Prinz Gonzalo de Borbón

Gonzalve Victor Alphonse Joseph Boniface Antoine Marie Toussaint de Bourbon was born in Rome on June 5, 1937, and died of leukemia in Lausanne on May 27, 2000. He belonged to the House of Bourbon and was the younger son of the Legitimist claimant to the French throne, Jacques-Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and Segovia, and Emmanuelle de Dampierre. From 1950 to 1972, he used the courtesy title Duke of Brittany, followed thereafter by that of Duke of Aquitaine. Gonzalve was initially entered in the Italian civil register as “Gonzalo Victor Alfonso José Bonifacio Antonio Maria Sante de Borbon-Segovia.” During his lifetime, he had his birth certificate corrected several times and partially Frenchified his name. He held French and Spanish nationality from birth. His French nationality was confirmed by a court in Montpellier in 1988, after which he received French identity documents. In 1991, his Italian birth record was finally registered under the French form of his name, “Gonzalve Victor Alphonse Joseph Boniface Antoine Marie Toussaint de Bourbon.” His elder brother was Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz and also a Legitimist claimant to the French throne. Through their father, the two brothers were grandsons of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and first cousins of the future King Juan Carlos I of Spain. Their father was regarded as the senior descendant of King Louis XIV of France and of his grandson, King Philip V of Spain, and therefore laid claim to both thrones. Gonzalve was born in Italian exile during the Spanish Civil War. His grandfather, Alfonso XIII, was his godfather, while his grandmother, Victoria Eugenia, was his godmother. Together with his brother, he spent a rather joyless childhood away from his parents in various Swiss boarding schools. In 1948, a meeting between General Franco and the Bourbon princes Jacques and Juan resulted in an agreement allowing two of Juan’s sons to continue their education in Spain. Franco initially denied Gonzalve and his brother the same opportunity. It was not until 1954 that both received permission to move to Spain and continue their studies there. On November 25, 1950, his father granted him the courtesy title Duke of Brittany in Paris. In 1972, on the initiative of Hervé Pinoteau, this title was replaced by that of Duke of Aquitaine. In 1969, Gonzalve and Alphonse officially recognized the appointment of their cousin Juan Carlos as Prince of Spain and Franco’s successor. At the ceremony on July 23 of that year, they served as witnesses together with their cousin Louis-Alphonse. Following Alphonse’s marriage to Carmen Martínez-Bordiú, Franco’s favored granddaughter, the two brothers later drew closer to the circles of power under Franco. Gonzalve’s private life was marked by several brief or unsuccessful marriages. In 1983, he married the journalist María del Carmen Harto Montealegre in a civil ceremony in Puerto Vallarta. The marriage lasted only two months and was not entered in the Spanish civil register. In 1984, he entered into a religious marriage with the Valencian model María de las Mercedes Licer García. This union ended in divorce and a declaration of nullity under canon law. In 1992, he married the Genoese Emanuela Pratolongo in a civil ceremony; the marriage was also celebrated religiously in 1995. His three marriages produced no children. In 1983, however, Gonzalve publicly acknowledged the existence of a daughter born from his relationship with the American bullfighter Sandra Lee Landry. Stephanie Michelle de Borbon was born in Miami in 1968. She married Richard Carl McMasters II in 1995. The couple had five sons. The fate of his brother Alphonse shaped Gonzalve’s final decades. In 1984, Alphonse was seriously injured in a car accident, while his eldest son, François, was killed. Gonzalve presided over his nephew’s funeral, bringing him even closer to his brother. In 1989, Alphonse died in a skiing accident in the United States. For Legitimists, Gonzalve then became the presumed heir to the French dynastic claim, while his nephew Louis was regarded as the principal heir. Gonzalve spent the final years of his life in Italy and Switzerland. He died at the age of 62 in Lausanne in the presence of his mother and his wife. His remains were buried beside those of his brother and nephew in the Royal Barefoot Nuns’ Monastery in Madrid. In the Legitimist line of succession, Juan Carlos was subsequently regarded as Louis de Bourbon’s presumed heir, until Louis had twin sons in 2010.