Line of succession to the French throne (Bonapartist)

The line of succession to the throne of the French Empire was vested in the descendants and relations of Napoleon Bonaparte until the abolition of the Empire in 1870.

The French Empire (or the Napoleonic Empire) formally existed during two periods when the head of the French state was a monarch who held the title of emperor.

The First French Empire was the regime established by Napoleon I Bonaparte in France. This empire lasted from 1804 to 1814, from the Consulate of the First French Republic to the Bourbon Restoration, and was briefly restored during the Hundred Days in 1815.

The Second French Empire was the regime established in France by Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second French Republic and the Third French Republic. Napoleon III was the third son of Louis Bonaparte, a younger brother of Napoleon I, and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Napoleon I's wife, Josephine de Beauharnais, by her first marriage.

Bonapartism had its followers from 1815 forward among those who never accepted the defeat at Waterloo or the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon I's death in exile on Saint Helena in 1821 only transferred the allegiance of many of his loyalists to other members of the House of Bonaparte.

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