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
Coronation of Napoleon I crown himself. Historian J. David Markham, who also serves as head of the International Napoleonic Society, alleged in his book "Napoleon For Dummies" "Napoleon's detractors like to say that he snatched the crown from the Pope, or that this was an act of unbelievable arrogance, but neither of those charges holds water. Napoleon was simply symbolizing that he was becoming emperor based on his own merits and the will of the people, not because of some religious consecration. The Pope knew about this move from the beginning and had no objection (not that it would have mattered)." British historian Vincent