Nevertheless, the Legitimists remained a significant party within elite opinion, attracting support of the larger part of the Ancien Régime aristocracy. After the Siege of Paris in 1870 and the 1871 Paris Commune, the Legitimists returned for one final time to political prominence. The 8 February 1871 election, held under universal manhood suffrage, gave the National Assembly a royalist majority supported by the provinces while all the Parisian deputies were republican. This time the Legitimists were able to agree with the Orléanists on a program of fusion largely because of the growing likelihood that the Chambord would die without children. The liberal Orléanists agreed to recognize Chambord as king and the Orléanists claimant himself Prince Philippe, Count of Paris (1838–1894) recognized Chambord as head of the French royal house. In return, Legitimists in the Assembly agreed that should Chambord die childless, Philippe d'Orléans would succeed him as king. Unfortunately for French monarchism, Chambord's refusal to accept the tricolor as the flag of France and to abandon the "fleur-de-lys", symbol of the Ancien Régime, made restoration impossible until after his death in 1883, by which time the monarchists had long since lost their parliamentary majority due to the 16 May 1877 crisis. The death of Chambord effectively dissolved the Legitimists as a political force in France.