Orléanist

Orléanist (French: Orléaniste) was a 19th-century French political label originally used by those who supported a constitutional monarchy expressed by the House of Orléans. Due to the radical political changes that occurred during that century in France, four different phases of Orléanism can be identified:

Orleanism was opposed by the two other monarchist trends: the more conservative Legitimism that was loyal to the eldest branch of the House of Bourbon after 1830, and the Bonapartism that supported Napoleon's legacy and heirs.

On 26 July 1830, the revolution of the so-called Three Glorious Days (or July Revolution) erupted due to the authoritarian and anti-Gallican tendencies showed by Charles X and his Prime Minister Jules de Polignac, expressed by the recently approved Saint-Cloud Ordinances. Despite the abdication of Charles X and the Dauphin Louis in favor to Charles X's grandson Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, on 2 August 1830, only seven days later Louis Philippe I, still Duke of Orléans, was elected by the Chamber of Deputies as new "King of the French". The enthronement of Louis Philippe was strongly wanted by Doctrinaires, the liberal opposition to Charles X's ministries, under the concept "nationalize the monarchy and royalize France". On 14 August 1830, the Chamber approved a new Constitution, which became the de facto political manifesto for the Orléanists, containing the basis for a constitutional monarchy with a central Parliament. The Orléanism, became the dominant tendency within political life, easily divided inside the Chamber of Deputies between the centre-left of Adolphe Thiers and the centre-right of François Guizot. Louis Philippe showed himself more aligned with Guizot, entrusted to the higher offices of government, and rapidly became associated with the rising "new men" of the banks, industries and finance, gaining the epithet of "Roi bourgeois". In the early 1840s, Louis Philippe's popularity decreased, due to his strong connection to upper classes and repression against workers' strikes, and showed few concerns for his weakened position, leading the writer Victor Hugo to describe him as "a man with many little qualities". The Orléanist regime finally fell in 1848, when a revolution erupted and on 24 February Louis Philippe abdicated in favor to his grandson Philippe, Count of Paris, under regency of his mother Helene, Duchess of Orléans, who was quickly ousted out from the Chamber of Deputies during the regency's formalization, who was interrupted by republican deputies who instead proclaimed the Second Republic.

After 18 years of reign, Louis Philippe left the Orléanist base well-defined inside the magistrature, the press, universities and academies, especially the Académie française. However, also some great aristocratic families joined the court, like the Dukes of Broglie, as well former Bonapartist officers like the Marshal Soult and Édouard Mortier. This establishment constituted the majority of the Party of Order, led by Thiers, who represented the conservatives and monarchists under the Second Republic.

Orléanism revived after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 which caused the fall of the Second Empire which had succeeded to the Second Republic under Emperor Napoleon III, the former president of France who had been enthroned after the coup d'état of 1851. The Second Empire was succeeded itself officially in 1871 by the Third Republic. A National Assembly, composed by 638 on 778 seats, was formed and new elections were called for the 8 February of the same year, which resulted in a victory for the monarchist right: 396 seats won, divided to 214 Orléanists and 182 Legitimists, nicknamed "cavalrymen". Initially divided about the dynastic issue, the Orléanists found a compromise with the Legitimists, supporting the rights of Henri, Count of Chambord (former Duke of Bordeaux, currently childless) in return of the recognition of the Count of Paris as his heir, echoing an 1862 statement of Chambord. Although Chambord never mentioned the Count of Paris as his heir, probably fearing the defection of his ultraconservative supporters, the informal agreement sanctioned the "fusion" of Legitimists and Orléanists, who quite easily formed a conservative coalition. The monarchist majority, led by the Duke of Aumale (son of Louis Philippe), and the centre-left endorsed the centre-right candidate Thiers as president of the Republic, but due to the continued arguments between Legitimists and Orléanists and the memory of the dynastic divisions of the past 40 years, Thiers moved to support a "conservative republic" instead of a divided monarchy.

Due to Chambord's dislike of Aumale, the "fusionists" rapidly passed under the leadership of the Duke of Broglie, who in 1873 successfully managed the election of President Patrice de MacMahon, former general and national hero who showed Legitimist sympathies, considering him as a kind of "lieutenant-general of the kingdom" before the fully restoration of Chambord on the throne. Broglie was shortly after awarded with the premiership by MacMahon, supported by monarchists and the centre-right. Restoration appeared imminent when a parliamentary commission was established in October 1873 to adopt a monarchist constitution. But in the same month the majority was weakened by the refusal of Chambord to accept the French Tricolour, used since 1830, preferring instead the return of the royal white flag, symbol of the Ancien Régime. The question was apparently resolved with a compromise between Broglie and Chambord: the last will accept the tricolour flag while a future agreement about a new flag will be considered. In October the majority was shocked when the centre-right representative Charles Savary rashly misinformed the press of Chambord's full acceptance of the tricolour flag,. The pretender had to harshly clarify his position, causing the left of the centre-right, Orléanists disappointment and the dissolution of the "restoration" commission on 31 October 1873. A last attempt by Chambord was made on 12 November, when he asked President MacMahon via the Duke of Blacas to join with him into the National Assembly and spoke toward the representatives, hoping to convince them to restore the monarchy, but MacMahon refused due to his institutional position, toward he was formally even if not ideologically attached, causing the project's failure. Due to the impossibility to restore the monarchy in a short time, the Orléanists waited the death of the sickly Chambord, occurred in 1883, but by that time, enthusiasm for a monarchy had faded, and as a result the Count of Paris was never offered the French throne.

The monarchists, however, still controlled the National Assembly, and under MacMahon's partisan presidency they launched the so-called "moral order government", in reference to the Paris Commune, whose political and social innovations were viewed as morally degenerate by large conservative segments of the French population. In February 1875, a series of parliamentary acts established the constitutional laws of the new republic. At its head was a President of the Republic. A two-chamber parliament consisting of a directly elected Chamber of Deputies and an indirectly-elected Senate was created, along with a ministry under the President of the council (prime minister), who was nominally answerable to both the President of the Republic and the legislature. Throughout the 1870s, the issue of whether a monarchy should replace the republic dominated public debate. On 16 May 1877, with public opinion swinging heavily in favour of a republic after the election of March, President MacMahon made one last desperate attempt to salvage the monarchical cause by dismissing the "conservative republican" prime minister Jules Simon and appointing the Duke of Broglie to office. He then dissolved parliament and called a general election for the following October. If his hope had been to halt the move towards republicanism, it backfired spectacularly, with the president being accused of having staged a constitutional coup d'état known as "16 May Crisis" after the date on which it happened. Republicans returned triumphantly after the October elections for the Chamber of Deputies. The crisis ultimately sealed the defeat of the royalist movement, and was instrumental in creating the conditions of the longevity of the Third Republic: in January 1879 the Republicans gained control of the Senate, formerly monopolized by monarchists. MacMahon himself resigned on 30 January 1879, leaving a seriously weakened presidency in the hands of Jules Grévy, leader of the Republican Left.

The end of the presidency of MacMahon and the Senate's loss caused the end of the monarchist bloc. Although there were Orléanist deputies in the Chamber for all the 19th century, they were only a minority. At the end, many monarchists accepted the republic, moving toward the centre. Some Orléanists, especially from their bourgeoise core base, accepted the republic even since the 1870s, like Thiers and press baron Émile de Girardin. In 1892, after Pope Leo XIII's approval to the Third Republic, breaking the historical alliance between Church and Crown, some monarchists led by Orléanist Jacques Piou and Legitimist Albert de Mun formed the group of the "ralliés" ("supporters"), that in 1901 constituted the base of the first Christian Democratic party in France, the Liberal Action, while many other royalists were still attached to the Crown.