Monarch Profile: Emperor Thieu Tri of Vietnam

As the son and heir of Emperor Minh Mang, Thieu Tri had a tough act to follow. Vietnam had achieved its peak in size and influence but the “Great South” stood precariously on this historical apex. The French were becoming increasingly interested in the region and the slightest mistake could upset the balance and plunge the country into a struggle it could not hope to win. However, when Prince Nguyen Mien Tong came to the throne in 1841, taking the era name of Thieu Tri, this looming threat was not outwardly apparent. The reign of his father had not been free of trouble by any means but it had been great and glorious and it seemed that all Emperor Thieu Tri had to do was follow in his footsteps, steering a steady course and the power and prestige of the Nguyen Dynasty would continue. The country seemed to be in good hands as Emperor Thieu Tri was similar to his illustrious father in many ways. He was highly educated, very intelligent, devoted to traditional Confucian values, a lover of nature, artistic and intellectually curious. He was open to learning from the west but like his father was also determined to keep western influence out of Vietnam and maintain the close relationship with the Great Qing Empire.

the Vietnamese court

In the early days of his reign, everything appeared tranquil. There were no major problems and the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty seemed permanent and unassailable. When it came to foreign affairs, the situation called for concern but not alarm. In China, the Qing Empire was being hard pressed by the British in the First Opium War but they were holding their own at that point and there seemed no danger of this touching Vietnam. Best of all, in Paris King Louis Philippe of the French exhibited no desire for imperial expansion into southeast Asia. But Emperor Thieu Tri faced two very real threats that would soon come together to provoke a major crisis that would change the course of his dynasty and the entire Indochina region forever. The first problem was the persistence of Christianity in the country. Despite the efforts of his predecessor to discourage the new religion, Catholic missionaries, mostly French and Spanish, continued to come to Vietnam and win converts. And, just like before, they did not always restrict themselves to the spiritual sphere but were often complicit in minor peasant rebellions, sometimes even encouraging them because the Emperor was distrustful of Christianity. Naturally, such actions only reaffirmed the belief at the imperial court in Hue that Christianity was a threat to the established order.

On orders from Emperor Thieu Tri, continuing policies already in place, Nguyen officials punished Christians and arrested Catholic missionaries on the grounds that they were spreading “false” and “seditious” beliefs which upset the Confucian hierarchy, disturbed the native gods and ran contrary to proper virtue and morality. Actually, such incidents were handled fairly mildly more often than not and Emperor Thieu Tri was no fool. He realized that if he came down too hard on the Christians that this would be used by the French as a pretext to move against his country. Anti-Christian outbursts throughout East Asia had often been prompted by the fact that European domination tended to come on the heels of those preaching the new religion and the powers-that-be did not want it gaining a foothold. So, to avoid trouble, Emperor Thieu Tri hoped to simply frighten the Catholics into staying away from Vietnam. Time and time again a missionary would be sentenced to death for spreading subversive beliefs only to have the Emperor spare his life and order him deported. Emperor Thieu Tri released many missionaries rather than put them to death but there were those who persisted in always coming back. Eventually, their cause was taken up by the second major threat Thieu Tri faced.

Imperial Decree of Emperor Thieu Tri

The most famous example of this policy was that of the French Bishop Dominique Lefebvre. In 1845 he was arrested and sentenced to death by a Vietnamese court but at the request of a French admiral, Emperor Thieu Tri intervened to have Lefebvre pardoned and released. Unfortunately, his zeal would not allow him to leave the country and ‘shake the sand from his feet’ as he departed (Matthew 10:14) and he returned to Vietnam to be arrested again in 1847 by which time the patience of Emperor Thieu Tri was running increasingly thin. A similar incident involving Lefebvre has almost sparked a major incident with the United States and the bishop was caught illegally entering the country three times.

The second threat to the reign of Thieu Tri appeared in March of 1847 and that threat was the French Navy whose officer corps tended to be very conservative and very Catholic. So far from home, they were also liable to act on their without waiting for instructions from the King in Paris or whatever government happened to be in power when they returned. The French naval forces in Southeast Asia took up the cause of the Catholic missionaries and undoubtedly many of the officers were sincere in their motives for doing this. However, it is equally true that these same officers wanted to see the expansion of French power. They were alarmed at the growing British presence in the region (China, Malaya, Burma etc) and did not want France to lose out to Britain in the colonial race in Asia.

Captain Rigault de Genouilly

It was two French ships under Captains Lapierre and Rigault de Genouilly who entered Vietnamese waters at Tourane on March 23. Deciding on their own to take dramatic action they issued an ultimatum; Emperor Thieu Tri was to release all foreign prisoners and reinstate religious tolerance for Catholics. Hopefully, Paris would back them up after the fact. Obviously, this was something Emperor Thieu Tri could never agree to. It would mean allowing a foreign power to dictate the laws of his country and undermine his own position. Already the more orthodox Confucianists were criticizing him for the mercy he had shown the missionaries, warning him that he was neglecting filial piety by allowing this new religion to dishonor the spirits of his ancestors. Emperor Thieu Tri, therefore, ordered his forces on the coast to be strengthened and prepare to defend themselves against attack. Neither side wished to show weakness and so the French attacked, wiping out the eight Vietnamese junks sent to oppose them with relative ease. They then proceeded to carry out a naval bombardment of the port city of Da Nang. This only made things worse, for the French in the short term and for the Vietnamese in the long-term. It had, after all, been essentially a bluff. The French attack was unauthorized by the government in Paris and they lacked the forces on hand to follow up their victory. Meanwhile, it confirmed to Emperor Thieu Tri that the conservatives at court had been right all along and that drastic measures had to be taken to eradicate all foreign influence in Vietnam.

Temple of Emperor Thieu Tri

In a fit of rage, Emperor Thieu Tri issued an imperial decree ordering the massacre of all westerners in Vietnam without exception. Thankfully, a bloodbath was averted by the cooler heads among the mandarins who simply failed to carry out the order, knowing full well that such action would only guarantee that France would launch an all-out war against them in retaliation. It may have been that all of this storm and stress was too much for the delicate, intellectual monarch and Emperor Thieu Tri died only a few months later on November 4, 1847, leaving the throne to his son Prince Nguyen Hong Nham.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam

Emperor Tu Duc is sometimes referred to as the “last independent Emperor of Vietnam”, mostly by those who seem anxious for monarchies to end and dynasties to fall. Tu Duc was certainly not the last Vietnamese monarch, being only the fourth of the twelve Nguyen dynasty emperors (thirteen if one counts Nguyen Duc Duc) but it was during his reign that French forces established their first colonial foothold in Vietnam. His designation as the “last independent emperor” stems from the fact that monarchs after him tended to be dominated by corrupt regents and then the French, losing their throne if they opposed these forces. The future Emperor Tu Duc was born Prince Nguyen-Phuc Hong Nham on September 22, 1829 to Emperor Thieu Tri. His elevation to the throne after the death of his father in 1847 was not without difficulty. Emperor Thieu Tri had changed the law of succession so that he could choose his successor rather than having the throne pass automatically to the eldest son. In this case it meant that Crown Prince Hong Bao was passed over in favor of his younger brother who was enthroned as Emperor and Son of Heaven with the era name of Tu Duc.

This was done because, since the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty, concern was growing stronger about the threat of foreign powers and because, from the reign of the first Nguyen emperor onward, a renewed emphasis had been placed on strict Confucian orthodoxy. Emperor Thieu Tri wanted his successor to be someone who would maintain traditional, conservative values and keep foreign influences out of Vietnam and there was no doubt that Emperor Tu Duc would be the one to do it, so he was chosen to inherit the throne instead of the crown prince. Yet, the very fact that the eldest son was passed over in favor of the younger angered the most strict adherents of Confucianism among the mandarinate. It did not take long for rebellions to break out, united by the figure of Prince Hong Bao though it included dissidents from various different backgrounds whose ultimate aims were often at odds with each other. For example, alongside strict Confucianists were Christian converts who hoped that Hong Bao would show them favor, there were those peasants who had fell afoul of crop failure or some less than perfect local official and even a few die-hard Le Dynasty loyalists still lingering around.

Fortunately, for peace and order, imperial troops quickly crushed the rebellion and Prince Hong Bao was arrested. Emperor Tu Duc was inclined to inflict the legal punishment for treason but his mother, the powerful Empress-Dowager Tu Du, persuaded him to show mercy. In any event, it did not finally matter as the prince committed suicide in prison. The throne was secured but it was an inauspicious start to the reign of Emperor Tu Duc. In all the years since his reign, the image of Emperor Tu Duc has been subject to a great deal of distortion by many people. Contemporary foreign accounts tended to portray him as brutal, cruel and close-minded. However, the truth was exactly the opposite. Emperor Tu Duc was an upstanding Confucian monarch, a great scholar and generally was in every way what a good, traditional Asian emperor was expected to be according to time-honored values. Much of the “bad press” Emperor Tu Duc has been subjected to involves his treatment of the Christian minority. This is worth considering since it was, to some extent, the treatment of Christians that was used as a pretext for the French Emperor Napoleon III invading Vietnam and setting the course for the eventual French colonization of all of Indochina. Despite what many say, Emperor Tu Duc was not completely intolerant of Christianity though, like most Confucianists, he was wary of it.

Previously, Emperors Minh Mang and Thieu Tri had tried to discourage Christian missionaries from coming to Vietnam but it was to no avail. Emperor Tu Duc was not completely intolerant as is proven by the fact that he had Christians included in the highest levels of his government. Probably the best known was Nguyen Truong To, a Catholic mandarin who was allowed to travel to Rome for an audience with the Pope and who brought back books from Europe on Christianity which were translated into Vietnamese. Certainly, if Emperor Tu Duc had been mindlessly opposed to all Christians he would never have allowed this. It was only when the safety of the throne and the stability of the empire were under threat that the Emperor took drastic measures against the Christians. It was only after it was discovered that a French priest had been involved in a plot to overthrow Emperor Tu Duc that action began to be taken.

Moreover, this was not an isolated incident. There had been missionary involvement, possibly backed by the French government, in several coup attempts and there had been many Christians involved in the initial rebellion against him when Emperor Tu Duc took the throne. It is unfortunate that the missionaries and converts did not refrain from involving themselves in politics in this way rather than working to show that they were loyal and that Catholicism did not contradict being a loyal subject of the Emperor. Yet, all too often many were inclined to join in subversive activity in the hope (usually naïve) that a new ruler would be more favorable and give greater privileges to Catholics. The result was that in 1848, at a time when it was hoped that France would be too busy in Europe to meddle in southeast Asia, Emperor Tu Duc decreed that all Vietnamese Catholic converts must renounce Christianity and return to their traditional beliefs or be branded as heretics and lose all privileges. He also cracked down on French and Spanish missionaries which brought western opinion down against Emperor Tu Duc, most having never heard of the previous intrigues against the Emperor by spiritual men trespassing into temporal affairs. The devoutly Catholic French Empress Eugenie (who was Spanish by birth) championed the cause of intervention and soon French troops were landed in the far south, Cochinchina, and began attacking north.

French land at Danang

Emperor Tu Duc responded to this attack by ordering military conscription and establishing a system for formal military training. Unfortunately, what few modern weapons the Nguyen armies had at the start of their reign had been lost or sold and the zeal and courage of the Vietnamese forces proved insufficient against the modern weaponry of France. In fact, more French troops died from disease and the sweltering climate than from the Nguyen armies. More French troops landed in the north and Emperor Tu Duc had no choice but to appeal to his nominal overlord, the Qing Emperor of China, for protection. The result was the 1884-85 Sino-French War and, unfortunately for Vietnam, it was the French who emerged victorious. The result was China washing its hands of Vietnam and France, which already claimed the south as a colony, claiming north and central Vietnam as French protectorates. In spite of these many disasters, Emperor Tu Duc was determined to fight on but, unfortunately, another rebellion broke out in the north. The Emperor decided it would be better to come to terms with France rather than risk a rebel victory that might bring down the dynasty altogether. So, he diverted his troops to crush the rebellion and signed an agreement with the French. The result was Vietnam being divided into the French colony of Cochinchina in the south and the French protectorates of Tonkin (the north) and Annam (central Vietnam). Emperor Tu Duc retained his throne but, with the liberal interpretation the French applied to the protectorate treaty, the effect was that the authority of the Emperor hardly extended beyond the walls of the “Great Within”. Emperor Tu Duc died on July 17, 1883, according to one contemporary, cursing the invaders with his last breath.

In the years since, many accounts have been unfairly critical of Emperor Tu Duc. He was the longest reigning emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty and had to deal with problems and enemies of a sort no previous monarch had ever had to face. He was highly educated, intelligent and refined, devoted to the Confucian moral code and the traditional rites. Because of an affliction with smallpox as a child he was unable to have children of his own, though he had many wives and concubines. He was an accomplished poet and probably the most literary of any Vietnamese monarch. A French official who met him was surprised that he was so different from the beast he was portrayed as, describing his delicate manners, soft voice and comparing his features to those of an ancient pharaoh. If a wise and upright ruler had been all that was called for, the reign of Tu Duc would have been very different but, instead, his reign saw rebellion, invasion and ultimately the first beginnings of what would become the era of French colonial rule.

Monarch (sort of) Profile: Nguyen Duc Duc

This profile was a rather difficult one to decide to do for the simple reason that the monarch known as Duc Duc was hardly a monarch at all. Amongst the illustrious sovereigns of the Nguyen Dynasty who reigned over Vietnam, his name is not always included as an official emperor. Even his name, Duc Duc, says something about his status as, obviously, he was never given a reigning name or era name as other emperors are commonly known by. However, despite being nominal Emperor of the Great South for a mere three days, Nguyen Duc Duc is often listed amongst the ranks of the Nguyen Dynasty emperors (whether he should be or not) and it is important to understand his story as it gives one a greater insight into the wider history of the last dynasty to reign over Vietnam during the critical period of turmoil and confusion following the death of the great but tragic Emperor Tu Duc. Given that, it is worth taking the time to become familiar with the story of the “3-day king” Duc Duc. He ended up being more significant to history than one would at first assume.

Tomb of Duc Duc

The future fifth Nguyen emperor (if one chooses to count him) was born Nguyen-Phuc Ung Ai sometime in 1852. He was the son of Prince Kien Thoai Vuong, the fourth brother of Emperor Tu Duc. When he was seventeen years old, in keeping with custom, he was renamed Prince Nguyen-Phuc Ung Chan. Under other circumstances his life would have probably been rather uneventful, however, he became much more important due to the fact that Emperor Tu Duc, because of a childhood affliction with smallpox, was unable to have children. In order to secure the succession Emperor Tu Duc decided to adopt the offspring he could not have on his own. However, to be on the safe side, he adopted three of his nephews rather than just one. This secured the succession but also proved to be less than ideal in the long-run. The three he chose were the future emperors Kien Phuc, Dong Khanh and, of course, Duc Duc. Most of the last 60 years of the Nguyen reign over Vietnam would be dominated by the family lines of two of these young princes and, as such, there was some tension between the rival branches of the family. Because of this, the history of Duc Duc can be somewhat confusing with two very different versions being told, one by the allies of his line and the other by its opponents. Obviously, one would portray him in a positive light and the other in a negative light.

According to the pro-Duc Duc line faction, Emperor Tu Duc had always intended for Duc Duc to be the one who immediately succeeded him on the Golden Dragon Throne. Others would dispute this but, just to further complicate matters, Emperor Tu Duc had also chosen three regents to oversee things after he was gone while his nephews were too young to rule. These were Tran Tien Thanh, Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet; who would go on to play a large role in Vietnamese history, particularly Tuong and Thuyet. Others, not of the pro-Duc Duc camp, hold that rather than the elder Duc Duc it was the youngest of the three, Kien Phuc, portrayed as the more upright and virtuous of the youths, whom Tu Duc wished to succeed him. The factions of the other two candidates have left behind accounts which portray Tu Duc as being troubled by the character and untraditional behavior of Duc Duc. Whereas the venerable monarch surrounded himself with priests and scholarly mandarins, Duc Duc, the other factions claim, too often associated with the likes of gamblers, singers, actors and other such entertainers.

Altar to Duc Duc

Today, these people would be considered celebrities but, in those days, such “celebrities” were seen as being not far above prostitutes and charlatans on the social ladder and not at all the sort of people that proper ladies or gentlemen were to associate with. Nonetheless, we are told that certain highly influential ladies at court, and there were certainly plenty of those behind the walls of the “Dai Noi” (Great Within) in those days, preferred Duc Duc to be emperor. Supposedly, the will of Emperor Tu Duc named Kien Phuc as his preferred successor but these ladies; the powerful Empress-Dowager Tu Du and the consorts Trang Y and Hoc Phi threw their support behind Duc Duc when Emperor Tu Duc died in July of 1883.

For reasons that later became clear (such as an illicit relationship between the lady Hoc Phi and the regent Nguyen Van Tuong) the three regents decided to go ahead with the enthronement of Duc Duc as Emperor of Vietnam. Here, again, we have a bit of history that is disputed which is that, prior to his “coronation” Duc Duc requested that the lines designating Kien Phuc was heir to the throne be struck from the will of Emperor Tu Duc. Loyalists of the line of Duc Duc usually claim that this never happened as Duc Duc was the intended heir to begin with. However, this is the story told by those hostile to Duc Duc and, so it goes, the regents agreed for the sake of stability and unity in the country. However, when Emperor Duc Duc arrived for his formal enthronement with his retinue of unfashionable friends the regent Ton That Thuyet in particular was outraged and publicly read aloud the original will of the late emperor naming Kien Phuc as heir to the throne. Not surprisingly, chaos broke out and the ceremony was suspended pending an investigation into this controversy over the legitimate succession.

Tomb of Duc Duc

The supporters of Duc Duc tell quite a different story, however. According to them, and later revelations suggest that this may well have been the case, Duc Duc was quite upright and was only opposed by the regents because he had discovered their corruption as well as the affair between Tuong and Hoc Phi. In effect, they feared he would put a stop to their gathering of wealth and power if he actually became emperor and so they arranged a battery of false accusations to stop him. Nguyen Duc Duc was only nominally the emperor from July 19 to July 21, 1883 and as his enthronement ceremony was never finished, this is why he is often excluded from lists of the Nguyen dynasty emperors. The idea that he discovered the crimes of the corrupt regents and was kept from the throne for that reason is reinforced by the fact that he was immediately imprisoned, promptly declared guilty of a ridiculously deplorable list of charges and left to die in a slow and excruciating manner out of all proportion to the alleged crimes, even if he had been guilty. The “3-day king” ultimately died, probably from starvation, on October 6, 1883. He was hastily buried, unclothed, in an improper grave. When the loyal and upright mandarin Phan Dinh Phung protested against such outrageous treatment for a member of the dynasty he was banished by regent Thuyet.

However, Duc Duc was not completely forgotten. In 1889 his son came to the throne as Emperor Thanh Thai and early on he began construction of a formal imperial tomb for his late father which, though deteriorated, remains to this day. Emperor Thanh Thai and his son, Emperor Duy Tan, both were deposed by the French before their reigns came to a natural end so when Thanh Thai died his remains were laid to rest in the tomb he had built for his father Duc Duc. The grandson of the “3-day king” was first buried overseas but his remains were eventually allowed by the communist authorities to be returned to Vietnam for a former burial and he was, likewise, laid to rest in the tomb of his grandfather Duc Duc.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Hiep Hoa of Viet-Nam

Nguyen-Phuc Hong Dat, who would be the sixth emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, was born Prince Nguyen-Phuc Ung Thang on November 1, 1847 in the Forbidden City of Hue. He was the youngest son of HM Emperor Thieu Tri and had a normal upbringing for a Nguyen prince, he was kept mostly in the comfortable seclusion of the “Great Within” and was given a traditional Confucian education by the appropriate mandarins. In 1865 he was raised to the rank of Duke of Lang and no one, in those days, expected there would be any chance that he would ever come to the throne. However, dramatic changes were coming for the ‘Land of the Ascending Dragon’ and coming very quickly. France was looking to offset British gains in the Far East and had taken an interest in Vietnam since the time of King Louis XVI. For Emperor Napoleon III the road to Indochina was paved by the many Catholic missionaries who had been at work in the country for some time. The Nguyen Dynasty first showed great tolerance and even favor to the Christians but the two sides eventually had their problems.

France rushed to defend the missionaries, there was a rebellion in Vietnam, land had to be ceded to France to end the war with them so the rebellion could be crushed and added to all this drama was the fact that Emperor Tu Duc had no sons. Upon his death the succession came to be manipulated by three regents and there were struggles for power and in 1883 Vietnam saw no less than three emperors take their turn on the Golden Dragon Throne. In the year of 1883 Vietnam was in the grip of an immense crisis. Earlier, the Vietnamese had called on Imperial China for help in dealing with the French but, to the shock of everyone in the neighborhood, the army of the massive Qing Empire was defeated by the French who then became the acknowledged masters of the region. The Vietnamese were somewhat divided over how to deal with this situation. Some wanted to ally with the French, survive by staying in their good graces, while others would have nothing to do with the “foreign devils” other than to destroy them and anything they brought with them, be it their trade goods or their religion.

This, the effort to fend of France while struggling internally for power, was the cause of the rapid turnover in the imperial succession. After the death of Emperor Tu Duc the throne had gone to Nguyen Duc-Duc but he reigned for only three days, not long enough to even be given reign-name. To replace Duc-Duc (who would soon be murdered) the powerful regents Nguyen Van Tuong and Ton That Thuyet (Tran Tien Thanh being the less ambitious third), after a great deal of fretting and threats and arguments, decided to enthrone the 37-year-old cousin of the “3-Day King” and son of Thieu Tri. Prince Ung Thang was an upright man, not ambitious but very proud. He knew, as most at court did, of the dubious reputation of the regents and he had seen what sad fate had befallen his cousin Nguyen Duc-Duc. The Prince wanted nothing to do with the regents and their plots and schemes and the regents were not extremely enthusiastic about him either. However, the prince was finally persuaded to accept the throne by the very astute and very powerful Grand Empress Dowager Tu Du. She was the second wife of Emperor Thieu-Thri, mother of Emperor Tu Duc and the woman about whom it was said that she only had to lift her little finger and the whole world would tremble. So, with that, no matter how much the regents wanted to get rid of him and no matter how reluctant he was, the Prince took the reign-name of Hiep Hoa and was formally enthrone as the Son of Heaven and Emperor of the Great South on July 30, 1883.

Problems continued to fester between the pressure from France on one hand and the ambitious schemes of the regents on the other. It was on August 30, 1883 that Emperor Hiep Hoa saw the troublesome sign of a blue-hued sun, interpreted as foretelling doom. This omen soon proved correct as French ships under Admiral Courbet blocked the Perfume River leading to Hue and began bombarding the Vietnamese coast. By the power of canon France forced a protectorate treaty on the Emperor. Of course, they tried to be as civil as possible about the whole affair. Admiral Courbet told Emperor Hiep Hoa, “We have no intention to annex your country but you must accept our protection. This is the only way your dynasty can survive.” The Emperor did not need his court astrologers to tell him what that meant and Hiep Hoa had no choice but to sign the document, the Harmond Treaty, making France “protector” and master of Vietnam’s foreign relations.

Many of the mandarins at court were outraged by this and, even though they had done nothing to save the situation, blamed the Emperor for giving in to the French, totally ignoring the fact that the Emperor had little choice in the matter. But the blame was placed on him, particularly by the two most ambitious regents who portrayed themselves as the champions of national independence and the Emperor as the man who had given in to the “foreign devils”. They ignored their own inactivity, even ignored the French for the time being, and placed all responsibility on the Emperor. The regent Ton That Thuyet (who had brought down Emperor Duc-Duc) had sufficient power at court and audacity to insult Emperor Hiep Hoa to his face, in front of the entire court. When Hiep Hoa tried to assert his authority, the regent refused to kowtow to him, a shocking breach of protocol and defiance of imperial authority. This was serious and fearing (rightly so) for his life, Hiep Hoa had no one to turn to but the French protectorate for help. He had signed the treaty with the French and so now called on them to save him from the power-hungry regents. Unfortunately for the Emperor, Ton That Thuyet found out about his secret diplomatic dealings and on November 28, 1883 had the Emperor, Son of Heaven himself, arrested and confined.

For Hiep Hoa, all of his worst fears about taking the throne had been realized. A show trial was organized, in a strictly private, “closed court” session in which Ton That Thuyet charged his Emperor with all sorts of ridiculous things such as wasting government money, failing to follow the “advice” of the regents (in other words he refused to be ruled by them) and most seriously of plotting with the “foreign devils” by signing the Harmond Treaty with France. Naturally, no consideration was given to the fact that the Emperor had been almost literally forced at gunpoint to sign the treaty, neither was any consideration given to the fact that Vietnam would have faced certain destruction and defeat and the overthrow of the Nguyen Dynasty if they had refused to ‘play ball’ with France. But it was never meant to be a fair trial anyway and the result was a forgone conclusion. Regicide was not unknown but it was still considered an ugly business and best avoided but it effectively came to the same thing as Emperor Hiep Hoa was forced to commit suicide by taking poison. He was essentially given the option of taking the honorable way out rather than being executed. So it was that Emperor Hiep Hoa died on November 29, 1883 and afterwards all those who had been loyal to the Emperor were likewise murdered by Ton That Thuyet and Nguyen Van Tuong. When their fellow regent Tran Tien Thanh protested against such cruel and repressive measures the other two regents had him assassinated as well and the crisis in Vietnam continued.

MM Video: Emperor Thanh Thai of Vietnam

Royal Regalia: Symbols of Imperial Vietnam

The Imperial headdress

The royal regalia of Vietnam is, naturally, quite different from what most westerners would be familiar with, yet there are elements almost any monarchist would easily recognize. The Vietnamese did not have a “crown” in the way westerners would understand it (the crown becoming a very Christian symbol) though there was an elaborate headdress which could be referred to as such. The official costume of the emperors was elaborate and overflowing with symbolism unique to the Vietnamese culture. During the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty the ceremonial costumes of the court were greatly influenced by the historic fashions of the Ming Empire. For the emperor, of course, there was an elaborate robe with very deep sleeves, covered with auspicious symbols but all over a background color of “brilliant yellow” which was reserved for the exclusive use of the Emperor. At a time when most people went barefoot the imperial costume included an elaborate pair of high-topped boots. The brilliant yellow imperial robe was fastened by a jade-encrusted cummerbund and the Emperor would wear a special cap (or crown) decorated with nine golden dragons, nine being the imperial number, the closest to 10; the heavenly number. The Emperor would also hold a special jade scepter (also sometimes referred to as a baton) to symbolize his authority.

In full formal attire

There was, of course, no actual “coronation” in Vietnamese tradition but the formal enthronement served the same purpose. The new emperor would be given an ivory badge which would be worn on the right side of his robe that gave him access to the Golden Book where, at the start of his reign, his name would be officially recorded. The Emperor would then proceed to the Temple of the Ancestors to swear his oath of office at the altar of Emperor Gia Long, founder of the Nguyen Dynasty. The following morning the new Emperor would be seated on the Golden Dragon Throne in the Palace of Supreme Peace to receive the sign of loyalty of his people. There was an elaborately decorated “sword of state” that most would find familiar, symbolizing the duty of the Emperor to protect his people. The most significant piece of royal regalia was the imperial seal. There would be one primary seal and several smaller seals for more casual use. It was the imperial seal which represented the authority of the Emperor, it attached an almost sacred significance to any document on which it was used. During high festivals the imperial seals would be symbolically “hidden” to stop time for the celebrations.

The original seal used by the Nguyen Dynasty came from the Great Qing Empire in Peking along with the recognition by the Manchu Dynasty of the Nguyen right to rule Vietnam. As with many neighboring countries, China and Vietnam had a relationship whereby the Vietnamese recognized the senior position of Imperial China, and would call on China for help if attacked by an outside force, while Vietnam remained independent and self-governing. For the sake of peaceful relations, the rulers of Vietnam would deal with Peking as “kings” while dealing with their own people as “emperors”. This all changed, however, when the French arrived and when conflict broke out the Vietnamese Emperor Tu Duc called on the Qing Empire for help. The resulting Sino-French War saw China defeated and, as a result, to symbolize who the new power was in the neighborhood, the French confiscated and destroyed the original imperial seal granted by the Qing court at the start of the reign of the Nguyen Dynasty. They replaced it with another of course, of traditional design, to symbolize that France was the new protecting power or feudal overlord to put it another way.

Handing over the Seal and Sword

It was this seal, along with the imperial sword, that Emperor Bao Dai handed over in 1945 at the height of the August Revolution to the representatives of the new provisional republican government when he abdicated. In 1952, during the First Indochina War, when the French attacked Hanoi the republican government buried the sword and seal at the sight of a government office before fleeing the city. The French dug up the sword which had been broken into three pieces and handed these over to the Empress Dowager Tu Cung, the Emperor’s mother. She later, it is believed, handed these over to one of the imperial concubines, Mong Diep. The imperial seal was handed over to the Museum of History but was later stolen. In 1953 the former Emperor Bao Dai, who was then “Chief of State” entrusted the seal to his concubine Mong Diep who took it to France and presented it to the Empress Nam Phuong and the Prince Imperiale Bao Long. In 1982 the Prince Imperiale handed the seal back to his father. Since that time, there has been no word as to its whereabouts.

The last Emperor with the seal in France

MM Video: Vietnamese Imperial Family

Favorite Royal Images: A Viet Queen

Empress Nam Phuong of Vietnam, not the first time she's been featured in the FRI series and I think the reason for that goes without saying. A great lady who left this world far too soon.

Royal Profile: Prince Cuong De

Born in 1882 as Prince Nguyen-Phuc Hong Dan, the royal descendant of HIH Crown Prince Canh was later given the official title “Ky-Ngoa-Hau” or “outside the capital marquis”. He was a descendant of the fourth generation of His Majesty Emperor Gia Long, founder of the Nguyen Dynasty, by the line of his eldest son, Crown Prince Canh. The Crown Prince was the grandfather of Marquis Cuong De.

He was living comfortably by the An-cuu River when he was visited by the anti-French nationalist and (at the time) loyal monarchist leader Phan Boi Chau and his friend Nguyen Thiep in the Year of the Hare (1903). It was then that the Prince and Phan Boi Chau made a pact to join together in fighting against French Colonial rule in Viet Nam. As a member of the Nguyen Imperial Dynasty and a descendant of Emperor Gia Long, Marquis Cuong De was to be a focus for patriotic loyalty and a symbol of the national history and culture. As such, he was made symbolic head of the Viet-Nam Modernization Society of Phan Boi Chau when that movement was initially founded.

Early on in 1906 Marquis Cuong De went to Japan to study at Shimbu Gakko and later at Waseda University. In 1909 he was forced to leave Japan when the Japanese and French governments became more closely associated and the Japanese wished to disassociate themselves from any connection to the enemies of France. Prince Cuong De then moved to Hong Kong, Thailand, and China before returning to Nam-Ky (Cochinchina/South Vietnam) from Singapore in 1913 to meet with resistance leaders and raise funds for the struggle. While he had been in China, His Majesty Emperor Thanh Thai had tried to reach him to join the resistance movement but was arrested by the French and deposed.

After the trip back to Viet Nam Prince Cuong De was arrested in Hong Kong but managed to escape and travel to Europe. In 1915 he returned to Japan where he was given promises of support for Vietnamese independence. Even when the Chinese influence changed the direction of many of the nationalist efforts Prince Cuong De remained in the most honored position. In the south, which was cut off by the French from the rest of Viet Nam, Prince Cuong De was supported by large numbers of Vietnamese patriots. In 1943 the prophet and leader of the Hoa Hao religion, Huyn Phu So issued many statements calling for freedom from the French, support for Cuong De and loyalty to the Nguyen Dynasty he represented. The prophet wrote, "How can one live with joy and pleasure at a time when the King is seperated from his subjects. Catholics and the Cao Dai patriots also supported Prince Cuong De and the principle of an independent monarchy in Viet Nam.

Many thought that after the Japanese occupation of Indochina the Marquis Cuong De would oppose the new government of His Majesty Emperor Bao Dai. However, on May 20, 1945 Prince Cuong De stated in a letter that his goal had always been to restore the independence of Viet Nam and that he had never had any desire to take power for himself but honored the declaration of independence and was loyal to Emperor Bao Dai and the legitimate government. After independence had been declared his goal had been achieved. Later Emperor Bao Dai invited Prince Cuong De to accept an important place in the new nationalist government and a large welcome ceremony was planned in Saigon by the Cao Dai leader Tran Quang Vinh. However, the chaos of the war forced the Prince to remain at home. The Communist Revolution in August, 1945 ensured that the Marquis Cuong De would never see his country again and the independent monarchy came under attack by the Communist forces. The revolutionary prince died in Tokyo on April 5, 1951.

MM Video: The Nguyen Dynasty

Monarchist Profile: Pigneau de Behaine

Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, Bishop of Adran, was a key individual in the rise to power of the Nguyen, the last imperial dynasty of Vietnam. He took holy orders and journeyed to the Far East to train native missionaries in Thailand. Wars were raging in Indochina with civil wars in Vietnam and a Burmese invasion of Thailand and Behaine himself was at one point arrested and held in the most cruel confinement but refused to return to a comfortable life in France. He felt his work was too important. They key moment came when he took in a refugee prince, the sole survivor of his family, named Nguyen-Phuc Anh in 1777. Anh would never forget the kindness that Behaine had showed him and in time the two became allies in the effort by Anh to unite Vietnam. Behaine went to France to negotiate a treaty with King Louis XVI by which France would obtain exclusive trading rights, an island base and the freedom to spread Christianity in return for French military support against the ruling Tay Son clan with whom Nguyen Anh was at war. King Louis agreed but things soon fell apart with France already on the brink of revolution.

However, Behaine did not give up. He recruited his own mercenary force of naval and artillery experts to come to the aid of Nguyen Anh. His assistance proved decisive as the forces he assembled gave Anh a definite advantage over his enemies. However, Behaine suffered greatly as he accompanied the army. He was with the forces of Anh's son, Crown Prince Canh, at the epic battle of Qui Nhon where he died of dysentery on October 9, 1799. The war went on and in 1802 Anh succeeded and was enthroned as Emperor Gia Long. He had written an extremely moving tribute to his departed friend at the time of his death and the Emperor further honored him with the most lavish funeral ever given to a foreigner in Vietnam as well as building him a magnificent tomb. He also continued to allow religious freedom throughout his reign because of the kindness the Christian bishop had shown him.

Successive monarchs turned against the Christians, and French (seeing them as the same) but later on full religious freedom was enacted. That all ended with the ultimate victory of the communist revolutionary forces in the 20th Century. In 1983 the communist Vietnamese government destroyed Behaine's tomb, incinerated his corpse and sent the ashes back to France where they now rest in the Paris Foreign Missions Society.

The End of the End for Royal Vietnam

Today marks the anniversary of the end of one of the most pivotal battles in world history; the siege of Dien Bien Phu in the mountainous jungles of North Vietnam in 1954. It was pivotal because it spelled the end of the French presence in their former colony of Indochina, it spelled a further conquest by the international revolutionary forces of communism and it was pivotal because a third-world colonial guerilla force had defeated a European power. In later years when the conflict against the communists in Vietnam was taken up by the United States many Americans would deride the French for this, but in fact the French fought longer than the Americans, took heavier losses than the Americans and did so without conscription in metropolitan France unlike the USA. That being said, for most of the conflict the USA under President Eisenhower had been funding the French war and the French and associated forces were in most cases armed, clothed and equipped by the US.

The siege of Dien Bien Phu was an epic, dramatic, and colorful page in history but I will fight the urge to go into it in detail. What I mention it here for is that the siege was not unrelated to the cause of monarchism. Although it was not a strategically crippling defeat for the French (who were actually a minority in the battle with most of the troops being North African, Vietnamese and the Germans and others who made up the Foreign Legion units) but it was seen as the last straw to a war weary public and effectively ended the "First Indochina War". The French fought that war on behalf of the State of Vietnam (as the US would later do with the Republic of Vietnam or South Vietnam) and the "Chief of State" of the French Associated State of Vietnam was none other than HIM Bao Dai, last Emperor of the Nguyen dynasty. When the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu it effectively meant the end of the rule of the last Viet monarch.

That does not mean that the State of Vietnam was a monarchy, though it certainly looked, sounded, felt and acted like one. Its official status was ambiguous, something which probably hurt it. The former Emperor was not officially restored as Emperor (he had abdicated in 1945 at the height of the August Revolution) but he was still addressed like royalty, treated like royalty and his son and heir, the Prince Imperiale Bao Long, was treated as his son and heir and even went to London to represent the Nguyen dynasty at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. There is also the fact that Bao Dai had no other claim to power besides the fact that until 1945 he had been the Emperor of Vietnam. He was not happy about the dependence on the French but also recognized the fact that besides the communists they were the only option. He had himself grown up in France and the French had long helped maintain his family's monarchy though their colonial policies no doubt weakened it. Other powers might not be so considerate.

The defeat at Dien Bien Phu meant that the French gave in to the communists at the Geneva Conference and recognized the North Vietnamese government as a legitimate power and agreed to evacuate their forces and hold a vote after a certain period of time to determine under which government the country would be reunified. Emperor Bao Dai refused to sign the agreement, famously saying, "There is only one Vietnamese state; it is I!" The United States also refused to sign and it was clear that they would be the only support for the anti-communist Vietnamese. Emperor Bao Dai tried to make common cause with the Americans but the US would not have him. Less than a year later, working through his Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem, US agents helped arrange a rigged vote to depose the Emperor and make Diem President of the Republic of Vietnam. The monarchy may officially have ended in 1945 but the last traces were purged in that rigged vote and it all happened because of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu 55 years ago today.

Consort Profile: Empress Nam Phuong

The last Vietnamese empress was born on December 4, 1914 in Saigon, the heart of what was then the French colony of Cochinchina. Her father was the Duke of Long My, a successful merchant and an old south Vietnamese Catholic family. She was educated in France and upon returning home became equally known for her beauty and intelligence. It was this that mostly impressed the last Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, who could not find a woman among the Viet and Siamese noble women who could match his own education. The marriage discussions caused some problems due to her religion. Since any heirs would be expected to carry out the traditional duties of the Emperor in the native Confucian religion the Church would not grant a dispensation. Envoys were sent to the Vatican but even warnings of a repeat of the situation with Henry VIII of England would not make the Church budge and so the couple had to settle for a civil ceremony. That was done on March 20, 1934 and a short time later Nam Phuong was raised to the status of Empress which was quite unprecedented for a Vietnamese consort. In the years that followed Empress Nam Phuong gave her husband 5 children; 2 sons and 3 daughters.

Because of her religion Empress Nam Phuong was not immediately popular with the majority Buddhist population but soon won the love and admiration of the people. She worked as patroness of the Vietnamese Red Cross and was head of the Reconstruction Committee for Vietnam during World War II. Following the abdication of her husband in 1945 she moved to her family's home in France where she had her children converted to Catholicism. She would undoubtedly have been of even greater service to her country but her life was cut short by her sudden death on September 15, 1963.