Manuel IX Capet

Emperor Manuel IX Capet
Birth 12 October 1823 Accession 13 May 1847 Death 17 August 1898 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, Porphyrogenitus, King of Kings Ruling over those who Rule, Grand Master of the Order of the Pantocrator

His Most Catholic and Imperial Majesty Emperor Manuel IX (born Louis-Manuel) was the only child of Emperor Louis I and Empress Theodora II - after his birth his parents discontinued their awkward attempts at procreation, and Louis-Manuel (as the Prince was named at his baptism) grew up with his mother at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator in New Rome. He had a perculiar sort of childhood, lacking any sort of real male role models. The Empress didn't enjoy the company of men, whom she regarded as distrustful, and the strongest influences on the young Prince were all women. This upbringing, strange by Pantocratorian standards, may have influenced his decision to grant women equal rights as imperial citizens in 1860.

Louis-Manuel met and married Princess Marie Phocas, the daughter of the junior emperor Constantine XXI four months before his twenty-first birthday. Princess Marie was selected as a political match for the Dauphin, but Louis-Manuel found her absolutely captivating. Although there were certainly more beautiful women about the court, Princess Marie was strong-willed, intelligent, and an accomplished musician. When Louis-Manuel was crowned Despot of New Constantinople on his twenty-first birthday a few months after the wedding, he made Marie the star at the centre of the Despotic Court of New Constantinople. The two produced three children, Prince Manuel (born 1846), Prince Philippe-Constantine (born 1850), and Prince Louis (born 1857).

Louis-Manuel's father Emperor Louis, died in May, 1847, and Louis-Manuel was crowned Emperor Manuel IX in the Cathedral of Christ Pantocrator in New Rome shortly thereafter. Still young and not entirely confident in the infallibility of his decisions, the new Emperor relied heavily on the advice of his mother, particularly for the first decade of his reign. The decision for which he is most remembered seems to have been entirely his own initiative however. Starting in 1858, the Emperor began a campaign to give women the right to vote in elections for the Imperial Parliament. He sought support from the various political parties, but none was particular eager to change the voting requirements in case it impacted on their percentage of the vote in an unexpected fashion. He had his allies in the Parliament introduce the right to vote for women as a private member's bill, but it was defeated resoundingly. After two years, he had grown frustrated with the Parliament's resistance, and dissolved it. He then granted women the right to vote by imperial decree, and called a fresh election. The 1860 Election was an election with fairly unremarkable results, with most parties receiving as much of the vote as they had in the past, but it was remarkable for the fact that it was the first election in which women voted. This seems to have been the only liberal reform in which Emperor Manuel IX was interested. As liberal revolutions swept Europe, Pantocratoria was still in the aftershock of the upheaval of the past century and a half of its own history, and no further liberalising of Pantocratorian society took place. Notably, there was no truly popular movement in the 19th Century for the creation of a Pantocratorian constitution, although it was nominally the purpose of the Pantocratorian National Democratic Party, which appeared at this time.

In 1869, Manuel and Marie's eldest son, the Despot of New Constantinople, died unexpectedly from influenza. Prince Manuel's death had a devastating impact on the couple, and the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator was in permanent mourning for the rest of Manuel IX's reign. The sudden death made Prince Constantine the heir apparent, and he was proclaimed Dauphin of Viennois and Despot of New Constantinople shortly thereafter, although this proclamation came by decree only rather than by formal ceremony - the Emperor and Empress didn't attend any public ceremonies from the time of Prince Manuel's death until 1872, when they attended the funeral of the Emperor's mother, Empress Theodora II, and then from that time not until 1884, when the Imperial Government had to insist that they attend a public fête to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary. They left early.

In 1898, the ailing Emperor arranged a marriage between Prince Constantine, son of Prince Philippe-Constantine, and Princess Marie, the daughter of Prince Louis, overruling the concerns of both his sons, for reasons which are not entirely clear even to modern historians. Emperor Manuel IX died later that same year, at the age of 74, while listening to his wife reading the Gospel of St Luke, and the new Dauphin married his cousin as per the dead Emperor's command in October that same year. This perculiar match nearly had disastrous consequences for the dynasty.