KING OF ROME

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1932, Page 2

KING OF ROME

NAPOLEON’S SON’S DEATH. CENTENARY CELEBRATED, The centenary of t-he death of the, King of Rome, the son of Napoleon I, who was subsequently called the Duke of Reichstadt, was celebrated at Vienna on July 22. young prince, who died of tuberculosis at Schoeifbrunn Castle, was laid to rest * n tlie Caupuchino vault on July 24 in the presence of all the members of the Imperial family excepting those t\yo standing nearest to him, h’s grandfather, the Emperor Francis, and his mother, Marie Louise, Napoleon s widow, who, it will be remembered, married her former “cavalier d honneur,” Count Adam Neipperg, a short time after Napoleon’s death.

Marie Louise, who never showed much affection for the Duke of Reichstadt, had left for Persenbeug Castle on th e morning of the funeral ,to join her father, the Emperor, there. 'The sacophagus containing the remains of the duke bears the following inscription in Latin: “To the perpetual memory )0f Joseph Charles Francis, Duke of Reichstadt, son of Napoleon, the Emperor of the French, and the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. Born at Paris on March 20, 1811, greeted in the cradle with the DUe of King of Rome, endowed with all preferences of mind and body in the Vigour jof 'manhood, with brilliant ■figure, noble youth in the face, with rare grac e of language, distinguished by military knowledge and ambition, seized by pulmonary consumption, succumbed to a painful death in the Imperial castle at Schoeribrunn, near Vienna, on July 22, 1832.”