BHOPAL: In this gritty Indian city, a crumbling palace and a few church graves whisper the curious history of Muslim queens who allied with scions of a French royal family.

It is a tale that Balthazar-Napoleon Bourbon, a portly lawyer and part-time farmer whose family traces its lineage back to the Bourbons who began ruling France in the 16th century, knows well.

“As soon as I could have consciousness — when I was six or seven years of age — it (my royal heritage) was instilled in me,” says Bourbon at his house next to a church founded by his great-grandmother, Isabella.

The doorway to the house is emblazoned with a brass sign — “House of Bourbon” — and the fleur-de-lis, the heraldic crest bearing a lily that has been associated with the French monarchy for centuries. In the church, stones engraved with the Bourbon name mark the graves of Isabella and her children.

The Bourbon dynasty ruled France from 1589 until the bloody 1789 French Revolution.

“We regularly had guests coming from Europe, so time and again the (family) history used to be repeated,” says Bourbon.

And what a history it is — even if some details are murky.

According to family accounts, a man named Jean-Philippe de Bourbon Navarre arrived in 1560 at the court of Emperor Akbar, the third king of the Mughal dynasty, which ruled from the early 16th century until the mid 19th century.

“The young adventurer was tall, his bearing gallant,” said the writer C.A. Kincaid, in a 1946 issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India.

The 16th-century was a time in India’s history when “there were plenty of Europeans of all nationalities roaming about ... trying to make their fortunes in one way or another,” notes English history lecturer Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, who has written about the Bourbons.

The family accounts say Jean-Philippe, the hot-blooded son of a duke who was a cousin of King Henry IV, had fled France after killing another French nobleman in a duel.

He ended up in Goa on India’s southwestern coast after being kidnapped by pirates and escaping their clutches. From there, he made his way to the royal court where he ingratiated himself swiftly.

“Akbar was so pleased by his appearance that he was appointed to be in charge of the royal army,” says Bourbon. “This particular event has come to our knowledge by the writings of Abu Fazl” who was a court minister.

Fazl wrote the Akbar-Namah or Chronicle of Akbar, an account of the reign of Akbar, considered by many historians to have been the greatest of the Mughals for his religious tolerance and good administration.

Jean-Philippe then became a brother-in-law of Akbar by marrying Juliana Mascarenhas, sister of one of Akbar’s wives. The two women, who are claimed by both Portuguese and Armenian historians, also appear to have arrived in India as a result of being captured by pirates and joined the royal harem.

The couple lived first in Agra, where they founded a church, and then in Delhi.

On the outskirts of the capital city, in a rundown area that now houses industry, there is still a neighbourhood called Lady Juliana ki Sarai — The Inn of Lady Juliana.

In the 18th century, descendants of the family moved to the princely realm of Bhopal, now capital of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

There, the family’s fortunes melded with those of the Begums, the queens of the city, whose rule began in 1819 when 18-year-old Qudsia Begum took over the throne after the death of her husband, Nawab (Prince) Nazar Mohammed Khan.

A Bourbon descendant, also called Balthazar, became her prime minister until he was poisoned in 1830 as a result of court intrigues.

“It was the Bourbons who took credit for bringing Khan’s widow to the throne,” says Bourbon. The widow was the first of four queens to rule Bhopal.

“Later on, the husbands were jealous that their wives were on the throne” and had so much trust in the Bourbons, says Bourbon, adding this envy led to Balthazar’s murder.

Balthazar’s son, Salvador who took over as prime minister, presented Qudsia Begum’s daughter, Sikander Begum, with a palace, Shaukat Mahal. In return, she bestowed on him a gift of the blessings she had accrued from a pilgrimage.

The palace, an Indo-French structure in the old part of the city, now houses a homeopathic college and the Golden Queen beauty school.

Grass pokes through the stones of an abandoned fountain in the palace’s courtyard decorated with stylized stone carvings of a grape vine.

The Bourbons make appearances in several accounts of India written by European travellers.

Louis Rousselet, in “India and its Native Princes”, first published in French in 1875, describes a visit to the poisoned Balthazar’s wife Elizabeth.

“I was at once struck by her type, which is evidently European,” wrote Rousselet who was “received by a number of armed domestics, who, after having assisted us to dismount from our elephant, conducted us to a large salon.” With the abolition of royal titles and privileges in 1971 in India, the Bourbons lost their royal patrons — but retain their memories of grander times.

“The jagirs (lands) which the Bourbons had were confiscated. Then the Bourbons took up jobs. Prior to my father nobody did,” says Bourbon, who bears no resentment over their change in circumstances and often jokes that he and his family are “Bourbons on the rocks”.

The descendants of the Begums, meanwhile, have become royalty in other walks of life in modern India and Pakistan.

The family counts former captain of the Indian cricket team, the Nawab of Pataudi Mansur Ali Khan, and his son, Bollywood superstar Saif Ali Khan, along with former Pakistani foreign secretary Shaharyar M. Khan among its luminaries.

For the Bourbons now, their name and Roman Catholic faith are the family’s only legacies of their French past. Bourbon does not speak French, though his children are learning the language.

“I’m totally Indian, I have to live in this country, I was born here, I was bred here and I have to suit my place,” says Bourbon. “I have to earn my bread, I can’t rest on my fortunes, which anyway are gone.”

In November, Bourbon finally met a relative from a European branch of the family, Prince Michael of Greece, who lives in France.

“Daddy was just delighted,” says daughter Michelle, 16, recalling the visit. “It was the first time he met another Bourbon.”—AFP