Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism

The Legitimists are a faction of Ultra-royalists who support the rights of the Bourbon line to the French throne. The last Bourbon king of France was King Charles X, who reigned until the July Revolution of 1830. The Legitimists represent one of the most right-wing, counter-revolutionary factions vying for power during the War of 1870 and afterward. Smee points out that the first leader of the Third Republic, Adolphe Thiers, appointed Patrice MacMahon, a Legitimist, as his commander-in-chief. MacMahon would later become President of France from 1873 to 1893. He is representative of the right-wing backlash against the Commune and the events of 1870.

The Orléanists were a faction of constitutional royalists who supported the claim of the Orléans line to the French throne. Following the July Revolution of 1830, the Orléanists succeeded in installing Louis-Philippe d’Orléans as the French monarch. He hoped to reform the government into an institution similar to that of the British constitutional monarchy. Adolphe Thiers, who took a leading role in the events of the Terrible Year, was an Orléanist, as was Berthe Morisot’s mother, Cornélie. The Orléanists were a more moderate conservative political faction than the Legitimists.