Napoleon II

Napoléon II (20 March 1811 – 22 July 1832), after 1818 known as Franz, Duke of Reichstadt, was the son of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria. By Title III, article 9 of the French Constitution of the time, he was Prince Imperial, but he was also known from birth as the King of Rome which Napoleon I declared was the courtesy title of the heir-apparent. He was widely known in France as "the Eaglet". When his father abdicated in April 1814, he named his son Emperor, but the coalition partners that had defeated Napoleon refused to acknowledge his son as successor. Although he never actually ruled France, he was the titular Emperor and he is still generally referred to by historians as Napoleon II.

Biography

Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte was born at the Tuileries Palace in Paris to Emperor Napoleon I and his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria in 1811. As Napoleon I's eldest legitimate son, he was already constitutionally Prince Imperial and heir-apparent, but the Emperor also gave his son the style "His Majesty the King of Rome". Three years later, the First French Empire, to which he was heir, collapsed. Napoleon abdicated the throne in favour of his toddler son, but the Allied Powers, at the insistence of the Emperor Alexander I of Russia, refused to recognise the three-year-old as monarch.

On 29 March 1814, accompanied by her suite, the empress left the Tuileries Palace with her son. Their first stop was the Château de Rambouillet; then, fearing the advancing enemy troops, they continued on to the Château de Blois. On 13 April, with her suite much diminished, Marie-Louise and the three-year-old King of Rome were back in Rambouillet where they met her father, the Emperor Francis II of Austria, and the Emperor Alexander I of Russia. On 23 April, escorted by an Austrian regiment, mother and son left Rambouillet and France forever, for their exile in Austria.^[2]

In 1815, after his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated in favour of his son, whom he had not seen since his exile to Elba, for a second time.

The day after Napoleon's abdication, a Commission of Government of five members took the rule of France,^[3] awaiting the return of King Louis XVIII, who was in Le Cateau-Cambrésis.^[4] The Commission held the power for two weeks, and it never summoned Napoleon II as emperor, and no regent was ever appointed. The entrance of the Allies into Paris on 7 July brought a rapid end to his supporters' wishes. Napoleon II, aged four, was residing in Austria with his mother and was probably never aware at the time that he had been proclaimed Emperor on his father's abdication. The next Bonaparte to come to the throne of France (in 1852) took the name Napoleon III in deference to his cousin's titular reign.

After 1815, the young prince, now known as "Franz" (after his maternal grandfather, Emperor Francis of Austria), lived in Austria. He was awarded the title of Duke of Reichstadt in 1818.

Upon the death of his stepfather, Neipperg, and the revelation that his mother had borne two illegitimate children to him prior to her marriage, Franz said to his friend, Prokesch von Osten, "'If Josephine had been my mother, my father would not have been buried at Saint Helena, and I should not be at Vienna. My mother is kind but weak; she was not the wife my father deserved".^[5]

He died of tuberculosis at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on 22 July 1832.^[6]

Disposition of his remains

On 15 December 1940, the remains of Napoléon II were transferred from Vienna to the dome of Les Invalides in Paris. This was done as a gift to France by the German dictator Adolf Hitler.^[7][8] The remains of Napoleon I had been returned to France in December 1840, at the time of the July Monarchy.^[9] For some time, the young prince who had briefly been an Emperor rested beside his father. Later the remains of the prince were moved to the lower church. While most of his remains were transferred to Paris, his heart and intestines remained in Vienna. They are in Urn 42 in the "Heart Crypt" (Herzgruft) and his viscera are in Urn 76 of the Ducal Crypt.

Legacy

Napoléon II was also known as "The Eaglet" (L'Aiglon). Edmond Rostand wrote a play, L'Aiglon, about his life. Serbian composer Petar Stojanović composed the operetta Napoleon II: Herzog von Reichstadt, which premiered in Vienna in the 1920s. Arthur Honegger and Jacques Ibert collaborated on an opera, L'Aiglon, which premiered in 1937. Pet Shop Boys used him as an emblem of loneliness amid wealth in their 2009 track "King of Rome," on their album Yes. The journalist Henri Rochefort joked Napoleon II, having never really governed, was France's best leader, since he brought no war, taxes or tyranny.^[10]

Ancestry

Sources

• Welschinger, Le roi de Rome, 1811-32, (Paris, 1897)
• Wertheimer, The Duke of Reichstadt, (London, 1905)

References

External links

• Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Napoleon_II_of_France Napoleon II of France] at Wikimedia Commons
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Napoleon II". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Spencer Napoleonica Collection at Newberry Library