The Bourbon of Bhopal

Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon may be the heir to the lapsed French throne. That sounds reasonable enough—except that the portly 48-year-old is also a decidedly un-Gallic lawyer from the central Indian city of Bhopal. Nevertheless, according to the book Le Rajah de Bourbon , published last week by European blueblood Prince Michael of Greece (a Bourbon scion himself), Balthazar is a direct descendant of Jean de Bourbon, a swashbuckling nephew of Henri IV who joined the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1560. While Jean's progeny faded into obscurity in the East, Henri IV's ruled France for centuries until the guillotine...