Minority in France Yearning for a King : Tiny Group of Monarchists Claim That 1789 Revolution Was a ‘Grave Mistake’

Ask most Frenchmen about the Revolution of 1789, and they are likely to respond: “Liberte, egalite, fraternite. “ Nearly 200 years ago, they will say proudly, a republic replaced a monarchy in France and freedom triumphed over oppression.

Mention the revolution to a tiny, fervent French minority, though, and the reaction is entirely different.

“An abomination,” a university student said. “The revolution was a grave mistake, a tragedy.”

Another young Parisian sees the storming of the Bastille in July, 1789, as “a true stupidity from which France has never recovered.”

These are not just nostalgic admirers of Louis XVI, the French king who died at the guillotine on Jan. 21, 1793. Nor are they related to any of the 3,500 noble families of France. They are die-hard monarchists, members of a fringe movement that sees the past 200 years of republican rule as a brief interlude in the 1,000-year history of the French monarchy.

Statistics Cited

They point out that half of Western Europe’s 20 countries and principalities are under some form of monarchy, that European royal families are more popular today than ever before in modern history. And they believe that France, in time, will have its 41st king.

Bertrand Renouvin, political director of the moderate Nouvelle Action Royaliste, a monarchist political party, said in a recent interview: “Our country is in search of national unity, stability and continuity. A king fulfills these needs. Royalism really is at the center of the current French political debate.”

There are three living pretenders to the French throne, and several thousand followers, but the monarchist movement is far from being, or becoming, a significant political force. Theodore Zeldin, in his five-volume history of modern France, observes that royalism is “for all practical purposes . . . dead.”

Still, the monarchists, mostly students and teachers, believe that their 115-year-old campaign is flourishing. Every year, they say, attendance increases at rallies and meetings.

The numbers are not dazzling, though. In the presidential elections of 1974, a royalist candidate received 42,719 of the 5.1 million votes cast. Since then, in municipal and legislative elections, monarchist candidates have been unable to win more than 1% of the vote in their districts.

Nostalgia and Interest

But although the movement may be going nowhere politically, many people in France look on the vestiges of monarchy with nostalgia and interest, even fascination.

“All France revels in royal spectacle,” said the news magazine L’Express in a recent article on the “hang-ups of French society.”

“Everything happens here as if the French--disconsolate at having cut off their king’s head--yearn for the age of Versailles, with its prestige and the absolute authority that ruled over it.”

With France this year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the death of Victor Hugo, a father of the French republic, many observers find it ironic, though not surprising, that the country is also preparing to mark, in 1987, the 1,000th anniversary of the French monarchy. The government and the city of Paris are both planning to honor Hugh Capet, France’s first king, who mounted the throne in 987.

When it comes to the affairs of the three leading pretenders to the throne--an elderly French count, a dashing Spanish duke and a secluded heir to Napoleon--the French are almost obsessive. The national press reports often on this rivalry, and several monarchist newspapers, including Alliance Royale, Royaliste and Aspects de la France, focus exclusively on the monarchist movement.

Circulation Growing

A magazine that devotes itself entirely to the public and personal lives of Europe’s royalty claims a weekly circulation of about 600,000. The magazine, Point de Vue--Images du Monde, ranks 16th on the list of France’s most popular periodicals, and its circulation is growing at the rate of 12% a year.

“There’s a certain regret in France about the revolution,” Arnaud Chaffonjon, a journalist on the magazine’s staff and the leading authority on European monarchy, said not long ago. “The French love the panache and the splendor of royalty, and they’re sad they don’t have it any more. Thus the nostalgia. They read, dream and pretend.”

Although many nobles were put to death during the Revolution, there are more of them today than ever before, Chaffonjon said. The reason, he said, is that in addition to about 3,500 genuinely noble families surviving from the 26,000 that existed before the revolution, as many as 12 times that number pretend to be noble.

Although France overthrew its last king in 1848 and ousted its last emperor in 1870, the royalists insist that a return to the monarchy is the only answer to the “French national crisis,” a phrase that comes up frequently in conversation with monarchists.

Each of the five French republics, dating back to 1792, has been a disaster, the monarchists say, adding that because of the constitution written in 1958, the country is engulfed in a constant state of civil war.

Nonstop Confrontation

They say that political power can never be unified in France because the constitution provides for both an imperial presidency and a strong assembly.

The result, they argue, is nonstop confrontation between the president’s party and the opposition party. And they say the president is incapable of acting as an arbiter, because, unlike a monarch, he cannot rise above the political fray and is just another brawler in the street fight of politics.

Royalists are quick to admit that monarchy is not the ideal form of government, but they insist that it is best for France. As evidence that monarchy is not an anachronism in the 1980s, they cite the example of King Juan Carlos of Spain, who since November, 1975, has guided his country through the difficult transition from dictatorship to parliamentary democracy.

Said Guy Steinbach, secretary general of Restauration Nationale, a right-wing monarchist group better known as L’Action Francaise: “The crown is not the universal panacea, but it’s the best system for France.”

Of the three pretenders, the leader is Monseigneur the Prince Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis-Philippe d’Orleans, better known as the Count of Paris. The 76-year-old count, who has headed the House of France since August, 1940, is an indirect descendant of Hugh Capet and a direct descendant of Louis Philippe, the “citizen king” who ruled from 1830 to 1848.

Most Active Pretender

He has lived more than half his life in exile, in North Africa, Spain and Portugal. He is the most active of the pretenders, and has devoted his life to presenting himself as a plausible alternative in the event of the republic’s collapse.

The count lives comfortably on his family’s wealth and operates a nonprofit geriatric home outside Paris, in Chantilly. He refused repeated requests for an interview.

The count’s principal rival is Alphonse, the Duke of Anjou and Cadiz. Alphonse, 48, is head of the House of Bourbon and a descendant of Philippe V of Spain and King Louis XIV of France. A former Spanish air force officer and ambassador to Sweden, as well as a champion skier, Alphonse lives in Madrid. He is divorced from the granddaughter of Francisco Franco, the late Spanish dictator.

Finally, there is Prince Louis Napoleon, a descendant of Napoleon III, who ruled France from 1852 to 1870. The 71-year-old prince, who lives in Paris, is not considered a realistic candidate. He has no blood ties to the royal families of Orleans or Bourbon.

2 Opposing Camps

The pretenders generally remain above the political fray, but their supporters battle from two opposing political camps.

L’Action Francaise, which was founded by Charles Maurras in March of 1899, is the larger of the two camps. It has long been associated with anti-Semitism, racism and ultranationalism.

Pope Pius XI condemned L’Action Francaise in 1926, and it was dissolved by the French government in 1936. Maurras, who was closely tied to the Vichy regime of Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, was imprisoned after World War II for collaborating with the enemy.

All along, L’Action Francaise has campaigned, often with violence, for anti-democratic objectives. The group’s primary aim has been to eliminate representative democracy in France and replace it with absolute monarchy. Someday, its members believe, a crisis in France will destroy the republic and the French will turn to the Count of Paris to save the day.

In 1971, Renouvin, 41, the royalist presidential candidate, split from L’Action Francaise and formed a less radical group, Nouvelle Action Francaise, which seven years later became Nouvelle Action Royaliste.

Major Efforts Planned

The moderate group hopes to sensitize the French to the advantages of the crown, and then, ultimately, to help establish a constitutional monarchy. In every election here, whether national or local, it sponsors candidates for office, and officials are planning major efforts for next year’s national legislative elections and the presidential elections in 1988.

Yvan Aumont, director general of Nouvelle Action Royaliste, said he is encouraged by surveys showing that the group’s greatest strength is among young people. In one study, 15% of the group’s supporters were found to be university students, and more than half of its supporters, 52%, were under 34 years of age. All its followers were well educated, and 96% said they read at least one book every month.

Stephane Bern, 21, a business school student in Lyons and a monarchist, founded a royalist fan club last year, Friends of the House of France, which now claims 1,000 members. She said that young people are rallying behind the fleur-de-lis, the French royal symbol, because they are disenchanted with politics as usual.

“Being a young royalist is a way of being a revolutionary,” she said. “We were raised under the republican principles of liberte, egalite and fraternite, but we saw that republican rule is actually a stalemate. Every seven years, with the election of a new president, France changes its face, reducing the credibility of the nation.

“Monarchy is a realistic alternative in 1985. Someday, in some way, France will reconcile its past with its future.”

Most More Realistic

If Bern is optimistic about a monarchist future, most royalists today are more realistic, if slightly pessimistic, about the movement’s chances.

Asked in a survey whether they believe a restoration of the monarchy is possible within 15 years, 33% answered “yes,” 50% said it would be “very difficult,” 16.5% said it is “unlikely” and 4% had no opinion.

For Renouvin of Nouvelle Action Royaliste, though, time is irrelevant.

“This is a 1,000-year-old tradition we’re talking about,” he said. “We aren’t preoccupied with thrones and crowns, palaces and symbols. Monarchy for us is an institution. It is a family that embodies the whole country, its history and its future. When it comes to the monarchy, we’re not planning for tomorrow or next week.

“But our alternative is envisionable. The road is clear, and we are well under way.”