Childhood and family
Early life
Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 19–20 April 1808. His father wasRomantic revolutionary (1823–1835)
When Louis Napoleon was fifteen, his mother Hortense moved toEarly adult years
Bonapartist succession and philosophy of Bonapartism
Ever since the fall of Napoleon in 1815, a Bonapartist movement had existed in France, hoping to return a Bonaparte to the throne. According to the law of succession established by Napoleon I, the claim passed first to his own son, declared "King of Rome" at birth by his father. This heir, known by Bonapartists as Napoleon II, was living in virtual imprisonment at the court ofFailed coup, exile in London (1836–1840)
"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." 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. He planned for his uprising to begin inTravel
King Louis-Philippe demanded that the Swiss government return Louis Napoleon to France, but the Swiss pointed out that he was a Swiss soldier and 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 inSecond coup, prison, escape and exile (1840–1848)
Living in the comfort of London, he had not given up the dream of returning to France to seize power. In the summer of 1840 he bought weapons and uniforms and had proclamations printed, gathered a contingent of about sixty armed men, hired a ship called the ''Edinburgh-Castle'', and on 6 August 1840, sailed across the Channel to the port ofActivities
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." He had a mistress named Éléonore Vergeot, a young woman from the nearby town, who gave birth to two of his children. 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 pauperisme'' (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 ''kibbutzim'' later founded in Israel. This book was widely reprinted and circulated in France, and played an important part in his future electoral success. He was busy in prison, but also unhappy and impatient. He was aware that the popularity of Napoleon Bonaparte was steadily increasing in France; the Emperor was the subject of heroic poems, books and plays. Huge crowds had gathered in Paris on 15 December 1840 when the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte were returned with great ceremony to Paris and handed over to Louis Napoleon's old enemy, King Louis-Philippe, while Louis Napoleon could only read about it in prison. On 25 May 1846, with the assistance of his doctor and other friends on the outside, he disguised himself as a laborer carrying lumber, and walked out of the prison. His enemies later derisively called him "Badinguet", the name of the laborer whose identity he had assumed. A carriage was waiting to take him to the coast and then by boat to England. A month after his escape, his father Louis died, making Louis Napoleon the clear heir to the Bonaparte dynasty.Return and early affairs
He 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 metEarly political career
1848 Revolution and birth of the Second Republic
In February 1848, Louis Napoleon learned that the French Revolution of 1848 had broken out; Louis Philippe, faced with opposition within his government and army, 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. He wrote to Lamartine announcing his arrival, saying that he "was without any other ambition than that of serving my country". Lamartine wrote back politely but firmly, asking Louis-Napoleon to leave Paris "until the city is more calm, and not before the elections for thePresidential election of 1848
The new constitution of the Second Republic, drafted by a commission including Alexis de Tocqueville, called for a strong executive and a president elected by popular vote through universal male suffrage, rather than chosen by the National Assembly. The 1848 French presidential election, elections were scheduled for 10–11 December 1848. Louis Napoleon promptly announced his candidacy. There were four other candidates for the post: General Cavaignac, who had led the suppression of the June uprisings in Paris; Lamartine, the poet-philosopher and leader of the provisional government; Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, the leader of the socialists; and Raspail, the leader of the far left wing of the socialists. Louis Napoleon established his campaign headquarters and residence at the Hôtel 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". His campaign appealed to both the left and right. His election manifesto proclaimed his support for "religion, family, property, the eternal basis of all social order". But it also announced his intent "to give work to those unoccupied; to look out for the old age of the workers; to introduce in industrial laws those improvements which do not ruin the rich, but which bring about the well-being of each and the prosperity of all". His campaign agents, many of them veterans from Napoleon Bonaparte's army, raised support for him around the country. Louis Napoleon won the grudging endorsement of the conservative leaderPrince-President (1848–1851)
Louis Napoleon moved his residence to the Élysée Palace at the end of December 1848 and immediately hung a portrait of his mother in the boudoir and a portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte, in his coronation robes, in the grand salon. Adolphe Thiers recommended that he wear clothing of "democratic simplicity", but following the model of his uncle, he chose instead the uniform of the General-in-Chief of the National Guard, and chose the title of "Prince-President". 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, which had been tasked and funded by the National Assembly to support the republican forces in Italy against the Austrians and against the Pope. Instead the force was secretly ordered to do the opposite, namely to enter Rome to help restore the Temporal power (papal), temporal authority of Pope Pius IX, who had been overthrown by Italian republicans including 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 the Roman Republic (1849), Roman Republic. To please the radical republicans, he asked the Pope to introduce liberal reforms and the ''Code Napoleon'' to theCoup d'état (December 1851)
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 quietly began to organise a French coup d'état of 1851, coup d'état. They included minister of war Jacques Leroy de Saint Arnaud, as well as officers from the French Army in North Africa, to provide military backing for the coup. 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 of Paris, 10th arrondissement, they were also arrested. On 3 December, writerMiddle years
A New Empire
Louis Napoleon's goal was to move from despotism to parliamentary government without a revolution, but instead he was a moderate increasingly trapped between the royalist and radical extremes. The 1851 referendum also gave Louis-Napoleon a mandate to amend the constitution. Work began on French Constitution of 1852, 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 was given the absolute authority to declare war, sign treaties, form alliances and initiate laws. The Constitution re-established universal male suffrage, and also retained a National Assembly, albeit one with reduced authority. Louis Napoleon's government imposed new authoritarian measures to control dissent and reduce the power of the opposition. One of his first acts was to settle scores with his old enemy, King Louis-Philippe, who had sent him to prison for life, and who had died in 1850. A decree on 23 January 1852 forbade the late King's family to own property in France and annulled the inheritance he had given to his children before he became King. 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 review the content of their courses. Students at the universities were forbidden to wear beards, seen as a symbol of republicanism. An election was held for a new National Assembly on 29 February 1852, and all the resources of the government were used on behalf of the candidates backing the Prince-President. Of eight million eligible voters, 5,200,000 votes went to the official candidates and 800,000 to opposition candidates. About one third of the eligible voters abstained. The new Assembly included a small number of opponents of Louis Napoleon, including 17 monarchists, 18 conservatives, two liberal democrats, three republicans and 72 independents. Despite now holding all governing power in the nation, Louis Napoleon was not content with being an authoritarian president. The ink had barely dried on the new and severely authoritarian constitution when he set about making himself emperor. Following the election, the Prince-President went on a triumphal national tour. In Marseille, he laid the cornerstone of a new cathedral, a new stock exchange, and a chamber of commerce. In Bordeaux, on 9 October 1852, he gave his principal speech: :Some people say the Empire is war. I say the Empire is peace. Like the Emperor I have many conquests to make… Like him I wish … to draw into the stream of the great popular river those hostile side-currents which lose themselves without profit to anyone. We have immense unplowed territories to cultivate; roads to open; ports to dig; rivers to be made navigable; canals to finish, a railway network to complete. We have, in front of Marseille, a vast kingdom to assimilate into France. We have all the great ports of the west to connect with the American continent by modern communications, which we still lack. We have ruins to repair, false gods to tear down, truths which we need to make triumph. This is how I see the Empire, if the Empire is re-established. These are the conquests I am considering, and you around me, who, like me, want the good of our country, you are my soldiers." Drouyn de Lhuys, twice foreign minister, later commented that, "the Emperor has immense desires and limited abilities. He wants to do extraordinary things but is only capable of extravagances." When Napoleon returned to Paris the city was decorated with large arches, with banners proclaiming "To Napoleon III, emperor". In response to officially inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate (France), Senate scheduled 1852 French Second Empire referendum, another referendum for 21–22 November 1852 on whether to make Napoleon emperor. After an implausible 97 percent voted in favour (7,824,129 votes for and 253,159 against, with two million abstentions), on 2 December 1852—exactly one year after the coup—the Second Republic was officially ended, replaced by the Second French Empire.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', pp. 673–83 Prince-President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte became Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. His regnal name treats Napoleon II, who never actually ruled, as a true Emperor (he had been briefly recognized as emperor from 22 June to 7 July 1815). The 1852 constitution was retained; it concentrated so much power in Napoleon's hands that the only substantive change was to replace the word "president" with the word "emperor".Modernising the infrastructure and the economy (1853–1869)
Early construction
One of the first priorities of Napoleon III was the modernisation 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; 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." 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. The period was favorable for industrial expansion. The gold rushes in California Gold Rush, California and Victorian gold rush, 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 Bourbon Restoration in France, Restoration period. 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. In 1851, France had only 3,500 kilometers of railway, compared with 10,000 kilometers in England and 800 kilometers in Belgium, a country one-twentieth the size of France. Within days of the coup d'état of 1851, Napoleon III's Minister of Public Works launched a project to build a railway line around Paris, connecting the different independent lines coming into Paris from around the country. The government provided guarantees for loans to build new lines and urged railway companies to consolidate. There were 18 railway companies in 1848 and six at the end of the Empire. By 1870, France had 20,000 kilometers of railway linked to the French ports and to the railway systems of the neighbouring countries that carried over 100 million passengers a year and transported the products of France's new steel mills, mines and factories.Development of steamships and early reconstruction on Paris
New shipping lines were created and ports rebuilt in Marseille and Le Havre, which connected France by sea to the US, Latin America, North Africa and the Far East. During the Empire, the number of steamships tripled, and by 1870, France possessed the second-largest maritime fleet in the world after England. Napoleon III backed the greatest maritime project of the age, the construction of the Suez Canal between 1859 and 1869. The canal project was funded by shares on the Paris Bourse, Paris stock market and led by a former French diplomat, Ferdinand de Lesseps. It was opened by the Empress Eugénie de Montijo, Eugénie with a performance of Verdi's opera ''Aida.'' 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 increasing 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 that opened in 1869 and became the model for the modern department store. Other department stores quickly appeared: Printemps, Au Printemps in 1865 and La Samaritaine in 1870. They were soon imitated around the world. Napoleon III's program also included reclaiming farmland and reforestation. One such project in the Gironde, Gironde department drained and reforested 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 square miles) of moorland, creating the Landes forest, the largest maritime pine forest in Europe.Reconstruction of Paris (1854–1870)
Napoleon III began his regime by launching a series of enormous public works projects in Paris, hiring tens of thousands of workers to improve the sanitation, water supply and traffic circulation of the city. To direct this task, he named a new prefect of the Seine department, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, and gave him extraordinary powers to rebuild the center of the city. He installed a large map of Paris in a central position in his office, and he and Haussmann planned the new Paris. The population of Paris had doubled since 1815, with neither an increase in its area nor a development of its structure of very narrow medieval streets and alleys. To accommodate the growing population and those who would be forced from the center by the construction of new boulevards and squares, Napoleon III issued a decree in 1860 to Municipal annexation, annex eleven Communes of France, communes (municipalities) on the outskirts of Paris and increase the number of Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements (city boroughs) from twelve to twenty. Paris was thus enlarged to its modern boundaries with the exception of the two major city parks ( Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes) that only became part of the French capital in 1920. For the duration of Napoleon III's reign and 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), Vanne River in the Champagne (province), 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. Hundreds of kilometers of pipes distributed the water throughout the city, and a second network, using the less-clean water from the Ourcq 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. Beginning in 1854, in the center of the city, Haussmann's workers tore down hundreds of old buildings and constructed new avenues to connect the central points of the city. Buildings along these avenues were required to be the same height, constructed in an architecturally similar style, and be faced with cream-coloured stone to create the signature look of Paris boulevards. Napoleon III built two new railway stations: the Gare de Lyon (1855) and the Gare du Nord (1865). He completed Les Halles, the great cast iron and glass pavilioned produce market in the center of the city, and built a new municipal hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu, Paris, Hôtel-Dieu, in the place of crumbling medieval buildings on the Ile de la Cité. The signature architectural landmark was the Paris Opera, the largest theater in the world, designed by Charles Garnier (architect), Charles Garnier to crown the center of Napoleon III's new Paris. Napoleon III also wanted to build new parks and gardens for the recreation and relaxation of the Parisians, particularly those in the new neighbourhoods of the expanding city. Napoleon III's new parks were inspired by his memories of the parks in London, especially Hyde Park (London), Hyde Park, where he had strolled and promenaded in a carriage while in exile; but he wanted to build on a much larger scale. Working with Haussmann and Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, the engineer who headed the new Service of Promenades and Plantations, he laid out a plan for four major parks at the cardinal points of the compass around the city. Thousands of workers and gardeners began to dig lakes, build cascades, plant lawns, flowerbeds and trees, and construct chalets and grottoes. Napoleon III transformed the Bois de Boulogne into a park (1852–58) to the west of Paris. To the east, he created the Bois de Vincennes (1860–65), and to the north, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont (1865–67). The Parc Montsouris (1865–78) was created to the south. In addition to building the four large parks, Napoleon had the city's older parks, including the Parc Monceau, formerly owned by the House of Orléans, Orléans family, and the Jardin du Luxembourg, refurbished and replanted. He also created some twenty small parks and gardens in the neighbourhoods as miniature versions of his large parks. Alphand termed these small parks "green and flowering salons". The intention of Napoleon's plan was to have one park in each of the eighty "quartiers" (neighbourhoods) of Paris, so that no one was more than a ten-minute walk from such a park. The parks were an immediate success with all classes of Parisians.Search for a wife
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. Louis-Napoleon finally announced that he found the right woman: a Spaniard named Eugénie de Montijo, Eugénie du Derje de Montijo, age 23, 20th Count of Teba, Countess of Teba and 15th Marquess of Ardales, Marchioness of Ardales. The daughter of the Cipriano de Palafox, 8th Count of Montijo, Count of Montijo, 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 atForeign policy (1852–1860)
In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and around the world as a supporter of popular sovereignty and nationalism. In Europe, he allied himself with Britain and defeated Russia in thePrinciple of Nationalities
In a speech at Bordeaux shortly after becoming Emperor, Napoleon III proclaimed that "The Empire means peace" ("''L'Empire, c'est la paix''"), reassuring foreign governments that he would not attack other European powers in order to extend the French Empire. He was, however, determined to follow a strong foreign policy to extend France's influence and warned that he would not stand by and allow another European power to threaten its neighbour. At the beginning of his reign, he was also an advocate of a new "principle of nationalities" (''principe des nationalités'') that supported the creation of new states nation-state, based on nationality, such as Italy, in place of the old multinational empires, such as the Habsburg monarchy (or Empire of Austria, known since 1867 as Austria-Hungary). In this he was influenced by his uncle's policy as described in the ''Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène''. In all of his foreign policy ventures, he put the interests of France first. Napoleon III felt that new states created on the basis of national identity would become natural allies and partners of France.Alliance with Britain and the Crimean War (1853–1856)
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Lord Palmerston as Britain's Foreign Minister and Prime Minister had close personal ties with leading French statesmen, notably Napoleon III himself. Palmerston's goal was to arrange peaceful relations with France in order to free Britain's diplomatic hand elsewhere in the world. Napoleon at first had a pro-British foreign policy and was eager not to displease the British government, whose friendship he saw as important to France. After a brief threat of an invasion of Britain in 1851, France and Britain cooperated in the 1850s with an alliance in the Crimean War and a major trade treaty in 1860. War scares were consistently worked up by the press nonetheless. John Thadeus Delane, John Delane, editor of ''The Times'', visited France in January 1853 and was impressed by its military preparedness. He expressed his conviction that "Louis-Napoleon was resolved on a forward foreign policy". Napoleon III was actually determined to increase the country's naval power. The first purpose-built steam-powered battleship (worryingly christened after French battleship Napoléon, Napoleon I) was launched in 1850, and the fortification of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Cherbourg was strengthened. This led to the extension of the breakwater of Alderney and the construction of Fort Clonque. From the start of his 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 dynasty, Ottoman government, demanding that the Ottoman Empire give Russia a protectorate over the Christian countries of the Balkans as well as control over Istanbul, 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 Romania, Romanian territories it had occupied, Britain and France declared war on 27 March 1854. 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 Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), 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. The death of Tsar Nicholas I on 2 March 1855 and his replacement by Alexander II of Russia, Alexander II changed the political equation. In September, after a massive bombardment, the Anglo-French army of fifty thousand men stormed the Russian positions, and the Russians were forced to evacuate Sevastopol. Alexander II sought a political solution, and negotiations were held in Paris in the new building of the French Foreign Ministry on the Quai d'Orsay, from 25 February to 8 April 1856. The Crimean War added three new place names to Paris: Pont de l'Alma, Alma, named for the first French victory on the river of that name; Boulevard de Sébastopol, Sevastopol; and Malakoff, named for a tower in the center of the Russian line Battle of Malakoff, captured by the French. The war had two important diplomatic consequences: Alexander II became an ally of France, and Britain and France were reconciled. In April 1855, Napoleon III and Eugénie went to England and were received by the Queen; in turn, Victoria and Prince Albert visited Paris. Victoria was the first British monarch to do so in centuries. 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 (1815), Quadruple Alliance, or "Waterloo Coalition", that the other four powers (Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain) had established. The Congress of Paris (1856), Paris Peace Conference of 1856 represented a high-water mark for Napoleon's regime in foreign affairs. It encouraged Napoleon III to make an even bolder foreign policy venture in Italy.Italian Campaign
Early years
On the evening of 14 January 1858, Napoleon and the Empress escaped an assassination attempt unharmed. A group of conspirators threw three bombs at the imperial 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 François Bernard, 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 at the time. Since he was a political exile, the Government of the United Kingdom 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. Part of Italy, particularly the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (officially the Kingdom of Sardinia), was independent, but central Italy was still ruled by the Pope (in this era, Pope Pius IX and Italy, Pope Pius IX), while Venice, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, Lombardy and much of the north was ruled by Austria. Other states were ''de jure'' independent (notably the Duchy of Parma or the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) but ''de facto'' fully 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 within 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 of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, was invited to Paris in November 1855 and given the same royal treatment as Queen Victoria. Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Count Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, came to Paris with the King and employed an unusual emissary in his efforts to win the support of Napoleon III: his beautiful young cousin, Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (1837–1899). As Cavour had hoped, she caught the Emperor's eye and became his mistress. Between 1855 and 1857, she used the opportunity to pass messages and to plead the Italian cause. In July 1858, Napoleon arranged a secret visit by Count Cavour. They agreed to join forces and drive the Austrians from Italy. In exchange, Napoleon III asked for Savoy (the ancestral land of the King of Piedmont-Sardinia) and the then bilingual County of Nice, which had been taken from France after Napoleon's fall in 1815 and given to Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour protested that Nice was Italian, but Napoleon responded that "these are secondary questions. There will be time later to discuss them." Assured of the support of Napoleon III, Count Cavour began to prepare the army of Piedmont-Sardinia for war against Austria. Napoleon III looked for diplomatic support. He approached Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Lord Derby (the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) and his government; Britain was against the war, but agreed to remain neutral. Still facing strong opposition within his own government, Napoleon III offered to negotiate a diplomatic solution with the twenty-eight-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in the spring of 1858. The Austrians demanded the disarmament of Piedmont-Sardinia first, and sent a fleet with thirty thousand soldiers to reinforce their garrisons in Italy. Napoleon III responded on 26 January 1859 by signing a treaty of alliance with Piedmont-Sardinia. Napoleon promised to send two hundred thousand soldiers to help one hundred thousand soldiers from Piedmont-Sardinia to force the Austrians out of Northern Italy; in return, France would receive the County of Nice and Savoy provided that their populations would agree in a referendum. It was the Emperor Franz Joseph, growing impatient, who finally unleashed the war. On 23 April 1859, he sent an ultimatum to the government of Piedmont-Sardinia demanding that they stop their military preparations and disband their army. On 26 April, Count Cavour rejected the demands, and on 27 April, the Austrian army invaded Piedmont.War in Italy – Magenta and Solferino (1859)
Napoleon III, though he had very little military experience, decided to lead the French army in Italy himself. Part of the French army crossed over the Alps, while the other part, with the Emperor, landed in Genoa on 18 May 1859. Fortunately for Napoleon and the Piedmontese, the commander of the Austrians, General Giulay, was not very aggressive. His forces greatly outnumbered the Piedmontese army at Turin, but he hesitated, allowing the French and Piedmontese to unite their forces. Napoleon III wisely left the fighting to his professional generals. The first great battle of the war, on 4 June 1859, Battle of Magenta, was fought at the town of Magenta, Lombardy, 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. 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 Battle of Solferino, 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. Count Cavour and the Piedmontese were bitterly disappointed by the abrupt end of the war. Lombardy had been freed, but Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, Venetia (the Venice region) was still controlled by the Austrians, and the Pope was still the ruler of Rome and Central Italy. Cavour angrily resigned his post. Napoleon III returned to Paris on 17 July, and a huge parade and celebration were held on 14 August, in front of the Place Vendôme, Vendôme column, the symbol of the glory of Napoleon I. Napoleon III celebrated the day by granting a general amnesty to the political prisoners and exiles he had chased from France. In Italy, even without the French army, the process of Italian unification launched by Cavour and Napoleon III took on a momentum of its own. There were uprisings in central Italy and the Papal states, and Italian patriots, led by Garibaldi, Expedition of the Thousand, invaded and took over Sicily, which would lead to the collapse of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Napoleon III wrote to the Pope and suggested that he "make the sacrifice of your provinces in revolt and confide them to Victor Emmanuel". The Pope, furious, declared in a public address that Napoleon III was a "liar and a cheat". Rome and the surrounding Latium region remained in Papal hands, and therefore did not immediately become the capital of the newly created Kingdom of Italy, and Venetia was still occupied by the Austrians, but the rest of Italy had come under the rule of Victor Emmanuel. As Cavour had promised, Savoy and the county of Nice were annexed by France in 1860 after referendums, although it is disputed how fair they were. In Nice, 25,734 voted for union with France, just 260 against, but Italians still called for its return into the 20th century. On 18 February 1861, the first Italian parliament met in Turin, and on 23 March, Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy. Count Cavour died a few weeks later, declaring that "Italy is made." Napoleon's support for the Italian patriots and his confrontation with Pope Pius IX over who would govern Rome made him unpopular with fervent French Catholics, and even with Empress Eugénie, who was a fervent Catholic. To win over the French Catholics and his wife, he agreed to guarantee that Rome would remain under the Pope and independent from the rest of Italy, and agreed to keep French troops there. The capital of Italy became Turin (in 1861) then Florence (in 1865), not Rome. However, in 1862, Garibaldi gathered an army to march on Rome, under the slogan, "Rome or death". To avoid a confrontation between Garibaldi and the French soldiers, the Italian government Battle of Aspromonte, sent its own soldiers to face them, arrested Garibaldi and put him in prison. Napoleon III sought, but was unable to find, a diplomatic solution that would allow him to withdraw French troops from Rome while guaranteeing that the city would remain under Papal control. Garibaldi made another attempt to capture Rome in November 1867, but was defeated by the French and Papal troops near the town of Mentana on 3 November 1867. The garrison of eight thousand French troops remained in Rome until August 1870, when they were recalled at the start of the Franco-Prussian War. In September 1870, Garibaldi's soldiers finally entered Rome and made it the capital of Italy. After the successful conclusion of the Italian campaign and the annexation of Savoy and Nice to the territory of France, the Continental foreign policy of Napoleon III entered a calmer period. Expeditions to distant corners of the world and the expansion of the Empire replaced major changes in the map of Europe. The Emperor's health declined; he gained weight, he began to dye his hair to cover the gray, he walked slowly because of gout, and in 1864, at the military camp of Châlons-en-Champagne, he suffered the first medical crisis from his gallstones, the ailment that killed him nine years later. He was less engaged in governing and less attentive to detail, but still sought opportunities to increase French commerce and prestige globally.Overseas empire
In 1862, Napoleon III Second French intervention in Mexico, sent troops to Mexico in an effort to establish an allied monarchy in the Americas, with Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austrian Empire, Austria enthroned as Emperor of Mexico, Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, Maximilian I. The Second Mexican Empire faced resistance from the republican government of President of Mexico, President Benito Juárez, however. 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 Mexico–United States border and helped resupply Juárez. Napoleon's military was stretched very thin; he had committed 40,000 troops to Mexico, 20,000 to Rome to guard the Pope against the Italians, as well as another 80,000 in restive Algeria. Furthermore, Prussia, having just defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, was an imminent threat. Napoleon realised his predicament and withdrew his troops from Mexico in 1866. Maximilian was overthrown and executed. In Southeast Asia, Napoleon III was more successful in establishing control with one limited military operation at a time. In the Cochinchina Campaign, he took over French Cochinchina, Cochinchina (the Southern Vietnam, southernmost part of modern Vietnam, including Saigon) in 1862. In 1863, he established a protectorate over French Protectorate of Cambodia, Cambodia. Additionally, France had a sphere of influence during the 19th century and early 20th century in Southern China, including a naval base at Kuangchow Bay (Guangzhouwan). According to information given to Abdón Cifuentes in 1870 the possibility of an intervention in favour of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia against Chile was discussed in Napoleon's Conseil d'État. In 1870 the French battleship ''D'Entrecasteaux'' anchored at Corral, Chile, Corral drawing suspicions from Cornelio Saavedra Rodríguez, Cornelio Saavedra of some sort of French interference in the Occupation of Araucanía, ongoing occupation of Mapuche lands. A shipment arms was seized by Argentine authorities at Buenos Aires in 1871, reportedly this had been ordered by Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, the so-called King of Araucanía and Patagonia.Life at the court of Napoleon III
Following the model of the Kings of France and of his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III moved his official residence to theVisual arts
Napoleon III had conservative and traditional taste in art: his favourite painters were Alexandre Cabanel and Franz Xaver Winterhalter, who received major commissions, and whose work was purchased for state museums. At the same time, he followed public opinion, and he made an important contribution to the French avant-garde. In 1863, the jury of the Paris Salon, the famous annual showcase of French painting, headed by the ultra-conservative director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, refused all submissions by avant-garde artists, including those by Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and Johan Jongkind. The artists and their friends complained, and the complaints reached Napoleon III. His office issued a statement: "Numerous complaints have come to the Emperor on the subject of the works of art which were refused by the jury of the Exposition. His Majesty, wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints, has decided that the works of art which were refused should be displayed in another part of the Palace of Industry." Following Napoleon's decree, an exhibit of the rejected paintings, called the Salon des Refusés, was held in another part of the Palais de l'Industrie, Palace of Industry, where the Salon took place. More than a thousand visitors a day came to see now-famous paintings such as Édouard Manet's ''Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe'' and James McNeill Whistler's ''Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl''. ' The journalist Émile Zola reported that visitors pushed to get into the crowded galleries where the refused paintings were hung, and the rooms were full of the laughter and mocking comments of many of the spectators. While the paintings were ridiculed by many critics and visitors, the work of the avant-garde became known for the first time to the French public, and it took its place alongside the more traditional style of painting. Napoleon III also began or completed the restoration of several important historic landmarks, carried out for him by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. He restored the flèche (architecture), flèche, or spire, of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which had been partially destroyed and desecrated during the French Revolution. In 1855, he completed the restoration, begun in 1845, of the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, and in 1862, he declared it a national historical monument. In 1853, he approved and provided funding for Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the medieval town of Carcassonne. He also sponsored Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the Château de Vincennes and the Château de Pierrefonds, In 1862, he closed the prison which had occupied the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel since the French Revolution, where many important political prisoners had been held, so it could be restored and opened to the public.Social and economic policies
Social policy and reforms
From the beginning of his reign, Napoleon III launched a series of social reforms aimed at improving the life of the working class. He began with small projects, such as opening up two clinics in Paris for sick and injured workers, a programme of legal assistance to those unable to afford it, as well as subsidies to companies that built low-cost housing for their workers. He outlawed the practice of employers taking possession of or making comments in the work document that every employee was required to carry; negative comments meant that workers were unable to get other jobs. In 1866, he encouraged the creation of a state insurance fund to help workers or peasants who became disabled and help their widows and families. To help the working class, Napoleon III offered a prize to anyone who could develop an inexpensive substitute for butter; the prize was won by the French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, who in 1869 patented a product he named oleomargarine, later shortened simply to margarine.Rights to strike and organise (1864–1866)
His most important social reform was the 1864 law that gave French workers the right to strike, which had been forbidden since 1810. In 1866, he added to this an "Edict of Tolerance" which gave factory workers the right to organise. He issued a decree regulating the treatment of apprentices and limited working hours on Sundays and holidays. He removed from the Napoleonic Code the infamous article 1781, which said that the declaration of the employer, even without proof, would be given more weight by the court than the word of the employee.Education for girls and women, school reform (1861–1869)
Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie worked to give girls and women greater access to public education. In 1861, through the direct intervention of the Emperor and the Empress, Julie-Victoire Daubié became the first woman in France to receive the baccalauréat diploma. In 1862, the first professional school for young women was opened, and Madeleine Brès became the first woman to enroll in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris. In 1863, he made Victor Duruy, the son of a factory worker and a respected historian, his new Minister of Public Education. Duruy accelerated the pace of the reforms, often coming into conflict with the Catholic Church, which wanted the leading role in education. Despite the opposition of the Church, Duruy opened schools for girls in each commune with more than five hundred residents, a total of eight hundred new schools. 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, yet by 1869, the number had dropped to 25 percent. The rate of illiteracy among both girls and boys dropped to 32 percent. At the university level, Napoleon III founded new faculties in Marseille, Douai, Nancy, France, Nancy, Clermont-Ferrand and Poitiers and founded a network of research institutes of higher studies in the sciences, history, and economics. These also were criticized by Catholic ecclesiastics. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Rouen, Henri-Marie-Gaston Boisnormand de Bonnechose, Monseigneur Bonnechose, wrote, "True science is religious, while false science, on the other hand, is vain and prideful; being unable to explain God, it rebels against him."Economic policy
Lower tariffs and the opening of French markets (1860)
One of the centerpieces of the economic policy of Napoleon III was the lowering of tariffs and the opening of French markets to imported goods. He had been in Britain in 1846 when Prime Minister Robert Peel had lowered tariffs on imported grains, and he had seen the benefits to British consumers and the British economy. However, he faced bitter opposition from many French industrialists and farmers, who feared British competition. Convinced he was right, he sent his chief economic advisor, Michel Chevalier, to London to begin discussions, and secretly negotiated a Cobden–Chevalier Treaty, new commercial agreement with Britain, calling for the gradual lowering of tariffs in both countries. He signed the treaty, without consulting with the Assembly, on 23 January 1860. Four hundred of the top industrialists in France came to Paris to protest, but he refused to yield. Industrial tariffs on such products as steel rails for railways were lowered first; tariffs on grains were not lowered until June 1861. Similar agreements were negotiated with the Netherlands, Italy, and France's other neighbors. France's industries were forced to modernize and become more efficient to compete with the British, as Napoleon III had intended. Commerce between the countries surged.Economic expansion and social change
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. During the Empire, industrial production increased by 73 percent, growing twice as rapidly as that of the United Kingdom, though its total output remained lower. From 1850 to 1857, the French economy grew at a pace of five percent a year and exports grew by sixty percent between 1855 and 1869. French agricultural production increased by sixty percent, spurred by new farming techniques taught at the agricultural schools started in each Departments of France, 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. 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. The average salary of French workers grew by 45 percent during the Second Empire, but only kept up with price inflation. On the other hand, more French people than ever were able to save money; the number of bank accounts grew from 742,889 in 1852 to 2,079,141 in 1870.Growing opposition and liberal concessions (1860–1870)
Despite the economic progress the country had made, domestic opposition to Napoleon III was slowly growing, particularly in the ''Corps législatif'' (Parliament). The liberal 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 abandoned the Pope in his struggle to retain political control of the Papal States and had built up a public education system that 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. 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. On 24 December 1861, Napoleon III, against the opposition of his own ministers, issued a decree announcing that the legislature would have greater powers. The Senate and the Assembly could, for the first time, give a response to the Emperor's program, ministers were obliged to defend their programs before the Assembly, and the right of Deputy (France), Deputies to amend the programs was enlarged. On 1 February 1861, further reforms were announced: Deputies could speak from the tribune, not just from their seats, and a stenographic record would be made and published of each session. Another even more important reform was announced on 31 December 1861: the budget of each ministry would be voted section by section, not in a block, and the government could no longer spend money by special decree when the legislature was not in session. He did retain the right to change the budget estimates section by section. The Deputies quickly took advantage of their new rights; the Emperor's Italian policy was bitterly condemned in Parliament, and anti-government amendments by the pro-Catholic deputies were defeated by votes of 158 to 91 in the ''Corps législatif'' and 79 to 61 in the Senate. In the legislative elections of 31 May 1863, the pro-government candidates received 5,308,000 votes, while the opposition received 1,954,000 votes, three times more than in the previous elections. The rural departments still voted for Napoleon III's candidates, but in Paris, 63 percent of the votes went to anti-government republican candidates, with similar numbers in all the large cities. The new Assembly contained a large opposition block ranging from Catholics outraged by the Papal policies to Legitimists, Orléanists, protectionism, protectionists and republicans, armed with new powers given to them by the Emperor himself. Despite the opposition in the legislature, Napoleon III's reforms remained popular in the rest of the country. A new 1870 French constitutional referendum, plebiscite was held in 1870, on this text: "The people approve the liberal reforms added to the Constitution since 1860 by the Emperor, with the agreement of the legislative bodies and ratified by the Senate on April 20, 1870." Napoleon III saw this as a referendum on his rule as Emperor: "By voting yes," he wrote, "you will chase away the threat of revolution; you will place the nation on a solid base of order and liberty, and you will make it easier to pass on the Crown to my son." When the votes were counted, Napoleon III had lost Paris and the other big cities but decisively won the rest of the country. The final vote was 7,336,434 votes yes, 1,560,709 votes no, and 1,900,000 abstentions. Léon Gambetta, the leader of the republican opposition, wrote in despair, "We were crushed. The Emperor is more popular than ever."Later years
Declining health and rise of Prussia
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, distrusted doctors and their 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 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, James Harris, 3rd Earl of Malmesbury, Lord Malmesbury. Malmesbury found him to be "terribly changed and very ill". The health problems of the Emperor were kept secret by the government, which feared that, if his condition became public, the opposition would demand his abdication. One newspaper, the ''Courrier de la Vienne'', was warned by the censors to stop publishing articles which had "a clear and malicious intent to spread, contrary to the truth, alarms about the health of the Emperor". At the end of June 1870, a specialist in the problems of urinary tracts, Germain Sée, was finally summoned to examine him. Sée reported that the Emperor was suffering from a gallstone. On 2 July, four eminent French doctors, Nélaton, Ricord, Fauvel and Corvisart, examined him and confirmed the diagnosis. They were reluctant to operate, however, because of the high risk (gallstone operations did not become relatively safe until the 1880s) and because of the Emperor's weakness. Before anything further could be done, however, France was in the middle of a diplomatic crisis. In the 1860s, Prussia appeared on the horizon as a new rival to French power in Europe. Its chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had ambitions for Prussia to lead a German unification, unified Germany. In May 1862, Bismarck came to Paris on a diplomatic mission and met Napoleon III for the first time. They had cordial relations. On 30 September 1862, however, in Munich, Bismarck declared, in a famous speech: "It is not by speeches and votes of the majority that the great questions of our period will be settled, as one believed in 1848, but by Blood and Iron (speech), iron and blood." Bismarck saw Austria and France as the main obstacles to his ambitions, and he set out to divide and defeat them.Search for allies, and war between Austria and Prussia
In the winter and spring of 1864, when the German Confederation Second Schleswig War, invaded and occupied the German-speaking provinces of Denmark (Schleswig and Holstein), Napoleon III recognized the threat that a unified Germany would pose to France, and he looked for allies to challenge Germany, without success. The British government was suspicious that Napoleon wanted to take over Belgium and Luxembourg, felt secure with its powerful navy, and did not want any military engagements on the European continent at the side of the French. The Russian government was also suspicious of Napoleon, whom it believed had encouraged Polish nationalists to January Uprising, rebel against Russian rule in 1863. Bismarck and Prussia, on the other hand, had offered assistance to Russia to help crush the Polish patriots. In October 1865, Napoleon had a cordial meeting with Bismarck at Biarritz. They discussed Venetia, Austria's remaining province in Italy. Bismarck told Napoleon that Germany had no secret arrangement to give Venetia to Italy, and Napoleon assured him in turn that France had no secret understanding with Austria. Bismarck hinted vaguely that, in the event of a war between Austria and Prussia, French neutrality would be rewarded with some sort of territory as a compensation. Napoleon III had Luxembourg in mind. In 1866, relations between Austria and Prussia worsened and Bismarck demanded the expulsion of Austria from the German Confederation. Napoleon and his foreign minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, expected a long war and an eventual Austrian victory. Napoleon III felt he could extract a price from both Prussia and Austria for French neutrality. On 12 June 1866, France signed a secret treaty with Austria, guaranteeing French neutrality in a Prussian-Austrian war. In exchange, in the event of an Austrian victory, Austria would give Venetia to France and would also create a new independent German state on the Rhine, which would become an ally of France. At the same time, Napoleon proposed a secret treaty with Bismarck, promising that France would remain neutral in a war between Austria and Prussia. In the event of a Prussian victory, France would recognize Prussia's annexation of smaller German states, and France, in exchange, would receive a portion of German territory, the Palatinate region north of Alsace. Bismarck, rightly confident of success due to the modernization of the Prussian Army, summarily rejected Napoleon's offer. 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. The Austrian defeat was followed by a new crisis in the health of Napoleon III. 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.Luxembourg Crisis
Napoleon III still hoped to receive some compensation from Prussia for French neutrality during the war. His foreign minister, Drouyn, asked Bismarck for the Palatinate region on the Rhine, which belonged to Bavaria, and for the demilitarization of Luxembourg, which was the site of a Fortress of Luxembourg, formidable fortress staffed by a strong Prussian garrison in accordance with international treaties. Napoleon's senior advisor Eugène Rouher increased the demands, asking that Prussia accept the annexation by France of Belgium and of Luxembourg. Luxembourg had regained its de jure independence in 1839 as a grand duchy. However, it was in personal union with the Netherlands. King William III of the Netherlands, who was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg, desperately needed money and was prepared to sell the Grand Duchy to France. Bismarck swiftly intervened and showed the British ambassador a copy of Napoleon's demands; as a result, he put pressure on William III to refuse to sell Luxembourg to France. France was forced to renounce any claim to Luxembourg in the Treaty of London (1867). Napoleon III gained nothing for his efforts but the demilitarization of the Luxembourg fortress.Failure to increase the size of the French Army
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 140,000 were in Algeria, Mexico, and Rome. 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." 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." 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.A last search for allies
Napoleon III was overconfident in his military strength and went into war even after he failed to find any allies who would support a war to stop German unification. Following the defeat of Austria, Napoleon resumed his search for allies against Prussia. In April 1867, he proposed an alliance, defensive and offensive, with Austria. If Austria joined France in a victorious war against Prussia, Napoleon promised that Austria could form a new confederation with the southern states of Germany and could annex Silesia, while France took for its part the left bank of the Rhine River. But the timing of Napoleon's offer was poorly chosen; Austria was in the process of a Ausgleich, major internal reform, creating a new twin monarchy structure with two components, one being the Austrian Empire, Empire of Austria and the other being the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, Kingdom of Hungary. Napoleon's attempt to install the archduke Maximilian, the brother of the Austrian Emperor, in Mexico was just coming to its disastrous conclusion; the French troops had just been withdrawn from Mexico in February 1867, and the unfortunate Maximilian would be captured, judged and shot by a firing squad on 19 June. Napoleon III made these offers again in August 1867, on a visit to offer condolences for the death of Maximilian, but the proposal was not received with enthusiasm. Napoleon III also made one last attempt to persuade Italy to be his ally against Prussia. Italian King Victor Emmanuel was personally favorable to a better relationship with France, remembering the role that Napoleon III had played in achieving Italian unification, but Italian public opinion was largely hostile to France; on 3 November 1867, French and Papal soldiers had fired upon the Italian patriots of Garibaldi, when he tried to capture Rome. Napoleon presented a proposed treaty of alliance on 4 June 1869, the anniversary of the joint French-Italian victory at Magenta. The Italians responded by demanding that France withdraw its troops who were protecting the Pope in Rome. Given the opinion of fervent French Catholics, this was a condition Napoleon III could not accept. 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 that gave 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. But most importantly, Prussia promised to support Russia in lifting the restrictions of the Congress of Paris (1856). "Bismarck had bought Tsar Alexander II’s complicity by promising to help restore his naval access to the Black Sea and Mediterranean (cut off by the treaties ending the Crimean War), other powers were less biddable". Bismarck also reached out to the liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone in London, offering to protect the neutrality of Belgium against a French threat. The British Foreign Office under George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, 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. In 1867, French politicianHohenzollern candidacy and the Ems telegram
In his memoirs, written long after the war, Bismarck wrote, "I always considered that a war with France would naturally follow a war against Austria... I was convinced that the gulf which was created over time between the north and the south of Germany could not be better overcome than by a national war against the neighbouring people who were aggressive against us. I did not doubt that it was necessary to make a French-German war before the general reorganization of Germany could be realized." As the summer of 1870 approached, pressure mounted on Bismarck to have a war with France as quickly as possible. In Bavaria, the largest of the southern German states, unification with (mostly Protestant) Prussia was being opposed by the Centre Party (Germany), Patriotic Party, which favoured a confederacy of (Catholic) Bavaria with (Catholic) Austria. German Protestant public opinion was on the side of unification with Prussia. 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, Agenor, duc de Gramont, the Duke de Gramont, 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. In July 1870, Bismarck found a cause for a war in an old dynastic dispute. In September 1868, Queen Isabella II of Spain had been overthrown and exiled to France. The new government of Spain considered several candidates, including Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, a cousin of William I, German Emperor, King Wilhelm I ofDefeat in the Franco-Prussian War
When France entered the war, there were patriotic demonstrations in the streets of Paris, with crowds singing ''La Marseillaise'' and chanting "To Berlin! To Berlin!" But Napoleon was melancholic. He told General Lepic that he expected the war to be "long and difficult", and wondered, "Who knows if we'll come back?" He told Jacques Louis Randon, Marshal Randon that he felt too old for a military campaign. Despite his declining 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. The mobilization of the French army was chaotic. Two hundred thousand soldiers converged on the German frontier, along a front of 250 kilometers, choking all the roads and railways for miles. Officers and their respective units were unable to find one another. General Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Moltke and the German army, having gained experience mobilizing in the war against Austria, were able to efficiently move three armies of 518,000 men to a more concentrated front of just 120 kilometers. In addition, the German soldiers were backed by a substantial reserve of the Landwehr (Territorial defence), with 340,000 men, and an additional reserve of 400,000 territorial guards. The French army arrived at the frontier equipped with maps of Germany, but without maps of France—where the actual fighting took place—and without a specific plan of what it was going to do. On 2 August, Napoleon and the Prince Imperial accompanied the army as it made a tentative crossing of the German border toward the city of Saarbrücken. The French won a minor skirmish and advanced no further. Napoleon III, very ill, was unable to ride his horse and had to support himself by leaning against a tree. In the meantime, the Germans had assembled a much larger army opposite Alsace and Lorraine than the French had expected or were aware of. On 4 August 1870, the Germans attacked with overwhelming force against a French division in Alsace at the Battle of Wissembourg (1870), Battle of Wissembourg (German: Weissenburg), forcing it to retreat. On 5 August, the Germans defeated another French Army at the Battle of Spicheren in Lorraine. 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 C64 (field gun), Krupp six pound field gun, which was Breechloader, breech-loading, had a steel barrel, longer range, a higher rate of fire, and was more accurate than the bronze Muzzleloader, muzzle-loading French cannons. The Krupp guns caused terrible casualties in the French ranks. When news of the French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Prime Minister Ollivier and the army chief of staff, Marshal Edmond Le Boeuf, 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 and former commander of the French expeditionary force to China, as her new prime minister. The Count of Palikao named Marshal 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 not doing any 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. 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." On 18 August 1870, the Battle of Gravelotte, the biggest battle of the war, 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 victors, 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. 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 of what the army should do next, and the Emperor had to act as a referee. 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." 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. The direction of movement of MacMahon's army was supposed to be secret, but it was published in the French press and thus was quickly known to the German general staff. Moltke, the German commander, ordered two Prussian armies marching toward Paris to turn towards MacMahon's army. On 30 August, one corps of MacMahon's army was attacked by the Germans at Beaumont, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Beaumont, losing five hundred men and forty cannons. MacMahon, believing he was ahead of the Germans, decided to stop and reorganize his forces at the fortified city of Sedan, Ardennes, Sedan, in the Ardennes close to the Belgian border.Battle of Sedan and capitulation
The Battle of Sedan was a total disaster for the French—the army surrendered to the Prussians and Napoleon himself was made a prisoner of war. 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 where they placed artillery batteries, and began shelling the French positions below. At five o'clock in the morning on 1 September, a German shell seriously wounded MacMahon in the hip. Sedan quickly came under bombardment from seven hundred German guns. MacMahon's replacement, General Emmanuel Félix de Wimpffen, Wimpffen, launched a series of 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 received wounds. 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." Finally, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Napoleon emerged from his daydream, reverie and ordered a white flag 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." After the war, when accused of having made a "shameful surrender" at Sedan, he wrote: 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 the French government headed by the Regent, Empress Eugénie, would need to negotiate any peace agreement. The Emperor was then taken to the Chateau at Bellevue near , where the Prussian King visited him. Napoleon told the King that he had not wanted the war, but that public opinion had forced him into it. That evening, from the Chateau, Napoleon wrote to the Empress Eugénie:Aftermath
The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September, confirming the rumors that were already circulating in the city. When the Empress heard the news that the Emperor and the army had been taken prisoner, 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?!" 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, Paris, Hôtel de Ville in Paris and proclaimed the return of the Republic and the creation of a Government of National Defence. The Second Empire had come to an end.Captivity, exile and death
From 5 September 1870 until 19 March 1871, Napoleon III and his entourage of thirteen aides were held in comfortable captivity at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel, Germany. Eugénie traveled there incognito to visit Napoleon. General Bazaine, besieged with a large part of the remaining French Army in the fortification of Metz, had secret talks with Bismarck's envoys on 23 September. The idea was for Bazaine to establish a conservative regime in France, for himself or for Napoleon's son. Bazaine's envoy, who spoke to Bismarck at Versailles on 14 October, 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 position overall, Bismarck lost interest in this option. On 27 November, Napoleon composed a memorandum to Bismarck that raised the possibility that the Prussian King might urge the French people to recall him as Emperor after a peace treaty was signed and Paris surrendered. But by this time, Metz had already fallen, leaving Napoleon without a power base. Bismarck did not see much chance for a restored empire, as the French people would consider Napoleon a mere marionette of the enemy. One last initiative from Eugénie failed in January, because of the late arrival of her envoy from London. Bismarck refused to acknowledge the former empress, as this had caused irritations with Britain and Russia. Shortly afterwards, the Germans signed a truce with the Government of France. Napoleon continued to write political tracts and letters and dreamed of a return to power. Bonapartist candidates participated in the first elections for the National Assembly on 8 February, but won only five seats. On 1 March, the newly elected assembly officially declared the removal of the emperor from power and placed all the blame for the French defeat squarely on him. When peace was arranged between France and Germany, Bismarck released Napoleon; the emperor decided to go into exile in England. Having limited funds, Napoleon sold properties and jewels and arrived in England on 20 March 1871. Napoleon, Eugénie, their son and their entourage, including the American Colonel Zebulon Howell Benton, settled at Camden Place, 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. 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. He had also paid attention to another English girl, Elizabeth Howard, who later gave birth to a son, whose father (not Louis-Napoleon) settled property on her to support the son, via a trust whose trustee was Nathaniel Strode. Strode bought Camden Place in 1860 and spent large sums of money transforming it into a French château. Strode had also received money from the Emperor, possibly to buy Camden Place and maintain it as a Retreat (survivalism), bolt hole. 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 final defeat in the war would haunt the dying former emperor throughout his last days. On his deathbed, he was attended by Henri Conneau, one of his servants. He asked him “were you at Sedan?” To which Conneau assured him that he was. Napoleon III then replied saying "Isn't it true that we weren't cowards at Sedan?” They were his last words. He was given last rites and died on 9 January 1873. Napoleon was originally buried at St. Mary's, Chislehurst, St Mary's, the Catholic church in Chislehurst. However, after his son, an officer in the British Army, died in 1879 fighting against the Zulu people, Zulus in South Africa, Eugénie decided to build a monastery and a chapel for the remains of Napoleon III and their son. In 1888, the bodies were moved to the Imperial Crypt at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, England.Personal life
Louis Napoleon has a historical reputation as a womanizer, yet he said: "It is usually the man who attacks. As for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate." He had many mistresses. During his reign, it was the task of Félix Baciocchi (1803–1866), 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. Among his numerous lovers and mistresses were: * Maria Anna Schiess (1812–1880), of Allensbach (Lake Constance, Germany), mother of his son Bonaventur Karrer (1839–1921). * Mary Louisa Edwards (1814–1894), his mistress in London in 1839-1840. Louis Napoleon styled her "Comtesse d'Espel" and set her up at Brasted Place, Kent. She played a role in the organization of his failed Coup attempt in Boulogne, in August 1840. She visited him in prison at Ham, in 1840 and 1841 * Alexandrine Éléonore Vergeot, laundress at the prison at Ham, mother of his sons Alexandre Louis Eugène Bure and Louis Ernest Alexandre Bure. * Rachel (actress), Elisa-Rachel Felix (1821–1858), the "most famous actress in Europe." * Harriet Howard (1823–1865) wealthy actress and a major financial backer. * Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (1837–1899) spy, artist and famous beauty, sent by Camillo Cavour to influence the Emperor's politics. * Marie-Anne Walewska (1823–1912), a possible mistress, who was the wife of Count Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, his relative and foreign minister. * Justine Marie Le Boeuf, also known as Marguerite Bellanger, actress and acrobatic dancer. Bellanger was falsely rumoured to be the illegitimate daughter of a hangman, and was the most universally loathed of the mistresses, though perhaps his favourite. * Countess Louise de Mercy-Argenteau (1837–1890), likely a platonic love, platonic relationship, author of ''The Last Love of an Emperor'', her reminiscences of her association with the emperor. 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. Yet, after marriage, it took not long for him to stray as Eugénie found sex with him "disgusting". It is doubtful that she allowed further approaches by her husband once she had given him an heir. By his late forties, Napoleon started to suffer from numerous medical ailments, including kidney disease, bladder stones, chronic bladder and prostate infections, arthritis, gout, obesity, and the chronic effects of smoking. In 1856, Dr. Robert Ferguson, a consultant called from London, diagnosed a "nervous exhaustion" that had a "debilitating impact upon sexual ... performance" which he also reported to the British government.Legacy
Construction
With Prosper Mérimée, Napoleon III continued to seek the preservation of numerous medieval buildings in France that had been neglected since the French Revolution, a project Mérimée had begun during theHistorical reputation
The historical reputation of Napoleon III is far below that of his uncle, and had been heavily tarnished by the empire's military failures in Mexico and against Prussia.In Films
Napoleon has been portrayed by: * Walter Kingsford in **''The Story of Louis Pasteur'' (1936) **''A Dispatch from Reuter's'' (1940) * Frank Vosper in ''Spy of Napoleon'' (1936) * Guy Bates Post in **''Maytime (1937 film), Maytime'' (1937) **''The Mad Empress'' (1939) * Leon Ames (actor), Leon Ames in ''Suez (film), Suez'' (1938) * Claude Rains in ''Juarez (1939 film), Juarez'' (1939) * Walter Franck in ''Bismarck (1940 film), Bismarck'' (1940) * Jerome Cowan in ''The Song of Bernadette (film), The Song of Bernadette'' (1943) * David Bond in ''The Sword of Monte Cristo'' (1951) * Siegfried Wischnewski in ''Maximilian von Mexiko'' (1970). * Robert Dumont in ''Those Years'' (Spanish: ''Aquellos años'', 1973). * Julian Sherrier in ''Edward the Seventh'' (1975) * Nick Jameson in ''The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer'' (1998) * Erwin Steinhauer in ''Sisi (miniseries), Sisi'' (2009). Napoleon III also plays a small but crucial role in ''April and the Extraordinary World'' (2015).Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
His full title as emperor was: "Napoleon the Third, by the Grace of God and the will of the Nation, Emperor of the French".Honours
National * Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, ''(1848; in diamonds 1870,)'' * Médaille militaire, ''(1852; in diamonds 1870,)'' * Commemorative medal of the 1859 Italian Campaign, ''(in diamonds 1870,)'' ForeignWritings by Napoleon III
See also
* Bonapartism * Second Empire style * Paris during the Second EmpireReferences
Further reading
Biographical
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *Secondary sources
* * Campbell, Stuart L. ''The Second Empire Revisited: A Study in French Historiography'' (1978) * * * * Golicz, Roman. “Napoleon III, Lord Palmerston and the Entente Cordiale.” ''History Today'' 50#12 (December 2000): 10–17 * * * * * * * * Williams, Roger Lawrence. ''The Mortal Napoleon III'' (Princeton University Press, 2015). * * * *Primary sources
* T. W. Evans, ''Memoirs of the Second French Empire'', (New York, 1905) * 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 (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1926).In French
* Anceau, Eric (2008), ''Napoléon III, un Saint-Simon à cheval'', Paris, Tallandier. * Choisel, Francis (2015), '' La Deuxième République et le Second Empire au jour le jour'', chronologie érudite détaillée, Paris, CNRS Editions. * * * * * * * Tulard, Jean (dir.), (1995), ''Dictionnaire du Second Empire'', Paris, Fayard, 1348 p.Additional reading
* * Gooch, Brison D. ed. ''Napoleon III, man of destiny: Enlightened statesman or proto-fascist?'' (1964External links
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