A day later.
Sunlight crept through tall windows, dust drifting lazily through the air, servants already moving through corridors with soft steps and lowered voices. Somewhere far away, a clock chimed the hour. Somewhere closer, a child stirred.
Napoleon II woke before his attendants.
He always did.
The small bed was too large for him, carved wood and embroidered linens meant for ceremony rather than comfort. He pushed himself upright and sat there for a moment, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
Satisfied, he slid out of bed and padded across the rug to the window. The latch was heavy for his small hands, but he managed it with practiced effort. The curtains parted.
There, he looked down at the servants working on the yards, he finds it relaxing.
Then, a knock came at the door.
"Your Highness?" a woman's voice called gently.
"Come in," Napoleon II replied.
The door opened to reveal Madame de Montesquiou, his governess, already dressed for the day. She paused, as she often did, when she heard him speak so clearly, so calmly. It still unsettled her.
"You are awake early again," she said, masking her unease with a smile.
"I wanted to see the morning," he replied.
She crossed the room and knelt to his level, helping him dress. The routine was precise. Shirt first. Buttons. Waistcoat. Small boots polished to a mirror shine.
While she worked, Napoleon II asked questions.
Not childish ones.
"How many wagons left the palace this morning?"
She hesitated. "I… believe four."
"And yesterday?"
"Five."
He nodded. "Then the deliveries are normal."
Madame de Montesquiou did not ask how he knew this mattered.
Breakfast was taken in a smaller dining room, away from the grand halls. Warm bread. Milk. Fruit. He ate neatly, without fuss, listening more than speaking as servants murmured among themselves.
After breakfast came lessons.
His tutors arrived in sequence. language first. French, naturally, though Alfred already spoke it better than most adults. Then German, at Marie-Louise's insistence. Latin followed, though simplified. Geography after that, with maps laid across the table. Lastly, mathematics that shocked tutors on how fast he was able to calculate.
He behaved as expected of a prince.
He listened.
He answered.
He asked questions that made grown men pause.
When corrected, he did not pout. When praised, he did not smile excessively. He absorbed information like a ledger absorbs ink, causing tutors to whisper among themselves when he was not looking. Words like prodigious, genius, precocious, and other synonyms to a word intelligent were used.
Midday brought a short walk through the gardens, always accompanied. Guards followed at a respectful distance. He walked slowly, hands clasped behind his back in unconscious imitation of his father.
Sometimes he stopped to watch soldiers drill.
Sometimes he watched workers repairing walls or trimming hedges.
Sometimes he simply stood and listened.
After lunch came free time.
For most children, that meant toys.
For Napoleon II, it meant books.
He has the arsenal of books at his disposal at the library with contents of history, politics, geography, sciences, religion, mathematics, et cetera.
Occasionally, Marie-Louise, his mother, would join him. This is not the contemporary parenting where the mother would often spend their day with their child. Marie-Louise being the French Empress meant that her time was divided between court obligations, correspondence, audiences, and the constant quiet scrutiny placed upon her as an Austrian archduchess in a French court that never fully forgot her origins.
She sat beside him at the long reading table, gloves removed, posture straight, watching him more than the pages in front of him. Napoleon II rarely looked up when she arrived. He always knew. The faint change in footstep cadence was enough.
"You like that book?" she said softly.
"Yes," he replied, turning a page.
She glanced at the open book. It was not a picture book. It was a simplified historical volume, margins filled with small annotations in a child's hand, arrows, dates, underlined names.
"Do you understand all of that?" she asked.
"Most of it," he said. "The rest I will later."
She accepted that answer, because arguing with him never led anywhere productive.
She remained for perhaps half an hour. She read aloud once when he asked. She corrected his pronunciation when he slipped into a German cadence. She brushed dust from his sleeve when he leaned too close to the shelves.
Then duty called her away.
Napoleon II watched her leave without expression and returned to his book.
By mid-afternoon, he moved from reading to writing. And at this moment, he preferred being alone. But there were still Imperial Guards present, standing by the corner of the room.
And what he was writing was his memory from his past, anything, history, scientific knowledge, et cetera. He must have a record of them while his memory was still fresh. He did that until dinner where he was summoned by Madame de Montesquiou herself.
She did not knock this time. She entered with a slight incline of the head, signaling formality.
"Your Highness. It is time."
Napoleon II closed the leather folder, slid it back into the cabinet, and stood without complaint. A servant helped straighten his coat. Another wiped ink from his fingers. The guards fell in behind him as he was escorted through the corridors.
Dinner was held in a modest formal dining room, not the grand hall. Candles lined the table. Porcelain plates. Silverware aligned with care. Everything measured. Controlled.
Napoleon was already seated when his son entered.
Of course, Napoleon II would act like a child and Napoleon treated him so.
"How's the heir of France?" Napoleon said while he ate his lambchop.
"He was doing fine I hear," Marie said. "According to his tutors he has been exhausting them," she finished, a faint smile touching her lips. "They say he asks too many questions."
Napoleon cut another piece of meat. "Good. Hearing that makes me feel the future of France is secured."
"Of course, our son is a genius afterall."
And there goes his daily routine, and he can't wait to age fast so that he could do something meaningful.