Victor, Prince Napoléon

Prince Victor as a baby

He was born in the Palais Royal of Paris during the Second French Empire the son of Napoleon's nephew Prince Napoleon and his wife, Princess Marie Clothilde of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. He had two younger siblings, Prince Louis (1864–1932) and Princess Maria Letizia Bonaparte (1866–1926), later the Duchess of Aosta. At the time of his birth in 1862, he was third in the line of succession to the throne behind Napoléon, Prince Imperial and his father Prince Napoleon. The Empire came to an end in 1870 with the abdication of the Emperor Napoleon III.

He was appointed head of the house of Bonaparte at the age of 18 in the will of Napoléon Eugène, Prince Imperial, who died in 1879, and so became Napoleon V to his supporters, though his younger brother, Prince Louis, a colonel in the Russian Imperial Guard, was preferred to him by many Bonapartists.[1] The decision by the Prince Imperial to bypass Prince Victor's father led to a complete breakdown in relations between father and son. As a result, Victors father had named Louis as his heir in his final will, thereby carrying on the dispute of headship within the Bonaparte family. [2] In May 1886 the French Republic expelled the princes of the former ruling dynasties and so Prince Victor left France for exile in Belgium.[3]

Victor in 1899, by Guth

At the time of the death of President Félix Faure in 1899, during the Dreyfus affair, a number of political factions attempted to take advantage of the disorder and Prince Victor announced to a delegation from the Imperialist committee that he would take action to restore the French Empire when he felt that the time was favourable. In order to achieve this, he announced he would place himself at the head of the movement with his brother, Prince Louis, fighting beside him who he said would be "bringing to the Bonapartist forces his prestige and his military talents as well as his rank in the Russian army". The Duke of Orléans, rival claimant to the throne, also had forces available and they were ready to cross the French frontier at the same time as the Bonapartist forces. In the end the anticipated outbreak in France did not materialise and the French Third Republic survived one of its gravest crises.[1]

Prince Victor died on 3 May 1926 in Brussels with the French author Charles Maurras commenting on Prince Victor's time as pretender saying that he had not offered any new ideas since 1884 and no radical alternatives to republican governments.[4] He was succeeded as the Bonaparte heir by his only son, Prince Louis.