Prince of Orléans-Braganza

Prince of Orléans-Bragança is a noble title informally attributed to all direct and legitimate agnatic descendants of Louis Philippe Gaston de Orléans, count d'Eu and Imperial Prince Consort of Brazil, as consort of the last Imperial Princess of Brazil, Isabel of Braganza.

As a result, years after the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic and, consequently, the extinction of the Empire of Brazil, Gastão de Orléans tried to recover his place and that of his descendants in the French line of succession, as well as he sought the creation of the title of Prince of Orléans-Bragança - as a title of French royalty - obtaining several negative answers from the Royal House of France, which by then no longer reigned in the country.

In the agreement, it was also established that the Count d'Eu and his descendants could only claim the French throne if all the branches of the Royal House of France were extinct.

It was imminent that Pedro de Alcântara of Orléans-Braganza, Prince of Grão-Pará, renounced his rights of succession to the Brazilian imperial throne in order to marry Countess Elisabeth Dobrzensky of Dobrzenicz, as her family was considered minor nobility.

The title has no legal or political validity today since the fall of the monarchy in 1889 brought the monarchical period to an end and the Republic began.

[3][4] When Louis Gaston of Orléans, Count d'Eu, left for the Empire of Brazil in company with his cousin, Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to marry one of the two daughters of Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil,[7] he received a suggestion from his father to make a declaration reserving his rights as a French dynast because he was the grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of France.

[8] He was also asked to make a declaration reserving his rights as a French dynast, because he was the grandson of Louis Philip I, King of France.

However, a few months after his landing in Rio de Janeiro, on 2 September 1864,[9] Gaston disregarded his father's suggestion, stating in a letter dated 7 December 1864 that he had renounced his right to be in the line of Orleanist succession to the defunct royal throne of France and, consequently, the position of French dynast.

[8] Gaston had been exiled from his homeland since the age of five and would only return to France as an adult, married to Isabel of Braganza, Princess Imperial of Brazil, and with two small children, in 1878.

In the House of France, the traditional rule that decides who has royal status also preserves the rights of younger princes.

Leaving these principles firm, and basing myself on the fundamental law of the French monarchy in virtue of which the dynastic claim belongs to me, and by what circumstances make it my duty, I declare the following: The Lord Count d'Eu, by having taken Brazil as his residence without intending to return in 1864, by the commitments which bound him to the Brazilian crown, by the formal renunciation of his succession rights as to the crown of France, by his adoption of the Brazilian nationality, has lost his rights to the succession to the crown of France and his status as a member of the Royal Family of France.

It was represented to us, on the other hand, to motivate such request, that a feminine succession, admitted in Brazil, could make the Crown of Brazil leave the masculine descent of the Count d'Eu and affect very much the said descent of the access to the Brazilian Crown, so that the quality of Brazilian Princes would not be recognized to them anymore and that they would lose all princely quality.

Wanting equally - and this pleases Us - to give them, as well as our most dear Uncle, the Count d'Eu, a pledge of Our affection as a good and close relative, and a testimony of Our confidence in the loyalty of the commitments which they solemnly assume here and to which is attached what We have granted them.

For instance, there were the descendants of the younger brother of the Count d'Eu, the Duke of Alençon and also Pierre of Orléans, Duke of Penthièvre (son of Francis Ferdinand of Orléans, Prince of Joinville, younger brother of the Count d'Eu's father), who although not married, was alive when the declaration was signed.

According to Isabel of Orléans-Bragança, Countess of Paris, daughter of Pedro de Alcântara and granddaughter of the Count d'Eu, her grandfather's real desire was in fact to keep her father in France so that a branch of the House of Orléans would emerge from his person - the "Orléans-Eu" - since he had renounced his position as heir to the imperial crown of Brazil in 1908.