He lost this presumptive status on 20 March 1811 when his uncle's second wife, Marie Louise, gave birth to a son, Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, who was styled the King of Rome and later the Duke of Reichstadt.

When Napoléon I was deposed in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo, the House of Bourbon was restored to the throne of France.

Napoléon Louis fled into exile, but the Bonapartes never abandoned the thought of restoring the Napoleonic Empire.

On 17 March 1831, while fleeing Italy due to a crackdown on revolutionary activity by Papal and Austrian troops, Napoléon Louis, suffering from measles, died in Forlì.

[2] Eventually, the French Empire would be restored by Napoléon-Louis's younger brother, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who became Napoléon III in 1852.