Prince Louis Philippe, Duke of Vendôme

    

Prince Louis Philippe
Prince Royal of France (Fils de France) Duke of Vendôme
Prince Louis Philippe 2020
Names Louis-Philippe Antoine Marie d'Orléans
Royal house	House of Orléans
Father	Jean IV
Mother	Philomena
Religion	Avignon Catholic

Prince Louis-Philippe Antoine Marie d'Orléans (born 20 September 1997) is the current heir to the French throne (Prince royal de France), the Duke of Vendôme, and the eldest son of King Jean IV of France.

Prince Louis Philippe was born at the Château d'Amboise, the French royal family's residence in the Indre-et-Loire department of the province of Touraine. Like his siblings and other members of the royal family, he attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris, an elite Catholic private school in Paris. As the most likely future heir to the throne, between 2015 and 2018 he underwent a carefully planned military education curriculum. Louis Philippe attended all three academies of the French Armed Forces: first the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr (French Army), then the École navale (French Navy), and the École de l'air et de l'espace (French Air and Space Force). He is currently a captain in the French Army and Air Force, as well as a ship-of-the-line lieutenant (Lieutenant de vaisseau) in the Navy. He formally became the Prince Royal when his father, Jean IV, became King of the French in 2019 after the death of Henry VII, and he also received the courtesy title Duke of Vendôme. In early 2023, he received a master's degree in international relations from Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

Early life and family

Louis-Philippe d'Orléans was born on 20 September 1997 at the Château d'Amboise, the official residence of the French royal family in Indre-et-Loire, Touraine, France. He is the son of Jean IV (at the time Prince Jean d'Orléans, Duke of Vendôme) and his wife, Spanish-Austrian noblewoman Maria Philomena de Tornos y Steinhart, who is related to Austrian nobility and the former Spanish royal family. This makes him a direct descendant of Louis Philippe I, the first King of France from the House of Orléans, who ruled during the July Monarchy (1830–1848), and who is also his namesake. He was baptized by the Avignon Roman Catholic Church at the Tours Cathedral, by the archbishop of Tours.

For his primary school education, Prince Louis Philippe attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris, an elite Catholic private school located in central Paris that serves as a classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles, preparing students to enter a grande école, the top universities in France. As Louis Philippe was always in the French line of succession, it was expected that he would attend Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies, students of which represent the majority of the French Civil Service. However, Louis Philippe decided in 2014 to first attend a military academy as an undergraduate, an idea that his father supported, and so a plan was made for him to attend all three service academies of the French Armed Forces. In January 2015, after spending three months in basic military training in preparation for the military academy, he was made an honorary soldier of the French Army's 1st Infantry Regiment (1er Régiment d'Infanterie, 1er RI).

Education

Prince Louis Philippe (foreground) as an Air and Space Force officer at the 2018 French National Day military parade.

Military training

A plan was made for him to attend all three military academies, spending about one year at each. In August 2015 he was accepted into the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, for a 11-month officer training course after successfully passing the national exam. His time there consisted of a mix of basic military training, physical training and leadership, as well as classroom work, including military theory, strategy, and history. After completing the training, Louis Philippe d'Orléans was commissioned as a lieutenant of the French Army in July 2016. After that he was sent to the École navale, spending part of his time in the class room and part of it on the naval academy's training ship at sea. There he learned the theories of naval warfare, along with advanced mathematics, geography, and oceanography, before going to sea to learn practical seamanship skills, including sailing and rowing. Graduating from the naval school in June 2017, Louis Philippe was commissioned as an Enseigne de vaisseau de première classe (ship-of-the-line ensign first class) of the French Navy. He finished his military training with the École de l'air et de l'espace, the air and space school, where he learned about aerial warfare as well as piloting. Louis Philippe completed the first portion of pilot training and was commissioned in May 2018 as a lieutenant in the French Air and Space Force, though he continued his studies there and did not finish qualifying as a pilot until February 2019, learning to fly the Dassault Mirage 2000.

After completing his training at the military academies, Louis Philippe attended several military exercises over the years as both an observer and a participant. He was promoted to captain in the Army and Air Force and ship-of-the-line lieutenant in the Navy in October 2021.

Sports and the Olympics

Louis Philippe began training in gymnastics from a young age, specializing in the still rings. He continued his training during his primary school days and later during his time at the military academy, later saying in a 2022 interview that, since he was a teenager, he almost always had an extremely busy schedule between his academics and his gymnastics training, as well as attending formal events in his capacity as a member of the royal family. Louis Philippe competed in his first major international competition at the 2019 Summer Universiade, where he won a gold medal in the still rings event, and placed 12th on the pommel horse, those being the only two apparatus finals that he qualified for. He represented France at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Istanbul, Anatolian Republic, where he qualified for the still rings final and ended up placing 6th, not winning a medal.

Heir to the throne

Prince Louis Philippe formally became the Prince Royal, or the fils de France, in January 2019 upon the death of his grandfather, King Henry VII, and the coronation of his father as Jean IV, King of the French. As the heir to the throne, Louis Philippe was also given the courtesy title Duke of Vendôme (the title Count of Paris is vested in the King). Around that time, the Prince Royal finished his training as a pilot at the Air and Space School and began preparations to enter Sciences Po, the leading university for training French civil servants. However, for the first half of 2019 Louis Philippe had to attend many events related to his formal role as the Prince Royal, so his entry into the university had to be delayed. In June 2019, he along with his parents, King Jean IV and Queen Philomena, made their first foreign trip in their new capacity, visiting Emperor Georg Friedrich of Germany and his family in Berlin. In August 2019 they visited Austria and met with the Habsburgs.

Louis Philippe caused some controversy in France by openly endorsing Oscar de Saint-Just and his party French Action, just before the 2019 French general election in April of that year.

Titles, styles, and honors

Royal styles of Prince Louis Philippe, Duke of Vendôme
Reference style	His Royal Highness
Spoken style	Your Royal Highness

• 20 September 1997–21 January 2019: His Royal Highness Prince Louis Philippe d'Orléans
• 21 January 2019–present: His Royal Highness Prince Louis Philippe d'Orléans, fils de France, Duke of Vendôme

Military ranks

• French Army: Capitaine
• French Navy: Lieutenant de vaisseau
• French Air and Space Force: Capitaine

Domestic honors

• France: National Defence Medal, 3rd Class (2022)

Foreign honors

• Germany
  • Prussia: Order of the Black Eagle, Knight (2020)
• Netherlands: Order of the Netherlands Lion, Knight (2022)
• Trucial States: Order of Zayed, Collar (2021)