Thành Thái

Vua Thanh Thai, the Thanh Thai Emperor, was born as Prince Nguyen Buu Lan, the son of the "3-day king" Nguyen Duc Duc, one adopted heir of the Tu Duc Emperor, who was nominal Vietnamese Emperor for only three days in 1884.

Prince Nguyen Buu Lan was chosen by the French and Vietnamese court to be the successor of the Dong Khanh Emperor who had died after only a short reign, much ill health, drug addiction and hallucinations. Because of this, they did not allow any of his own children to succeed him and instead enthroned Nguyen Buu Lan as the Thanh Thai Emperor in 1889.

Soon, the French wondered if they had made a wise decision. Emperor Thanh Thai, still only a boy, began to display very erratic and at times even cruel and depraved behavior. There were rumors of misconduct with the palace women and of violent rapes. He once had one servant flogged for drunkeness after forcing her to drink. People began to come to the Imperial City just to see Thanh Thai as his strange behavior was becoming famous.

However, other people believed that his insanity was all a clever trick designed to take the attention of the French off of him. They pointed to the fact that he would often sneak out of the Forbidden City to talk to his people, that he wrote complex poetry without any mistakes and had passively opposed the French and was secretly forming an army of women warriors. If his insanity was simply an act, it was very well played and very successful. The French dismissed him as a helpless lunatic and paid little attention to him. However, at one point his antics made the court so miserable that he was forced to take a vacation and allow the Dowager Empress Tu Du to rule temporarily in his place.

Thanh Thai was the first Vietnamese Emperor to cut his hair short, to use Western ideas and learn to drive a car. Finally, in 1907, he fled the Forbidden City and tried to escape to China to join the revolutionary movement of Prince Cuong De, but was captured by the French and deposed on the grounds of insanity. Exiled first to Vung Tau Island, he continued to cause problems. Later, when his son, the Duy Tan Emperor, was also deposed they were both exiled to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Later, during the era of Bao Dai in 1945, the old former Thanh Thai Emperor (now reduced to being a duke) was allowed to return home to Viet Nam but was still kept under house arrest by the French authorities. He died on March 24, 1954 in Saigon and was buried in the tomb of his father, the Emperor Duc Duc.