Cuza’s foes unite to force his abdication.

On February 23, 1866, army officers loyal to the country’s leading boyars awaken Cuza and his mistress, force the prince to abdicate, and escort him from the capital.

The next morning, street placards in Bucharest announce the prince's departure and rule by a regency pending the election of a foreign prince.

With the tacit support of Napoleon III, Ion Bratianu, the leader of Romania's Liberals, nominates as the new prince the French emperor’s twenty-seven-year-old cousin, Prince Karl of southern Germany's Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family.

Over objections from the other European powers, the Romanians elect by plebiscite the prince, who, disguised as a salesman, travels through Austria by second-class rail and steamboat to accept the throne.