Hàm Nghi


Emperor Hàm Nghi, personal name Nguyễn Phúc Ưng Lịch, also Nguyễn Phúc Minh, was the eighth Emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. He reigned for only one year.

Biography

On 4 July 1885, a nationwide insurrection against the French broke out under the leadership of the two regents Nguyễn Văn Tường and Tôn Thất Thuyết. The French stormed the palace and Tôn Thất Thuyết took Emperor Hàm Nghi and three empresses into hiding. Hàm Nghi went to the hills and jungles around Laos along with Tôn Thất Thuyết's force. While they waged guerrilla warfare against the French occupation forces, the French replaced Hàm Nghi with his brother, Đồng Khánh, who was enthroned as the Son of Heaven. In October 1888, after a series of setbacks, Hàm Nghi was hiding in an isolated house near the spring of the Nai river, with Tôn Thất Thiệp, the second son of Tôn Thất Thuyết, and only a few attendants. There, he was betrayed by the head of his Muong guards, Trương Quang Ngọc, and captured on 1 November, while Thiệp was killed. He was then turned over to French officers on 2 November.

Exile

On 12 December 1888, he was exiled to Algeria. There he married a French Algerian woman named Marcelle Laloë on 4 November 1904. They had three children, Prince Minh-Duc, Princess Nhu May and Princess Nhu Lý.

Marriage

Death

He died on 14 January 1944 and was buried in Algiers. During his exile, he had bought the château de la Losse in Thonac, Dordogne, south-west of France. In 1965, de Gaulle proposed to his daughter, Countess de la Besse, to transfer his body in Thonac, where he is still lying in a very simple grave. In 2002, Vietnam sent a delegation to France to seek permission from Princess Nhu Lý to move her father's remains to the former Imperial capital of Huế. Her family has presently refused. Most cities in Vietnam, regardless of the political orientation of the government, have named major streets after him.

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