Another Napoleon goes into battle in France

Blackleaf

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Oct 9, 2004
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Charles Napoleon, the great-great nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Great Britain's enemy 200 years ago, is standing for parliament in Fontainebleau in this year's French elections.

He says that the British may have misunderstood Napoleon. In fact Napoleon (unusually for a Frenchman) was a great admirer of the British. He also admired Britain's Constitutional Monarchy.

Amazingly, Charles Napoleon is 1,120th in line to the British Throne.

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Another Napoleon goes into battle


By Matthew Fraser in Fontainebleau

21/03/2007


At 6ft 5ins, Charles Napoleon would have towered over his diminutive ancestor, Napoleon Bonaparte.

And the 56-year-old pretender to France's imperial throne has embraced a brand of politics that is decidedly out of character for a Bonaparte.


Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne


While both Napoleon I and Napoleon III seized power by force and held imperial courts in Fontainebleau's royal chateau, today His Imperial Highness Charles Napoleon - or "Napoleon VII" - plans to recapture this dynastic town through the ballot box.

"In my family elected politics was considered dirty," said the Prince Imperial. "But I love contact with people."

Mr Napoleon - great-great-grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jerome, King of Westphalia - is standing for parliament in Fontainebleau and environs. A pro-European, he's campaigning under the centrist banner of presidential candidate François Bayrou.

If Mr Bayrou, head of the Union for French Democracy, wins the French presidency - a prospect no longer improbable - Mr Napoleon stands a good chance of being elected on his coat tails, ousting the current Right-wing UMP deputy Didier Julia, in power since 1967.

If so, Mr Napoleon could well find himself thrust to the forefront of French politics - if only because of his attention-grabbing name.

While Fontainebleau's chateau was the birthplace of virtually every French king stretching back to the 13th century, Napoleon Bonaparte is indisputably the star tourist attraction in this quietly genteel town south of Paris. That may explain why Mr Napoleon has been parachuted into this conservative constituency.


Charles Napoleon is the great-great grandson of Napoleon I’s brother, Jerome



Fontainebleau, ironically, was not a happy place for the Emperor. On April 20 1814, following a failed suicide attempt by poisoning, the defeated Napoleon, forced to abdicate, ceremoniously descended the famous horseshoe staircase in the chateau's grand "Cour des Adieux" to bid farewell to his Imperial Guard before going into exile on Elba.

Two centuries later, Mr Napoleon believes the British people misunderstand the Emperor.

Despite his disparaging remark that England is a "nation of shopkeepers", Mr Napoleon said the Emperor loved the British.

"Napoleon was a great admirer of British institutions, especially constitutional monarchy," he said.

"After Waterloo, he sincerely believed the English would embrace him, magnanimously, and invite him to live out his days in England. He was shocked when they exiled him."

Incredibly, Mr Napoleon is also 1,120th in line to the British throne, thanks to the marriage in 1807 between Jerome Bonaparte and German princess Katherine of Wurttemberg.

Mathematically, his chances in French politics are much better. Yet Mr Napoleon is an enigma, paradoxically rebellious towards his exalted rank yet willing to cultivate the advantages it procures - the family has changed its surname from Bonaparte, with its thrusting connotation, to the more august Napoleon.

Charles grew up resenting his ultra-conservative father, Prince Louis, who all his life dreamt of an Imperial restoration. In the late 1960s Charles was a student radical in Paris, eventually earning a PhD in economics from the Sorbonne. The author of serious books about his illustrious family, he openly identifies with the "rebels" of the Bonaparte dynasty.

His divorce from distant cousin HRH Beatrice de Bourbon and remarriage to a commoner provoked his late father to disinherit him as head of the Imperial House a decade ago. Mr Napoleon claims the real reason for the short-lived succession crisis was Prince Louis' disapproval of his "republican and democratic" values.

Five years ago he moved to Corsica - birthplace of Napoleon I - and forged a political alliance with leftists to take control of Ajaccio's city council. Astonishingly, Mr Napoleon's enemy in that battle was the right-wing Bonapartist party, which he dismisses as a "corrupt clan".


telegraph.co.uk
 
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AndyF

Electoral Member
Jan 5, 2007
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Charles Napoleon, the great-great nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Great Britain's enemy 200 years ago, is standing for parliament in Fontainebleau in this year's French elections.

He says that the British may have misunderstood Napoleon. In fact Napoleon (unusually for a Frenchman) was a great admirer of the British. He also admired Britain's Constitutional Monarchy.

It is remarkable that simply because a battalion didn't show up in the time that it should have, history would have taken a different turn. It wasn't because of a tactical error of his the war was lost, but because the people he counted on let him down.

He was also the author of the French civil code used today.

No doubt he was what was required in his time. His course of world domination was an error, and shows his weakness that fame can go to your head. He saw that the people will do whatever he wished , and he lept at the opportunity to fulfill his fantasy.

He should have taken care of the poor first, and removed taxation from the poor for a couple of years to allow them to spring back from the squalor they lived in, instead of burdening them further with war taxes and removing their young for the military. He should as a defensive measure have next studied the personalities of the rich, found out how they leaned on certain issues. He should have kept a close eye on them. These are his potential enemies for the policies he will be required to implement. He should have implemented by degrees a system where they take on by year a greater portion of the tax load, and frozen their assets for distribution, not making them poor but by equal sharingin the load. He could have introduced land legislation where in gradual degrees land could be made available for ownership by the poor through land expropriation. (not a popular thing, but causes only temporary pain.).

All the while he extends his hand of diplomacy and offers some trade deals to England, which will lessen the ill feeling they feel because of his Monarchal overthrow. The English have always proven they will look the other way if something is in it for them.

The list goes on. But I always admired him and the French do through to today. My grandfather and another person on my wifes side was named Napoleon. A name every French person was proud of.

BTW: The best movie is Waterloo w/Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer. Great realistic battle scenes. Think it's a 70's movie.

AndyF