For several days now, all of Paris—and beyond—has been buzzing with a wild rumour: at the gala evening hosted by Le Figaro to celebrate the newspaper’s 200th anniversary, Rassemblement National (RN) president Jordan Bardella was seen escorting Princess Maria-Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies home. The unlikely pairing of an immigrant’s son from the Seine-Saint-Denis department and a young lady of noble descent, a descendant of Louis XIV and the last rulers of Naples, is sure to cause a stir. But who exactly will be talking? The alliance between the common people and the nobility is a universal truth that the Left will never be able to understand.
The lavish evening held in honour of the newspaper under the imposing glass roof of the Grand Palais, a stone’s throw from the illuminated Seine, brought together all the important figures from the worlds of French politics, media, and culture. Former presidents of the French Republic rubbed shoulders with renowned editorialists, film actors, and aristocratic beauties. Among them was Princess Maria-Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a dazzling blonde with a devastating smile and a stunning allure. Titled Duchess of Calabria and Palermo, the 22-year-old is the eldest daughter of Prince Charles of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and his wife, Camilla Crociani. Since her father changed the rules of succession in 2016, establishing the principle of absolute primogeniture regardless of gender, she is also the heir to the kingdom, according to the rights to the throne claimed by this younger branch of the family, known as the Castro branch.
Maria-Carolina’s ancestors include the Sun King, Louis XIV, as well as Archduchess Marie-Caroline of Austria, daughter of the great Maria Theresa and elder sister of Marie Antoinette. All this has only a distant connection with the concrete tower blocks of Seine-Saint-Denis, where little Jordan Bardella, the son of Italian immigrants, grew up.
In the land of equality and fraternity, which even cut off one or two heads to extol the virtues of this generous motto, this unlikely connection shocked some people. The leading newspaper Le Monde was moved: “By appearing with a royal heiress, Jordan Bardella risks blurring his image,” headlines the press organ that sets the tone for authorised thinking in an article dated January 16th.
Class contempt does not necessarily come from where one might think. Those who today make a big fuss about the very popular and populist Bardella’s alleged association with a royal heiress tend to be on the Left—where, in other circumstances, they argue for the abolition of social classes and a great universal melting pot.
Le Monde has got it all wrong. Perhaps it is exactly the opposite. On the contrary, this ‘appearance’ is perfectly appropriate. It does not obscure anything and, in a way, renews the centuries-old pact between the people and their protectors.
At this stage in our reflection, our honourable readers may be wondering about the purpose of our article. Is europeanconservative.com suddenly dreaming of a tabloid destiny? Not at all. This is not about lowly royal love affairs but high politics.
The whole controversy hinges on what is meant by ‘the people.’
For the Left, the RN is the party of the people. But for a long time now, in the writings of mainstream journalists, the word has become pejorative, not to say insulting. The people are the rabble, those who drive diesel cars, refuse to believe in global warming, dislike Arabs and stubbornly refuse to sort their packaging. That this people, represented by Bardella, should consort with a princess is in bad taste. Paradoxically, Le Monde journalists are, as the French expression goes, “more royalist than the king” and do not like mixing genres.
Except that there is another meaning of the word ‘people’. That of the sons of a homeland, which is nothing other than the country of their fathers. Those who waste petrol are no less passionate about the land of their ancestors, which they defend on roundabouts, on tractors, or wearing yellow vests.
And this people has always been the best support for its princes.
Those who know the French Revolution and its causes know that the common people of France did not look kindly on the sans-culottes attacking their sovereign. Before the storm broke in the summer of 1789, the authors of the cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances) reaffirmed their allegiance to the good King Louis XVI, who was certainly unaware of their suffering and therefore unable to come to their aid. A few years later, in the countryside of Brittany, Vendée, and Vivarais, the peasants went to fetch the nobles from their castles to march behind them and fight for the king against the petty and mediocre elites who sought to overturn the hierarchy of the world willed by God.
On the Right, some have understood that the ‘BB’ idyll, as in Bardella-Bourbon—if it is confirmed—is far from a miscalculation. As polemicist Jean-Yves Le Gallou points out, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the son of a fisherman, became a lord of his own kind without ever losing touch with the ‘people,’ who were grateful to him for combining popular ease with elegance. For lawyer Emmanuelle Gave, the ‘BB alliance’ would be a tremendous opportunity for the RN to break the glass ceiling that prevents many snobbish middle-class people from voting for the national right-wing party on the grounds that it is too ‘dirty.’ If its president flirts with a princess, things suddenly look very different. One could then imagine slipping an RN ballot into the ballot box without losing face: “Yes, we’re voting for Bardella, but his fiancée is a Bourbon-Sicily, after all,” the snob lady condemned to vote centrist for ages because the RN is not chic enough will exclaim with delight.
For now, this is all conjecture. Accompanying a young lady home after a gala evening may certainly seem like something engaging, if not compromising, but it is not yet a marriage proposal.
In the meantime, on this day when the French commemorate the death of King Louis XVI, we can only rejoice that the spotlight is shining on one of his distant great-grandnieces and on one of the courageous defenders of the France for which he gave his life!
Bardella and Maria-Carolina: The Princess and the Pauper
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For several days now, all of Paris—and beyond—has been buzzing with a wild rumour: at the gala evening hosted by Le Figaro to celebrate the newspaper’s 200th anniversary, Rassemblement National (RN) president Jordan Bardella was seen escorting Princess Maria-Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies home. The unlikely pairing of an immigrant’s son from the Seine-Saint-Denis department and a young lady of noble descent, a descendant of Louis XIV and the last rulers of Naples, is sure to cause a stir. But who exactly will be talking? The alliance between the common people and the nobility is a universal truth that the Left will never be able to understand.
The lavish evening held in honour of the newspaper under the imposing glass roof of the Grand Palais, a stone’s throw from the illuminated Seine, brought together all the important figures from the worlds of French politics, media, and culture. Former presidents of the French Republic rubbed shoulders with renowned editorialists, film actors, and aristocratic beauties. Among them was Princess Maria-Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a dazzling blonde with a devastating smile and a stunning allure. Titled Duchess of Calabria and Palermo, the 22-year-old is the eldest daughter of Prince Charles of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and his wife, Camilla Crociani. Since her father changed the rules of succession in 2016, establishing the principle of absolute primogeniture regardless of gender, she is also the heir to the kingdom, according to the rights to the throne claimed by this younger branch of the family, known as the Castro branch.
Maria-Carolina’s ancestors include the Sun King, Louis XIV, as well as Archduchess Marie-Caroline of Austria, daughter of the great Maria Theresa and elder sister of Marie Antoinette. All this has only a distant connection with the concrete tower blocks of Seine-Saint-Denis, where little Jordan Bardella, the son of Italian immigrants, grew up.
In the land of equality and fraternity, which even cut off one or two heads to extol the virtues of this generous motto, this unlikely connection shocked some people. The leading newspaper Le Monde was moved: “By appearing with a royal heiress, Jordan Bardella risks blurring his image,” headlines the press organ that sets the tone for authorised thinking in an article dated January 16th.
Class contempt does not necessarily come from where one might think. Those who today make a big fuss about the very popular and populist Bardella’s alleged association with a royal heiress tend to be on the Left—where, in other circumstances, they argue for the abolition of social classes and a great universal melting pot.
Le Monde has got it all wrong. Perhaps it is exactly the opposite. On the contrary, this ‘appearance’ is perfectly appropriate. It does not obscure anything and, in a way, renews the centuries-old pact between the people and their protectors.
At this stage in our reflection, our honourable readers may be wondering about the purpose of our article. Is europeanconservative.com suddenly dreaming of a tabloid destiny? Not at all. This is not about lowly royal love affairs but high politics.
The whole controversy hinges on what is meant by ‘the people.’
For the Left, the RN is the party of the people. But for a long time now, in the writings of mainstream journalists, the word has become pejorative, not to say insulting. The people are the rabble, those who drive diesel cars, refuse to believe in global warming, dislike Arabs and stubbornly refuse to sort their packaging. That this people, represented by Bardella, should consort with a princess is in bad taste. Paradoxically, Le Monde journalists are, as the French expression goes, “more royalist than the king” and do not like mixing genres.
Except that there is another meaning of the word ‘people’. That of the sons of a homeland, which is nothing other than the country of their fathers. Those who waste petrol are no less passionate about the land of their ancestors, which they defend on roundabouts, on tractors, or wearing yellow vests.
And this people has always been the best support for its princes.
Those who know the French Revolution and its causes know that the common people of France did not look kindly on the sans-culottes attacking their sovereign. Before the storm broke in the summer of 1789, the authors of the cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances) reaffirmed their allegiance to the good King Louis XVI, who was certainly unaware of their suffering and therefore unable to come to their aid. A few years later, in the countryside of Brittany, Vendée, and Vivarais, the peasants went to fetch the nobles from their castles to march behind them and fight for the king against the petty and mediocre elites who sought to overturn the hierarchy of the world willed by God.
On the Right, some have understood that the ‘BB’ idyll, as in Bardella-Bourbon—if it is confirmed—is far from a miscalculation. As polemicist Jean-Yves Le Gallou points out, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the son of a fisherman, became a lord of his own kind without ever losing touch with the ‘people,’ who were grateful to him for combining popular ease with elegance. For lawyer Emmanuelle Gave, the ‘BB alliance’ would be a tremendous opportunity for the RN to break the glass ceiling that prevents many snobbish middle-class people from voting for the national right-wing party on the grounds that it is too ‘dirty.’ If its president flirts with a princess, things suddenly look very different. One could then imagine slipping an RN ballot into the ballot box without losing face: “Yes, we’re voting for Bardella, but his fiancée is a Bourbon-Sicily, after all,” the snob lady condemned to vote centrist for ages because the RN is not chic enough will exclaim with delight.
For now, this is all conjecture. Accompanying a young lady home after a gala evening may certainly seem like something engaging, if not compromising, but it is not yet a marriage proposal.
In the meantime, on this day when the French commemorate the death of King Louis XVI, we can only rejoice that the spotlight is shining on one of his distant great-grandnieces and on one of the courageous defenders of the France for which he gave his life!
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