1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Napoleon II

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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
Napoleon II
See also Napoleon II of France on Wikipedia, and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.


NAPOLEON II., emperor of the French, the style given by the Bonapartists to the son of Napoleon I., Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles, duke of Reichstadt (q.v.). The fact that in 1814, by Napoleon I.'s abdication in his favour, the king of Rome (as he was then styled) became for a few days titular emperor “by the will of the people,” was held by Prince Louis Napoleon to justify his own assumption of the style of Napoleon III. which, as seeming to involve a dynastic claim, gave such offence to the legitimist powers, notably the emperor Nicholas I. of Russia.