Back in the day kings ruled France and France was their personal sweatshop. For hundreds of years France plodded along until the monarchy tried to reform itself, which resulted in a lot of dead royals deposed by unpedigreed lawyers.

Today France is a republic, of sorts, and the French busy themselves looking for latterday royals.

FOUND IN BHOPAL, THE LAST KING OF FRANCE

PARIS March 3, 2007 (Hindustan Times) - Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, an Indian lawyer and part-time farmer, has always been fascinated by France. Framed pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the palace of Versailles decorate his house in a dusty, bustling suburb of the central Indian city of Bhopal. He gave his children French names even though he has never set foot in France.

But he may soon make his first trip to Paris, after he was visited by a relative of Prince Philip, who told him that he is the first in line to the lost French throne.

This Indian father-of-three is being feted as the long-lost descendent of the Bourbon kings who ruled France from the 16th century to the French revolution.

A distant cousin of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he is alleged to be not only related to the current Bourbon king of Spain and the Bourbon descendants still in France, but to have more claim than any of them to the French crown.

... From his home in the Bhopal suburbs, Mr Bourbon, 48, said he would be glad to take a DNA test, but remained stoical about the "hypothetical question" of whether he was heir to the throne. Conscious of the bloody outcome for royals in France, he felt royal status could bring "trouble", not to mention questions from skeptical historians.

A short interlude:

Head after head, and never heads enough
For those that bade them fall.

William Wordsworth,
The Prelude, Book Tenth, 362-363

Back to our story.

Still, [M. Bourbon] has long had a brass plaque above his front door reading "House of Bourbon" with the fleur-de-lis crest of the French monarchy. His wife runs the neighbouring school for local children, called the Bourbon school. The family is Catholic and keeps Bourbon relics, including a sword, in their home. He said he felt "a sense of pride" when contemplating the picture of Versailles on his wall.

But he is aware that his family's fortunes waned in Bhopal long ago. He describes the Indian branch of the family as Bourbons on the rocks. M. Bourbon:

From the day I was born, I was made to understand that I belonged to the family of the Bourbons. I may be from a royal family but I live my life as a commoner. I didn't have time to learn French as a teenager because my father's death meant I had to work to look after my mother and sisters. Life has been very tough for me.

Well, the French are quite finical about their betters speaking French. Pave is not keen on monarchy, where the circumstances of birth* trump republican values. All the same, Pave wishes M. Bourbon good luck and hopes he keeps his head if his title proves out.

* In France today, the circumstances of birth are trumped by political expediency.

PFFT (What is this?): Qualified turnip farmer to rule turnips 2 | Rayonnement français 0

Bonjour ,

Bhopal quand on est Yankee c'est un lieu qu'il ne vaudrait mieux pas évoquer.
Lieu d'une sinsistre catastrophe voulue par le cynisme d'une multinationale US avec ses milliers d' aveugles à vie ...