Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the first president of France from 1848 to 1852, and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 until he was deposed in absentia on 4 September 1870.
"Louis Napoleon" redirects here. For other uses, see Louis Napoleon (disambiguation).Napoleon III
2 December 1852 – 4 September 1870
Himself (as President of France)
Napoleon II (1815, as Emperor)
Adolphe Thiers (as President of France)
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac (as Chief of the Executive Power)
Himself (as Emperor of the French)
20 April 1808
Paris, First French Empire
9 January 1873 (aged 64)
Chislehurst, Kent, England
1859–1870
Prior to his reign, Napoleon III was known as Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He was born in Paris as the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland (1806–1810), and his wife, Hortense de Beauharnais. Napoleon I was Louis Napoleon's paternal uncle, and one of his cousins was the disputed Napoleon II. Louis Napoleon was the first and only president of the French Second Republic, elected in 1848. He seized power by force in 1851 when he could not constitutionally be reelected. He later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French and founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870.
Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French colonial empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and personally engaged in two wars. Maintaining leadership for 22 years, he was the longest-reigning leader of France since the fall of the Ancien Régime, although his reign would ultimately end on the battlefield.
Napoleon III commissioned a grand reconstruction of Paris carried out by prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. He expanded and consolidated the railway system throughout the nation and modernized the banking system. Napoleon promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made the country an agricultural exporter. He negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Free Trade Agreement with Britain and similar agreements with France's other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike, the right to organize, and the right for women to be admitted to a French university.
In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and around the world. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War (1853–1856). His regime assisted Italian unification by defeating the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence and later annexed Savoy and Nice through the Treaty of Turin as its deferred reward. At the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. He was also favourable towards the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities, which resulted in the establishment of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Napoleon doubled the area of the French colonial empire with expansions in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. On the other hand, the intervention in Mexico, which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection, ended in total failure.
From 1866, Napoleon had to face the mounting power of Prussia as its minister president Otto von Bismarck sought German unification under Prussian leadership. In July 1870, Napoleon reluctantly declared war on Prussia after pressure from the general public. The French Army was rapidly defeated, and Napoleon was captured at Sedan. He was swiftly dethroned and the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris. After he was released from German custody, he went into exile in England, where he died in 1873.
Childhood and family[edit]
Early life[edit]
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 was Louis Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made Louis the king of Holland from 1806 until 1810. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the only daughter of Napoleon's wife Joséphine by her first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais. He was the first Bonaparte prince born after the proclamation of the empire.[1]
As empress, Joséphine had proposed the marriage of Louis and Hortense as a way to produce an heir for the Emperor, who agreed, as Joséphine was by then infertile.[2] Louis and Hortense had a difficult relationship and only lived together for brief periods. Their first son, Napoléon Charles Bonaparte, died in 1807 and—though separated and parents of a healthy second son, Napoléon Louis—they decided to have a third child. They resumed their marriage for a brief time in Toulouse starting from 12 August 1807 and Louis Napoleon was born prematurely, (at least) three weeks short of nine months. Hortense was known to have lovers and Louis Napoleon's enemies, including Victor Hugo, spread the gossip that he was the child of a different man, but most historians agree today that he was the legitimate son of Louis Bonaparte.[3][4][5]
Louis Napoleon was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau on 5 November 1810, with Emperor Napoleon serving as his godfather and Empress Marie-Louise as his godmother. His father stayed away, once again separated from Hortense. At the age of seven, Louis Napoleon visited his uncle at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Napoleon held him up to the window to see the soldiers parading in the Place du Carrousel below. Louis Napoleon last saw his uncle with the family at the Château de Malmaison, shortly before Napoleon departed for the Battle of Waterloo.[6]
All members of the Bonaparte dynasty were forced into exile after the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and the Bourbon Restoration of monarchy in France. Hortense and Louis Napoleon moved from Aix to Bern to Baden, and finally to a lakeside house at Arenenberg in the Swiss canton of Thurgau. He received some of his education in Germany at the gymnasium school at Augsburg, Bavaria. As a result, for the rest of his life, his French had a slight but noticeable German accent. His tutor at home was Philippe Le Bas, an ardent republican and the son of a revolutionary and close friend of Robespierre. Le Bas taught him French history and radical politics.[7]
Early adult years[edit]
Bonapartist succession and philosophy of Bonapartism[edit]
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 of Vienna under the title Duke of Reichstadt. Next in line was Louis Napoleon's eldest uncle, Joseph Bonaparte, followed by Louis Bonaparte, but neither Joseph nor Louis had any interest in re-entering public life. When the Duke of Reichstadt died in 1832, Louis Napoleon became the de facto heir of the dynasty and the leader of the Bonapartist cause.[11]
In exile with his mother in Switzerland, Louis Napoleon enrolled in the Swiss Army, trained to become an officer, and wrote a manual of artillery (his uncle Napoleon had become famous as an artillery officer). Louis Napoleon also began writing about his political philosophy—for as the early twentieth century English historian H. A. L. Fisher suggested, "the programme of the Empire was not the improvisation of a vulgar adventurer" but the result of deep reflection on the Napoleonic political philosophy and on how to adjust it to the changed domestic and international scenes.[12] As early as 1832 he presented a reconciliation between Bonapartism and republicanism through the principle of popular sovereignty. He believed a strong emperor existed to execute the will of the people.[1] He published his Rêveries politiques or "political dreams" in 1833 at the age of 25, followed in 1834 by Considérations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse ("Political and military considerations about Switzerland"), followed in 1839 by Les Idées napoléoniennes ("Napoleonic Ideas"), a compendium of his political ideas which was published in three editions and eventually translated into six languages. He based his doctrine upon two ideas: universal suffrage and the primacy of the national interest. He called for a "monarchy which procures the advantages of the Republic without the inconveniences", a regime "strong without despotism, free without anarchy, independent without conquest".[13] He also intended to build a wider European community of nations.[1]
The 1848 presidential campaign pitted Louis Napoleon against General Cavaignac, the Minister of Defense of the Provisional Government, and the leaders of the socialists.
Louis Napoleon's essay, "The Extinction of Pauperism", advocating reforms to help the working class, was widely circulated during the 1848 election campaign.
Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Napoleon III make official the annexation of eleven communes around Paris to the city. The annexation increased the size of the city from twelve to the present twenty arrondissements.
The Paris Opera was the centerpiece of Napoleon III's new Paris. The architect, Charles Garnier, described the style simply as "Napoleon the Third".
The Bois de Boulogne, transformed by Napoleon III between 1852 and 1858, was designed to give a place for relaxation and recreation to all the classes of Paris.
Photo of the Emperor
Social and economic policies[edit]
Social policy and reforms[edit]
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.[111]
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.[112]
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."[176] He had many mistresses. During his reign, it was the task of Count Felix Bacciochi, his social secretary, to arrange for trysts and to procure women for the Emperor's favours. His affairs were not trivial sideshows: they distracted him from governing, affected his relationship with the empress, and diminished him in the views of the other European courts.[177]
Among his numerous lovers and mistresses were:[178]
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.[176] Yet, after marriage, it took not long for him to stray as Eugénie found sex with him "disgusting".[176] It is doubtful that she allowed further approaches by her husband once she had given him an heir.[177]
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"[178] which he also reported to the British government.[177]
Legacy[edit]
Construction[edit]
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 the July Monarchy. With Eugène Viollet-le-Duc acting as chief architect, many buildings were saved, including some of the most famous in France: Notre Dame Cathedral, Mont Saint-Michel, Carcassonne, Vézelay Abbey, Pierrefonds, and Roquetaillade castle.
Napoleon III also directed the building of the French railway network, which contributed to the development of the coal mining and steel industry in France. This advance radically changed the nature of the French economy, which entered the modern age of large-scale capitalism.[183] The French economy, the second largest in the world at the time (behind the British economy), experienced a very strong growth during the reign of Napoleon III.[184] Names such as steel tycoon Eugène Schneider and banking mogul James de Rothschild are symbols of the period. Two of France's largest banks, Société Générale and Crédit Lyonnais, still in existence today, were founded during that period. The French stock market also expanded prodigiously, with many coal mining and steel companies issuing stocks. Historians credit Napoleon chiefly for supporting the railways, but not otherwise building the economy.[185]
Napoleon's military pressure and Russian mistakes, culminating in the Crimean War, dealt a blow to the Concert of Europe, since it precipitated a war that disrupted the post-Napoleonic peace, although the ultimately diplomatic solution to the war demonstrated the continued vitality of the system. The concert was based on stability and balance of powers, whereas Napoleon attempted to rearrange the world map to France's advantage.
A 12-pound cannon designed by France is commonly referred to as a "Napoleon cannon" or "12-pounder Napoleon" in his honor.
Titles, styles, honours and arms[edit]
Titles and styles[edit]
His full title as emperor was: "Napoleon the Third, by the Grace of God and the will of the Nation, Emperor of the French".[194]
Foreign[195]