Bertrand of Orléans-Braganza

Bertrand of Orléans-Braganza (born Bertrand Maria José Pio Januário Miguel Gabriel Raphael Gonzaga de Orléans e Bragança; 2 February 1941, in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Vichy France) is the head of the Vassouras branch of the House of Orléans-Braganza and a claimant to the defunct Brazilian throne. He succeeded his brother Luiz of Orléans-Braganza to the claim on 15 July 2022. The Vassouras branch claims the throne in opposition to the Petrópolis branch of the Orléans-Braganzas, headed by Pedro Carlos Orléans-Braganza. Although Bertrand and Pedro Carlos respectively were and are great-grandchildren of Isabel, Princess Imperial (daughter of Emperor Pedro II), of the House of Braganza, their disputed leadership over the Brazilian Imperial Family is due to a dynastic dispute concerning their fathers, who were cousins. The third son of Pedro Henrique of Orléans-Braganza and Princess Maria Elisabeth of Bavaria, his elder brothers are, in order, Luiz of Orléans-Braganza who claimed to be Head of the Brazilian Imperial Family until 2022 and Eudes of Orléans-Braganza, who renounced his dynastic rights to the Brazilian throne in order to marry a commoner. As with his two elder brothers, Bertrand was born in southern France, 1941, even though the exile imposed on the family had already been revoked, in 1920, due to the Second World War. He came to Brazil after the end of the conflict. In Brazil, the family settled first in the Grão-Pará Palace in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where he carried out part of his secondary studies in the Jesuit St. Ignatius College. Later his family moved to Paraná, where his father bought a farm and Bertrand spent his childhood. When he was 18 years old, he went to São Paulo, where he achieved a bachelor's degree in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo in 1964. He still lives in São Paulo. From a very young age he received Catholic formation, being guided by his father to the taste for the doctrinal study and the analysis of the national and international events.