Louis I Capet

Emperor Louis I Capet
Birth 27 March 1785 Accession 28 January 1793 (France), 29 October 1810 (Pantocratoria) Death 13 May 1847 Titles By the Grace of God, Emperor of Pantocratoria, Autocrator of the Romans, Caesar Augustus, King of France and Navarre, Duke of Normandy, Equal of the Apostles, God's Vicegerent on Earth, the Very Christian, Sebastocrator, King of Kings Ruling over those who Rule, Grand Master of the Order of the Pantocrator

His Most Catholic and Imperial Majesty Emperor Louis I, also known as Louis XVII of France, Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy, and Louis-Charles, Dauphin of Viennois, was the son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, and never actually reigned as king of France.

During the French Revolution, Prince Louis was imprisoned with his parents. As the eldest living son of King Louis XVI, he was proclaimed King of France on January 28, 1793 by the declaration of his uncle, "Monsieur" (Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, the Comte de Provence) issued in exile in the city of Hamm, near Dortmund, Westphalia, a territory of the Archbishop of Cologne. The declaration at the time was without authority, since France was a republic; however, when the nation and the European powers accepted Louis-Stanislas-Xavier as Louis XVIII of France in 1815, the numbering tacitly recognized Louis XVII's rights. Naturally, Louis XVII, still alive in Pantocratoria, didn't acknowledge his uncle as Louis XVIII, but he was powerless to do anything about it.

While the Royal Family was being held at the forbidding prison of the Temple, he was separated from his mother and sister in the summer of 1793 to prevent any monarchist bid to free him. He remained imprisoned alone, a floor above his sister, until, according to Pantocratorian historians, he was smuggled out of France to Pantocratoria in 1795. The cobbler whose apprentice the young Louis had been found supposedly found the body of a young plague victim and passed him off as his charge, and as far as the French Republic was concerned, Louis XVII was dead.

Louis (or his imposter, according to those unwilling to accept the official history of Pantocratoria) was anything but dead, however. He arrived at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator in 1795, where he was received by Emperor Manuel VII as His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVII, King of France and Navarre. The aging Emperor had little interest in waging war against France to press the young king's claim, however, and distanced himself politically from Louis by leaving him behind at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator when he relocated his court to its usual home at Chantouillet after Christmas. Louis was provided with the best Pantocratorian and French tutors, and bade his time.

He was sixteen when Emperor Manuel VII died in 1801, and made his first public appearance in Pantocratoria when he attended the Emperor's funeral. The young "king" captured the public imagination, and he became a focus of the sorts of intrigues and plots of which the Pantocratorian nobility has always been so fond. Emperor Manuel VIII's refusal to receive him at Chantouillet provoked a public outrage, and the regime was forced to compromise. While Louis wasn't officially received by Manuel, he was invited to be the god father of the Emperor's niece, Theodora. At Theodora's baptism at the Cathedral of Christ Pantocrator, his name was recorded as "Louis-Charles Capet". Few at the ceremony could've forseen that the newly baptised princess would one day be married to her young god father.

Shortly after Prince Constantine died in 1803, it became apparent that the childless Emperor Manuel VIII would have no male heir, with his niece Princess Theodora being his only possible successor. She was sent to the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator to join her god father, and was accompanied by a score of tutors, including the young but well-born Constantine Phocas. Constantine Phocas took Louis aside and made it plain that whoever married Theodora would be crowned joint Emperor Augustus of Pantocratoria on the death of Emperor Manuel VIII; while Constantine may have coveted the crown for himself, he knew that as the child's god father, Louis would have the right to refuse any suitor for the infant Theodora until she reached the age of twenty-five under Pantocratorian law. Naturally assuming that Louis would refuse any suitor other than himself, Constantine struck a secret bargain with Louis, under the terms of which, Louis would marry Theodora when she reached the age of fifteen or upon the death of the Emperor, whichever came sooner, and in exchange for his support as the girl's chief tutor (and therefore a member of any regency council which would be formed on her behalf if the Emperor died while she were a minor), Constantine would be crowned co-emperor. The secret agreement became known as the Treaty of the Child Bride when it was made public after Manuel VIII's death.

Manuel VIII died at dinner with Louis, Constantine and Theodora on 29 October, 1810. Within an hour, the old Emperor's niece was proclaimed Empress Theodora II, and a regency council was convened, with Constantine at its head. Before midnight, the council declared that the young empress would marry her god father, and proclaimed Louis as co-Emperor Augustus. The arrangements were made official on 3 November, when at an elaborate but hastily prepared wedding and coronation ceremony, the twenty-five year-old Louis married the nine year-old Theodora, and the couple was crowned as Emperor Augustus and Empress Augusta. On 4 November, Louis crowned his ally junior Emperor Constantine XXI Phocas.

France retaliated by withdrawing its ambassadors to Pantocratoria. Any news of Louis' escape to Pantocratoria was suppressed, and not only was Louis' accession to the Pantocratorian throne not officially recognised, it was kept entirely secret by French agents. The entire world was allowed to think that Louis was dead until the accession of King Louis-Philippe, who sought to undermine the claims of French Legitimists - however, both sides of the French argument regarded Louis as simply yet another of the pretenders claiming to be the missing Dauphin. Emperor Louis was never invited back to France, and was persuaded by Emperor Constantine XXI that overthrowing first Napoleon, then his Bourbon uncles, then Louis-Philippe through military means was quite impossible. He eventually abandoned his ambitions to be restored to his father's throne, and was said to be filled with contempt for the country of his origin in his later years, since all he could remember of it was the Revolution.

Having no sexual interest in his Empress, who must have been too much like a daughter for him, he lived in separation from his wife in the company of mistresses after the birth of their mutual heir, Louis-Manuel, who was named Dauphin of Viennois. Louis left the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator for the Despotic Court of New Constantinople, which was his seat of power until Louis-Manuel became Despot of New Constantinople in 1844, at which time Louis moved to Chantouillet. Throughout most of his reign, he remained on amicable terms with the Imperial Parliament although he never let it exercise any real power. Despite the popularity he enjoyed as a youth as the exiled victim of a foreign revolution, he was deeply unpopular throughout his entire reign, especially in the Greek speaking parts of the Empire, and when he died at the age of 62, the jubilant crowds cheered and chanted insults at the Foreign Emperor's body as it was borne through the streets of New Rome for his funeral.