This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The pretender to be French king is dead. Long live the other pretenders, all three.

France might have thought it had done with monarchs, first in 1793 when it sent Louis XVI to the guillotine during the French Revolution, and again when it exiled Napoleon III in 1870.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Henri d’Orléans in 1987. Photograph: Pascal George/AFP/Getty Images

The death earlier this week of Henri d’Orléans, Count of Paris – hailed by French royalists as Henri VII – however, has again raised the question of succession to a non-existent throne.

Royalists claim Henri, who died aged 85 on Monday, 226 years to the day after Louis XVI was beheaded, had most claim to be king as a direct descendant of the Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIV, the Sun King. His son, Prince Jean de France, inherits the title.

The legitimacy of this is contested by the rival Bourbon house, whose pretender king is Louis de Bourbon, the Duke of Anjou or Louis XX to his followers.

Louis is a direct descendant via the all-important male line of Louis XIV. He is also a descendant of Queen Victoria and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

The third candidate is Jean-Christophe Napoléon, also known as Prince Napoléon. The 33-year-old, who studied at Harvard, is the great-great-great-great-nephew of Emperor Napoleon I and the Bonapartist pretender. He also has links to the Bourbon-Anjou and Orléans royal families and several other European dynasties.

The current Napoléon, who works as a banker in London, tries to keep out of the fray.

Louis de Bourbon, 44, who styles himself “head of the Bourbon household”, was brought up partly in Spain and is subject to mockery from French royalists for his accent.

Meanwhile, Jean d’Orléans, 53, has shown himself to be a man of the people with support for the gilets jaunes protesters.

Of course, France is a republic and, as such, does not recognise those who claim to be French royalty, but for the would-be King Jean of Orléans – whose motto is “to serve France and the French” – hope springs eternal.

“I think France is monarchist at heart, and republican through reason,” he said in a recent interview.

The funeral of Henri d’Orléans will be held on 2 February at the royal chapel at St-Louis de Dreux, the burial place of the Orléans family.