This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in


A French Cavalry Officer's Sword Presented To His Royal Highness The Duke De Chartres By The Officers Of The Chartres HussarsThird Quarter Of The 19th Century
£800 - £1,200
Looking for a similar item?
Our Arms and Armour specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistA French Cavalry Officer's Sword Presented To His Royal Highness The Duke De Chartres By The Officers Of The Chartres Hussars
Third Quarter Of The 19th Century
Third Quarter Of The 19th Century
81.2 cm. blade
Footnotes
Prince Robert Philippe Louis Eugene Ferdinand of Orleans, Duke of Chartres (1840-1910) was a French army officer and grandchild of Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans and King of the French from 1830 to 1848, who served as a Union army officer in the American Civil War. Born in Paris, he left France for Turin after the fall of the monarchy in 1848, where he received military training and was commissioned with the 21st Dragoons, a Piedmontese regiment. He fought at the Battle of Palestro, for which he was decorated by King Victor Emmanuel II. On the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 he travelled with his brother, Prince Philippe, and uncle, Prince François d'Orléans, to the United States to offer support to President Abraham Lincoln. The three men served under General George B. McClellan in the Army of the Potomac. The brothers resigned their commissions in 1862 and in 1863 Prince Robert returned to England and married his first cousin Françoise d'Orléans-Joinville, on 11 June 1863, in Kingston upon Thames.
He was in Brussels, with his uncles Prince François and Prince Henri, Duke of Aumale, in 1870 on the declaration of the Franco-Prussian War and immediately requested the government of Napoleon III for authorisation to fight in the conflict. The Minister of War opposed his participation in the war and he was therefore unable to enrol in the French army until after the fall of the Empire. He then fought in the war under the pseudonym Robert Le Fort and was made head of a squadron in the Armée de la Loire, fighting with such distinction he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur once the war was over. The provisional government kept him at that rank and in 1871 sent him to Algeria to put down a native revolt.
In 1881 the Republican regime, hostile to members of the Orleans and Napoléon former French royal families, removed him from his post as Colonel of the 19th Mounted Chasseur Regiment and he was exiled from France.
He was eventually allowed to return to France and died in Saint-Firmin in 1910








