Princess Claude of Orléans


Princess Claude of Orléans is a French princess of the House of Orléans. She is the former wife of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, a disputed head of the House of Savoy.

Biography

Family

Princess Claude was born in Larache, Morocco as the ninth child and fifth daughter of Henri, Count of Paris, Orléanist claimant to the French throne, and his wife Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza.
One of eleven siblings, her eldest brother was Henri, Count of Paris, who succeeded their father as head of the Orléans family, and two of her sisters also became consorts of pretenders to abolished thrones; Anne, Duchess of Calabria and Diane, Duchess of Württemberg. Upon repatriation to France after the law of banishment against her father was repealed in 1950, her family moved from Sintra, on the Portuguese Riviera to France, where they grew up at the Manoir Cœur-Volant in the Louveciennes suburb of Paris.

Education

She began school in Portugal, at Lisbon's Saint-Louis-des-Français. She then spent some time at the Mayfield School in East Sussex, England. In France, she and her sisters received private instruction, and she completed her studies at the Institut Sainte-Marie in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Marriage and issue

On 22 July 1964 in Sintra, Princess Claude married her second cousin, Prince Amedeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta. He was the only son of Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta, second cousin-once-removed of Italy's last king, Umberto II. Aimone was briefly made nominal head of an Italian puppet state during World War II as King Tomislav II of Croatia. Claude was the third Orleanist princess to hold the title Duchess of Aosta by marriage.
At the time of their wedding, Amedeo was a student at the Morosini Naval College in Venice, which his father had also attended. The couple met while attending the wedding of Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and Sofia of Greece in May 1962 in Athens. They announced their engagement on 4 October 1963. The couple married in São-Pedro de Penaferrim, a parish church twelve miles from Lisbon,
The wedding had been planned for earlier in the month, but was rescheduled when King Umberto was hospitalized for an abdominal operation. A Savoy family council having met at King Umberto's residence in exile at Cimiez, France in the summer of 1963, another was held in London secretly at the king's hospital bedside to discuss the prospect of the king's only son Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, choosing to marry a commoner, Marina Doria, which had become the subject of much media speculation. In view of his illness, Amedeo's imminent marriage to a suitable princess, and his son's ongoing relationship with Doria, Umberto contemplated publicly abdicating and recognizing Amedeo as the successor to his claim to Italy's abolished throne. Present at this meeting, along with the princes Vittorio Emanuele and Amedeo, was Umberto's estranged consort, Queen Marie-José, whose objections dissuaded the king from issuing a declaration. Instead, Amedeo announced that he would postpone his wedding for the duration of Umberto's convalescence to ensure his presence at the nuptials, while Vittorio Emanuele issued a statement affirming that he remained his father's rightful heir and had no intention of marrying Marina Doria. The wedding was attended by 300 guests, including King Umberto and the Prince and Princess of Spain. Two days later the newlyweds received a nuptial blessing during an audience with Pope Paul VI in the Vatican.
After the duke completed his duties as a naval officer, the couple were given the Borro by Aimone's mother, a large estate in the Tuscan village of San Giustino Valdarno, near Fiesole, Italy, where they cultivated vineyards. Occasionally they undertook dynastic responsibilities as representatives in Italy of King Umberto, but largely raised their children in the countryside.
They had issue:
Amedeo and Claude officially separated 20 July 1976, obtained a civil divorce 26 April 1982, and received an ecclesiastical annulment from the Roman Rota 8 January 1987. Amedeo was remarried later that year to Silvia Paternò di Spedalotto. Claude remarried twice: civilly in 1982 with Arnaldo La Cagnina. Gandolfi died on 27 October 2015 in Laterina.

Activities

During her second marriage Claude lived in the United States, in The Bahamas, and returned to Europe. Beginning in 1992 their restaurant in Brussels, "Brook's Bar", became a popular gathering place for European Parliament officials, but closed in 1995. During her third marriage, she lived largely in Italy.
Professionally, she has managed public relations for the Italian couture studio, Liolà, and her efforts in macrophotography have been displayed in several exhibits.

Titles and styles

In accordance with the declaration of Henri, Count of Paris as head of the House of Orléans, published in Dynastie # 4, November 1985, "Evidemment, les filles mariées adoptent le nom et le titre de leur marié. Dès lors, elles n'appartiennent plus à la famille de France."

Ancestors