Line of succession to the French throne (Bonapartist) sons, and it seemed unlikely that he would have any due to the age of his wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. His eventual response was to have his marriage to Josephine annulled and to undertake a second marriage with Roman Catholic rites to Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria. Their only child was Napoleon, King of Rome, known in exile as "Napoleon II" and as the Duke of Reichstadt. He died unmarried, thereby extinguishing the legitimate descent of Napoleon I. Meanwhile, Napoleon I's older brother, Joseph Bonaparte, recognized upon establishment of the First Empire as first in
Napoleon III officially ended, replaced by the Second French Empire. Prince-President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. His regnal name treats Napoleon II, who never actually ruled, as a true Emperor (he had been briefly recognized as emperor from 22 June to 7 July 1815). The 1852 constitution was retained; it concentrated so much power in Napoleon's hands that the only substantive change was to replace the word "president" with the word "emperor." One of the first priorities of Napoleon III was the modernization of the French economy, which had fallen far behind that of the United Kingdom and