Strange Bedfellows

A self-proclaimed Irish republican confesses her admiration for the British Monarchy.

Controversial Versailles exhibition upheld

Prince Charles-Emanuel de Bourbon-Parma was unsuccessful in attempting to halt an exhibit at Versailles by an American "pop artist" which he felt was disrespectful to his royal ancestors. Note the claim by the republican in charge of Versailles that a victory for the prince would have been "tantamount to proclaiming that the Revolution didn't take place." Really? (If only it hadn't!) It is interesting that even after 138 years of having their way, French republicans are so defensive that they can see a single legal dispute like this as a threat.

In a related story, Frenchmen of the heroic Vendée, stronghold of Catholic and royalist resistance to the Revolution, demand that the First Republic's horrifying massacres of men, women, and children there in 1794 be recognized as a "genocide." It's unfortunate, though, that the Vendean historian quoted can only go so far as to claim that the Vendée atrocities constituted "faithlessness of the Revolution to its own principles," when in fact it was the French Revolution's evil principles themselves that were the problem, and led naturally and logically to the extermination of those who did not wish to live under the revolutionaries' new order.

Christmas

I'm excited about celebrating Christmas Eve tonight by singing, for the first time in my life, in traditional Christmas Eve services, as a member of the choir of the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas. Music will include the Missa ad Praesepe by George Malcolm (1917-1997), who was organist at London's Westminster Cathedral.

Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I will fly to Indianapolis to join my family there.

I would like to wish my readers a very merry Christmas!

The Passionate Prince on YouTube

The recent BBC documentary Charles at 60: The Passionate Prince is now available in nine ten-minute installments beginning here.

Labour MPs back disestablishment

Never able to leave well enough alone, Labour MPs are seizing on the Archbishop of Canterbury's technically true but unwise observation that disestablishment of the Church of England "would not be the end of the world" to advocate bringing it on, since, after all, it would not, in the strict sense, end the world. Predictably, the [disgraceful and tragic] expulsion of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords in 1999 is used as precedent. And unfortunately, they have a point: if it's "wrong" for peers to hold seats in Parliament based on heredity, if the liberal principle of "non-discrimination" is to govern everything, surely it's also "wrong" for clergy of a particular religion that now represents only a minority of British people to hold on to theirs. What's left unsaid is the question of what all this ultimately means for the monarchy itself, beyond the Roman Catholic succession issue. I shudder to think of how disestablishment might affect the next Coronation...

Jean d'Orléans in the WSJ

The Wall Street Journal interviews the recently engaged Jean, Duc de Vendôme (b. 1965), son of the most widely recognized claimant to the French throne. (H/T: Royal Musings)

I'm glad to see the WSJ paying attention to non-reigning royalty (though the reader comments--open only to subscribers--are uniformly disgusting), and that HRH persists in believing in the future of the French monarchy, no matter how unlikely its restoration seems at present. But there are a few misleading statements in the article.

(1) The [Spanish] Bourbons (the French Bourbon senior line became extinct in 1883) and the Orléans are not two separate families or dynasties. They are different branches of the same family, the Capetians, who ruled France from 987 to the Revolution and then again until 1848, and remain on the thrones of Spain and Luxembourg. Both the Duke of Anjou ("Louis XX") and the Duke of Vendôme are descended in the male line from King Louis XIII (1601-1643), the former from his elder son Louis XIV (1638-1715) and the latter from his younger son Philippe Duc d'Orléans (1640-1701). While it is not incorrect to state that "[t]he Orléans are related to Louis Philippe I, who ruled France between 1830 and 1848 and was related to Louis XIV's younger brother," why not specify that the Orléans are descended from Louis Philippe I (1773-1850), who was descended from Louis XIV's younger brother? "Related" makes it sound like some vague connection less direct than it actually is. As direct male-line descendants of Henri IV (the first "Bourbon" King of France) and his son Louis XIII, in a sense the Orléans family are "Bourbons" too.

(2) Luis Alfonso de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou (b. 1974), is not a "distant cousin" of the King of Spain. His father was Juan Carlos's first cousin, making them first cousins once removed. That is not a "distant" relationship!

(3) The idea that a Spaniard cannot be King of France is not really an "old tradition," but rather an odd way of summarizing the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which stipulated that the crowns of Spain and France could never be united. The main issue, however, is not that stipulation (since Luis Alfonso is not in line to the Spanish throne), but rather the fact that Louis XIV's grandson Philippe Duc d'Anjou (from whom the Spanish and Italian Bourbons, including Luis Alfonso, all descend) renounced for himself and his descendants any claim to the French throne in order to be recognized as King Felipe V of Spain (1683-1746); the validity of that renunciation is the key dispute between supporters of "Louis XX" and supporters of "Henri VII" (Jean's father).

That said, kudos to Prince Jean for his determination to remain above "Left" and "Right" and "sow ideas" for Restoration. Vive le Roi---whoever "le Roi" is! (This blog would gladly acclaim either Louis XX or Henri VII rather than the French Republic!)

More on Luxembourg

Gerald Warner weighs in on Grand Duke Henri and euthanasia. A petition in support of the Grand Duke is here.

(H/T: Jørn K. Baltzersen)

As I pointed out at my friend Mr. Baltzersen's blog, Mr. Warner, whose blog I've often admired, does not seem to be defending Grand Duke Henri so much as reproaching him and other Catholic monarchs for not being even more intransigent on issues such as euthanasia, even if it led to their abdication. This is not a position I'm willing to take; in fact I would probably not take it even if I shared Mr. Warner's Roman Catholic faith.

Like it or not (and I don't!), "Democracy" is held sacrosanct in modern Europe (except of course when popular referendums might hinder the agenda of the EU...), and it is not within the ability of the continent's remaining constitutional sovereigns to change that. Catholics opposed to euthanasia, abortion, etc., are obliged to work within the democratic process like everyone else, not rely on monarchs whose constitutional limitations in most cases were set before they were born to "save the day" or risk the fall of the monarchy with grand gestures of defiance. As I've said many times in arguments with those who while not unsympathetic to monarchy in principle don't see the point in today's "emasculated" versions, symbolism matters, and I would much rather Europe's monarchies survive by making compromises with modernity than allow themselves to be replaced by republics whose very existence would be repulsive and repugnant and would certainly not do Catholics any good.