A MTV work from the excellent series by Stellio Lorenzi "La camera Explore The Temps" (Movie Camera through time).
A time when French TV (one channel!)had not the means to produce huge historical reconstructions and it shows.But it inspires the vital gloomy atmosphere of the whole work.
Based on letters from the Dramatis Personae's letters ,thus faithful to history ,without any embellishment (the character of Sophie Von Hapsburg,future mother of Francis-Josef ,who was Franz's closest confidante ,does not appear at all).
Napoleon's son's ("L'Aiglon"= the eaglet)fate was tragic:torn between two countries (his native France where his reigns lasted a few days and Austria (his shameful mother's homeland) ,he was a prisoner in his own family ;Metternich literally brainwashed the young man, and many of the people around him were puppets in his hands :a dumb general,two incompetent doctors who cured their patient's liver whereas he was obviously suffering from TB (maybe deliberately).A political prisoner ,in a prison you can't escape from -his own family -used as a scarecrow to frighten Europa (the scene with king Louis -Philippe is revealing) Jean-François Poron masterfully portrays a pitiful hero,betrayed by all the ones he tried to love (his mother's getting married again before 1821 ,Napoleon's death) and depicted his unfortunate life with this spooky sentence: from my cradle to my deathbed:zero,nothingness.
A doomed destiny indeed: his ashes were returned to France in December 1940,when the country was occupied :"we asked for coal ,and they give us ashes" ,sneered the Parisians.
