NAPOLEON’S HEIR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18555, 30 April 1930, Page 4

NAPOLEON’S HEIR.

PLOT TO STEAL BODY. SEQUEL TO TRAGIC LIFE. The exposure recently of a plot to break into the Capuchin Church at Vienna, and tQ steal the body of the son of Napoleon 1., was stimulated in a new flood of interest on the Continent in the tragic life that the youth who war variously known to history as the King of Rome, the Duke of Reichstadt, Napoleon 11., and to those who have seen Edmund Rostand’s play, as L’Aiglon. Six Viennese youths were arrested recently, charged with the stealing of an automobile and the robbing from a bank messenger of a large sum. In the course of the questioning relative to these crimes the lads confessed they had planned to take the body of the boy King from the hereditary resting place of the head Hapsburgs and their hope of smuggling it abroad and then of selling it to the French Government.

Planned to Play on French Feeling. Despite the fact that the third French Republic is built on the ruins of the second Napoleonic empire, the French people still cherish Napoleonic memories, and it is presumed that the group of young bandits expected to play upon France’s feeling for the son of the Great Empire to make their fortunes.

Few tales in history are so tragic as that of the boy who in 1811 was given to Napoleon by his second wife, Marie Louise. The French Emperor was at the height of his power and prestige. In the view of many historians, the coming of the eighteen-year-old Austrian princess to the French court and the subsequent birth of the child, who immediately was named King of Rome, were in part the cause of the new luxuriousness at the Napoleonic court, which detracted from the great emperor’s vigour and pointed to his decline. New Documents Found. New documents which have come to light through the opening of the Hapsburg archives have added much to the information available concerning events of the brief life of the King of Rome. The child was • but three years old when, in 1814, Napoleon, following his disastrous Russian campaign, was forced to abdicate. The father left the throne to his infant heir and this fact started that train of plots and counter plots to abduct the King of Rome, which, as indicated by this week's dispatches from Vienna, continued for more than 100 years after the boy’s death. In the company of Joseph and Jerome Bonaparte, brothers of the Emperor, Marie Louise and her son retreated southward in France before the advancing allied armies. The Austrian princess learned of the plot by the two brothers to secrete the mother and son in the mountains in Central France, and this information led her finally to seek help at the Austrian court. Mother and Son Return to Vienna. As Napoleon left for Elba, Marie Louise and the King of Rome began their journey to Vienna, and from that time forward the little King was destined never to see France. Napoleon’s return from Elba, after a hundred days* and his final banishment to St. Helena, were a series of incidents which changed the course of events, gradually bringing the King of Rome to death and oblivion. Metternich, the Austrian statesman, who held Europe under his thumb in the postNapoleonic period, took it upon himself to see that the son of the illustrious father should be obscure and harmless. Marie Louise made merry in her Duchy of Parma, and the Duke of Reichstadt grew into feeble manhood at the Palace Schoenbrunn. Instructors and nurses of the child were forbidden to mention the emperor’s name in his presence. The continuous string of affectionate notes which the emperor dispatched to his son from St. Helena never reached their destination. Raised as a hothouse plant, the Duke of Reichstadt grew up without physical stamina. He was ten when his father died in exile. Napoleon to the last had hoped for new glories through his son, and his will was made with the object of bringing such glories about. Duke Object of Plots.

Throughtout the period of 1820 to 1830 the Duke of Reichstadt was the object of plots and petty revolutions which had as their object the seating of the youth on the French throne. Metternich encouraged in the boy a desire to become an Austrian military officer, and through working on this interest gradually brought him to think as an Austrian instead of a Frenchman.

Through the friendship which developed with Chevalier de Prokesch-Osten, however. L’Aiglon began to think more of his father and the French, and that mental conflict grew which embittered his life and hastened his death. Named colonel of cavalry, the youth over-exerted himself to prove worthy of the new military command. One day he collapsed before his regimen*.. Shortly afterwards he contracted pneumonia, and finally was found to be suffering from tuberculosis. Metternich is believed to have su retarded the date of the projected trip to Italy as to have brought about the duke’s death sooner than it otherwise would have occurred. Marie Louis*, who had taken little interest in her son, arrived at the bedside at Schoenbrunn but a short time before the end. The son of the great Napoleon, whose birth had been announced by 101-gun salutes in Paris, died a tragic failure 21 years later in the capital of the Austrians.