Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Empress Josephine, married Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, brother of Napoleon I. They are the parents of Napoleon III. He married Eugénie de Montijo with whom he had an only son. He perished on a military mission in South Africa following the fall of the Second Empire.
The dynastic continuity of the imperial family continues through the line of Joseph, King of Westphalia, another brother of Napoleon I. His grandson Prince Victor Napoléon (1862-1926) married in 1910 Princess Clémentine of Belgium, daughter of King Leopold II. The latter was fiercely opposed to an alliance with the Bonapartes so as not to upset the French neighbor. Clémentine therefore had to wait for her father’s death in 1909 to be able to get married.
The couple who lived in Brussels, had two children including Louis Napoléon in 1914. He is the grandfather of Jean-Christophe who became head of the imperial household on his death in 1997. His father Charles Napoléon having been removed from the succession following his divorce from Princess Beatrice of Bourbon-Deux-Siciles.
Prince Jean-Christophe was born in Saint-Raphaël in 1986. He is thus related both to the two French emperors, through Jérôme Bonaparte, king of Westphalia and brother of Napoleon I, through his father, and to the kings of France, including Henri IV and Louis XIV by his mother, but also to most European royal families. Prince Napoleon is a graduate of HEC Paris, Harvard University and works at the City in London.
In October 2019, Prince Jean-Christophe married at Invalides Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg, daughter of Count Riprand von und zu Arco-Zinneberg and Archduchess Maria-Beatrice of Austria-Este, sister of the prince Lorenz from Belgium. The Countess is thus the great-granddaughter of the last Emperor of Austria, Charles I, and the great-grand-niece of Empress Marie-Louise, second wife of Napoleon I.
Princess Olympia is a cousin of Amedeo, Maria Laura, Joachim, Luisa Maria and Laetitia Maria from Belgium, to whom she is very close. She was one of the people chosen by Princess Maria Laura during her wedding last September in the Cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudule to carry her long train.
Princess Napoleon studied in the United States. She has a degree in political science from Yale University and in art history from Columbia University. She now works in London as the creator and chief curator of a collection of photographs. The princely couple took center stage in 2021 for the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the death of Emperor Napoleon I in Saint Helena.
The baby who thus ensures the continuity of the imperial family was named Louis Charles Riprand Victor Jérôme Marie Napoléon.
