Queen Nam Phuong and her last days in France

The bookNam Phuong - the last queenby author Ly Nhan Phan Thu Lang has just been released to readers and contains many little-known documents about the person and life of Queen Nam Phuong.

With the consent of The Gioi Publishing House and Saigon Books,Zing.vnExcerpts from the book, sharing with readers a multi-dimensional view of the last queen in Vietnamese history.

In 1949, Bao Dai returned to Vietnam to take the position of Head of State, but Mrs. Nam Phuong remained in France. During holidays, Mrs. Nam Phuong often went for a walk with her children to buy toys or go to the movies with Prince Bao Thang and Princess Phuong Dung - the two youngest children. In France, Mrs. Nam Phuong initially stayed at the Thorenc castle in Cannes. Here, she sent her daughters to Couvent des Oiseaux school, the school she had attended until she got married.

There were also times when Bao Dai returned to France, Madame Nam Phuong accompanied Bao Dai to the casino to watch him play baccarat or roulette for fun. When she was with him, if he had any money, Bao Dai would give it all to her to buy clothes. The Queen loved Christian Dior and Balmin fashion. She was a fashionista and light purple was her favorite color. Perhaps because her life was sadder than happy, she chose purple?

Every day, her activities are taking care of her children, reading books and newspapers or going to the garden to plant flowers and prune leaves. In the evening, she likes to play the piano for her children. She is also an art lover. In her room, people see paintings by Renoir and Buffet. She does not like Picasso's cubist paintings because her soul is not compatible with this school of painting as well as the surrealist school.

She loved dogs. She had a pack at home, including a Saint Bernard, a large dog the size of a tiger, used to find people who had gone missing in the woods while skiing. She played table tennis, tennis, and golf, but was not very good at it.

After 1955, Bao Dai became deposed emperor, so he sadly left home to wander, leaving Mrs. Nam Phuong alone at home with her children. At that time, her children were grown up, each working in a different place.

In later years, Mrs. Nam Phuong left Thorenc Castle to live in Domain de la Perche Castle in Chabrignac in the Central West of France, about 400-500 kilometers from Paris. This place has a large farm of Mrs. Nam Phuong's own, which her family (Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen Huu Hao) had previously bought for her. Her house is isolated from the houses of the people in this area, because it is a rural village, so people rarely have the opportunity to interact with each other.

Regarding material life, Mrs. Nam Phuong never lacked anything while living abroad. The private property bought for her by Nguyen Huu Hao's family included a large apartment in Neuilly and an apartment on Opera Avenue. In addition, she had many properties in Morocco, Congo... She divided all of these properties among her children and only kept the farm in Chabrignac, including 160 acres of land with a herd of nearly 100 cows and a rose garden that always bloomed beautifully.

People living near Mrs. Nam Phuong's house said that Bao Dai rarely came back to visit his wife and children. Only once or twice a year did he come back and then leave immediately. Only once, on the occasion of Princess Phuong Lien's wedding, did he come back to help Mrs. Nam Phuong preside over the wedding for her daughter, then a few days later, he disappeared again.

Mrs. Nam Phuong is modern and elegant in the image of a modern woman.

Seeing that Bao Dai was old and still busy with debauchery, Mrs. Nam Phuong chose a quiet place to live out her last days in peace. She once expressed her wish to return to Vietnam, so that when she passed away, she could be buried next to her parents' graves in Da Lat. But Bao Dai and her children objected and did not allow her to return.

In her last years, Mrs. Nam Phuong rarely went out and met people. Sometimes, Mrs. Nam Phuong went to Paris to visit her children who were studying and working there. On the contrary, during the summer, her children also came here to visit their mother and stayed for a few days to relieve her sadness. During this time, she suffered from a serious heart condition and often had difficulty breathing.

At around 5pm on September 15, 1963, Mrs. Nam Phuong felt tired so she asked her family to invite a doctor to check her pulse. After examining her, the doctor said she had a mild sore throat and would recover after taking medicine for a few days. But unexpectedly, a few hours after the doctor left the house, she felt short of breath. Her servant asked a French neighbor to invite another doctor, but before the second doctor arrived, Mrs. Nam Phuong passed away that same night at the age of 49.

When she died, apart from two maids, no other relatives were by her side. Her children were studying or working in Paris at the time, while Bao Dai was living in the South of France.

Upon hearing the news of Madame Nam Phuong's death, Bao Dai returned immediately and bought a coffin made of oak, the most precious wood of the French, to bury his virtuous, kind and virtuous wife, who until the end of her life was never criticized or complained about. Even Bao Dai never dared to blame his wife for her womanizing, because since the day she separated from Bao Dai, Madame Nam Phuong had not had any lover, not even to go dancing or to the beach with another man. Perhaps Madame Nam Phuong was born into a well-behaved family, so she was very strict in her beliefs, even with her children.

The funeral of Mrs. Nam Phuong was held according to Catholic rites and was very simple. The only people attending the funeral were Bao Dai, the princes, princesses and some close friends of the family. In the locality, the Governor and the representative of the place where Mrs. Nam Phuong lived came to express their condolences and attend the funeral. Notably, the funeral was also attended by Princess Nhu Ly, daughter of King Ham Nghi. Princess Nhu Ly also lived near where Mrs. Nam Phuong lived, but unfortunately the two had never met before Mrs. Nam Phuong passed away.

Tomb of Queen Nam Phuong at the Catholic cemetery in Chabrignac (France).

Mrs. Nam Phuong's coffin was buried in the Catholic cemetery in Chabrignac. On her grave there is a stele with the following inscription:Ici Repose l'Imperatrice Nam Phuong Nee Jeanne Mariette Nguyen Huu Hao November 14, 1913 - September 15, 1963.

And on the back of the tombstone is written in Chinese characters: "Dai Nam Nam Phuong Queen's Tomb."

It is said that a few years ago, a stranger took advantage of the darkness of night to dig many holes in Mrs. Nam Phuong's grave to look for gold, silver, and jewels to see if she had brought them with her. And no one knows what they got, only her family and grandchildren know.

It is sad for the fate of Queen Nam Phuong, when she was young she was very happy and prosperous in material things as well as fame. Yet at the end of her life she died in cold loneliness in a foreign land at a relatively young age. Queen Nam Phuong was born in 1914 and died in 1963, when she was just 49 years old, an age that the Vietnamese call the age of bad luck, as the folk often say: "Forty-nine has not passed, five-three has arrived."

However, with her kind beauty and benevolent heart, even though Queen Nam Phuong passed away a long time ago, stories about her life will still be told by people.