Constantine XXIII Capet

Emperor Constantine XXIII
Birth 25 January 1877 Accession 19 March 1929 Death 30 June 1953 Titles By the Grace of God, Emperor of Pantocratoria, Autocrator of the Romans, Caesar Augustus, King of France and Navarre, Equal of the Apostles, God's Vicegerent on Earth, the Very Christian, the Most Pious, Sebastocrator, King of Kings Ruling over those who Rule, Grand Master of the Order of the Pantocrator

His Most Catholic and Imperial Majesty Emperor Constantine XXIII (full name: Constantine Louis Charles Manuel Capet) ruled Pantocratoria from 1929 to 1953, and is one of the longest lived monarchs in the history of the Bourbon-Comnenus-Palaeologus Capet. He was the only child of the Emperor Constantine XXII Capet and the Empress Theodora de Drakos. He was the father of Emperor Isaac V Capet and Princess Rosaline Capet. He was Pantocratoria's popular wartime leader during World War II, steering the nation through the troubled diplomatic waters of the time to remain neutral in the main conflict, and leading the country to a victory in the Brief Turkish War.

Constantine XXIII was born in the Demetrine Palace in New Rome in 1877. As a child he played with toy soldiers, and as a gift on his 16th birthday, he was placed in command of a regiment of the First Provincial Legion. The adolescent Prince enjoyed organising war games and drills and parades with his regiment, and earned the nickname "Soldat Sebasto" for his efforts.

He was made Despot of New Constantinople on his twenty-first birthday in a wedding-coronation which saw him first marry his cousin, Marie Capet, and then be crowned as the new despot and heir apparent. The Soldat Sebasto continued with his obsession with Pantocratoria's army, and developed an affection for military uniforms weighed down with as many medals as could be pinned thereto, importing an unfortunate fashion of European royalty into Pantocratoria.

His wedding became somewhat of a scandal from the second half of the first decade of the twentieth century when Princess Marie had already miscarried four times. She would do so another four times over the next ten years before seemingly miraculously conceiving in 1929, giving birth exactly nine months after her husband's coronation when his father died and he became Emperor Constantine XXIII Capet. The new Emperor and Empress finally became parents in their early 50s when the future Emperor Isaac V Capet was born. The joy of that birth was soon followed with another final pregnancy, resulting in the birth of Princess Rosaline Capet.

Soldat Sebasto entered his winter years in his element with the outbreak of World War Two. Pantocratoria used the opportunity of international distraction to declare war on Turkey (the Brief Turkish War). This war would come to a quick climax when the Pantocratorian Imperial Navy, under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Michael Phocas, whom Constantine would later make Lord Michael I Phocas of the Bosphorus, won a crushing victory over the Turkish navy. The success was utterly unexpected, and the Empire was unable to follow up on it with a land invasion or any real long-term gains, but if nothing else, Constantine had coated himself in glory.

The Emperor was devastated by the success of Pantocratorian National Democratic Party in the post-war elections, which saw the budget of his precious military mercilessly cut. The old man didn't feel up to the task of tackling his parliament, however, instead opting to live out his life in domestic tranquility in the arms of Empress Marie. He lived to see the baptism of his grandson, the future Emperor Andreus I Capet, in 1950, but not the birth of his first grand-daughter, Princess Irene Capet. Emperor Constantine XXIII died of a heart attack in his sleep on the thirtieth of June, 1953.