Why didn't he re-proclaim himself Holy Roman Emperor as

>>2867604
guess he had to shave the legs to avoid itchiness due to tights

Because by this point the Holy Roman Empire was a meaningless relic.

The only possible use of being the "Holy Roman Emperor" by then would be claiming lands integral to the past HRE, which, even if you don't intend to do, will still massively piss off your neighbors.

>implying it's too late to re-proclaim the Holy Roman Empire
As long the German states exist it's not too late to do it.

File: germanicconfederation.png (172KB, 468x648px) Image search: [Google]

172KB, 468x648px

people stopped taking it seriously

>>2867604
Because no one really cared about it anymore, and he'd already got Venice so why bother about other past glories

>declare yourself HRE
>everyone laughs at you
>and there's nothing you can do about it
That's why

Napoleon should have forced him to declare Napoleon Holy Roman Emperor for the luls and then promptly dissolved it.

>>2867604
It sort of was revived.

Following the Napoopleonic War and his meme Confederation of the Rhine, the congress of Vienna dissolved the confederacy and set up the German Confederacy. The Bund was largely similar in structure to the HRE, except it was more liberal, and with greater economic freedom among the states (most particularly after the Zollverein dissolved the customs of each German state).

Furthermore the Bund met in a federal assembly, wherein the president was always the Austrian Emperor.

It was ruined due to Nationalism, and finally Prussia's never ending challenge to Austrian supremacy over the other Germans resulting to the Seven Weeks War.

>>2867604
Napoleon was so Roman and imperial that his very existence made the HRE redundant

Instead, we got "Germany", which did wonders for Europe.

>>2867604
Traded of meaningless titles over countries he had no power over for consolidating the actual estates of the Austrian country and to try and enforce the idea of an Austrian citizen.

Here's a read about it (it's a bit dry though)

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674047761