Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

Born in Florence in 1768, Francis was the eldest son of Leopold II, then Grand Duke of Tuscany. He inherited the Holy Roman throne in 1792 when his father died after just two years as emperor. Almost immediately the French Revolutionary Wars pulled him into conflict with France - he lost the Rhine's left bank in the first round. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804, Francis declared himself Emperor of Austria in response. Two years later, with Napoleon carving up German territory into the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated the Holy Roman crown - a formal end to an empire that had stood since 800. He kept losing: territory ceded, his daughter Marie Louise married off to Napoleon as part of a humiliating peace. Then in 1813 he turned, joined the Sixth Coalition, and broke Napoleon for good. At the Congress of Vienna his chancellor Metternich rebuilt a conservative European order that restored much of Austria's old holdings, and Francis served as first president of the German Confederation from 1815 until his death in 1835.