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Napoleon III

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Napoleon III
Franz Xaver Winterhalter Napoleon III.jpg
Emperor of the French
Reign2 December 1852 –
4 September 1870
Cabinet ChiefSee list
President of France
In office20 December 1848 –
2 December 1852
Prime MinisterSee list
BornCharles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte
(1808-04-20)20 April 1808
Paris, French Empire
Chislehurst, Kent, England, United Kingdom
BurialSt Michael's Abbey, Farnborough
IssueLouis Napoléon, Prince Imperial
Full name
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte
FatherLouis I of Holland
MotherHortense de Beauharnais

Napoleon III (born Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870 and, as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the President of France from 1848 to 1852. He was the only president of the French Second Republic and the founder of the Second French Empire.

The nephew and heir of Napoleon I, he was the first head of state of France to hold the title of president, the first elected by a direct popular vote and the youngest until the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. Barred by the Constitution and Parliament from running for a second term, he organized a self-coup d'état in 1851 and then took the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of his uncle's coronation. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution. His downfall was brought about by the Franco-Prussian War in which France was quickly and decisively defeated by the North German Confederation, led by Prussia.

During the first years of the Empire, Napoleon's government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until 1859. Thousands more went into voluntary exile abroad, including Victor Hugo.[1] From 1862 onwards, he relaxed government censorship and his regime came to be known as the "Liberal Empire". Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly.[2]

Napoleon III commissioned the grand reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann. He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon and other French cities.[3] Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railway system and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made France an agricultural exporter. Napoleon III negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier free trade agreement with Britain and similar agreements with France's other European trading partners.[4] Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize. Women's education greatly expanded as did the list of required subjects in public schools.[5]

In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and around the world. He was a supporter of popular sovereignty and of nationalism.[6] In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War (1853–56). His regime assisted Italian unification and in doing so annexed Savoy and the County of Nice to France—at the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. Napoleon doubled the area of the French overseas empire in Asia, the Pacific and Africa. His army's intervention in Mexico which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection ended in failure.



Childhood and family[edit]

Early life[edit]


As empress, Joséphine proposed the marriage as a way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile.[7] Louis married Hortense when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen. They had a difficult relationship, and only lived together for brief periods. Their first son died in 1807 and—though separated—they decided to have a third. They resumed their marriage for a brief time in Toulouse in July 1807, and Louis was born prematurely, two weeks short of nine months. Louis-Napoleon's enemies, including Victor Hugo, spread the gossip that he was the child of a different man, but most historians agree today that he was the legitimate son of Louis Bonaparte[8][9] (see ancestry).[10]

Charles-Louis was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau on 5 November 1810, with Emperor Napoleon serving as his godfather and Empress Marie-Louise as his godmother. His father stayed away, once again separated from Hortense. At the age of seven, Louis-Napoleon visited his uncle at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Napoleon held him up to the window to see the soldiers parading in the courtyard of the Carousel below. He last saw his uncle with the family at the Château de Malmaison, shortly before Napoleon departed for Waterloo.[11]

All members of the Bonaparte dynasty were forced into exile after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the Bourbon Restoration of monarchy in France. Hortense and Louis-Napoleon moved from Aix to Berne to Baden, and finally to a lakeside house at Arenenberg in the Swiss canton of Thurgau. He received some of his education in Germany at the gymnasium school at Augsburg, Bavaria. As a result, for the rest of his life his French had a slight but noticeable German accent. His tutor at home was Philippe Le Bas, an ardent republican and the son of a revolutionary and close friend of Robespierre. Le Bas taught him French history and radical politics.[12]

Romantic revolutionary (1823–35)[edit]

When Louis-Napoleon was fifteen, Hortense moved to Rome, where the Bonapartes had a villa. He passed his time learning Italian, exploring the ancient ruins, and learning the arts of seduction and romantic affairs, which he used often in his later life. He became friends with the French Ambassador, François-René Chateaubriand, the father of romanticism in French literature, with whom he remained in contact for many years. He was reunited with his older brother Napoléon Louis, and together they became involved with the Carbonari, secret revolutionary societies fighting Austria's domination of northern Italy. In the spring of 1831, when he was twenty-three, the Austrian and papal governments launched an offensive against the Carbonari, and the two brothers, wanted by the police, were forced to flee. During their flight Napoleon-Louis contracted measles and, on 17 March 1831, died in his brother's arms.[13] Hortense joined her son and together they evaded the police and Austrian army and finally reached the French border.[14]

Hortense and Louis-Napoléon travelled incognito to Paris, where the old regime had just fallen and had been replaced by the more liberal regime of King Louis-Philippe I. They arrived in Paris on 23 April 1831, and took up residence under the name "Hamilton" in the Hotel du Holland on Place Vendôme. Hortense wrote an appeal to the King, asking to stay in France, and Louis-Napoleon offered to volunteer as an ordinary soldier in the French Army. The new King agreed to meet secretly with Hortense; Louis Napoleon had a fever and did not join them. The King finally agreed that Hortense and Louis-Napoleon could stay in Paris as long as their stay was brief and incognito. Louis-Napoleon was told that he could join the French Army if he would simply change his name, something he indignantly refused to do. Hortense and Louis Napoleon remained in Paris until 5 May, the tenth anniversary of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. The presence of Hortense and Louis-Napoleon in the hotel had become known, and a public demonstration of mourning for the Emperor took place on Place Vendôme in front of their hotel. The same day, Hortense and Louis-Napoleon were ordered to leave Paris. They went to Britain briefly, and then back into exile in Switzerland.[15]

Early adult years[edit]

Bonaparte Succession and philosophy of Bonapartism[edit]

A Bonapartist movement existed in France ever since the fall of Napoleon in 1815, hoping to return a Bonaparte to the throne. According to the law of succession established by Napoleon I, the claim passed first to his son who had been given the title "King of Rome" at birth by his father. He was known by Bonapartists as Napoleon II and was living under virtual imprisonment at the court of Vienna under the name Duke of Reichstadt. Next in line was Napoleon I's eldest brother Joseph Bonaparte, followed by Louis Bonaparte, but neither Joseph nor Louis had any interest in re-entering public life. When the Duke of Reichstadt died in 1831, Louis-Napoléon became the heir of the dynasty and the leader of the Bonaparte cause.[16]

In exile with his mother in Switzerland, he enrolled in the Swiss Army, trained to become an officer, and wrote a manual of artillery (his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte had become famous as an artillery officer). He also began writing about his political philosophy. He published his Rêveries politiques or "political dreams" in 1833 at the age of 25, followed in 1834 by Considérations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse ("Political and military considerations about Switzerland"), followed in 1839 by Les Idées napoléoniennes ("Napoleonic Ideas"), a compendium of his political ideas which was published in three editions and eventually translated in six languages. His doctrine was based upon two ideas: universal suffrage and the primacy of the national interest. He called for a "Monarchy which procures the advantages of the Republic without the inconveniences", a regime "strong without despotism, free without anarchy, independent without conquest."[17]


Louis-Napoleon at the time of his failed coup in 1836.

"I believe," Louis Napoleon wrote, "that from time to time, men are created whom I call volunteers of providence, in whose hands are placed the destiny of their countries. I believe I am one of those men. If I am wrong, I can perish uselessly. If I am right, then providence will put me into a position to fulfill my mission."[18] He had seen the popular enthusiasm for Napoleon Bonaparte when he was in Paris, and he was convinced that, if he marched to Paris, as Napoleon Bonaparte had done in 1815 during the Hundred Days, France would rise up and join him. He began to plan a coup against King Louis-Philippe.

Louis-Napoleon launching his failed coup in Strasbourg in 1836.

He planned for his uprising to begin in Strasbourg. The colonel of a regiment was brought over to the cause. On 29 October 1836, Louis Napoleon arrived in Strasbourg, in the uniform of an artillery officer, and rallied the regiment to his side. The prefecture was seized, and the prefect arrested. Unfortunately for Louis-Napoleon, the general commanding the garrison escaped and called in a loyal regiment, which surrounded the mutineers. The mutineers surrendered and Louis-Napoleon fled back to Switzerland.[19]


King Louis-Philippe demanded that the Swiss government return Louis-Napoleon to France, but the Swiss pointed out that he was a Swiss citizen, and refused to hand him over. Louis-Philippe responded by sending an army to the Swiss border. Louis-Napoleon thanked his Swiss hosts, and voluntarily left the country. The other mutineers were put on trial in Alsace, and were all acquitted.

Louis-Napoleon traveled first to London, then to Brazil, and then to New York. He moved into a hotel, where he met the elite of New York society, and the writer Washington Irving. While he was traveling to see more of the United States, he received word that his mother was very ill. He hurried as quickly as he could back to Switzerland. He reached Arenenberg in time to be with his mother on 5 October 1837, when she died. She was finally buried in Reuil, in France, next to her mother, on 11 January 1838, but Louis-Napoleon could not attend, because he was not allowed into France.[20]

Louis-Napoleon returned to London for a new period of exile in October 1838. He had inherited a large fortune from his mother, and took a house with seventeen servants and several of his old friends and fellow conspirators. He was received by London society and met the political and scientific leaders of the day, including Benjamin Disraeli and Michael Faraday. He also did considerable research into the economy of Britain. He strolled in Hyde Park, which he later used as a model when he created the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.[21]




The register of the fortress Ham for 7 October 1840 contained a concise description of the new prisoner: "Age: thirty-two years. Height: one meter sixty-six. Hair and eyebrows: chestnut. Eyes: Gray and small. Nose: large. Mouth: ordinary. Beard: brown. Moustache: blond. Chin: pointed. Face: oval. Complexion: pale. Head: sunken in his shoulders, and large shoulders. Back: bent. Lips: thick."[23] He had a mistress, a young woman from the nearby town named Éléonore Vergeot, who gave birth to two of his children.[24]

While in prison, he wrote poems, political essays, and articles on diverse topics. He contributed articles to regional newspapers and magazines in towns all over France, becoming quite well known as a writer. His most famous book was L'extinction du pauperism (1844), a study of the causes of poverty in the French industrial working class, with proposals to eliminate it. His conclusion: "The working class has nothing, it is necessary to give them ownership. They have no other wealth than their own labor, it is necessary to give them work that will benefit all....they are without organization and without connections, without rights and without a future; it is necessary to give them rights and a future and to raise them in their own eyes by association, education, and discipline." He proposed various practical ideas for creating a banking and savings system that would provide credit to the working class, and to establish agricultural colonies similar to the kibutzes later founded in Israel.[25] This book was widely reprinted and circulated in France, and played an important part in his future electoral success.


Return and early affairs[edit]

He returned to Britain, and quickly resumed his place in British society. He lived on King Street in St James's, London, went to the theatre and hunted, renewed his acquaintance with Benjamin Disraeli, and met Charles Dickens. He went back to his studies at the British Museum. He had an affair with the actress Rachel, the most famous French actress of the period, during her tours to Britain. More important for his future career, he had an affair with the wealthy heiress Harriet Howard (1823–65). They had met in 1846, soon after his return to Britain. They began to live together, she took in his two illegitimate children and raised them with her own son, and she provided financing for his political plans so that, when the moment came, he could return to France.[27]

Early political career[edit]

1848 Revolution and birth of the Second Republic[edit]




The Moderate Republican leaders of the provisional government, Lamartine and Cavaignac, considered arresting him as a dangerous revolutionary, but once again he outmaneuvered them. He wrote to the President of the Provisional Government: "I believe I should wait to return to the heart of my country, so that my presence in France will not serve as a pretext to the enemies of the Republic."[30]


His absence from Paris meant that Louis Napoleon was not connected either with the uprising, or with the brutal repression that had followed. He was still in London on 17–18 September, when the elections for the National Assembly were held, but he was a candidate in thirteen departments. He was elected in five departments; in Paris, he received 110,000 votes of the 247,000 cast, the highest number of votes of any candidate. He returned to Paris on 24 September, and this time he took his place in the National Assembly. In seven months, he had gone from a political exile in London to a highly visible place in the National Assembly, as the government finished the new Constitution and prepared for the first election ever of a President of the French Republic.[32]

Presidential election of 1848[edit]



Louis-Napoleon established his campaign headquarters and residence at the Hotel du Rhin on Place Vendôme. He was accompanied by his companion, Harriet Howard, who gave him a large loan to help finance his campaign. He rarely went to the sessions of the National Assembly, and rarely voted. He was not a gifted orator; he spoke slowly, in a monotone, with a slight German accent from his Swiss education. His opponents sometimes ridiculed him, one comparing him to "a turkey who believes he's an eagle."[35]



The elections were held on 10–11 December, and results announced on 20 December. Louis-Napoleon was widely expected to win, but the size of his victory surprised almost everyone. He won 5,572,834 votes, or 74.2 percent of votes cast, compared with 1,469,156 for Cavaignac. The socialist Ledru-Rollin received 376,834; the extreme left candidate Raspail received 37,106, and the poet Lamartine received only 17,000 votes. Louis-Napoleon won the support of all segments of the population: the peasants unhappy with rising prices; unemployed workers; small businessmen who wanted prosperity and order; and intellectuals such as Victor Hugo. He won the votes of 55.6 percent of all registered voters, and won in all but four of France's departments.[39]

Prince-President (1848–51)[edit]



He also made his first venture into foreign policy, in Italy, where as a youth he had joined in the patriotic uprising against the Austrians. The previous government had sent an expeditionary force to Rome to help restore the temporal authority of Pope Pius IX, who was being threatened by the troops of the Italian republicans Mazzini and Garibaldi. The French troops came under fire from Garibaldi's soldiers. The Prince-President, without consulting his ministers, ordered his soldiers to fight if needed in support of the Pope. This was very popular with French Catholics, but infuriated the republicans, who supported Garibaldi.[40] To please the radical republicans, he asked the Pope to introduce liberal reforms and the Code Napoleon to the Papal States. To gain support from the Catholics, he approved the Loi Falloux in 1851, which restored a greater role for the Catholic Church in the French educational system.[41]

Elections were held for the National Assembly on 13–14 May 1849, only a few months after Louis-Napoleon had become President, and were largely won by a coalition of conservative republicans—which Catholics and monarchists called "The Party of Order"—led by Adolphe Thiers. The socialists and "red" republicans, led by Ledru-Rollin and Raspail, also did well, winning two hundred seats. The moderate republicans, in the middle, did very badly, taking just 70-80 seats. The Party of Order had a clear majority, enough to block any initiatives of Louis-Napoleon.[42]


The National Assembly, now without the left republicans and determined to keep them out forever, proposed a new election law that placed restrictions on universal male suffrage, imposing a three-year residency requirement. This new law excluded 3.5 of 9 million French voters, the voters that the leader of the Party of Order, Adolphe Thiers scornfully called "the vile multitude."[43] This new election law was passed in May 1850 by a majority of 433 to 241, putting the National Assembly on a direct collision course with the Prince-President.[44] Louis-Napoleon broke with the Assembly and the conservative ministers opposing his projects in favour of the dispossessed. He secured the support of the army, toured the country making populist speeches that condemned the assembly, and presented himself as the protector of universal male suffrage. He demanded that the law be changed, but his proposal was defeated in the Assembly by a vote of 355 to 348.[45]


Coup d'état (December 1851)[edit]

Daguerreotype of Napoleon III c. 1850-1855

Louis-Napoleon believed that he was supported by the people, and he decided to retain power by other means. His half-brother Morny and a few close advisors began to quietly organize a coup d'état. They brought Major General Jacques Leroy de Saint Arnaud, a former captain from the French Foreign Legion and a commander of French forces in Algeria, and other officers from the French army in North Africa, to provide military backing for the coup. The date set for the coup was 2 December, the anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz, and the anniversary of the coronation of Louis-Napoleon's uncle Napoleon I. On the night of 1–2 December, Saint Arnaud's soldiers quietly occupied the national printing office, the Palais Bourbon, newspaper offices, and the strategic points in the city. In the morning, Parisians found posters around the city announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly, the restoration of universal suffrage, new elections, and a state of siege in Paris and the surrounding departments. Sixteen members of the National Assembly were arrested in their homes. When about 220 deputies of the moderate right gathered at the city hall of the 10th arrondissement, they were also arrested.[47] On 3 December, writer Victor Hugo and a few other republicans tried to organize an opposition to the coup. A few barricades appeared, and about 1,000 insurgents came out in the streets, but the army moved in force with 30,000 troops and the uprisings were swiftly crushed, with the killing of an estimated 300 to 400 opponents of the coup.[48] There were also small uprisings in the more militant red republican towns in the south and center of France, but these were all put down by 10 December.[49]

Louis-Napoleon followed the self-coup by a period of repression of his opponents, aimed mostly at the red republicans. About 26,000 people were arrested, including 4,000 in Paris alone. The 239 inmates who were judged most severely were sent to the penal colony in Cayenne.[50] 9,530 followers were sent to French Algeria, 1,500 were expelled from France, and another 3,000 were given forced residence away from their homes.[51] Soon afterwards, a commission of revision freed 3,500 of those sentenced. In 1859 the remaining 1800 prisoners and exiles were amnestied, with the exception of the republican leader Ledru-Rollin, who was released from prison but required to leave the country.[52]


Louis-Napoleon wished to demonstrate that his new government had a broad popular mandate, so on 20–21 December a national plebiscite was held asking if voters agreed to the coup. Mayors in many regions threatened to publish the names of any electors who refused to vote. When asked if they agreed to the coup, 7,439,216 voters said yes, 641,737 voted no, and 1.7 million voters abstained.[54] The fairness and legality of the referendum was immediately questioned by Louis-Napoleon's critics,[55] but Louis-Napoleon was convinced that he had been given a public mandate to rule.

Hugo, who had originally supported Louis-Napoleon but had been infuriated by the coup d'état, departed Paris for Brussels by train on 11 December 1851. He became the most bitter critic of Louis-Napoleon, rejected the amnesty offered him, and did not return to France for twenty years.[56]

Middle years[edit]

A New Empire[edit]

The Prince-President in 1852, after the coup d'état.

The 1851 referendum also gave Louis-Napoleon a mandate to amend the constitution. Work began on the new document in 1852. It was officially prepared by a committee of eighty experts, but was actually drafted by a small group of the Prince-President's inner circle. Under the new constitution, Louis-Napoleon was automatically reelected as president. Under Article Two, the president could now serve an unlimited number of 10-year terms. He alone was given the authority to declare war, sign treaties, form alliances and initiate laws. The Constitution re-established universal male suffrage, and also retained a National Assembly, but with greatly reduced authority.[57]


The National Guard, whose members had sometimes joined anti-government demonstrations, was re-organized, and largely used only in parades. Government officials were required to wear uniforms at official formal occasions. The Minister of Education was given the power to dismiss professors at the universities, and to review the content of their courses. Students at the universities were forbidden to wear beards, seen as a symbol of republicanism.[58]







Early construction[edit]

The Gare de Lyon and Gare du Nord railway stations in Paris were built by Napoleon III. During his reign, the railway network of France expanded from 3 500 kilometers to 20 000 kilometers.
Among the commercial innovations encouraged by Napoleon III were the first department stores. Bon Marché opened in 1852, followed by Au Printemps in 1865.

One of the first priorities of Napoleon III was the modernization of the French economy, which had fallen far behind that of the United Kingdom and some of the German states. Political economics had long been a passion of the Emperor: While in Britain he had visited factories and railway yards, and in prison he had studied and written about the sugar industry and policies to reduce poverty. He wanted the government to play an active, not a passive, role in the economy. In 1839, he had written: "Government is not a necessary evil, as some people claim; it is instead the benevolent motor for the whole social organism."[61] He did not advocate the government getting directly involved in industry. Instead, the government took a very active role in building the infrastructure for economic growth; stimulating the stock market and investment banks to provide credit; building railways, ports, canals and roads; and providing training and education. He also opened up French markets to foreign goods, such as railway tracks from England, forcing French industry to become more efficient and more competitive.[62]

The period was favorable for industrial expansion. The gold rushes in California and Australia increased the European money supply. In the early years of the Empire, the economy also benefited from the coming of age of those born during the baby boom of the Restoration period.[63] The steady rise of prices caused by the increase of the money supply encouraged company promotion and investment of capital.

Beginning in 1852, Napoleon III encouraged the creation of new banks, such as Crédit Mobilier, which sold shares to the public and provided loans to both private industry and to the government. Crédit Lyonnais was founded in 1863, and Société Générale in 1864. These banks provided the funding for Napoleon III's major projects, from railway and canals to the rebuilding of Paris.


Development of steamships and early reconstruction on Paris[edit]

Enormous public works projects reconstructed the center of Paris. Here, work to extend the Rue de Rivoli continues at night by electric light (1854).

New shipping lines were created and ports rebuilt in Marseille and Le Havre, which connected France by sea to the USA, Latin America, North Africa and the Far East. During the Empire the number of steamships tripled, and by 1870 France possessed, after England, the second-largest maritime fleet in the world.[65] Napoleon III backed the greatest maritime project of the age, the construction of the Suez Canal between 1859 and 1869. The canal was funded by shares on the Paris stock market, and led by a former French diplomat, Ferdinand de Lesseps. It was opened by the Empress Eugénie, with a performance of Verdi's opera Aida.[66]

The rebuilding of central Paris also encouraged commercial expansion and innovation. The first department store, Bon Marché, opened in Paris in 1852 in a modest building, and expanded rapidly, its income going from 450,000 francs a year to 20 million. Its founder, Aristide Boucicaut, commissioned a new glass and iron building, designed by Louis-Charles Boileau and Gustave Eiffel and opened in 1869, which became the model for the modern department store. Other department stores quickly appeared: Au Printemps in 1865 and La Samaritaine in 1870. They were soon imitated around the world.[67]


Reconstruction of Paris (1854–70)[edit]

The Avenue de l'Opéra, one of the new boulevards created by Napoleon III. The new buildings on the boulevards were required to be all of the same height and same basic facade design, and all faced with cream coloured stone, giving the city center its distinctive harmony.




For the nearly two decades of Napoleon III's reign, and for a decade afterwards, most of Paris was an enormous construction site. His hydraulic chief engineer, Eugène Belgrand, built a new aqueduct to bring clean water from the Vanne River in the Champagne region, and a new huge reservoir near the future Parc Montsouris. These two works increased the water supply of Paris from 87,000 to 400,000 cubic meters of water a day.[69] Hundreds of kilometers of pipes distributed the water throughout the city, and a second network, using the less-clean water from the Ourq and the Seine, washed the streets and watered the new park and gardens. He completely rebuilt the Paris sewers, and installed miles of pipes to distribute gas for thousands of new streetlights along the Paris streets.[70]






Search for a wife and an heir[edit]

Empress Eugénie in 1853, after her marriage to Napoleon III (by Franz Xaver Winterhalter)

Soon after becoming Emperor, Napoleon III began searching for a wife to give him an heir. He was still attached to his companion Harriet Howard, who attended receptions at the Élysée Palace and traveled around France with him. He quietly sent a diplomatic delegation to approach the family of princess Carola of Vasa, the granddaughter of deposed king Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden. They declined because of his Catholic religion and the political uncertainty about his future, as did the family of Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a niece of Queen Victoria.

Finally Louis-Napoleon announced that he found the right woman: Eugénie du Derje de Montijo, age 23, 16th Countess of Teba and 15th Marquise of Ardales. Her maternal grandfather, William Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, was a Scottish wine merchant. She received much of her education in Paris. Her beauty attracted Louis-Napoleon, who, as was his custom, tried to seduce her, but Eugénie told him to wait for marriage. The civil ceremony took place at Tuileries Palace on 22 January 1853, and a much grander ceremony was held a few days later at Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. In 1856, Eugénie gave birth to a son and heir-apparent, Napoléon, Prince Imperial.[74]

Eugénie and the Prince Imperial in 1862

Safe with an heir, Napoleon III resumed his "petites distractions" with other women. Eugénie faithfully performed the duties of an Empress, entertaining guests and accompanying the Emperor to balls, opera, and theater. She traveled to Egypt to open the Suez Canal and officially represented him whenever he traveled outside France.

Though a fervent Catholic and conservative on many other issues, she strongly advocated equality for women. She pressured the Ministry of National Education to give the first baccalaureate diploma to a woman and tried unsuccessfully to induce the Académie française to elect the writer George Sand as its first female member.[75]

Foreign policy (1852–60)[edit]


Principle of Nationalities[edit]

Napoleon III and Abdelkader El Djezairi, Algerian military leader who led a struggle against the French invasion of Algeria




The French capture of the Russian positions around Sevastopol brought the end of the Crimean War

From the start of the Empire, Napoleon III sought an alliance with Britain. He had lived there while in exile and saw Britain as a natural partner in the projects he wished to accomplish. An opportunity soon presented itself: In early 1853, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia put pressure on the weak Ottoman government, demanding that the Ottoman Empire give Russia a protectorate over the Christian countries of the Balkans as well as control over Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The Ottoman Empire, backed by Britain and France, refused Russia's demands, and a joint British-French fleet was sent to support the Ottoman Empire. When Russia refused to leave the Romanian territories it had occupied, Britain and France declared war on March 27, 1854.[79]

It took France and Britain six months to organize a full-scale military expedition to the Black Sea. The Anglo-French fleet landed thirty thousand French and twenty thousand British soldiers in the Crimea on 14 September, and began to lay siege to the major Russian port of Sevastopol. As the siege dragged on, the French and British armies were reinforced and troops from the Kingdom of Sardinia joined them, reaching a total of 140,000 soldiers, but they suffered terribly from epidemics of typhus, dysentery, and cholera. During the 332 days of the siege, the French lost 95,000 soldiers, including 75,000 due to disease. The suffering of the army in the Crimea was carefully concealed from the French public by press censorship.[80]

The Battle of Malakoff, 8 September 1855



The defeat of Russia and the alliance with Britain gave France increased authority and prestige in Europe. This was the first war between European powers since the close of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, marking a breakdown of the alliance system that had maintained peace for nearly half a century. The war also effectively ended the Concert of Europe and the Quadruple Alliance, or "Waterloo Coalition," that the other four powers had established. The Paris Peace Conference of 1856 represented a high-water mark for the regime in foreign affairs.[82] It encouraged Napoleon III to make an even bolder foreign policy venture in Italy.[83]

Italian Campaign[edit]

On the evening of 14 January 1858, he and the Empress escaped an assassination attempt unharmed. A group of conspirators threw three bombs at the royal carriage as it made its way to the opera. Eight members of the escort and bystanders were killed and over one hundred people injured. The culprits were quickly arrested. The leader was an Italian nationalist, Felice Orsini, who was aided by a French surgeon Simon Bernard. They believed that, if Napoleon III were killed, a republican revolt would immediately follow in France, and the new republican government would help all Italian states win independence from Austria and achieve national unification. Bernard was in London, where, since he was a political exile, the British government refused to extradite him, but Orsini was tried, convicted and executed on 13 March 1858. The bombing focused the attention of France, and particularly of Napoleon III, on the issue of Italian nationalism.[84]

Part of Italy, particularly the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (officially "Kingdom of Sardinia"), was independent, but Central Italy was still ruled by the Pope and Lombardy, Venice and much of the north was ruled by Austria. Other states were de jure independent (e.g. the Duchy of Parma or the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) but de facto totally under Austrian influence. Napoleon III had fought with the Italian patriots against the Austrians when he was young, and his sympathy was with them, but the Empress, most of his government and the Catholic Church in France supported the Pope and the existing governments. The British Government was also hostile to the idea of promoting nationalism in Italy. Despite the opposition in his government and in his own palace, Napoleon III did all that he could to support the cause of Piedmont-Sardinia. The King of Piedmont-Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II, was invited to Paris in November 1855, and given the same royal treatment as Queen Victoria.






Napoleon III with the French forces at the Battle of Solferino, which secured the Austrian withdrawal from Italy. He was horrified by the casualties, and ended the war soon after the battle.


Napoleon III wisely left the fighting to his professional generals. The first great battle of the war, on 4 June 1859, was fought at the town of Magenta. It was long and bloody, and the French center was exhausted and nearly broken, but the battle was finally won by a timely attack on the Austrian flank by the soldiers of General MacMahon. The Austrians had seven thousand men killed and five thousand captured, while the French forces had four thousand men killed. The battle was largely remembered because, soon after it was fought, patriotic chemists in France gave the name of the battle to their newly discovered bright purple chemical dye; the dye and the colour took the name magenta.[88]

The rest of the Austrian army was able to escape while Napoleon III and King Victor-Emmanuel made a triumphal entry on 10 June into the city of Milan, previously ruled by the Austrians. They were greeted by huge, jubilant crowds waving Italian and French flags.

The Austrians had been driven from Lombardy, but the army of General Giulay remained in the region of Venice. His army had been reinforced and numbered 130,000 men, roughly the same as the French and Piedmontese, though the Austrians were superior in artillery. On 24 June, the second and decisive battle was fought at Solferino. This battle was even longer and bloodier than Magenta. In confused and often ill-directed fighting, there were approximately forty thousand casualties, including 11,500 French. Napoleon III was horrified by the thousands of dead and wounded on the battlefield. He proposed an armistice to the Austrians, which was accepted on 8 July. A formal treaty ending the war was signed on 11 July 1859.[89][90]





Cousin-Montauban leading French forces during the Anglo-French expedition to China




Overseas empire[edit]

Establishing a Mexican empire[edit]

Arrival of Marshal Randon in Algiers in 1857

In 1862, Napoleon III sent troops to Mexico in an effort to establish an allied monarchy in the Americas, with Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria enthroned as Emperor Maximilian I. However, the Second Mexican Empire faced resistance from the republican government of President Benito Juárez. After victory in the American Civil War in 1865, the United States made clear that France would have to leave. It sent 50,000 troops under General Philip H. Sheridan to the U.S.-Mexico border, and helped resupply Juárez. Napoleon was stretched very thin; he had committed 40,000 troops to Mexico, 20,000 to Rome to guard the Pope against the Italians, and another 80,000 in restive Algeria. Furthermore, Prussia, having just defeated Austria, was an imminent threat. Napoleon realized his predicament and withdrew his troops from Mexico in 1866. Maximilian was overthrown and executed.[97][98]


Life at the court of Napoleon III[edit]

The Tuileries Palace during the gala soirée of 10 June 1867, hosted by Napoleon III for the sovereigns attending the Paris International Exhibition of 1867.


The word Tuilerie, plural Tuileries, means Brickworks or Tile-making works. The Palace was given that name because the neighbourhood in which it had been built in 1564 was previously known for its numerous mason and tiler businesses.





When Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and other avant-garde paintings were rejected by the Paris Salon of 1863, Napoleon III ordered that the works be displayed, so that the public could judge for themselves.



Napoleon III commissioned Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to restore the medieval town of Carcassonne in 1853.


Social and economic policies[edit]

Social policy and reforms[edit]






In 1861, through the direct intervention of the Emperor and the Empress Eugénie, Julie-Victoire Daubié became the first woman to receive a baccalauréat diploma.



Victor Duruy, Napoléon III's Minister of Public Education from 1863 to 1869, created schools for girls in every commune of France and women were admitted for the first time to medical school and to the Sorbonne.

Between 1863 and 1869, Duruy created scholastic libraries for fifteen thousand schools, and required that primary schools offer courses in history and geography. Secondary schools began to teach philosophy, which had been banned by the previous regime at the request of the Catholic church. For the first time public schools in France began to teach contemporary history, modern languages, art, gymnastics and music. The results of the school reforms were dramatic: in 1852, over 40 percent of army conscripts in France were unable to read or write. By 1869, the number had dropped to 25 percent. The rate of illiteracy among both girls and boys dropped to 32 percent. [110]


Economic policy[edit]



Economic expansion and social change[edit]

By the 1860s, the huge state investment in railways, infrastructure and fiscal policies of Napoleon III had brought dramatic changes to the French economy and French society. French people travelled in greater numbers, more often and farther than they had ever travelled before. The opening of the first public school libraries by Napoleon III and the opening by Louis Hachette of the first bookstores in Napoleon's new train stations led to the wider circulation of books around France.[113]


French agricultural production increased by sixty percent, spurred by new farming techniques taught at the agricultural schools started in each Department by Napoleon III, and new markets opened by the railways. The threat of famine, which for centuries had haunted the French countryside, receded. The last recorded famine in France was in 1855.[114]

During the Empire, the migration of the rural population to the cities increased. The portion of the population active in agriculture dropped from 61 percent in 1851 to 54 percent in 1870.[115]



Despite the economic progress the country had made, domestic opposition to Napoleon III was slowly growing, particularly in the Corps législatif (Parliament). The republicans on the left had always opposed him, believing he had usurped power and suppressed the Republic. The conservative Catholics were increasingly unhappy, because he had taken away most of the Papal States from the Pope, and because he had built up the public education system, which was a rival to the Catholic system. Many businessmen, particularly in the metallurgical and textile industries, were unhappy, because he had reduced the tariffs on British products, putting the British products in direct competition with their own. The members of Parliament were particularly unhappy with him for dealing with them only when he needed money. When he had liberalized trade with England, he had not even consulted them.[116]

Napoleon's large-scale program of public works, and his expensive foreign policy, had created rapidly mounting government debts; the annual deficit was about 100 million gold-francs, and the cumulative debt had reached nearly 1,000 million gold-francs (1 billion in US readings). The Emperor needed to restore the confidence of the business world, and to involve the legislature and have them share responsibility.

Napoleon III in 1865
Ten centime coin, 1855





Later years[edit]

Declining health and early rise of Prussia[edit]

Through the 1860s, the health of the Emperor steadily worsened. It had been damaged by his six years in prison at Ham; he had chronic pains in his legs and feet, particularly when it was cold, and as a result, he always lived and worked in overheated rooms and offices. He smoked heavily. He distrusted doctors and disregarded medical advice, and attributed any problems simply to "rheumatism", for which he regularly visited the hot springs at Vichy and other spas. It became difficult for him to ride a horse, and he was obliged to walk slowly, often with a cane. From 1869 onwards, the crises of his urinary tract were treated with opium, which made him seem lethargic, sleepy and apathetic. His writing became hard to read, and his voice weak. In the spring of 1870 he was visited by an old friend from England, Lord Malmesbury. Malmesbury found him to be "terribly changed and very ill."[121]










On 15 June, the Prussian Army invaded Saxony, an ally of Austria. On 2 July, Austria asked Napoleon to arrange an armistice between Italy, which had allied itself with Prussia, and Austria, in exchange for which France would receive Venetia. But on 3 July, the Prussian army crushed the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz, in Bohemia. The way to Vienna was open for the Prussians, and Austria asked for an armistice. The armistice was signed on 22 July; Prussia annexed the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel, the Duchy of Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt, with a combined population of four million people.[126]

The Austrian defeat was followed by a new crisis in the health of Napoleon III. Metternich, the Austrian ambassador to France, saw the Emperor on 7 July and reported: "Since I have known the Emperor, never have I seen him in such a state of complete prostration." Marshal Canrobert, who saw him on 28 July, wrote that the Emperor "was pitiful to see. He could barely sit up in his armchair, and his drawn face expressed at the same time moral anguish and physical pain."[126]

Luxembourg Crisis[edit]



Failure to increase the size of the French army[edit]

Despite his failing health, Napoleon III could see that the Prussian Army, combined with the armies of Bavaria and the other German states, would be a formidable enemy. In 1866, Prussia, with a population of 22 million, had been able to mobilize an army of 700,000 men, while France, with a population of 26 million, had an army of only 385,000 men, of whom 100,000 were in Algeria, Mexico, and Rome.[128] In the autumn of 1867, Napoleon III proposed a form of universal military service, similar to the Prussian system, to increase the size of the French Army, if needed, to 1 million. His proposal was opposed by many French officers, such as Marshal Randon, who preferred a smaller, more professional army; he said: "This proposal will only give us recruits; it's soldiers we need."[129] It was also strongly opposed by the republican opposition in the French parliament, who denounced the proposal as a militarization of French society. The republican deputy, Émile Ollivier, who later became Napoleon's prime minister, declared: "The armies of France, which I always considered too large, are now going to be increased to an exorbitant size. Why? What is the necessity? Where is the danger? Who is threatening us? ...If France were to disarm, the Germans would know how to convince their governments to do the same. "[130] Facing almost certain defeat in the parliament, Napoleon III withdrew the proposal. It was replaced in January 1868 by a much more modest project to create a garde mobile, or reserve force, to support the army. [131]

A last search for allies[edit]




Portrait of Napoleon III in 1868 by Adolphe Yvon[134]


While Napoleon III was having no success finding allies, Bismarck signed secret military treaties with the southern German states, who promised to provide troops in the event of a war between Prussia and France. In 1868, Bismarck signed an accord with Russia, giving Russia liberty of action in the Balkans in exchange for neutrality in the event of a war between France and Prussia. This treaty put additional pressure on Austria, which also had interests in the Balkans, not to ally itself with France. Bismarck also reached out to the liberal government of William Gladstone in London, offering to protect the neutrality of Belgium against a French threat. The British Foreign Office under Lord Clarendon mobilized the British Fleet, to dissuade France against any aggressive moves against Belgium. In any war between France and Prussia, France would be entirely alone.[136]


Hohenzollern candidacy and the Ems telegram[edit]


In France, patriotic sentiment was also growing. On 8 May 1870, French voters had overwhelmingly supported Napoleon III's program in a national plebiscite, with 7,358,000 votes yes against 1,582,000 votes no, an increase of support of two million votes since the legislative elections in 1869. The Emperor was less popular in Paris and the big cities, but highly popular in the French countryside. Napoleon had named a new foreign minister, Antoine Agenor, the Duke de Gramont, the French ambassador to Berlin, who was hostile to Bismarck. The Emperor was weak and ill, but the more extreme Bonapartists were prepared to show their strength against the republicans and monarchists in the parliament.[139]


The news of Leopold's candidacy, published 2 July 1870, aroused fury in the French parliament and press. The government was attacked by both the republicans and monarchist opposition, and by the ultra-Bonapartists, for its weakness against Prussia. On 6 July Napoleon III held a meeting of his ministers at the château of Saint-Cloud and told them that Prussia must withdraw the Hohenzollern candidacy or there would be a war. He asked Marshal Leboeuf, the chief of staff of the French army, if the army was prepared for a war against Prussia. Leboeuf responded that the French soldiers had a superior rifle to the Prussian rifle, that the French artillery was commanded by an elite corps of officers, and that the army "would not lack a button on its puttees." He assured the Emperor that the French army could have four hundred thousand men on the Rhine in less than fifteen days.[140]




Defeat in the Franco-Prussian War[edit]

At the outbreak of the war, crowds gathered on the Place de la Bastille, chanting "To Berlin!"
Guet-Apens (Ambush), L'Eclipse, March 17, 1872: This map comments how the Paris Commune rose and was violently subdued, after the capture of Napoleon III in the Franco Prussian war and the defeat of the subsequent Third Republic.

When France entered the war there were patriotic demonstrations in the streets of Paris, with crowds singing the Marseillaise and chanting "To Berlin! To Berlin!" But Napoleon was melancholic, telling General Lepic that he expected the war to be "long and difficult", and wondering "Who knows if we'll come back?" He told Maréchal Randon that he felt too old for a military campaign.[143] Despite his ill health, Napoleon decided to go with the army to the front as commander in chief, as he had done during the successful Italian campaign. On 28 July, he departed Saint-Cloud by train for the front. He was accompanied by the 14-year-old Prince Imperial in the uniform of the army, by his military staff, and by a large contingent of chefs and servants in livery. He was pale and visibly in pain. The Empress remained in Paris as the regent, as she had done on other occasions when the Emperor was out of the country.



On 6 August, 140,000 Germans attacked 35,000 French soldiers at the Battle of Wörth; the French lost 19,200 soldiers killed, wounded and captured, and were forced to retreat. The French soldiers fought bravely, and French cavalry and infantry attacked the German lines repeatedly, but the Germans had superior logistics, communications, and leadership. The decisive weapon was the new German Krupp six pound field gun, which had a steel barrel and was loaded by the breech, and had a longer range, higher rate of fire, and more accuracy than the bronze muzzle-loading French cannons. The Krupp guns caused terrible casualties in the French ranks.[145]

When the news of the French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Prime Minister Ollivier and the chief of staff of the army, Marshal Leboeuf both resigned. The Empress Eugénie took it upon herself as the Regent to name a new government. She chose General Cousin-Montauban, better known as the Count of Palikao, seventy-four years old, the former commander of the French expeditionary force to China, as her new prime minister. The Count of Palikao named Maréchal François Achille Bazaine, the commander of the French forces in Lorraine, as the new military commander. Napoleon III proposed returning to Paris, realizing that he was doing no good for the army. The Empress, in charge of the government responded by telegraph, "Don't think of coming back, unless you want to unleash a terrible revolution. They will say you quit the army to flee the danger." The Emperor agreed to remain with the army.[146] With the Empress directing the country, and Bazaine commanding the army, the Emperor no longer had any real role to play. At the front, the Emperor told Marshal Leboeuf, "we've both been dismissed."[147]

On 18 August 1870, the biggest battle of the war, the Battle of Gravelotte took place in Lorraine between the Germans and the army of Marshal Bazaine. The Germans suffered 20,000 casualties and the French 12,000, but the Germans emerged as the victor, as Marshal Bazaine's army, with 175,000 soldiers, six divisions of cavalry and five hundred cannons, was trapped inside the fortifications of Metz, unable to move.[148]

Napoleon was at Châlons-sur-Marne with the army of Marshal Patrice de MacMahon. MacMahon, Marshal Bazaine, and the count of Palikao, with the Empress in Paris, all had different ideas on what the army should do next, and the Emperor had to act as a referee among them. The Emperor and MacMahon proposed moving their army closer to Paris to protect the city, but on 17 August Bazaine telegraphed to the Emperor: "I urge you to renounce this idea, which seems to abandon the Army at Metz... Couldn't you make a powerful diversion toward the Prussian corps, which are already exhausted by so many battles? The Empress shares my opinion." Napoleon III wrote back, "I yield to your opinion."[149] The Emperor sent the Prince Imperial back to Paris for his safety, and went with the weary army in the direction of Metz. The Emperor, riding in an open carriage, was jeered, sworn at and insulted by demoralized soldiers.[148]


Battle of Sedan and capitulation[edit]

Bismarck with Napoleon III after his capitulation

MacMahon arrived at Sedan with one hundred thousand soldiers not knowing that two German armies were closing in on the city, one from the west and one from the east, blocking any escape. The Germans arrived on 31 August and by 1 September occupied the heights around Sedan, placed batteries of artillery, and began to shell the French positions below. At five o'clock in the morning on 1 September, MacMahon was seriously wounded in the hip by a German shell. Sedan was soon under bombardment from seven hundred German guns.[151] MacMahon's replacement, General Wimpffen, launched a series of valiant cavalry attacks to try to break the German encirclement, with no success. During the battle and bombardment, the French lost seventeen thousand killed or wounded, and twenty-one thousand captured.

As the German shells rained down on the French positions, Napoleon III wandered aimlessly in the open around the French positions. One officer of his military escort was killed, and two more were wounded. A doctor accompanying him wrote in his notebook, "If this man has not come here to kill himself, I don't know what he has come to do. I have not seen him give an order all morning."[152]

Finally, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Napoleon emerged from his reverie and gave the order for a white flag to be hoisted above the citadel. He then had a message sent to the Prussian King, who was at Sedan with his army: "Monsieur my brother, not being able to die at the head of my troops, nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of Your Majesty."[153]

After the war, when he was accused of having made a "shameful surrender" at Sedan, he wrote: "Some people believe that, by burying ourselves under the ruins of Sedan, we would have better served my name and my dynasty. It's possible. Nay, to hold in my hand the lives of thousands of men and not to make a sign to save them was something that was beyond my heart refused these sinister grandeurs."[154]

At six o'clock in the morning on 2 September, in the uniform of a general, and accompanied by four generals from his staff, Napoleon was taken to the German headquarters at Donchery. He expected to see King William, but instead he was met by Bismarck and the German commander, General von Moltke. They dictated the terms of the surrender to Napoleon. Napoleon asked that his army be disarmed and allowed to pass into Belgium, but Bismarck refused. They also asked Napoleon to sign the preliminary documents of a peace treaty, but Napoleon refused, telling them that negotiating the peace would be the responsibility of the French government headed by the regent, the Empress Eugénie. The Emperor was then taken to the Chateau at Bellevue, where he was visited by the Prussian King. Napoleon told the King that he had not wanted the war, but had been forced into it by public opinion. The Prussian king politely agreed. That evening, from the Chateau, he wrote to the Empress Eugénie: "It is impossible for me to say what I have suffered and what I am suffering now...I would have preferred death to a capitulation so disastrous, and yet, under the present circumstances, it was the only way to avoid the butchering of sixty thousand people. If only all my torments were concentrated here! I think of you, our son, and our unhappy country."[155]


The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September, confirming the rumors that were already circulating in the city. When the news was given to the Empress that the Emperor and the army were prisoners, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor's personal aide, "No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!...They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn't he kill himself! Doesn't he know he has dishonored himself?!".[156] Later, when hostile crowds formed near the palace, and the staff began to flee, the Empress slipped out with one of her entourage and sought sanctuary with her American dentist, who took her to Deauville. From there, on 7 September, she took the yacht of a British official to England. On 4 September, a group of republican deputies, led by Léon Gambetta, gathered at the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Paris and proclaimed the return of the Republic, and the creation of a Government of National Defence. The Second Empire of Napoleon III was over.[157]

Captivity, exile and death[edit]

Final months[edit]


General Bazaine, besieged with a large part of the remaining French army in the fortification of Metz, had on September 23 secret talks with Bismarck's envoys. The idea was for Bazaine to establish a conservative regime in France, for himself or for Napoleon's son.[159] Bazaine's envoy, who spoke to Bismarck at Versailles on October 14, declared that the army in Metz was still loyal to Napoleon. Bazaine was willing to take over power in France after the Germans had defeated the republic in Paris. Because of the weakening of the French overall position Bismarck lost interest in this option.[160]

The last photograph of Napoleon III (1872)

Napoleon himself proposed on November 27 in a memorandum to Bismarck: After a peace and the surrender of Paris the Prussian king might call the French people to accept Napoleon again as Emperor. But this moment Metz had already fallen, leaving Napoleon without a power basis. Bismarck did not see much chance for a restored empire as Napoleon had looked like a marionette of the enemy.[161] A last initiative of Eugénie failed in January also because of a late arrival of her envoy from London. Bismarck refused to acknowledge the former empress also as this had caused irritations with Britain and Russia. Shortly later, the Germans signed a truce with the French government.[162]


Napoleon III after his death, wood-engraving in the Illustrated London News of 25 January 1873, after a photograph by Mssrs. Downey
Tomb of Napoleon III

Napoleon, Eugénie, their son and their entourage settled at Camden Place,[163] a large three-story country house in the village of Chislehurst, Kent, a half-hour by train from London. He was received by Queen Victoria, who also visited him at Chislehurst.[164] Louis-Napoleon had a longtime connection with Chislehurst and Camden Place: years earlier, while exiled in England, he had often visited Emily Rowles, whose father had owned Camden Place in the 1830s. She had assisted his escape from French prison in 1846.


Napoleon passed his time writing and designing a stove which would be more energy efficient. In the summer of 1872, his health began to worsen. Doctors recommended surgery to remove his gallstones. After two operations he became very seriously ill. His last words were, "Isn't it true that we weren't cowards at Sedan?" He was given last rites, and died on 9 January 1873.[166]



Personal life[edit]


Louis Napoleon has a historical reputation as a womanizer, yet he referred to his behaviour in the following manner: "It is usually the man who attacks. As for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate."[168] He had many mistresses. During his reign, it was the task of Count Felix Bacciochi, his social secretary, to arrange for trysts and to procure women for the emperor's favours. His affairs were not trivial sideshows: they distracted him from governing, affected his relationship with the empress, and diminished him in the views of the other European courts.[169] Among his numerous love affairs and mistresses were:[170]

Paul Hadol's caricature of Marguerite Bellanger toying with Napoleon
  • Mathilde Bonaparte, his cousin and fiancée

His wife, Eugénie, resisted his advances prior to marriage. She was coached by her mother and her friend, Prosper Mérimée. "What is the road to your heart?" Napoleon demanded to know. "Through the chapel, Sire", she answered.[168] Yet, after marriage, it took not long for him to stray as Eugénie found sex with him "disgusting".[168] It is doubtful that she allowed further approaches by her husband once she had given him an heir.[169][who?]





Napoleon III also directed the building of the French railway network, which greatly contributed to the development of the coal mining and steel industry in France, thereby radically changing the nature of the French economy, which entered the modern age of large-scale capitalism.[174] The French economy, the second largest in the world at the time (behind the British economy), experienced a very strong growth during the reign of Napoleon III. Names such as steel tycoon Eugène Schneider or banking mogul James de Rothschild are symbols of the period. Two of France's largest banks, Société Générale and Crédit Lyonnais, still in existence today, were founded during that period. The French stock market also expanded prodigiously, with many coal mining and steel companies issuing stocks. Historians credit Napoleon chiefly for supporting the railways, but not otherwise building the economy.[175]


Historical reputation[edit]



Marxist sociologist Göran Therborn has characterized the reign of Napoleon III as the "first modern bourgeois regime", one which combined a movement of mass support with 'bourgeois' rule, albeit through authoritarian statist means.[177] According to Therborn, such a form of rule, ossified upon the point of crisis, proves fatal to such regimes once major external crises emerge, inevitable under Marxist exploitation theory.[178]


On film Napoleon has been portrayed by,


Titles, styles, honours and arms[edit]

Royal styles of
Napoleon III of France
Coat of Arms Second French Empire (1852–1870)-2.svg
Reference styleHis Imperial Majesty
Spoken styleYour Imperial Majesty

Titles and styles[edit]

  • 20 December 1848 – 2 December 1852: His Imperial Highness Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, The Prince-President of the French Republic ("Son Altesse Impériale le Prince-President")
  • 2 December 1852 – 1 March 1871: His Imperial Majesty The Emperor of the French

His full title as Emperor was: "Napoleon the Third, By the Grace of God and the will of the Nation, Emperor of the French."[179]





Writings by Napoleon III[edit]


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 317
  2. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 559
  3. ^ Girard, 1986, p. 338-352
  4. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 464-483
  5. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 595-598
  6. ^ a b John B. Wolf. France, 1814–1919 (1963). p. 253
  7. ^ Bresler, 1999, p. 20
  8. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 21-24
  9. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 15
  10. ^ Bresler, 1999, p. 37
  11. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 26
  12. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 39–42
  13. ^ Bresler, 1999, pp. 94–95
  14. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 58–72
  15. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 72–77
  16. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 55–56
  17. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 61–62
  18. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 68
  19. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 97–100
  20. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 107–108
  21. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 74–75
  22. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 122–133
  23. ^ Quoted in Séguin, 1990, p. 81
  24. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 83
  25. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 89. Translated by D. Siefkin
  26. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 93
  27. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 96–97
  28. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 102
  29. ^ 'Séguin, 1990, p. 105
  30. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 106
  31. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 108–109
  32. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 182
  33. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 111
  34. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 182–190
  35. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 115
  36. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 125
  37. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 123
  38. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 124
  39. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 189–190
  40. ^ a b Milza, 2006, p. 194
  42. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 208–209
  43. ^ Cobban, p. 155
  45. ^ Cobban, p. 156
  47. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 255
  48. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 261
  49. ^ Cobban, pp. 157–158
  50. ^ Cobban, p. 158
  51. ^ Cobban and Milza
  52. ^ Cobban, p 158
  53. ^ Cobban, p. 159
  54. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 271
  57. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 277
  58. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 279
  59. ^ Milsa, 2006, p. 279
  61. ^ Milza, 2006, pg. 468
  62. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 467–469
  63. ^ Plessis 1989, pp. 60–61
  64. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 471–474
  65. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 475
  66. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 474
  67. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 486
  70. ^ Milza, 2006
  74. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 199–204
  75. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 204–210
  79. ^ a b Milza, 2006, pp. 382–386
  80. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 388–389
  81. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 392–395
  82. ^ Markham 1975, p. 199
  83. ^ Taylor, Alan J. P. (1954). The Struggle for Mastery of Europe. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University. p. 412. ISBN 0-19-881270-1.
  84. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 407–412
  85. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 357–362
  86. ^ cited in Milza, 2006, p. 414
  87. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 415–420
  88. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 425
  89. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 427–428
  90. ^ Hearder, Harry (2014-07-22). Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento 1790 - 1870. Routledge. p. 226. ISBN 9781317872061.
  91. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 431
  92. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 260
  93. ^ Milza, 2006, pp. 434–441
  94. ^ Briggs & Clavin 2003, p. 97.
  95. ^ Girard, 1986, pp. 325-328
  96. ^ Girard, 1986, p. 309-310
  100. ^ Girard, 1986, pp. 200-201
  102. ^ Girard, 1986, pp. 202-204
  104. ^ Meneglier, Hervé, Paris Impérial- la vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire
  106. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 314
  107. ^ Séguin, 1990, p. 313
  108. ^ Séguin, 1990, pp. 314–317
  110. ^ a b Milza, 2006, p. 592
  111. ^ Milza, 2006, p. 598
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Primary sources[edit]

  • Marie-Clotilde-Elisabeth Louise de Riquet, comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau, The Last Love of an Emperor: reminiscences of the Comtesse Louise de Mercy-Argenteau, née Princesse de Caraman-Chimay, describing her association with the Emperor Napoleon III and the social and political part she played at the close of the Second Empire (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., 1926).

Secondary sources[edit]

  • Briggs, Asa; Clavin, Patricia (2003). Modern Europe, 1789-Present (2 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0582772601.

In French or German[edit]

  • Girard, Louis (1986), Napoléon III, Paris: Fayard, ISBN 2-01-27-9098-4
  • Séguin, Philippe (1990), Louis Napoléon Le Grand, Paris: Bernard Grasset, ISBN 2-246-42951-X
  • Wittmann, Heiner. Napoleon III. Macht und Kunst(Reihe Dialoghi/dialogues. Literatur und Kultur Italiens und Frankreichs. Hrsg. v. Dirk Hoeges, Band 17, Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern u.a., 2013).

Further reading[edit]

  • Bresler, Fenton (1999), Napoleon III: A Life, London: Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-255787-8 online free to borrow
  • Bury J. P.T. Napoleon III and the Second Empire (1964).
  • Case Lynn M. French Opinion on War and Diplomacy during the Second Empire (1954)
  • Cobban, Alfred (1965), A History of Modern France: Volume 2: 1799-1871, London: Penguin
  • Corley, T. A. B. Democratic Despot: A Life of Napoleon III (1961) online edition
  • Cunningham; Michele. Mexico and the Foreign Policy of Napoleon III (Palgrave, 2001) online edition
  • Duff, David. Eugénie and Napoleon III (Collins, 1978)
  • Gooch, Brison D., ed. Napoleon III – Man of Destiny: Enlightened Statesman or Proto-Fascist?, (1966) excerpt
  • Gooch, Brison D., ed. The Reign of Napoleon III, (1969)
  • Guerard, Albert. Napoleon III A Great Life In Brief (1947) online free to borrow.
  • McMillan, J. Napoleon III (Longman, 1991)
  • Markham, Felix (1975), The Bonapartes, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-76928-6
  • Pinkney, David H. "Napoleon III's Transformation of Paris: The Origins and Development of the Idea," Journal of Modern History (1955) 27#2 pp. 125–134 in JSTOR
  • Pinkney, David H. Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris (Princeton University Press, 1958) ISBN 0-691-00768-3.
  • Plessis, Alain (1989), The Rise & Fall of the Second Empire 1852–1871, Cambridge University Press
  • Price, Roger. "Napoleon III: 'hero' or 'grotesque mediocrity'?" History Review (2003) pp 14+
  • Price, Roger. Napoleon III and the Second Empire (Routledge, 1997)
  • Price, Roger. The French Second Empire: an anatomy of political power (Cambridge University Press, 2001) online edition
  • Randell, Keith (1991), Monarchy, Republic & Empire, Access to History, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-51805-7
  • Thompson, J.M. Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965. online edition
  • Wetzel, David A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War (University of Wisconsin Press, 2001)
  • Wetzel, David. A Duel of Nations: Germany, France, and the Diplomacy of the War of 1870–1871 (University of Wisconsin Press; 2012) 310 pages
  • Williams, Roger L. Gaslight and shadow [also published as The World of Napoleon III 1851-1870 (1957) online free to borrow
  • Wolf, John B. France: 1815 to the Present (1940) online free pp 212–341
  • Zeldin, Theodore. The Political System of Napoleon III (Oxford University Press, 1958).

External links[edit]

Napoleon III
Political offices
Preceded by
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac
President of the French Republic
20 December 1848 – 2 December 1852
Empire declared
Title next held by
Adolphe Thiers
Regnal titles
Title last held by
Louis Philippe I
as king
Emperor of the French
2 December 1852 – 4 September 1870