’s the King of France, but Bertrand Russell seems to think he’s bald.
[ETA: Dammit. Kimmy_Gibbler beat me to it.]
Listen, smartass, when you’re the King of France, you’ve get better things to do than sit around all day remembering your bloody number. 
If so, then he should sing soprano. Ionesco said so!
Didn’t Huckleberry Finn meet a Dauphin pretender on the Mississippi River?
What do these people do for a living? Do they have jobs? Or was there enough family money to keep several generations afloat?
Vichy France ended in 1944, not 1942, and actually, there was a government in exile until 1945 when Brinon was arrested by allied troops.
In the novel “Barry Lyndon,” where Redmond Barry was scheming to marry & buy his way into the nobility, wasn’t it mentioned that he would have been in the direct family line of Ireland ancient rulers?
Another pretender, one of the “False Dmitrys” (posing as the son whom Ivan the Terrible beat to death) was killed by the Russians, cremated, then had his ashes shot from a cannon at his Polish supporters.
Here’s another list of pretenders, btw:
http://en.allexperts.com/e/p/pr/pretender.htm
I’m sure the situation is going to vary greatly with each case. Some of them DO have jobs, some of them have inherited family fortunes. Some are well off, some are not. Some may retain some officially recognized aristocratic title, while some do not. They personally assign the claims varying degrees of importance.
For instance, Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, one of the two claimants to the throne of Iraq obtained an MA in economics, and lived in London pursuing a career in investment banking until 1991 when he reentered Iraqi politics. He’s currently a member of a party attempting (without much success) to establish a constitutional monarchy in Iraq, something which didn’t seem like that bad a notion to some following the fall of Saddam. It doesn’t help that another guy, Ra’ad bin Zeid, has a serious claim even if you thought it was a good idea. In particular, the Kingdom of Jordan recognizes Ra’ad.
The thing about pretenders is that throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, it wasn’t exactly unheard of for monarchies to be restored. And while Europe is pretty stable nowadays, there are plenty of former monarchies in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East which are currently run by less than perfectly secure governments. How’d you like to be the guy who renounces your strictly imaginary throne three years before the government of your homeland is toppled and they’re looking for someone to restore their former glories? (Recall that after the invasion of Afghanistan, there was some talk of Zahir Shah taking up his old throne 30 years after he was forced to give it up.)
Also, during the Cold War, the superpowers gave support to some pretenders to thrones of client states of the other side – just in case there were some shake-up, and then we could add one more nation to our side of the board. (Or vice versa.)
–Cliffy
Oh – anyone interested in the subject should check out Rob Farley’s series on deposed monarchies and their pretenders, which ran at his blog Lawyers, Guns and Money throughout 2007 and '08.
–Cliffy
Indeed, but Wooden Taco linked to the other one (the legitimist pretender, much less known…actually totally unknown for the overwhelming majority of the population, while the orleanist’s father was a relatively famous figure, so when they think “pretender”, French people would think “Count of Paris”, not “Duke of Anjou”).
The orleanist pretender is this one
No picture for him, but I can tell you he’s much older and less attractive than the previous one. From having seen him once on a TV show, he also seemed of a limited intellect.
As for which one has the best claims, you’d have to study “the fundamental laws of the kindgom” from back then to figure it out.
Basically, the Anjou pretender is the legitimate heir to the throne, except for the following issues :
-The last king of France, picked after the 1830 revolution, was from the Orleans branch (not considered as legitimate by the legitimists)
-The ancestor of the Anjou pretender, a son of Louis XIV, renounced to the throne of France for him and his descendants upon his ascension to the throne of Spain , following the war of Spanish succession. (The legitimists claim that the fundamental laws of the kingdom didn’t allow such a thing. From my very small knowledge of them, I think that they’re right. The king (or his heirs) can’t indeed “dispose of the crown”, and exclude an heir from the succession)
-He is a foreign citizen (the legitimists believe that it’s not an impediment. Again, I think they’re right).
Both pretenders (or their parents/ancestors) asked to French courts to back their claims a number of times during the last century or so (the dispute begun during the 19th century). Judges having stated that interpreting the “ancien regime’s” laws to decide who is the legitimate heir of the throne wasn’t part of the job of the Republic’s courts, they used some tangents, the last one having been, IIRC, the issue of the right to use the full arms of the kings of France.
Thanks, Clair. I should have known, with a 50% chance of getting it right, it was about a 99% probability I’d say it backwards! :o
I think the way Talleyrand put it was, the Bourbons never forgot anything, but never learned anything.
Well I didn’t vote for you!
But…why?
I am adorable, & universally be-loved!
Just ask the guys hanging by their thumbs in my Spartican dungeons.
<pouts>
Considering there’s no throne of France, I find it silly arguing who’s legitimate and who’s isn’t.
If the French decide for some strange reason they need a king, Whomever they pick will be the legitimate heir to the throne no matter what’s his lineage. Everyone else can stuff it.
Michael of Romania is also still living. His grandmother was the famous Marie of Romania. (As in, “And I’m Marie of Romania!”)
I’ve read that the one with the most chance of reclaiming the throne would be Alexander, the Crown Prince of Serbia.
No, the “False Dmitris” were posing as one of Ivan’s sons who had died as a child. You’re thinking of his eldest son, Tsarevich Ivan. He and his father got into a fight when the Tsar assaulted his son’s wife, and Ivan ended up killing his son in a rage.
Fortunately, Juan Carlos I’s claim wasn’t so complicated, as his grandfather had been the last King of Spain. His father, Prince Juan, was not the eldest, but the heir to the throne had renounced his claim to marry a commoner, and the next brother, who was a deaf-mute, also renounced his claims (although he did take it back once, then stepped down again).
Long story short: Franco basically only agreed to restore the monarchy if Juan stepped down in favor of Juan Carlos. He felt that the son would be more likely to follow his (Franco) policies, than the liberal Juan would. (Of course, the King did the exact opposite and restored democracy to Spain.)
(God I love these kinds of topics!)