Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon
Head of the House of Bonaparte (1997)
Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon, Prince of Montfort (born Jean-Christophe Louis Ferdinand Albéric Napoléon de Bonaparte; 11 July 1986), is a French businessman and the disputed head of the Imperial House of France, and as such the heir of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first Emperor of the French. He would be known as Napoleon VIII.
A graduate of HEC Paris and Harvard Business School, he pursued a career in private equity, gaining experience at Morgan Stanley and Blackstone in both New York City and London. Later, he founded Leon Capital, a private equity investment firm.
Family background
Jean-Christophe was born on 11 July 1986 in Saint-Raphaël, Var, France. He is the son of Charles, Prince Napoléon and his first wife Princess Béatrice of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, daughter of the late Prince Ferdinand of Bourbon, Duke of Castro, a claimant to headship of the former Royal House of the Two Sicilies. His parents divorced on 2 May 1989, two months before his third birthday.
Jean-Christophe is the great-great-great-grandnephew of Emperor Napoleon I (who has no legitimate direct descendants) through the emperor's youngest brother, Jérôme, King of Westphalia. Through his mother, he is a descendant of King Louis XIV of France and through his great-grandmother, Princess Clémentine of Belgium, he descends from Leopold II of Belgium, William IV, Prince of Orange, Charles III of Spain, Frederick William I of Prussia, George II of Great Britain, Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy, and Louis Philippe I, King of the French, who was the last king to rule France, while his great-great-grandfather was Prince Napoléon Bonaparte, the cousin of the Emperor Napoleon III, France's most recent monarch.
Prince Napoléon
Jean-Christophe's grandfather, Louis, Prince Napoléon, died in 1997 and stipulated in his will that he wished his 11-year-old grandson Jean-Christophe to succeed him as Head of the Imperial House of France rather than the boy's father, Charles, who had embraced republican principles and decided to remarry without his father's consent. Despite the dynastic dispute, Jean-Christophe's father has stated that "there will never be conflict" between him and his son over the imperial succession.
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