PARIS (AP) – Towering at nearly six- and-a-half feet tall, with a lanky frame and distinguished features, one would hardly guess that Charles Napoleon is related to the compact yet formidable emperor who conquered much of Europe two centuries ago.

France – albeit in a low-key way – marked the 200th anniversary Thursday of Napoleon Bonaparte’s crowning as emperor, remembering his achievements and rise from Corsica to the top of an expansive empire.

But for Charles Napoleon – a sixth generation direct descendant of Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jerome – his famous ancestor’s biggest achievement is his enduring hold on the world’s imagination.

“Two centuries later we still talk about him,” he said Thursday in an Associated Press interview. “He is still the man about whom the most books are written.”

While Napoleon sent armies across Europe, Charles Napoleon has far more modest ambitions.

The 54-year-old entrepreneur is deputy mayor of Ajaccio, the biggest city on the fiercely nationalistic French island of Corsica and the emperor’s birthplace.

He said he constantly struggles to ensure that his famous bloodline does not overshadow his own life.

“I force myself to distinguish between my familial heritage, my family life, the historic heritage and my political engagement in the contemporary world,” said the left-wing politician.

His surname is Napoleon because the name changed from Bonaparte once Napoleon I became emperor and has since been passed down through male members of the family.

“Whenever a person goes from being a regular person to being a monarch or an emperor, their first name is used to identify all descendants,” said Steven Englund, an American award-winning biographer of Napoleon.

Charles Napoleon claimed that his ancestor’s greatest failure was not his defeat at the battle of Waterloo nor his ill-fated Russia campaign but his “particularly reactionary, particularly conservative” attitude toward women.

“It must be recognized that, in this area, he brings shame on all of us who are in favor of women’s rights and equality between men and women,” he said.

But Englund, the biographer, says Napoleon was not a misogynist and had very close personal relationships with his two wives and sisters.

He noted that the views of any male general or leader of Napoleon’s time would seem conservative by today’s standards.

Critics consider Napoleon a megalomaniacal bully of Europe and even a forebear of blood-thirsty dictators of the 20th century. Given the controversy still shadowing his legacy, France’s government planned no official commemoration of the coronation.

But Napoleonic groups and others were organizing a display of imperial-era military uniforms, rekindling the flame for the unknown soldier that burns under the Arch of Triumph – a monument built by Napoleon I to celebrate his military victories – and organizing a commemorative mass at Paris’ La Madeleine church.

The interview with Charles Napoleon was conducted at the Louvre Museum, which marked the anniversary with an exhibition devoted to The Coronation of Napoleon, a painting commissioned by the emperor from painter Jacques-Louis David.

Charles Napoleon dislikes this larger-than-life work. Instead, he prefers a smaller, incomplete portrait of the General Bonaparte, also by David.

“In Bonaparte, there is the future Napoleon,” he said. “I am attached, above all, to that era of the revolution, of the consul and, in the end, to the young Napoleon Bonaparte, that young general of the revolution who established a considerable civil legacy.”

That legacy includes France’s system of local administration, its Civil Code and esteemed Legion of Honor award.

For those achievements, Charles Napoleon said he views his ancestor as a “French (George) Washington.”