Napoleon IV, a furtive imperial prince

Every political leader today is keen to claim inherited legitimacy while proposing to represent an innovative perspective for the future. But who knows that the first to embody this ambitious yet delicate program was a prince whose image and name have been erased from history? Son of the French Emperor Napoleon III (1808-1873) and his wife, Eugénie de Montijo (1826-1920), Prince Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Napoléon (1856-1879) was never anything other than the "imperial prince," even if the stimulating exhibition at the Bastia Museum presents him as "Napoleon IV."

From his birth in March 1856, the heir to a newly established Empire was given a wildly ambitious mission: to anchor the dynasty in a country where regimes had struggled to establish themselves permanently since the Revolution. The promise of a secure future was reinforced by the choices of Napoleon III, who, although he could not give Queen Victoria as godmother to his son, for obvious religious reasons, chose Pope Pius IX as godfather. The baptism at Notre-Dame was conceived as the counterpart to the coronation of Napoleon ^I and the "son of the Empire" was immediately put on display: photos, engravings and memorial objects disseminated his image.

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