Chapelle royale de Dreux

The Chapelle Royal today

The Chapelle royale de Dreux, situated in Dreux, France, is a Chapel and burial site of the Royal House of Orléans. The House of Orléans (Maison d'Orléans) was founded by Philippe de France, duc d'Orléans - the younger brother of Louis XIV of France. The house rose to prominence during the French Revolution and once again during the reign of Louis-Philippe of France.

History

The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre was one of the greatest land owning families in France before the French Revolution. In 1775, the lands of the comté de Dreux had been given to the duc de Penthièvre by his cousin Louis XVI.

In 1783, the Duke sold his domain of Rambouillet to Louis XVI. On November 25 of that year, in a long religious procession, Penthièvre transferred the nine caskets containing the remains of his parents, the comte and comtesse de Toulouse, his wife, Princess Maria Teresa of Modena, and six of their seven children, from the small medieval village church next to the castle in Rambouillet, to the chapel of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne de Dreux^[1].

The duc de Penthièvre died in March 1793 and his body was laid to rest in the crypt beside his parents. On November 21 of that same year, in the midst of the French Revolution, a mob desecrated the crypt and threw the ten bodies in a mass grave in the Chanoines cemetery of the Collégiale Saint-Étienne.

In 1816, the Duke of Penthièvre's daughter, the Duchess of Orléans, had a new chapel built on the site of the mass grave of the Chanoines cemetery, as the final resting place for her family. In 1830, Louis-Philippe I, King of the French, son of the Duchess of Orléans, embellished and enlarged the chapel which was renamed Chapelle royale de Dreux, now the necropolis of the Orléans royal family.

Among the seventy-five members buried in the new chapel are:

House of Bourbon

• Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse (1678–1737);

∞ Marie Victoire de Noailles, Countess of Toulouse (1688-1766);

Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre (1725-1793);

∞ Princess Maria Teresa Felicitas of Modena, Duchess of Penthièvre' (1726-1754) ;

Louis Marie de Bourbon (1746-1749);

Louis Alexandre Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Lamballe (1747-1768);^[2],

Jean Marie de Bourbon (1748-1755);

Vincent Marie Louis de Bourbon (1750-1752);

Marie Louise de Bourbon (1751-1753);

Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Mlle de Penthièvre, future Duchess of Orléans (1753-1821)^[3];

Louis Marie Félicité de Bourbon (1754);

• Louis François Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Conti (1734–1814)

House of Orléans

• the heart of Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, regent of France for Louis XV of France (1674–1723);
• Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans and later King of the French (1773–1850);

∞ Princess Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies (1782-1866);

Louis Antoine Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier (1775-1807);

Louise Marie Adélaïde Eugénie d'Orléans, Madame Adélaïde (1777-1847);

Françoise d'Orléans Mademoiselle d'Orléans (1777-1782);

Louis Charles Alphonse Léodgard d'Orléans, Count of Beaujolais (1779-1808)

Ferdinand Philippe Louis Charles Éric Rosalino Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans (1810-1842);

∞ Duchess Helen of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1814-1858);

Charles Ferdinand Louis Philippe Emmanuel d'Orléans, Duke of Penthièvre (1820-1828)

• Henri Eugène Philippe Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, (1822–1897);

∞ Princess Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies (1822–1869);

Louis Philippe Marie Léopold d'Orléans, Prince of Condé (1845-1866)

Henri Léopold Philippe Marie d'Orléans, Duke of Guise (1847-1847)

François Paul d'Orléans, Duke of Guise (1852-1852)

François Louis Philippe Marie d'Orléans, Duke of Guise (1854-1872)

• Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris - Orléanist pretender from 1940–1999;

∞ Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza, wife of the Count of Paris (1911-2003);

• François Gaston Michel Marie d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, son of the above (1935–1960);
• Thibaut Louis Denis Humbert Marie d'Orléans, Count of La Marche, brother of the above (1948–1983)
• Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans, Princess of Condé, the Duchess of Orléans's sister-in-law (1750–1822)

References

1. ^ G. Lenotre, Le Château de Rambouillet, six siècles d'histoire, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1930, reprint: Denoël, Paris, 1984, (215 pages), chapter 5: Le prince des pauvres, pp. 78-79
2. ^ Not buried in the chapel is the Princess Maria Teresa Luisa of Savoy, Princess de Lamballe, the duc de Penthièvre's daughter-in-law, a victim of the September massacres during the French Revolution, killed at the La Force prison in Paris, on 3 September 1792. Buried in the Enfants-Trouvés cemetery, her body could not be identified later on: Michel de Decker, La Princesse de Lamballe, Librairie Académique Perrin, Collection historique dirigée par André Castelot, Paris, 1979, chapter XII: Ils sont blanchis par le malheur, p. 265.
3. ^ After Philippe, duc d'Orléans, Philippe Égalité (1747-1793), was executed in November 1793, his body was buried in the Madeleine cemetery in Paris. It was never found.

External references

• Royalty Guide

Coordinates: 48°44′18″N 1°21′48″E / 48.73833°N 1.36333°E / 48.73833; 1.36333