Prologue
1 January, 1936
Algiers
The Maison de Orleans was a sprawling villa on the Boulevard Jean d'Arc, set on the glittering blue harbour of Algiers. It was only a brief car ride from the villa to the Basilica of Notre Dame d'Afrique. Living in Algiers was pleasant for Henri. It had a very similar clime to that of Larache in Morocco, where he had spent his youth. After the Revolution his father had moved from their plantation in the now German colony to be amongst the exiled Establishment of France. He had received a warm welcome from the exiles. Henri had been twelve when they entered the city, to be greeted with the thunderous applause thousands of Pied Noirs. They were wonderful people, the Pied Noirs. They had retained a genuine French character, uncorrupted by the filth of Marx or Faure. He would need them, if he were to regain the throne which was rightfully his father's.
Henri was a devoted disciple of Prince Charles Edward Stuart of England, Scotland and Ireland, known to most as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had visited the tomb of the Young King in Rome the day before his wedding to the Archduchess Adelheid of Austria, now his beloved Dauphine Adelaide Marie. Bonnie Prince Charlie had died a bitter old drunk living on a pension from the whale who sat on his rightful throne. Henri would never descend to that state. He would restore his father to the throne for the sake of his children, or he would die in the attempt.
The world was in a truly sorry state. The bald and toothless old men who ran this little Remnant were still committed to their alliance with the English. They had abandoned France in her hour of need; it would be France and France alone who brought down the Commune. And they were Protestants; a true Catholic could never align himself with schismatic heretics. The future of France lay with her fellow Catholics, across the sea. The Pope had always been a friend of the House of Orleans, and his kinsman Elias, Regent of Parma, had the ear of His Holiness. Spain would also prove invaluable. Conflict was simmering once again between the Alfonsists and Carlists; Henri's sympathies lay with the Carlists, but he would support whichever king emerged from the chaos.
The Emperor Otto, his brother in law, was a very dear friend. Adelaide and Henri returned to Vienna each year at Easter, which was a welcome change from the dust and humidity of Algiers. If Otto succeeded in reordering his vast Empire, Austria would be a power to be reckoned with. Otto's youth belied his keen intellect and his desire to continue the Habsburg legacy. The tensions that had emerged between Austria and Germany could mean only good for France.
There remained a determined core of monarchists who met daily in the salon of his father. Charles Maurras stood as foremost amongst them, an intellectual giant. Maurice Pujo was a loyal bulldog of a man. Daudet was short and squat, but he had a voice like polished silver. Recently another had joined them, young Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, lending the voice of the Church to their heated discussion. These sessions lasted long into the night, ending on a bottle of aged Burgundy and a shouted rendition of 'Vive Henri IV'.
There were always murmurs in the officer's mess of a Restoration, but Henri would believe none of them until his father was crowned and anointed. But ruling a collection of seaside shacks and a few conscripts was not nearly enough for the heir to Versailles. Someday in the near future, he would march into Paris and purge it of republicans and Syndicalists. He would do what his kinsman Louis XIV failed to do and consecrate France, her people, and his throne to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, protector of the dispossessed and reactionary everywhere. The Fleur de Lis would fly over land and sea. The Eldest Daughter of the Church would return to the bosom of her mother. And the cry of 'Vive le Roi' would ring out once more, from the Rhine to the Vendee.
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