_Louis Napoleon, President of France_ (Vol. vi., p. 435.).--Modern history
furnishes more than one instance of the anomaly adverted to by MR. RELTON.
After the murder of Louis XVI., his son, though he never ascended the
throne, was recognized by the legitimists of the day as Louis XVII.; and on
the restoration of the family in 1815, the Comte d'Artois assumed the title
of Louis XVIII. In this way the revolutionary chasm was, as it were,
bridged over, and the dynasty of the elder Bourbons exhibited on an
uninterrupted line.
So it is as regards the Napoleon dynasty. The Duke de Reichstadt,
Napoleon's son, was in the same predicament as the son of Louis XVI. He
received from the Bonapartists the title of Napoleon II.; and Louis
Napoleon therefore becomes Napoleon III.
A similar case _might_ have occurred to the House of Stuart, if the
Pretender's son, who began by taking the title of Henry IX., had not
extinguished the hopes and pretensions of his ill-fated race, by exchanging
his "crown" for a cardinal's hat. And to-morrow (though that is perhaps a
little too soon) the same thing may happen again to the elder branch of the
Bourbons, should the Comte de Chambord (Henry V.) leave a son of that name
to ascend the throne as Henry VI.