Victor, Prince Napoléon, titular 3rd Prince of Montfort (Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte; 18 July 1862 – 3 May 1926), was the Bonapartistpretender to the French throne from 1879 until his death in 1926. He was known as Napoléon V by those who supported his claim.
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. In May 1886, the French Third Republic expelled the princes of the former ruling dynasties and so Prince Victor left France for exile in Belgium.[2]
Dreyfus affair
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]
Death
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.[3] He was succeeded as the Bonaparte heir by his only son, Prince Louis.
^ abThe Great Round World. Universe Publishing company. 1899.
^Israel Smith Clare (1897). Library of Universal History. R. S. Peale, J. A. Hill.
^Gildea, Robert (1994). The Past in French History. Yale University Press. p. 78.
^Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, editor, Burke's Royal Families of the World, Volume 1: Europe & Latin America (London, U.K.: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1977), page 41