Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon III, a lawyer who lives in the heart of India, is so convinced he is the true heir to France's King Henri IV that he wants the title "Duke of France."
The family of the rotund 48-year-old landowner settled in Bhopal in 1775 and he has long promoted his lineage dating back to the rulers of France and Spain.
His house is even emblazoned with a brass sign that reads "House of Bourbon," set above a fleur-de-lis. The heraldic crest of the French monarchy also decorates his furniture, business cards and cuff-links.
"I have always been instilled with the idea that I belong to a noble and royal family," he said.
But Balthazar has been galvanized in his search for recognition and a real title by the research of Prince Michael of Greece into a cousin of Henri IV.
Prince Michael's French book Le Rajah Bourbon, published this year, confirmed for Balthazar what he says he knew all along -- he is the most likely surviving heir to the throne.
"The book says: `Had it been a monarchy, you would have been the king,'" Balthazar beams, before adding, "But I am well aware of the fact that there is no monarchy in France, that there is a democracy."
He admits to not speaking a word of French, to never even setting foot in the country.
Balthazar is however a Catholic, his ancestors built a fine church here and his children are called Frederic, Michelle and Adrien. He also harbors a strong desire "to go to Versailles castle."
"Whether they recognize me or not, I am a part of a big family. I am a fraction of a part of France," he insists.
"I have the same blood that Jean-Philippe [de Bourbon] had. A French and royal blood," he said.
"If Jean-Philippe is in the direct line of succession, so I am," he said.
According to Le Rajah Bourbon, Jean-Philippe de Bourbon Navarre arrived in 1560 at the court of Emperor Akbar, the third ruler of India's Mughal dynasty. He was the son of Connetable de Bourbon, a cousin of Henri IV.
History relates that Jean-Philippe fled through Spain after killing a French nobleman, was kidnapped by pirates, shipwrecked off Egypt and captured by the Ethiopian army before escaping to Goa in southern India.
He found favor at Akbar's court, married the sister of one of the emperor's wives and moved from Agra to New Delhi. It was there that Jean-Philippe learnt that Henri IV had been crowned in France and that he himself was next in line.
The book and a visit by Prince Michael to Bhopal has emboldened Balthazar to seek recognition.
"Recognition means at least to give us any royal title, like `Duke of France' or `Duke of Bourbon,'" he said.
"The House of Bourbon would be entitled to give the title. It would be a kind of recognition of the sufferings of Jean-Philippe. It would be a recognition for my family who had migrated to India on compulsion," he said.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant