LouisCharles Pierre Casimir de Blacas d'Aulps, 2nd Duke of Blacas, 2nd Prince of Blacas was a French nobleman and antiquarian. He was the son of Pierre-Louis de Blacas d'Aulps, 1st Duke of Blacas and of his wife Henriette-Marie-Félicité du Bouchet de Sourches de Montsoreau. His godfather was Louis XVIII, King of France. Born in London during the Hundred Days, he was educated first in France and then in Austria where his father had followed the exiled royal family in 1836. He returned in France only in 1844. He became an antiquarian like his father, inheriting and expanding his father's extraordinary collection of Greek vases, engraved gems and antique coins, cameos and jewels. He was particularly interested in numismatics. He translated into French, under the title Histoire de la monnaie romaine, the Geschichte des Römischen Münzwesens of Theodor Mommsen, with additional notes signed B. The book is still often quoted using the Blacas translation rather than the original German version. Blacas was a member of the Societé des Antiquaires de France and served as its secretary from 1864 to 1865. After his father's death, Blacas defended him against allegations of unscrupulous gains made by the Duke of Ragusa. He fully supported his father's political views. Like his father, he was an ardent Legitimist. He succeeded him as a premier gentilhomme de la chambre to the exiled Legitimist claimant, the duc d'Angoulême. Blacas was a devoted follower of the duc d'Angoulême's successor, the comte de Chambord, whom he had known since childhood and whom he served all his life. His brother, Count Stanislas de Blacas d'Aulps, served the comte similarly. However, contrary to his father and to his own son, Blacas did not directly take part in the political life of the Second Empire. He died in Venice at the Palazzo Cavalli, the residence of the comte de Chambord, after planning a study of Venetian coinage. His body was taken back to Aups where his funeral took place. After the French government refused to pay for its acquisition, his collection was sold by his heirs to the British Museum in 1867 for 1,200,000 francs.
Marriages and issue
The duke was married twice. Both wives were from Legitimist families of the French high nobility. He married first at Paris on 17 September 1845 Marie-Paule de Pérusse des Cars, daughter of Amédée-François-Régis de Pérusse, 2nd Count and 1st Duke des Cars, Peer of France. They had four children:
Casimir de Blacas d'Aulps, 3rd Duke of Blacas, 3rd Prince of Blacas. His life was representative of the engagements of French Legitimists of the time. A devout Catholic, he enrolled at 18 in the Papal Zouaves on 9 June 1866 to take part in the defense of the Papal States and went to Italy, but he died there from Typhoid the following month. He had been Duke only five months.
Louise-Henriette-Marie, married in Paris on 10 April 1872 with Count René Hurault de Vibraye.
Pierre de Blacas d'Aulps, 4th Duke of Blacas, 4th Prince of Blacas, succeeded his brother as Duke. He married on 30 August 1884 Honorine de Durfort-Civrac, daughter of Marie-Henri-Louis de Durfort, 2d Marquis of Civrac and had posterity.
