Three years after his birth in Paris, the First French Empire to which he was heir collapsed, and he was taken by the empress to Chateau Blois in April of 1814. In 1815, after his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated in favor of his son, who never actually ruled, but was ultimately awarded the title of Duke of Reichstadt as consolation in 1818.
After 1815, Napoleon II was a virtual prisoner in Austria, where he died of tuberculosis at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on July 22, 1832. In 1940 his remains were transferred, as a gift to France from Adolf Hitler, from Vienna to the dome of Les Invalides in Paris, where he now rests beside his father.
He was known as the King of Rome and as Napoleon II by Bonapartists; this latter designation affected the dynastic number of Napoleon III.