Louis Napoleon, Prince Imperial

The last hope of the Bonapartist faction in France during the second half of the nineteenth century, Louis Napoleon was the son of Eugenie, Princess de Montijo, and Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.  His father took power after the fall of the July Monarchy, but lost the gambit (and his throne) in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871.  The emperor had already sent his only son (nick-named Loulou) to the Belgian border by that time.  The family gathered on the coast and fled to England after the emperor was released by Bismarck and the country defeated.  They took a grand house, called Camden Place, in Chislehurst.

The deposed Emperor died at Camden Place in 1873 and thereupon Louis Napoleon was proclaimed Napoleon IV (in exile).  He studied in England, at King's College, but was more prone for glory and applied for a spot at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.  He got it and finished 7th in a class of 34.

Eugenie was very careful with him.  She had lost her first child to a miscarriage, and his birth had been troublesome, the labour lasting some 48 hours.  Nevertheless, he itched for action, and when the Anglo-Zulu war broke out in 1879, he clamoured to be shipped out.  He pressed his British superiors (as a lowly, but royal, lieutenant) to get him to Africa.  Although Eugenie objected, with word from both the Duke of Cambridge and Queen Victoria herself, he was granted leave as an observer in the British army.

There is something in his pale eyes and his languid features, the cock of his chin, that speaks to me both of impetuousness and hauteur.  He strikes me as a kid who drives a hopped-up Corvette and tries to assure everyone he won't speed.  It's there, on his face.  It's a handsome face, with that kind of rare-featured fineness that one also sees in the children of the last Czar (equally doomed).

Once in Zululand he was attached to the Royal Engineers, being thought a suitably safe bet, and sent on reconnaissance, but watched over carefully.  He was a scant 23 years old and enthusiastic, if untried.  He was at all times to be accompanied by escorts, but was almost caught in an ambush early on by exceeding his orders.  He was at the time under the command of lieutenant Jahleel Brenton Carey.

On June 1st 1879, starting out early due to the impatience of the prince, they left without a full escort and moved deeper into hostile territory.  At noon they halted to rest at a kraal, but no lookout was posted.  Without other senior officers there to hold him back, he had wrested control of the troop from Carey.  Just as they were preparing to go, about 40 Zulu warriors rushed them.  Before he was able to mount, his horse was spooked and galloped off.  The prince was able to grab a hold, but after some distance a strap broke and he landed under his horse.

In the melee his right arm had been trampled.  He drew his pistol with his left hand and began as best he could to fend off the seasoned Zulus.  He ran, but as they caught up with him one of the warriors launched an assegai which caught him in the thigh.  He was able to pull it out and attempted to use it, but they landed another in his shoulder.  He fought on, either emptying his pistol or losing it, but was eventually overwhelmed.  Two other escorts were killed and another went missing.

After the skirmish his body was recovered.  He suffered 18 assegai wounds, the definitive one piercing his right eye and entering his brain.  The British found that, as he was seen by the Zulus to have been a brave fighter, his body was not dismembered.  They had, though, slit open his chest to release his spirit.  The Zulus later said that had they known who he was they would not have killed him.  Carey was court-martialed, but later reinstated at the request of Empress Eugenie and Queen Victoria.

With his death the movement that had started with the brilliance of the little general came to an end.  Eugenie made a pilgrimage to Africa, to Soubuza's kraal, where he had been killed.  She stayed on at Camden Place, then moved about, but died in her native Spain in 1920.  By that time many of the royal houses ruling Europe had been overthrown.  The asteroid 45 Eugenia is named after her.  45 Eugenia's small satellite, Petit Prince, is named in honour of her ill-fated son.  It is also an allusion to Saint-Exupéry's fabled character.  I was going to name this essay The Handsome Knuckle-headed Prince, but thought better of it.  Field Marshall Garnet Wolseley said, "He was a plucky young man, and he died a soldier's death.  What on earth could he have done better?"

                                           

'No young man believes he shall ever die.  It was a saying of my brother's, and a fine one.  There is a feeling of Eternity in youth, which makes us amends of everything.  To be young is to be one of the Immortal Gods ..'

William Hazlitt

On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth