South Africa
des couleurs inoubliables

16 March 1856 – 1 June 1879

Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial, Fils de France, was the only child of Emperor Napoleon III of France and his Empress consort Eugenie de Montijo.

His death in Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War sent shock waves throughout Europe, as he was the last dynastic hope for the restoration of the Bonapartes to the throne of France.

Taken by surprise by the Zulus the Prince's horse fled before he could mount. The Prince held steady to a holster on the saddle and after about a hundred yards a strap broke and the Prince fell beneath his horse, who trampled his right arm. He leapt up, drawing his revolver with his left hand and started to run, but the Zulus could run faster.

The Prince was speared in the thigh but managed to remove the assegai from his wound. As he turned and fired at the Zulus, another assegai struck his left shoulder. The Prince tried to fight on, using the assegai he had pulled from his leg, but weakened by his wounds, he sank to the ground and was overwhelmed.

Two members of his escort were also killed and another went missing.

When recovered, his body had been pierced with eighteen assegai wounds.

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