Arrested on January 5, 1862 by the Chilean authorities, Antoine de Tounens was imprisoned and declared insane on September 2, 1862 by the court of Santiago[7] and expelled to France on October 28, 1862.

[15] Upon hearing that his presence in Araucanía had been revealed Orélie-Antoine de Tounens fled to Argentina, having however promised Quilapán to obtain arms.

[15] Accordingly there may have been substance to these fears as information was given to Abdón Cifuentes in 1870 that an intervention in favour of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia against Chile was discussed in Napoleon III's Conseil d'Êtat.

[17] On August 28, 1873, the Criminal Court of Paris ruled that Antoine de Tounens, first "king of Araucanía and Patagonia", did not justify his claim to the status of sovereignty.

[22] The pretenders to the throne of Araucanía and Patagonia have been called monarchs and sovereigns of fantasy,[23][24][25][26][27] "having only fanciful claims to a kingdom without legal existence and having no international recognition".

[28] Therefore the "throne of Araucanía" is sometimes the subject of disputes between "pretenders",[29] some journalists wrote : "The memory of the French adventurer Orélie-Antoine, self-proclaimed king in 1860, and the defense of the rights of the Mapuches guide the action of this strange symbolic monarchy"[30] and "The intensification of the Mapuche conflict in recent years has given a new purpose to the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia, long considered an absurdity by French society.

[32][33] Antoine de Tounens had no children, but since his death in 1878, some French citizens without any familial relations to him declared to be pretenders to the "throne of Araucanía and Patagonia".