Louis Napoléon (1914–1997)
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte , Louis Jérôme Victor Emmanuel Léopold Marie, Prince Napoléon, Prince français, Duc de Monfort, Altesse Impériale (born January 23, 1914 in Brussels , † May 3, 1997 in Genolier , Switzerland ) was from 1926 until his death in 1997 the head of the Bonaparte family and raised to the French throne until 1950 as "Napoleon VI".
Life
He was the son of Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte (1862-1926) and Princess Clementine of Belgium . He came paternal Jérôme Bonaparte , King of Westphalia, a brother of Emperor Napoleon I , from. In 1926, at the age of twelve, he was declared head of the Bonaparte family and thus heir to the French throne.
Since the Bonaparte family had been banned from the Republic of France in 1886, he grew up in the family's Swiss exile on Lake Geneva and in his mother's Belgian homeland. After studying in Leuven and Lausanne , Prince Louis Napoléon joined the French Foreign Legion in 1939 . In 1940 he joined the Resistance . In 1942 he was arrested by the Gestapo near the Spanish border , but soon released at the instigation of the Italian royal family. After that he was still active in the Resistance, where he was involved in the Organization de Résistance dans l'Armee . For this he was from Charles de Gaulle to the Legion of Honor appointed and allowed to stay in 1950 officially in France, after he had renounced his claim to the throne.
He then lived in Paris, but still owned the villa La Bergerie de Prangins in Prangins- Promenthoux (Switzerland), which his grandfather Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte (called Plon-Plon ) had built as a residence in exile from 1870. (The cousin Napoleon III did not trust the rule of his cousin and therefore had already acquired the domain La Bergerie in Prangins on Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1859, which his uncle Joseph Bonaparte , the ex-king of Spain and older , had from 1814 to 1827 Brother Napoleon I, whose exile residence had belonged to Prangins Castle . Plon-Plon had already sold the first magnificent villa built there from 1862 in 1870, but then built a new, more modest villa La Bergerie de Prangins on the site. )
Louis Napoléon married Alix Comtesse de Foresta in 1949. They had four children, the twins Charles Napoléon and Catherine (* 1950), Laure (* 1952) and Jérôme (* 1957). As the eldest son, Charles Napoléon Bonaparte succeeded as head of the Bonaparte family after the death of his father.
Awards
- Commander of the Legion of Honor
- Croix de guerre
- Médaille de la Resistance
- Médaille commémorative de la Seconde Guerre mondiale
literature
- Munzinger archive . International Biographical Archive, 01/1981, December 22, 1980
- Douglas Johnson: Obituary: Prince Napoleon in the Independent, May 9, 1997
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Victor Napoléon |
 Head of the Bonaparte family, Bonapartist pretender to the throne of France 1926 to 1997 |
Charles Napoléon |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Napoleon, Louis |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bonaparte, Napoléon Louis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French head of the Bonaparte family |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brussels |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 3, 1997 |
| Place of death | Genolier , Switzerland |