our of Prince Charles Henri de Lobkowicz's Chateau, descendant of the FRENCH King Louis XIV

Welcome to Chateau de Beaux. Chateau de Beaux is in a part of France, central, which is the Bourbonnais. In this area started a family called the Bourbons. Bourbons grew from lords to dukes to becoming king of France. Louis XIV, Louis XIII, Louis XVI were all Bourbon kings. Later they ruled over Spain, where the king of Spain is still a Bourbon, part of Italy. So it all started here. My family has been here for now 1,100 years. This castle of Beaux is 19th century. It was built in 1870. It is centralized around other castles we own and we're restoring now. But this is, let's say for the time, a modern house. This is where I base all the operations of my association called Bourbon Presence, Présence Bourbon, where we restore castles, churches, abbeys and burial places of the family. Please come, I'd like to show you the house. So this is a house where all the family meets, all the cousins. Five years ago, I united over 1,000 people here for the 1,100 years anniversary. That's 1,100 years of the Bourbon family that started here. So my mother's a Bourbon, my father's Prince Lobkowitz. So even though we're in Bourbon area, I put the Lobkowitz crest up there to remind that I'm not only French, I'm Austro-Hungarian, French, Spanish, Italian, I'm a total European mix. We've been closed to the public, but I want to open immediately after this virus. So for the moment, the house is being prepared to be open to the public. I found this map, which is 400 years old, where we talk already about one of the old castles I have here, which is about one mile away from here, which I'm under restoration to create a museum. So for the moment, the house is in a state of preparation for my next opening. So this is the living room, very empty today, usually full of family. And the big advantage of this house is I can see the lands we still own, and I see the village of Besson, which is one of the villages that the Bourbons owned already in the ninth century. My name is Charles Henry, Charles because it was the last Bourbon king, and Henry because it was the first Bourbon king, Henry IV. So the last Bourbon king is here. He was king of France after there was another Bourbon who called himself king of the French. But Charles X is the last monarch. It's a good portrait. Very interesting lady called the Duchesse de Berry. If there had not been the French Revolution, she would have been queen of France. She was married to a Bourbon, his son, and she was a Bourbon herself. She was from Sicily, Bourbon Sicile, part of the family that reigned in southern Spain. This is a character I like very much called Le Grand Condé. He was a Bourbon too, and he's very famous to have built Chantilly, a place dedicated to the horses. The last legitimate king of France, Henry V, he never reigned, but he was then the grandson of Charles X. I'm looking around to see if anything is interesting. Yes, my grandfather there, Prince Xavier of Bourbon, he's there in uniform, and he's kind of a famous character in France because his brother, Sixte, and him tried to do the famous peace treaties during the First World War. Their sister was the empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, therefore the enemy of France. When she came to power with Emperor Charles, they asked them to organize a peace treaty. Sadly, it failed, but it would have saved millions of lives. This is a very simple house. That's why cousins love coming here. They like seeing archives of the family because we have quite a few things. This is very important. This is the Duke of Bourbon, and this is the Duchess. She's a very famous character in the French history. She's called Anne de Beaujeu or Anne of France. She was the daughter of Louis XI. When her father or her brother, who was the king, was at war away from France, she would replace the king and rule over France. I have many archives I'm working on right now. For example, this is Empress Zita, the sister of my grandfather. I'm looking at these photos that have never been published about when she got engaged to Emperor Charles. There we have a wedding picture with Franz Joseph. That's fun. That's a document about the Lopkowitzs and about Beethoven because Beethoven, who was one of our musicians, everybody knows the story, Heroica was created, probably his greatest symphony, was created for Napoleon. When Napoleon became an emperor, he crossed the name Napoleon and gave the symphony to the Lopkowitzs. I'm kind of proud of that. This is a room dedicated to the Bourbons. As you see, we're in full preparation for the opening to the public. It's dedicated to the Bourbons because of this fabric on the wall where the Bourbons, with the three fleurs-de-lis, discover America where they're greeted by an Indian. I try sleeping in every bedroom here to see if it's comfortable. This one's very comfortable. This is a beautiful flag of the 19th century, and it's the flag of Henry V. Henry V, we saw a portrait a few minutes ago, he was the last legitimate heir to the throne of France. That's why there's an H here. This is the room that most people want to come and visit because after the First World War, Emperor Charles had to leave Austria. He died, and he asked my grandfather to take care of his sister and the whole family. The empress used to come very often here with her eight children. Life was difficult. They left Austria with nothing. My grandfather and my grandmother would be taking care of them. My grandfather had about eight to ten estates, so this would be really the ones that they could use. You see Empress Zita there on her coronation day in Budapest. She was an empress. She was empress of Austria, but she was also queen of Hungary, and Empress Zita and her son, Archduke Otto of Habsburg. First, my Empress Zita would use this room, and my uncle Otto, when he came to Bo would always sleep in this room. I had to take the painting off because he didn't like looking at this painting. This is again for the preparation. I have all the uniforms. This is the uniform of the First World War. My grandfather was a great hero, but also the man, we call them Les Princes de la Paix, the Princes of Peace, as they did everything with the Austrians to stop that horrific war. We have some of their decorations. These things, we carry them like this. We usually use them for family funerals or for royal weddings. The red one is my uniform, by the way, of the Order of Malta. This one is the uniform that Empress Zita gave me, and it's a uniform of her husband, Emperor Charles, before he was of course emperor, when he was a young lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian army. We're going to put these up with the decorations as they should be worn. This is the Order of Malta. We have a lot of countries here. What do I have here? Very interesting. Another present of my Aunt Zita. It's a great portrait of Franz Joseph. Franz Joseph was of course the husband of Empress Elizabeth, the famous Sisi. We know that he had to stand for this drawing because we have letters of him. He limits his posing for 10 minutes a day, so it took a month to do that. This by the same artist is Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the time was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His assassination in 1917 in Sarajevo led to the First World War. Because he was assassinated, it is my grand-uncle Charles who became emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There's a drawing there I like very much because not only am I linked to the Habsburg through my mother, because you see Emperor Charles there, but behind on his horse is Prince Lopkowitz. There we have an engraving of Franz Joseph and Empress Elizabeth, Sisi. What I like in this house is that if you open one door, especially the kids love it. They love running through the house. So this is for the family, it's an easy house to live in. There's nothing exceptional, so the kids, the dogs, the cats all live here. But at dinners, I try to make beautiful dinners, so we always do dinners with candle lights. I try to use all the plates and silver we have. By chance, I've got a lot. So what's great with this table, we can extend it and we can be 22, which is great for dinners. This is a portrait that shouldn't be there, but it's there for the moment. My grandfather, Lopkowitz, married an American, and that's her portrait. So I have American blood too. And this portrait is a 19th century portrait of the Count de Bourbon. And actually, the Bourbon Busset is his branch of the family, who actually the head of the family of all the Bourbons, even though they were never allowed to rule. And he built this house in the 19th century to have a comfortable house with a view on the top of the hill. And of course, his uniform is Henry III, so the uniform is what he's wearing is 400 years before. It's like, I guess he was going to a dressed up party or something. So this is an easy house to live in, and I use it as my base for my association. My association has been doing an amazing amount of work. We saved the village church, Besson, which has been in the family for 1,100 years. We saved a fortress, which is 15th century. We are restoring also a 16th century castle, which will become a Bourbon museum. And we're now concentrating also on the first burial place of the Bourbons with beautiful marbles in the nearby abbey of Souvenirs. And Souvenirs is the base of all the Bourbon families, as we know about it, from a document of the oldest member of the Bourbon family, the oldest ancestor, who died in 915 and gave his land to create this abbey where all the Bourbons are buried before being buried in the cathedral of Sardinie from the moment they became king of France. So why do you think I restore all this? It's not only just to restore, to restore. These houses always had brought something to the area. Originally, a fortress was to assure security for the people where they were being attacked. Today, security is economic, to be able to have a job. So three castles are going to be open in the next few years. This one will be open already this year, but I want to create job, develop tourism. This area called the Bourbonnet, better known as the Allier area of France, is actually very unknown. It is the second region in France by the number of its castle. The amount of castles, churches, abbeys to be discovered is mind-blowing. It is a beautiful area, very protected, as we have few tourists. But my goal is really restore the family estates, restore the churches, give pride to the locals to remind them their incredible history, and also for people to come and visit us. It's the Bourbonnet. The main city is called Moulin, where the Bourbons had their palace originally. And there's a lot of things to see. We also have Vichy down south, which is a famous city where people would go for their waters. And there's great baths you can do down there. And come and visit us.