Secrets of the Gotha II Trivia Quiz

Answer: The House of Osman in Turkey

"A young cousin of his wife, Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, had been carried off by Barbary pirates during a sea crossing, sold as a slave in Constantinople and had then become Sultana Valide, mother of the future Sultan Mahmad II. This exotic relationship had not satisfied the emperor's vanity however, for he dreamed of more illustrious alliances for himself and his relatives".

Answer: Wurttemberg

"Jerome Bonaparte was married to Princess Catherine of Wurttemberg whose father had just been made King by Napoleon, and so could refuse him nothing. For Jerome and his wife the ephemeral kingdom of Westphalia, with the town of Cassel as capital, was constituted. Hardly was he in possession of his kingdom when Jerome, who was barely twenty, began to descend the slippery slope along which his natural bent for amorous adventures led him".

Jerome had initially married Elizabeth Patterson on 24 Dec 1803 in Maryland, USA; without the consent or knowledge of his more powerful brother. The marriage was annulled less than two years later. Jerome was recalled home and told to marry the German princess.

Answer: Louis, the King of Holland

"The marriage of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense, the daughter of Josephine, was very unhappy but inexplicably blessed by heaven. The queen, although she always loved as far away from her husband as possible, still gave him numerous and beautiful children. King Louis I, who was horrified by such shameless behaviour, had confessed his marital disappointments to the pope and in one of his vehement epistles had compared his wife to Messalina".

Answer: The Duchess of Saint Leu

"Queen Hortense was one of those princesses for whom all uniforms were attractive and her sensitive soul made any landscape which was in the least romantic the background to a love affair. After the fall of the empire she received from Louis XVIII the title of duchess of Saint Leu and her husband contented himself with that of count of the same place".

Answer: 1832

The duke of Reichstadt led a life very different from that which Napoleonic legend, supported by Edmund Rostland, tried to make out. He was treated like any other archduke - rather better, in fact - and was never illegally imprisoned or humiliated as alleged". (p130) Napoleon II, who never officially ruled, was born on 20th March 1811 in Palais des Tuileries, Paris, France and was created the king of Rome from birth.

After his father's decline, he fled the country with his mother; Empress Marie Louise who was later granted the duchy of Parma until her death. On 22nd July 1832, Napoleon II died of tuberculosis in Schlob Schonbrunn, Vienna, Austria.

Answer: Father and Son

Napoleon's divorce from Josephine on 10th January 1810, the first under the new Napoleonic code, paved the way for the emperor to remarry and hopefully have children to secure and continue his dynasty. His marriage to the Archduchess Marie Louise Habsburg-Lotharingen of Austria produced only one son, Napoleon II.

Answer: Zululand

"The fall of the empire, on 4th September 1870, the death of Napoleon at Chislehurst in England on 9th January 1873, and the death of the Prince Imperial, who was killed in Zululand on 1st June 1879, was the three great ordeals in the life of Empress Eugenie".

Answer: Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodora

"The Prince Imperial died unmarried. There had been some talk of marrying him to Princess Beatrice, one of Queen Victoria's daughters, then to a daughter of Queen Isabella II of Spain, but nothing came of these plans".

Answer: First Cousins

Whilst Napoleon II, the only son of Napoleon I, never actually ruled, when his cousin later repeated the steps of the original Napoleon, he claimed the title of Napoleon III, recognising that Napoleon II technically did reign for a short period of time.

Answer: Jerome, the king of Westphalia

The youngest brother Bonaparte line is the only male line, which still exists today. The pretender since 1997 is Prince Charles Marie Jerome Victor Napoleon Bonaparte of Montfort, the second great-grandson of Jerome, making him a distant nephew of Napoleon I. Prince Charles is the eldest son Prince Louis Jerome Bonaparte of Montfort and Alix Marie de Foresta, born on 19th October 1950 in Hauts-de-Seine, France. He married Princess Beatrice Marie de Bourbon of Sicily, the daughter of Duke Ferdinand Maria Andrea de Bourbon of Castro, on 19th December 1978 in Paris, France. Together they have two children - Princess Caroline (b. 24th Oct 1980) and Prince Jean Christopher (b. 11th Jul 1986).

Prince Charles is the head of the Imperial Family by being the eldest descendant of the most senior line of the House of Bonaparte. Other claimants to France include the Count of Paris and the Duke of Anjou; however arguments between these three men could be argued as redundant since the French government appears to be going nowhere for the moment.

All the information, and quotations, for these questions was taken from Ghislain de Diesbach's "Secrets of the Gotha". (New York: Meredith Press, 1964)