 In February 1848, Louis Napoleon learned that the French Revolution of 1848 had broken out, and that Louis-Philippe, faced with opposition within his government and army, had abdicated.Believing that his time had finally come, he set out for Paris on 27 February, departing England on the same day that Louis-Philippe left France for his own exile in England.When he arrived in Paris, he found that the Second Republic had been declared, led by a Provisional Government headed by a Commission led by Alphonse de Lamartine, and that different factions of republicans, from conservatives to those on the far left, were competing for power.