Chambord Henri

Chambord, Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonne, Comte de, was born in 1820 in Paris. His father, the Duc de Berri (q.v.), had been assassinated seven months before, and the day the child was baptised he, then Duke of Bordeaux, was presented with the chateau of Chambord (q.v.) by a group of Legitimists in the name of the people of France; hence the title, Comte de Chambord, assumed in 1844, by which he became generally known. Though Charles X., in the July revolution of 1830, abdicated in favour of his grandson, the young count was obliged to leave the country, and lived successively at Holyrood palace, Prague, Gorz, and London. In 1841 he had the misfortune to be lamed for life by a fall from his horse. He is regarded to have lacked decision and to have neglected to seize the opportunity of becoming Henry V. three times - in 1848, in 1870, and in 1873. After a long illness he died at his castle of Frohsdorf, in Austria, which he inherited in 1851, on August 24, 1883. He left no issue, and his claim descended upon the Comte de Paris.