The Last King of France

Balthazar Napoleon de Bour­bon - now there's an aristocratic name that rolls off the tongue. And why shouldn't it? The owner of that name claims direct lineage from the Bourbon dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs. The last ruling Bourbon monarch was overthrown in 1848.

One would imagine that Balthazar lives on an ancestral estate on the outskirts of Paris, with a summer home in St. Tropez, perhaps. One would be wrong. Balthazar, a 48-year-old lawyer and part-time farmer, lives in a nonde­script by lane, tucked away in a middle class neighborhood Bhopal, India. Balthazar would presumably have been resigned to living out his days in comfortable obscurity, had he not been "discovered" by Prince Michael of Greece. In his historical novel "Le Rajah de Bourbon", Michael has claimed that Balthazar is the long-lost descendent of Bourbon kings. At the invitation of Prince Michael, Balthazar will soon travel to Europe to take a DNA test to prove his lineage to the last kings of France. Prince Michael, himself a Bourbon descendant, visited Balt­hazar in Bhopal last month and told him that the titles of the French roy­alty rightfully belonged to this lawyer; and had been usurped by sec­ond branch Bourbons.

So how did the supposed pretender to the French throne end up in India? Prince Michael believes Jean de Bourbon, a nephew of the first Bourbon French king, Henry IV, arrived in India in 1560, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar, after action-packed adventures across the world. Around 1700, Jean's descendants migrated to Bhopal via Gwalior. They were advisors to the Nawabs of Bhopal. Balthazar is an offspring of this branch of the Bourbon family.