NAPOLEON IV.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 272, 16 November 1929, Page 7 (Supplement)

NAPOLEON IV.

PLOT FOR FRENCH THRONE. SCHEME OF PRINCESS. •DREAMS FOR 17 YEARS OLD SON. Has Princess Clementine of Belgium, Vidow of the Pretender to the French throne, Victor Napoleon, actually entered an alliance with the Parisian perfume manufacturer, senator and newspaper magnate, Francois Coty, to overthrow the French Republic and make her JO n, Louis Napoleon, the fourth Napoleonic emperor of France? This riddle was stirring all Belgium. •The conservative daily "Libre Belgique" printed sensational revelations made by Bene de Planhol, French Royalist and journalist, who declared M. Coty is negotiating with Princess Clementine to set Louis Napoleon, now 17 years of age, on the French throne, writes Ann Somei House in the "Chicago Tribune." Soldier Trains Prince. The princess, the writer states, recently selected Gen. Boyer, French war hero, to teach her son history and military strategy. Gen. Boyer, an ardent patriot and soldier, is said to have completely transformed the character of the young prince, -who has changed so in recent months his friends say he has new soul. Be now feels himself the successor fef Napoleonic rulers and no longer a tseless exiled pretender. The princess end M. Coty, according to the writer, jfcre making plans to have the prince to tegain the throne in much the same way is his illustrious ancestor, who became Napoleon 111 after overthrowing the sectmd French republic, whose president he fead been before the coup d'etat. Would Make Him President. "By means of his powerful newspaper," &. Planhol says, "M. * Coty will first pun the decadent French parliamentary System by demanding greater powers for the president. Then he will present the young prince as a candidate for the presidency at the opportune moment, and jf successful, re-establishment of an imperial dynasty will follow naturally." Princess Clementine is 56 years of age, Still beautiful, tall, blonde. She was tumble to make any reply to the charges jIS plotting as she is confined to her bed ■With 'flu, none of her family of retainers In her magnificent Brussels home, filled With Napoleonic relics and furnished in purest empire style, dared either deny or confirm the story of her alliance with the perfume man. M. Coty is a Corsican, .like the Bonapartes. Daughter of Belgian King. Princess Clementine >was the second 'daughter of the late King Leopold of Belgium* and though she was his favourite child, he quarrelled with her on the subject of her marriage to Prince Victor Napoleon, pretender to the French throne as he had a deep-rooted aversion for the Whole. Bonaparte family. The marriage was celebrated at Turin in 1910, and though frowned upon by the royal father-iri-law, was the talk of ill Europe as, besides being a genuine love match, it had the "blessing of the late Empress Eugenie, widow of Napoleon 111. who was living in* exile at Tamborough in England. This approval significant becauuse the empress had Quarrelled many years before -with 'Prince Victor's mother, the Princess ' Clothilde, sister of the late King Humbert I, of Italy, and the breach had :Bever been healed.

Unites House of Bonaparte. Under the stimulus of this union the two dissenting branches of the house of Bonaparte became united and this furthered the imperialistic cause in France. iWhen Empress Eugenie died Prince iVictor and Princess Clementine were She principal mourners at her funeral jtnd were said to have inherited the bulk Jbf her vast fortune. ■ " The birth of young Prince Louis Napoleon, who, since his father's death in May, 1926, has been regarded as the legitimate/Bonaparte aspirant to the !Prench crown, wag the occasion oi great celebration for, though the second child of the parents, he was the first boy, He has been educated in France, England and Belgium. The millionaire perfume manufacturer Francois Coty, has long been suspected in official Parisian circles of having great ambition, and it is said that the name of one of his best known perfumes. TUn Jour Viendra," meaning "A Daj Will' Come," refers to his _ ambition tßumour says it is to be president himfeelf, others merely to be an emperoi Aaker. Another Prince Claims Hhrone. The other pretender to the throne oi Trance is Prince Jean, Duke of Guise who lives at Palermo, Italy, and Twickenham, England. He unites in himself tlw aspirations of the Orleans and Bo\,irboi families. The elder Bourbon line became extinct in 1883 by the death of th< childless Duke of Chambord, and tk< Orleans family was everywhere recog nised as the legitimate pretender in tin person of Philip of Orleans. death at Palermo, on March 28, 19~0 without issue, Prince Jean, the son o •Duke Robert of Chartres and an Orleans princess, who had married Prinei Philip's sister, Princess Isabelle, becami the recognised pretender. Prince Jean, usually known as t < Duke of Guise, is not allowed to ente; France, but the duchess usually attend: the royalist demonstrations each yea on the occasion of the celebration of 111 birth of Joan of Arc. The French royal ists then greet her with cries of Vivi la reine!" (Long live the queen,) The leader of the French_ royalists Leon Daudet, former deputy, is at pres ent in exile in Belgium, where he es caped after a sensational prison brea while he was serving a sentence for libel The French royalists in France have beei further discredited by losing the trac i tional support of the \ aticau, so tlia former supporters of the Orleans wouli probably agree to support a member o Tfle Bonaparte family.