If France ever decides to call off its revolution and go back to having a king, the line to the throne could begin at the doorstep of a genial, plump Indian man with a name as outsized and incongruous as the fleur-de-lis over his porch in Bhopal.
Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon would answer the doorbell, and the call of duty, if the French nation needed him.
A restoration of the monarchy in France is, of course, improbable. But so is the story of how a possible heir to the throne, a dauphin from the royal house of Bourbon, lives in relative obscurity in India, where he practices law, putters around the family farm and nurses hopes that his lineage, if not his birthright, one day might be recognised by his glittering European relations.
“I am born an Indian,” De Bourbon says. “But the fact of life is that I belong to the royal family of France.”
De Bourbon’s claim to noble European descent received an unexpected boost last year when one of his putative cousins, Prince Michael of Greece, signaled his support in a historical novel. In Le Rajah Bourbon, the prince offers a speculative account of the life of Jean Philippe de Bourbon, the ancestor to whom Balthazar traces his origins.
According to the book Jean Philippe, a nephew of King Henri IV — who survived assassination attempts and a kidnapping at sea — eventually washed up in India, where he served at the court of the Mogul Emperor Akbar in the 16th century.
In historical records, the De Bourbons are well documented as important and respected administrators in the region for hundreds of years. In latter generations, members of the family intermarried with the local population.
Michael, who lives in Paris, believes Balthazar de Bourbon to be the surviving male heir of this line, an elder branch of the house of Bourbon. This arguably would give Balthazar previous claim to the throne over the descendants of Henri IV, whose unbroken line of succession was lopped off along with the heads of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette under the guillotine in 1793.
Michael met Balthazar de Bourbon in Bhopal in 2006 after a serendipitous coincidence at the hotel where the prince was staying on a holiday. The experience inspired him to research and write his novel.
From boyhood, De Bourbon was told of his exalted heritage. When he was two, his father, Salvador, gave him an 1882 book by a Frenchman containing a chapter on the history of the De Bourbon clan in Bhopal. His normally jovial exterior crumbles when he complains about the lack of recognition from his purported European relations. Letter after letter has been met with frosty silence or polite replies that don’t acknowledge him as one of the Bourbon brood. His name does not figure on any royal or aristocratic Christmas card or wedding invitation lists.
“I think that the Bourbons in France, first, are very busy and they could care less about India, and second, it’s my impression that they are not enchanted to discover that they have cousins in India, mainly for the reason that, if my theory is right, these Indian Bourbons are the eldest” of the family line, Michael said.
The problem is finding proof to back up those “truths”, which the prince freely acknowledges he does not have.
Science might be the answer to both Michael’s speculation and Balthazar de Bourbon’s hopes. The prince says he would be willing to organise a DNA test to verify De Bourbon’s claim of kinship, and De Bourbon says he gladly would submit to it.
Los Angeles Times
