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Louis Bonaparte (1864–1932)

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Louis Bonaparte
Prince Napoléon
Head of the House of Bonaparte
(disputed)
Tenure17 March 1891 – 14 October 1932
PredecessorPrince Napoleon-Jérôme
SuccessorLouis, Prince Napoléon
Born16 July 1864
Meudon, France
Died14 October 1932 (aged 68)
Prangins, Switzerland
Burial
Basilica of Superga, Turin
HouseBonaparte
FatherPrince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte
MotherPrincess Maria Clotilde of Savoy

Napoleon Louis Josef Jérôme Bonaparte (16 July 1864 – 14 October 1932) was the disputed head of the House of Bonaparte from 1891 to his death in 1932, as well as a lieutenant-general in the Imperial Russian Army and governor of the province of Yerevan in 1905.

Early life

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Louis Bonaparte, as he was known, was born in Meudon, France. He was the second son of Prince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte, who was the son of Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte and of Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.

Life

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He was educated with his older brother Victor, Prince Napoléon, then lived a quiet life in Paris at the home of his aunt Mathilde Bonaparte. His father directed him to a military career. As a relative of Napoleon Bonaparte, he was not allowed to join the French Army, so he became a lieutenant in the Royal Italian Army in Verona, with the approval of his uncle, King Umberto I of Italy. Because of anti-French sentiment in the Italian Army, he left Italy in 1890 and enlisted in the Imperial Russian Army. In 1895 he was promoted to colonel. In 1902 he was stationed in the Caucasus. When riots broke out in 1905 between Armenians and Azeris in Yerevan, he was named governor of the province of Yerevan and ordered to restore order.[1]

In his will, Napoléon-Jérôme designated Louis as the head of the House of Bonaparte, bypassing his first son Victor, who he deemed "a traitor and a rebel". Victor and a majority of Bonapartists disputed this.[2]

In 1910, he retired from the Russian Army as a lieutenant-general and moved to the family estate in Prangins, Switzerland. After Italy entered the First World War, at the request of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, he became liaison officer for the Russian Army with the Third Italian Army, led by his cousin Prince Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Aosta.

In 1917, he returned to Prangins, though his later travels included trips to Japan and the United States.

He died in 1932 from a stroke in Prangins, Switzerland. He never married and had no children.

Ancestry

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Sources

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  • Armenia, the Survival of a Nation by Christopher Walker (ISBN 9780312049447)
  • Dictionnaire du Second Empire (1995) by Jean Tulard
  • Fire and sword in the Caucasus by Luigi Villari (pages 216–228)

Footnotes

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  1. ^ LUIGI VILLARI (1906). FIRE AND SWORD IN THE CAUCASUS. T. Fisher Unwin. p. 217 – via Armenia House.
  2. ^ Valynseele, Joseph (1967). Les Prétendants aux Trônes d'Europe (in French). Paris. pp. 226–231.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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