Napoleon III

President (1848–1852) and emperor (r. 1852–1870) of France

• Born: April 20, 1808
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: January 9, 1873
• Place of death: Chislehurst, Kent, England

The nephew of Emperor Napoleon I, Napoleon III, was president of the Second French Republic and emperor of the Second Empire. He was one of the key figures, sometimes unwittingly, in the political unification of both Italy and Germany, and was also greatly responsible for the rebuilding of Paris.

Early Life

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Paris in 1808. His father, also Louis Napoleon, was a younger brother of the French emperor Napoleon I . His mother, Hortense, was the daughter of the emperor’s first wife, Joséphine, from an earlier marriage. The marriage of Louis Napoleon and Hortense was not a success, and rumors persisted regarding their child’s paternity. After Napoleon I’s final defeat at Waterloo and exile to St. Helena, all the Bonapartes were forced out of France. Hortense, having separated from her husband, settled in Switzerland, where Louis Napoleon was educated to the dual heritage of the French Revolution and the imperialism of Napoleon I. Both traditions formed his character.

As a young man, Louis Napoleon was a romantic figure. Of average height for the day, about five feet, five inches, he had a pale complexion and dark, curly hair. Women were greatly attracted to him, perhaps because of his name. It is impossible to ascertain when his own political ambitions first matured, though it is probable that he saw himself as a man of destiny at an early age. Louis Napoleon’s older brother died in 1831, and Napoleon I’s son by his second wife, the so-called duke of Reichstadt, died in 1832, leaving Louis Napoleon as the political head of the Bonaparte family. In 1836, he attempted his first coup d’état against the French government of King Louis-Philippe. It failed ignominiously, and after his arrest he was exiled, first to the United States and then, after his mother’s death, to London.

In 1840, the British government consented to the return of Napoleon I’s body to France from St. Helena, where he had died in 1821. Hoping to take advantage of the Bonaparte legend, Louis Napoleon again attempted a coup against Louis-Philippe. It, too, utterly failed, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life. During the next few years, Louis Napoleon wrote and studied. He authored various works, identifying himself with the heritage of Napoleon I. In 1844, he published “Extinction du paupérisme” (the extinction of poverty), which, contrary to the laissez-faire ideology of the times, advocated government intervention in the economy. In 1846, he escaped from prison and within a few hours was back in England, but no closer to power.

Life’s Work

The year 1848 was a revolutionary year in Europe and in France. In February, Louis-Philippe was overthrown. Initially, Louis Napoleon was unable to profit by the change, but after a working-class uprising in May and June, which alarmed the middle and upper classes, his opportunity came. Abandoning the monarchy, the French established the Second Republic , and Louis Napoleon was elected president, receiving almost 75 percent of the vote. His uncle’s reputation, his own activities against the former regime, his economic program, the divisions among his opponents, and perhaps merely the times made Louis Napoleon president of France.

The government of the Second Republic was modeled after the American presidential system rather than the parliamentary form of England. Louis Napoleon lacked a political party of his own, and the newly elected French assembly owed him little loyalty. In addition, the presidential term was for four years with no immediate reelection allowed. Finally, there were Louis Napoleon’s own ambitions and his heritage. Those factors guaranteed still another revolution, this time, ironically, by Louis Napoleon against his own government. “Operation Rubicon” was successful, in December, 1851, but at the cost of many arrests, 370 lives lost, and twenty thousand exiled, damaging the legitimacy of his rule. However, in a carefully worded plebiscite, the voters approved the coup d’état, and a year later, in another plebiscite, they overwhelmingly voted to abolish the Second Republic and replace it with the Second Empire, with Louis Napoleon as Emperor Napoleon III.

The creation of the Second Empire caused considerable fear among other European governments as possibly portending the revival of the military imperialism of Napoleon I. Napoleon III, however, publicly stated that his empire would be an empire of peace; as president, he had proposed to the British and Prussian governments that naval and land armaments be reduced, although nothing came of it. Early in his reign, Russian pressure on the Turkish Ottoman Empire ignited the fears of both France and England about Russia’s territorial ambitions and its perennial quest for warm-water ports. The result was war in the Crimea in 1854. For Napoleon, the determining factor was his desire for an alliance with England, the old enemy, more than fear of Russia. The war itself was a standoff, but the emperor reaped credit for his diplomacy that led to peace.

During the nineteenth century, national unification was perceived by many to be both logical and necessary. Napoleon was sympathetic toward Italian unity. Nevertheless, it was easier for Napoleon to become involved in Italian affairs than to get out of them. In 1849, he had alienated both Italian nationalists and Catholics when he intervened in Roman affairs. Expecting to be welcomed, instead the French were opposed both by liberals on the Left, who had recently established a republic in Rome, and by conservative Catholics on the Right.

In spite of Napoleon’s support of Italian national aspirations, for some Italian patriots he moved too slowly, and in 1858 there was an attempt to assassinate him. Napoleon supported Sardinia’s aim of eliminating Austria from Italy, but he envisioned not a strong united Italy but a federated state that would look to France and himself for guidance. His decision to wage war against Austria was risky, lacking as it did the support of most European governments, and after initial victories, Napoleon agreed to peace. Sardinia was not pleased, but France obtained Savoy and Nice as a result of the newest Napoleon’s imperialism. Italian unification remained for the future, and Napoleon’s intervention had failed to satisfy any of the participants.

Perhaps the major accomplishment of the Second Empire was the rebuilding of Paris. Here, too, Louis Napoleon was inspired by his uncle’s accomplishments. Even as late as 1848, Paris was in many ways a medieval city, but, with the assistance of Georges Haussmann, Napoleon made Paris into one of the first modern and planned cities in Western civilization. The Seine River was no longer a public sewer, the city streets were widened, trees planted, parks provided, and gaslights added, making Paris the famous City of Lights. Undoubtedly, the emperor wished to create a monument to his rule—he saw himself as a second Caesar Augustus building a new Rome—but there were economic and strategic considerations. Jobs would be created, and the wider, straighter streets would make it more difficult for the Parisians to rebel against his regime.

As emperor, Napoleon faced the responsibility of providing an heir. After canvassing several European princesses, the imperial eye fell upon Eugenie de Montijo, daughter of a Spanish nobleman and his part-Scottish wife. For Napoleon, it was a love match, unpopular with many of his advisers; yet Eugenie, for all of her beauty and charm, was ultimately not a suitable consort. She gave birth to a son, the prince imperial, in 1856, but she and the emperor were not close and Eugenie often pursued policies independent of those of Napoleon. In particular, she was a strong supporter of the Papacy during the era of Italian unification, and she was the energetic sponsor of French adventure in Mexico whereby the Austrian Archduke Maximilian was placed on the throne of that unwilling country. In time, Maximilian’s position became untenable, and the Austrian was executed by his Mexican subjects.

The 1860s saw a change in policy as the emperor slowly began moving toward the creation of a more liberal empire. The earlier high tariff policies, which had benefited French industrialists, were modified and freer trade with Great Britain instituted. The assembly was given additional powers, and in elections republican and Royalist opponents of the imperial regime, although still in the minority, improved their numbers.

Napoleon III had claimed to be a socialist, and during the 1860s he allowed the development of labor unions, but his policies and approaches were more paternalistic than democratic. By the end of the decade, the empire was more liberal than at its beginning but in reality still more despotic than democratic. If given sufficient time, Napoleon’s empire might have evolved into something approximating the constitutional monarchy of Victorian England, but it faced many obstacles. Its violent birth in 1851 and its opposition from both the Left and the Right—from republicans and from Royalists—created problems that were difficult to surmount. Napoleon’s advisers were often marginal political figures who lacked prominence and political stature. Napoleon’s health was poor, and his own personality was more suited to the seeking of power than to the wielding of it. He remained more the conspirator than the statesman.

It was Napoleon’s ultimate misfortune to face one of the most astute statesman of modern European history. Otto von Bismarck of Prussia desired a united Germany, a Germany created by blood and iron. In 1866, Prussia defeated the Austro-Hungarian Empire in only six weeks, which led the northern German states into a federation.

In 1870, Bismarck turned his talents against Napoleon. The vacant Spanish throne was offered to a Catholic prince of the Protestant ruling house of Prussia. The French feared that they would find themselves encircled by Germans. Napoleon’s government demanded that the Prussian king apologize for the affair, but Bismarck made the diplomatic conversations appear that the Prussian rejection of the French demand was harsher and more dismissive than it was in reality. The French public, including Eugenie, demanded war with Prussia, and against his own inclinations Napoleon weakly succumbed. War was declared in 1870. It was an unmitigated disaster. Napoleon III was captured by the Prussians and soon abdicated. The Second Empire was over.

Significance

Napoleon III chose exile in England. In France, the war against Prussia continued briefly, but ultimately Germany prevailed and the French were forced to surrender the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. The Second Empire was replaced by the Third Republic. Napoleon III died in his English exile in 1873. His son and heir, the prince imperial, the hope of the Bonaparte dynasty, joined the British army in South Africa. He was killed in action against the Zulu in 1879. Eugenie survived until 1920; she lived long enough to see Alsace and Lorraine restored to republican France after World War I.

Although Napoleon’s diplomatic accomplishments were sometimes significant and his economic policies showed vision, the ease with which he was swept away in the events of 1870 suggests that his hold upon France was extremely superficial. He ruled for more than twenty years—longer than his famous uncle—but other than on Paris, his ultimate impact was slight. He remained the political adventurer and the dreamer to the end.

Bibliography

Bresler, Fenton. Napoleon III: A Life. London: HarperCollins, 1999. Print.

Bury, J. P. T. Napoléon III and the Second Empire. London: English Universities, 1964. Print.

Corley, T. A. B. Democratic Despot: A Life of Napoleon III. New York: Potter, 1961. Print.

Gooch, Brison D., ed. Napoleon III, Man of Destiny: Englightened Statesman or Proto-Fascist? New York: Holt, 1963. Print.

Kirkland, Stephane. Paris Reborn: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City. New York: St. Martin's, 2013. Print.

Pinkney, David H. Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1958. Print.

Price, Roger. The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.

Thompson, J. M. Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire. New York: Noonday, 1955. Print.