Descendant of Louis XIV tries to ban exhibition
He has seen off the conservatives who accused him of cultural vandalism, and triumphed over fears among sceptics in the media that his riotously kitsch 
exhibition at Versailles was nothing but a provocative stunt.
But little over the past few months could have prepared the American artist Jeff Koons for the aristocratic rage of Prince Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme.
The formidably foppish Koons critic, who claims to be a direct descendant of Louis XIV, has launched a last-minute legal battle against what he describes as a “mercenary” and “pornographic” stain on his illustrious family’s honour.
He says the exhibition, which is due to close in just over a week, is an attack on the “right immemorial” of all human beings not to see their ancestors disrespected. Undeterred by an initial ruling this week from a judge in Versailles which rejected his plea to ban the installation, De Bourbon-Parme vowed yesterday to take his mission to the council of state, France‘s highest administrative court.
“[This will decide] whether, 60 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the respect due to the dead, the right to live without one’s ancestors being debased and without their work being sullied before the eyes of the entire world by a derisory and pornographic exercise … still constitute a basic freedom in France,” he said in a statement.