Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale

Henri (left) with his brother Antoine and his mother Queen Marie Amélie.

Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Born at the Palais Royal in Paris, the young Henri was brought up by his parents in relative simplicity. At the age of eight, he inherited a fortune of 66 million livres (approximately £200 million today), the lands and wealth of his godfather, Louis Henri de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, the last Prince of Condé. This inheritance included the famous Château de Chantilly, the Château d'Écouen, and the domaines of Saint-Leu, Taverny, Enghien, Montmorency, and Mortefontaine.

He was educated at the Collège Henri IV, then at the age of seventeen entered the French army with the rank of a captain of infantry.[1]

On 25 November 1844, aged 22, Aumale married in Naples Princess Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies, a daughter of Leopold of the Two Sicilies, Prince of Salerno, and Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria. The couple had several children, of whom two reached adulthood, but still predeceased him:

1. Louis Philippe Marie Léopold d'Orléans, Prince of Condé (15 November 1845 – 24 May 1866), died unmarried and childless.
2. Henri Léopold Philippe Marie d'Orléans, Duke of Guise (11 September 1847 – 10 October 1847), died in infancy.
3. Stillborn daughter (16 August 1850).
4. François Paul d'Orléans, Duke of Guise (11 January 1852 – 15 April 1852), died in infancy.
5. François Louis Philippe Marie d'Orléans, Duke of Guise (5 January 1854 – 25 July 1872), died unmarried.
6. Stillborn son (May 1857).
7. Stillborn son (15 June 1861).
8. Stillborn son (June 1864).

Aumale distinguished himself during the French invasion of Algeria and, in 1847, he became lieutenant-general and was appointed Governor-General of Algeria, a position he held from 27 September 1847 to 24 February 1848.

In this capacity, he received the submission of the emir Abdel Kadir, in December 1847. After the Revolution of 1848, he retired to England and busied himself with historical and military studies, responding in 1861 to Napoleon III's violent attacks upon the House of Orléans with a Letter upon History of France.[1]

After the Bavarian-born King Otto of Greece was overthrown in October 1862,[2] the Greeks still favoured a monarchy and wanted Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, as their new king,[3] but he declined. In the search for a king, the French put forward the name of Aumale, while other contenders included Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Prince of Leiningen, and Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Eventually, the choice fell on Prince William of Denmark, aged only seventeen, and the Greek National Assembly elected him as the new King of the Hellenes in March 1863.[4][5]

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Aumale volunteered for service in the French army, but his offer was declined. Elected to parliament as deputy for the Oise, he returned to France.[1] He also succeeded to the seat of the Count Montalembert in the Académie française.

In March 1872, he returned to the army as a Divisional General and in 1873 presided over the court-martial which condemned Marshal Bazaine to death.[1]

At this time, having been appointed commander of the VII Army Corps at Besançon, Aumale retired from political life. In 1879, he became inspector-general of the army. The act of exception, passed in 1883, deprived all members of families who had reigned in France of their military commissions. Consequently, Aumale was placed on the unemployed supernumerary list.[1]

In 1886, another law was promulgated which expelled from French territory the heads of former reigning families and provided that, henceforward, all members of those families should be disqualified from holding any public position or function and from election to any public body. Aumale protested energetically but was nonetheless expelled from France.[1]

The Duc d'Aumale capturing the Smalah of Abdelkader with his chasseurs d'Afrique (1843), by Horace Vernet

In his will, written on 3 June 1884, Aumale had bequeathed his Chantilly estate to the Institute of France, including the Château de Chantilly, which was to be turned into a museum displaying his large art collection. After this act of generosity was revealed, the French government withdrew the decree of exile, and the duke returned to France in 1889.[1]

The duc d'Aumale in his final years, portrait by Jean Baptiste Guth in Vanity Fair, 1891

The Château of Chantilly houses one of the finest art collections in France.

Royal styles of Prince Henri, Duke of Aumale
Reference style	His Royal Highness
Spoken style	Your Royal Highness
Alternative style	Sir

Aumale was a notable collector of antique books and manuscripts and owned the important medieval Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Most of his collection is still at Chantilly.[6]

Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale, died in Lo Zucco, Sicily. After the fire of the Bazar de la Charité on 4 May 1897, which killed 126 people, mostly aristocratic women, he wanted to send his condolences to the families of the victims. After writing twenty letters, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. He was buried in Dreux, in the chapel of the Orléans.

• 1842: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
• 22 March 1842: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold[7]
• 6 September 1845: Knight of the Golden Fleece[8]
• 1864: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order[9]
• 22 May 1886: Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword[10]
• 1887: Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.[11]
• 1890: Charles Oberthür described & named parnassian butterfly P. orleans from China, named after the Duke who discovered it.
• Grand Cross of the Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit[12]
• Husainid Family Order[13]
• Member of the Académie française.
• Member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques

The duke of Aumale did not have a personal coat of arms, so used the traditional arms of the House of Orléans, consisting of:

• Blazon : Azure, three fleurs de lys or, a label argent
• Coronet : of a fils de France
• Supporters : two angels
• Personal motto (after 1871) : J'attendrai (I'll be waiting)

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Prinet, Léon Jacques Maxime (1911). "Aumale, Henri Eugène Philippe Louis d'Orléans, Duc d'". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 920–921.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale.

• Biography on 19ème Siècle site (in French)
• Académie française Website