Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Are there any living descendants of Napoleon Bonaparte?
The law of succession provided that if Napoleon's own direct line died out, the claim passed first to his older brother Joseph and his legitimate male descendants through the male line, then to his younger brother Louis and his legitimate male descendants through the male line. His other brothers, Lucien and Jerome, and their descendants, were omitted from the succession (even though Lucien was older than Louis) because they had either politically opposed the Emperor or made marriages of which he disapproved. Napoleon abdicated in favor of his son after his defeat in 1815. Although the Bonapartes were deposed and the old Bourbon monarchy restored, Bonapartists recognized this child as Napoleon II. A sickly child, he was virtually imprisoned in Austria, and died young and unmarried, without any descendants. When the Bonaparte Empire was restored to power in France in 1852, the Emperor was Napoleon III, Louis Bonaparte's only living legitimate son (their brother Joseph having died in 1844 without having had a legitimate son, only daughters).
In 1804, her son Napoleon declared himself Emperor. Despite being depicted in the famous painting of the coronation of Napoleon by David, she did not attend her son's coronation. By decree, she was decreed "Madam, the Mother of His Imperial Majesty The Emperor" ("Madame Mère de l'Empereur"), Imperial Highness, on 18 May 1804 or 23 March 1805. Napoleon paid her 25,000 francs a month.
At the session of the Tribunat on 3 Floréal year XII (23 April 1804) Jean-François Curée proposed that Napoleon, then First Consul, be declared hereditary Emperor of France.
The motion was supported by several members of the Tribunat, with only Lazare Carnot speaking against it.
At a session of the Senate on 28 Floréal year XII (18 May 1804) attended by Consul Charles-François Lebrun and all the ministers a motion was adopted in which Napoleon was declared hereditary Emperor of the French.
The formal coronation ceremony was delayed until 11 Frimaire year XIII (2 December 1804), when Pope Pius VII attended and Napoleon crowned himself in the Notre Dame de Paris.
Early French victories exported many ideological features of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Napoleon gained support by appealing to some common concerns of French people. These included dislike of the emigrant nobility who had escaped persecution, fear by some of a restoration of the "ancien régime", a dislike and suspicion of foreign countries had tried to reverse the Revolution – and a wish by Jacobins to extend France's revolutionary ideals. Seigneurial system of New France and Seigneurial system of New France were abolished, aristocratic privileges were eliminated in all places except Poland, and the introduction of the Napoleonic Code throughout the continent increased legal equality, established jury systems, and legalized divorce. Napoleon placed relatives on the thrones of several European countries and granted many noble titles, most of which expired with the fall of the Empire.
About a million people of Polish descent live in France. They are concentrated in the Nord-Pas de Calais region, the metropolitan areas of Lille and Paris and the coal-mining basin ("Bassin Minier") around Lens and Valenciennes. Prominent members have included Frédéric Chopin, Adam Mickiewicz, Rene Goscinny, Marie Curie, Michel Poniatowski, Raymond Kopa, Ludovic Obraniak and Edward Gierek. For centuries, there was an alliance between the France and the Polish-Lithuanian Commmonwealth. Many Poles settled in France after the rule of Napoleon and the collapse of the Duchy of Warsaw, when 100,000 Poles, largely political refugees, fled the Russians and Prussians, who took over Poland. The Great Emigration, from the first half of the 19th century onwards, caused many Poles to be enlisted to fight in the French army. Another wave of Polish migration took place between the two World Wars, when many were hired as contract workers to work temporarily in France. Polish refugees also fled the Nazi and the Soviet occupations in the 1940s. From 100,000 to 200,000 Poles haved been estimated to live in Paris. Many EU guest workers are the south of France, including the cities of Arles, Marseille and Perpignan.
Hoping to isolate Britain economically, Napoleon invaded Iberia, declaring his brother Joseph king of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and Portuguese revolted with British support, and, after six years of fighting, expelled the French from Iberia in 1814. Concurrently, Russia, unwilling to bear economic consequences of reduced trade, routinely violated the Continental System, enticing Napoleon to launch a massive invasion of Russia in 1812. The resulting campaign ended with the dissolution and withdrawal of the French "Grande Armée". Encouraged by the defeat, Prussia, Austria, and Russia began a new campaign against France, decisively defeating Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813 after several inconclusive engagements. The Allies then invaded France, capturing Paris at the end of March 1814 and forcing Napoleon to abdicate in early April. He was exiled to the island of Elba, and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped in February 1815, and reassumed control of France. The Allies responded with the Seventh Coalition, defeating Napoleon permanently at Waterloo in June 1815 and exiling him to St Helena, a British territory midway between Africa and Brazil, where he died six years later.
The Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, gave way to the Empire of Austria between 1804 and 1806. The last Holy Roman Emperor, Franz II, was proclaimed Emperor Franz I of Austria. His daughter, the Archduchess Maria Louise, was Napoleon’s second wife and Empress Consort, and the mother of Napoleon’s only legitimate son and heir, Napoleon, Duke of Reichstadt. With the collapse of Napoleon’s empire, Imperial Austria regained its traditional control of Lombardy as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia.
Among the most sought after treasures Napoleons agents coveted were the works of Raphael. Jean-Baptiste Wicar, a member of Napoleon's selection committee, was a collector of Raphael's drawings. Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, another member, had been influenced by Raphael. For artists like Jacques-Louis David, and his pupils Girodet and Ingres, Raphael represented the embodiment of French artistic ideals. Consequently, Napoleon's committee seized every available Raphael. To Napoleon, Raphael was simply the greatest of Italian artists and "The Transfiguration" his greatest work. The painting, along with the "Apollo Belvedere", the "Laocoön", the "Capitoline Brutus" and many others, received a triumphal entry into Paris on 27 July 1798, the fourth anniversary of Maximilien de Robespierre's fall.
Several years later, Napoleon is proclaimed emperor, and at his coronation, he takes the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowns himself.
Napoleon then invaded the Iberian Peninsula, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, and declared his brother Joseph Bonaparte the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies against Napoleon. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. The Russians were unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade and routinely violated the Continental System, enticing Napoleon into another war. The French launched a major invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The campaign destroyed Russian cities, but did not yield the decisive victory Napoleon wanted. It resulted in the collapse of the "Grande Armée" and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto French soil. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51.
When Napoleon I declared himself Emperor of the French a decade later, he decided to create new Imperial regalia, the centerpiece of which was his "Charlemagne crown".
Monarchism continues to exist in France. The historian Julian T. Jackson wrote in 2001 that "Indeed in the Vendée there are still families today who will not receive descendants of people who bought "biens nationaux" during the Revolution." Falling into one of the three main monarchist streams, some of the active groups in France today are:The French dynastic disputes refer to a set of disputes in the history of France regarding the person who should inherit the crown.
Although Philip II was officially the last king of the Franks ("rex Francorum") and the first king of France ("roi de France"), in (systematic application of) historiography, Hugh Capet holds this distinction. He is the founder of the Capetians, the royal dynasty that ruled France until the revolution of the Second French Republic in 1848save during the interregnum of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. It still reigns in Europe today; both King Felipe VI of Spain and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg are descendants of this family through the Bourbon cadet branch of the dynasty.
On 30 January 1989, his father died in a skiing accident near Vail, Colorado. Later, in 1994 Louis Alphonse would receive 150 million "pesetas" following a lawsuit against Vail Associated, which owned the ski resort where the accident occurred. Louis Alphonse was recognised by some members of the Capetian dynasty as "Chef de la Maison de Bourbon" (Head of the House of Bourbon) and took the title Duke of Anjou, but not his father's Spanish dukedom. He is considered the rightful pretender to the French throne by adherents of the Legitimist movement.
In the 19th century, Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire. His subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and typically retained close economic and military connections with France.
Their father has conferred upon them the historic French titles of, respectively, Duke of Burgundy ("duc de Bourgogne"), and Duke of Berry ("duc de Berry"). (In Spain, the twins are "Don" Luis and "Don" Alfonso de Borbón Vargas). Prince Louis, as Legitimist Dauphin of France, is expected to succeed his father as head of the French royal house, the senior Bourbon/Capetian line, in Legitimist reckoning. However, under Spanish law, and assuming Felipe VI does not in future father a son, the Spanish crown will be inherited by his elder daughter Leonor, Princess of Asturias, who will become queen regnant, and if Felipe does have a son, that son will inherit the Spanish throne regardless of the genealogical seniority of the Anjou branch. Louis and Alphonse were baptised on 5 September 2010 at St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Louis' godparents were Arancha Martínez-Bordíu and Francisco D'Agostino and Alphonse's were Amparo Corell de Trenor, and Lorenzo Perales.
Following his retreat from Russia, Napoleon continued to retreat, this time from Germany. After the loss of Spain, reconquered by an allied army led by Wellington, the rising in the Netherlands preliminary to the invasion and the manifesto of Frankfort (1 December 1813) which proclaimed it, he had to fall back upon the frontiers of 1795; and then later was driven yet farther back upon those of 1792—despite the brilliant campaign of 1814 against the invaders. Paris capitulated on 30 March 1814, and the "Delenda Carthago", pronounced against Britain, was spoken of Napoleon. The Empire briefly fell with Napoleon's abdication at Fontainebleau on 11 April 1814.
Other sculptors with more enduring fame were François Rude, who made his celebrated "La Marseillaise" sculpture (formally known as "The departure of the volunteers"), a ten-meter high bas-relief for the Arc de Triomphe (1833-36), a project begun by Napoleon and completed by Louis Philippe. Rude also made the romantic "Napoleon awakening to immortality" in 1845-47. This illustrated popular movement to restore the reputation of Napoleon and the revolutionary spirit, which had been suppressed under the Restoration, but which reappeared with the return of the ashes of Napoleon to France under Louis Philippe. The Napoleonic spirit emerged triumphant in the 1848 Revolution, and the election of Napoleon III as the first President of France.
The Napoleon III style was a highly eclectic style of architecture and decorative arts, which used elements of many different historical styles,and also made innovative use of modern materials, such as iron frameworks and glass skylights. It flourished during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III in France (1852–1871) and had an important influence on architecture and decoration in the rest of Europe and the United States. Major examples of the style include the Opéra Garnier in Paris by Charles Garnier (1862–71), the Bibliothèque nationale de France. and the Church of Saint Augustine (1860–1871). The architectural style was closely connected with Haussmann's renovation of Paris carried out during the Second Empire; the new buildings, such as the opera, were intended as the focal points of the new boulevards.
In 1807 Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Central Europe. Poland had recently been partitioned by its three large neighbours, but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the very beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized by Austria and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally the king of Saxony, but Napoleon appointed the intendants who ran the country. The population of 4.3 million was released from occupation and by 1814 sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back. The Russians strongly opposed any move towards an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was dissolved in 1815 and Poland did not become a state until 1918. Napoleon's impact on Poland was huge, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class bureaucracies.
The French military rivalry continued with British opposition of the French Revolution and the ensuing wars with first the new French Republic and then the Empire of Napoleon. His defeat in 1814 was followed by his abdication and exile, but he escaped the following year to begin the Hundred Days. These came to a close with his military disaster at the Battle of Waterloo, facing an Allied force commanded by the Duke of Wellington. The end of the Napoleonic Wars effectively ended the recurrent conflict between France and Britain. However, Britain and her allies' goal of restoring the French Bourbon monarchy in the Treaty of Paris and the subsequent Congress of Vienna, which sought to prevent further revolutions in Europe, ultimately failed with the later Revolutions of 1848.
In 1852, Napoleon III, having restored the Bonapartes to power in France, enacted a new decree on the succession. The claim first went to his own male legitimate descendants in the male line (though at that time he had none, he would later have one legitimate son Eugene Bonaparte, who would be recognized by Bonapartists as Napoleon IV before dying young and unmarried). If his own line died out, the new decree allowed the claim to pass to Jérôme, Napoleon's youngest brother, who had previously been excluded and his male descendants by Princess Catharina of Württemberg in the male line, but not his descendants by his original marriage to the American commoner Elizabeth Patterson, of whom Napoleon I had greatly disapproved. The only remaining Bonapartist claimants since 1879 have been the descendants of Jérôme and Catherine of Württemberg in the male line.
The current head of the family is Prince Napoleon (Charles Marie Jérôme Victor Napoléon Bonaparte, born 1950), great-great-grandson of Napoleon I's brother Jérôme Bonaparte by his second marriage. He has a son named Jean (born 1986) and a brother called Jérôme (born 1957). There are no remaining descendants in the male line from any other of Napoleon's brothers and no serious political movement exists with the goal of restoring any of these men to the imperial throne of France.
The Law of Succession that Napoleon I established on becoming Emperor in 1804 provided that the Bonapartist claim to the throne should pass firstly to Napoleon's own legitimate male descendants through the male line. At that time, he had no legitimate sons and it seemed unlikely he would have any due to the age of his wife Joséphine. To Catholic eyes, his eventual response was unacceptable since he engineered a dubious annulment without papal approval of his marriage to Josephine, undertaking a second marriage to the younger Marie Louise, with whom he had one son. The law of succession provided that if Napoleon's own direct line died out, the claim passed first to his older brother Joseph and his legitimate male descendants through the male line then to his younger brother Louis and his legitimate male descendants through the male line. His other brothers Lucien and Jérôme and their descendants were omitted from the succession (even though Lucien was older than Louis) because they had politically opposed the Emperor or because he disapproved of their marriages. Napoleon had one son with Marie Louise, in whose favour he abdicated after his final defeat in 1815. Although the Bonapartes were now deposed and the old Bourbon monarchy was restored, Bonapartists recognized this child as Napoleon II. However, he was sickly, virtually imprisoned in Austria and died young and unmarried, so there were no further direct descendants of Napoleon I. When the Bonaparte Empire was restored to power in France in 1852, the Emperor was Napoleon III, Louis Bonaparte's only living legitimate son (Joseph having died in 1844 without having had a legitimate son, only daughters).
In 1852, Napoleon III enacted a new decree on the succession. The claim was given to his own male legitimate descendants in the male line (though at that time he had no son, Louis later had a legitimate son, Eugène Bonaparte, who was recognized by Bonapartists as "Napoleon IV" before dying young and unmarried). If Napoleon III's line died out, he decreed that the claim should pass to Jerome, Napoleon's youngest brother (who had previously been excluded), and his male descendants by Princess Catharina of Württemberg in the male line. (Excluded were his descendants by his first marriage, to the American commoner Elizabeth Patterson, of which Napoleon I had greatly disapproved.) The Bonapartist claimants since 1879, have been the descendants of Jerome and Catherine of Württemberg in the male line.