Following the
French Revolution, the deposition of
Louis XVI in 1792 (later execution in 1793) and the establishment of the
First French Republic, monarchist sentiment still remained strong among many elements in France as well as among the exiled
émigré community abroad. The rise of
Napoleon Bonaparte and the creation of the
First French Empire further complicated monarchist politics, as some former royalists supported Bonaparte as a stabilizing figure, while others remained loyal to the deposed
Bourbons. With the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the monarchy was restored in the
Bourbon Restoration under
Louis XVIII and
Charles X, only to be overthrown again in the
July Revolution of 1830, which replaced the senior Bourbon line with the more liberal
House of Orléans under
Louis-Philippe I. The overthrow of Louis-Philippe in the
French Revolution of 1848 marked the end of the July Monarchy and the beginning of the
Second French Republic. Monarchist hopes revived with the rise of
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, whose declaration of the
Second French Empire in 1852 represented an alternative,
Bonapartist form of monarchy. with the royal crown and fleur-de-lys was possibly designed by Henri, comte de Chambord in his younger years as a compromise The monarchist movement came back into force only after the 1870
defeat by Prussia and the crushing of the 1871
Paris Commune by Orléanist
Adolphe Thiers.
Legitimists and
Orléanists controlled the majority of the Assemblies, and supported
Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, as president of the
Ordre moral government. However, the intransigence of the
Count of Chambord, who refused to abandon the
white flag and its
fleur-de-lis against the republican
tricolore, and the
16 May 1877 crisis forced the legitimists to abandon the political arena, while some of the more
liberal Orléanists "rallied" throughout the years of the
Third Republic (1870–1940). However, since the monarchy and
Catholicism were long entangled ("the alliance of the Throne and the Altar"), republican ideas were often tinged with
anti-clericalism, which led to some turmoil during
Radical Émile Combes' cabinet in the beginning of the 20th century. Concerns about monarchists caused the French government to
bury the Unknown Soldier of World War I at the Arc de Triomphe, because the
Panthéon was associated with the Republic. The
Action Française, founded in 1898 during the
Dreyfus affair, remained an influential
far right movement throughout the 1930s, taking part in the
6 February 1934 riots. Some monarchists, such as
Georges Valois who founded the
Faisceau, became involved in
fascism after the 1926 Papal condemnation of the
Action Française by
Pius XI. Monarchists were then active under the
Vichy regime, with the leader of the
Action Française Charles Maurras qualifying as "divine surprise" the overthrow of the Republic and the arrival to power of
Marshal Pétain. A few of them, such as
Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie, took part in the
Resistance out of
patriotic concerns. The
Action Française was then dissolved after the
war, but
Maurice Pujo founded it again in 1947. Some legitimists had become involved in the
traditionalist Catholic movement which arose in the aftermath of the
Second Vatican Council and some ultimately followed the 1970 foundation of the traditionalist Catholic
Society of Saint Pius X by
Marcel Lefebvre.
Bertrand Renouvin made a breakaway movement from the
Action Française in 1971, the
Nouvelle Action Française which became the
Nouvelle Action Royaliste, while some legitimists joined
Jean-Marie Le Pen's
Front National, founded in 1972. ==Current pretenders==