The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 867: Chapter 7 Louis Bonaparte’s Ambition_3

Louis saw Arthur was silent and couldn’t hold back after a while, so he finally said: “Arthur, Alexander, I appreciate your concern. But I’m feeling down lately, not because I’m afraid Louis Philippe will chop off my head. Rather… it’s Austria, I received some news from Vienna. I didn’t want to tell you, but even if I don’t say anything, you will probably find out once you get to Paris.”

Arthur asked: “What happened to Austria?”

Great Dumas recalled Heine’s sarcastic comments about Austrian Prime Minister Metternich: “Could it be that Metternich’s German hemorrhoids have flared up again? And with urinary incontinence?”

But Louis clearly had no intention of joking, he held his head with one hand and shook it slightly: “My brother, Napoleon’s son, the King of Rome of the French Empire, the Prince of Parma and Duke of Reichstadt of the Austrian Empire, Francois Joseph Charles Bonaparte, has died in Vienna due to tuberculosis.”

Outside the cabin, lightning flashed, and thunder roared. As soon as Louis finished speaking, the cabin fell into a deathly silence.

The other passengers in the dining room were cowering because of the raging waves and the lightning and thunder over the sea, while Arthur and Alexander were perceptive enough to realize that some subtle changes were happening within the Bonaparte family.

Napoleon was dead, and his only legitimate heir was also dead.

According to the law of succession, the leadership of the Bonaparte family naturally fell to Louis’s uncle, the former King of Spain, now residing in Regency Crescent in London, Joseph Bonaparte.

And the subtle point was, Joseph Bonaparte had no legitimate heirs. Furthermore, due to the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, no royal family in Europe would consider intermarrying with the Bonaparte family again.

This meant that Joseph Bonaparte’s line was destined to become extinct.

And when Louis’s uncle died, the leadership of Napoleon’s family would pass to Louis’s father.

Louis’s father had two legitimate sons, but unfortunately, Louis’s elder brother died in last year’s Charcoal Party uprising in Rome, so…

Arthur and Great Dumas exchanged a glance, then both looked at Louis’s face, which appeared pale under the flash of lightning.

His hair was wet from the rain seeping in from outside the window, and whether from fear or sorrow, his body, along with his eyes, was trembling.

Red Devil placed his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, and Agares leaned closer, whispering in Arthur’s ear with a smile: “Arthur, look at those eyes, are they filled with sorrow? Perhaps there is sorrow, but I believe the predominant emotion there is excitement.”

The former Police Intelligence Department secretary of the Royal Greater London Police Department, now the second-class secretary at the Embassy to Hanover of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Sir Arthur Hastings’s personal assistant, the second in line to the Bonaparte family inheritance, and among the second generation of the Bonaparte family, the highest-ranked successor—Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the young man with wet hair sitting in front of Arthur and Great Dumas.

Arthur gazed at Louis, then suddenly shook his head and handed over a towel: “Louis, this is indeed unfortunate news.”

Louis was taken aback at first, then he took the towel, and his eyes seemed to burn with fire: “Yes, it is indeed unfortunate.”