Louis, Prince Napoléon

Prince Louis became a successful businessman, with a number of financial interests in Africa. In 1951, the prince sent a memorial wreath bearing the Napoleonic 'N' insignia to the funeral of William, German Crown Prince, son of the deposed Wilhelm II, German Emperor. This was seen as an ironic gesture by royalists at the time, given the fact that it was the German House of Hohenzollern that had defeated and dethroned Louis Napoleon's own imperial house during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

After the war, he lived in Switzerland and, irregularly, in Paris until 1950, when the law of banishment against the heads of France's former ruling dynasties was repealed.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Prince Louis wrote to the French prime minister, Édouard Daladier, offering to serve in the French Army. His offer was refused, and so he assumed the nom de guerre of Louis Blanchard and joined the French Foreign Legion, seeing action in North Africa before being demobilised in 1941, following the Second Armistice at Compiègne. He then joined the French Resistance and was arrested by the Germans after attempting to cross the Pyrenees on his way to London to join Free French leader Charles de Gaulle. Following his arrest, he spent time in various prisons, including Fresnes. Following his release, he joined the French Resistance group Organisation de Résistance dans l'Armee under the name Louis Monnier. Another member of the Charles Martel Brigade to which he belonged was his cousin Joachim, Prince Murat, who was killed in July 1944. Prince Louis himself narrowly escaped death a month later when, on 28 August, he was badly wounded as part of a seven-man patrol that came under attack; he was the sole survivor. Following his recovery, he joined the Alpine Division and was later decorated for bravery.

As a child, Prince Louis spent some time in England, where he stayed with Empress Eugénie, the widow of Napoleon III. He was educated in Leuven, Belgium, and in Lausanne, Switzerland. When his father died on 3 May 1926, the 12-year-old Prince Louis succeeded as the Bonapartist pretender to the Imperial throne of France, his mother acting as regent until he came of age.

Louis married Alix de Foresta (born 4 April 1926), daughter of Count Albéric de Foresta, on 16 August 1949 at Linières-Bouton, France. They had four children:

Louis, Prince Napoléon (Louis Jérôme Victor Emmanuel Léopold Marie; 23 January 1914 – 3 May 1997) was a member of the Bonaparte dynasty. He was the pretender to the Imperial throne of France, as Napoléon VI, from 3 May 1926 until his death on 3 May 1997.