Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after the decisive defeat at the hands of the First French Empire led by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. In 1804, he had founded the Austrian Empire and became Francis I, the first Emperor of Austria, ruling from 1804 to 1835, so later he was named the one and only "Doppelkaiser" (double emperor) in history. For the two years between
Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria Frankfurt first his brother Leopold II in 1790, and in 1792 his nephew Francis II. At the same time as he became Elector of Cologne, Maximilian Francis was elected to the related Bishopric of Münster and held court in Bonn, as the Archbishop-Electors of Cologne had been forced to do since the late Middle Ages. A keen patron of music, Maximilian Francis maintained a court musical establishment in which Beethoven's father was a tenor, thus playing an important role in the son's early career as a member of the same musical body of which his grandfather, also named Ludwig van