And today we bring you HRH Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, duc d'Anjou, aka Luis Alfonso Gonzalo Víctor Emanuel Marco de Borbón y Martínez-Bordiú.
French Royal Arms of the House of Bourbon from Wikipedia Commons
Louis Alphonse was born on 25 April 1974 in Madrid. He is the great-grandson of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and first cousin once removed of King Juan Carlos I of Spain (and, on his mother's side, also great-grandson of Francisco Franco).Among the Legitimist party who adhere to the elder branch of the Bourbon dynasty, he is deemed the pretender to the French throne (and would reign as Louis XX). The French courts have recognized his right to the title Duc d'Anjou in spite of the protests of the Orléanist branch. He is considered the senior legitimate representative of the House of Capet since the death of his father in 1989.
In addition to France, he has claims to the thrones of Jerusalem (yes, that unfortunate period known as the Crusades and all that) and Navarre.
In France his supporters style him: "Sire, Louis, 20e du nom,par la grâce de Dieu Roi de France, de Navarre et des terres d'Outremer".
Sire, Louis, 20th of that name, by the grace of God King of France,
of Navarre, and of the Lands Beyond the Sea
(source, which is a yahoo group dedicated to him)
"A King without a Throne"(photo source)
(Now this pic makes me think of one of my teddy bears: His Orthodox Majesty Maximiliano Cuauhtémoc Juárez Primo, Emperor of El Cerrito, Archduke of Hercules, and Margrave of the Great River. He is knows as "Cocoa" to his friends. This man is too cute for all those titles, and I haven't even listed all of them.)
Louis Alphonse and Margarita had their first child, a daughter, named Eugenia on March 5, 2007 at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami, Florida. She was baptised at the papal nunciature in Paris in June 2007. French legitimists recognise her as Princess Eugenie of Bourbon; in Spain her name is Doña Eugenia de Borbón y Vargas. [Wikipedia]
8 comments:
Wow! Oh, wow! And it's not even Friday! He may be the best looking prince you've had, Paul.
On the other hand, the great-grandson of Franco? Zut alors!
He's definitely got the smile, Mimi. A real heart-melter.
I imagine descent from the rulers of France includes sufficient "sins of the fathers" that we needn't hold Franco against him. None of us gets to pick our family tree.
Paul, Paul, you break this poor woman's heart. He's the PERFECT age for me, and look at that smile and then you go and tell me he's married.
le sigh.
Ah, Tandaina, je le regrette. Those Bourbon/Borbón boys are total heartbreakers. I would be so delighted to do some matchmaking with them but jetsetting women are busy snaffling them all up before we get a chance. Que te dirais-je?
And you being a right proper woman, I can't even inquire if there are openings for royal mistress. I believe the rulers of France had a few of those, especially after last night's research led me to a list of the illegitimate heirs of the throne.
And finally, though Louis Alphonse / Luis Alfonso may be the perfect age for you, his smile seems to have caught the eye of Mimi and yours truly. This could get ugly very quickly.
I promise to continue the research though, Tandaina. One must live in hope. In the meantime, enjoy the eye candy.
Having spent more than a little time in Spain, I am always pleased to hear of the goings-on of the wacky Bourbons!
Delightful post dear Paul.
I did not dig further into why Johnny-Chuck has his nose out of joint over Louie's pretensions; it's not like there ain't enough pretension to go around in these families.
My relationship with the Bourbons seems to fall in the category of soaking some old dried-out currants in Jack Daniels before using them to make Swedish cookies.
How'd I miss this one?!
Whew.
One of my best essays, which got a nice personal rejection note from the New Yorker about 18 years ago, began with the sentence: "While my cousins in New York and Cleveland were memorizing the Gettysburg Address, we were learning about Louis the Fourteenth's mistresses." It's true! This is the French public schools in the early 1960s.
And you bring this up, Contessa, because...? Applying for the position of royal mistress? Inquiring minds need to know.
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