Napolon III Emperor of the French - Assignment Example

Napoleon III Napoléon III Emperor of the French (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte) was President of France from 1849 to 1852, and then Emperor of theFrench under the name Napoléon III from 1852 to 1870. He was the last monarch to rule France (Wikipedia, 2006). Early Life Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (April 20, 1808 - January 9, 1873) was the son of King Louis Bonaparte and Queen Hortense de Beauharnais; both monarchs of the Kingdom of Holland (France.com, 1995). Louis Napoleon was born during the height of his uncles, Napoleon Bonapartes, success. He grew up in a life of privilege, and developed very liberal idealism. After an extremely unsuccessful coup in the 1830s, he was exiled from France by the then King Louis Philippe (he went in the U.S.A.). From then, until his return to France (for the revolutions of 1848), he became a well-published, and well-respected liberal (everything2.com, 2002). Louis Napoleon spent his youth with his mother, Hortense de Beauharnais, in Switzerland and Germany and became a captain in the Swiss army. Animated by a mixture of liberalism and Bonapartism, he indulged (1830–31) in revolutionary activities in Italy. In 1836 he attempted a ludicrous military coup at Strasbourg and was exiled to the United States by the government of Louis Philippe. He managed to return to Switzerland, but French protests at his proximity finally caused him to depart (1838) for England. He was married to Empress Eugenie, a Spanish noble of Scottish and Spanish descent, Napoleon III had one son, Eugene Bonaparte. In 1840 he again attempted a revolution, this time at Boulogne-sur-Mer for which he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. While under arrest in the fortress of Ham, Somme department, he wrote letters, pamphlets, and books, among them a mildly socialistic work on the extinction of pauperism. In 1846 he made an easy escape, walking out disguised as a laborer, and went to England (Fact Monster, 2000). Besides, many writers also wrote about Napoleon III. 1 Rise to Power After the somewhat disappointing revolutions of 1848, and as a result of the notorious Bloody June Days, France found itself under the rule of a republican government, cleverly named the Second Republic. Elections were held in 1849 to elect a president for France. The overwhelming victor was one, Louis Napoleon. Louis Napoleon, or Napoleon III, was the nephew of the famed Conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte. He possessed a relatively sagacious idea of how to rule France. Napoleon III realized that after decades of class struggle, there needed to be a strong national leader to unify (and appease) the people of France. He harnessed French Nationalism to accomplish this, and was the first of many leaders to come who realized the value of Nationalism (everything2.com, 2002). Louis Napoleon vaguely promised support to all interests, and he evoked French nostalgia for past Napoleonic glory. As president of the Second Republic, he was limited by law to one term. He soon began to strengthen his position and took special care to appease the powerful conservative forces. The strong Roman Catholic opposition was allayed by allowing (1849) a French army to restore Pope Pius IX to Rome and by assenting (1850) to an education bill, presented by Frédéric de Falloux, which greatly favored the church. Louis Napoleon began plans for a coup after the defeat in the assembly in July, 1851, of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the president to serve for more than one term. The masterly coup of Dec. 2, 1851, was largely engineered by Louis Napoleons half brother, the duc de Morny. The legislative assembly was dissolved and its meeting place occupied by the army, universal suffrage was established, and a plebiscite authorizing the revision of the constitution was announced. An attempted uprising was brutally repressed. To assure a majority in the plebiscite Morny used tactics of intimidation and strict electoral management. Victory would, in any case, have been the probable outcome. The Bonaparte name promised glory, order, and a possible solution of Frances political division. The plebiscite registered overwhelming approval. The new constitution (Jan., 1852) gave the president dictatorial powers and created a council of state, a senate, and a legislative assembly subservient to the president. Subsequent decrees barred republicans from the ballot and throttled the press (Fact Monster, 2000). Looking back at the actual election, it is useful to see that Napoleon III was elected for three main reasons: 1. His name was Napoleon. After the inglorious reign of the Bourgeois king Louis Philippe, the horrible reign of Charles X, and the tumultuous reign of Louis XVIII, the French people longed for the glory they had known so well in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte. Men of property saw him as a protector. 2. There had been a large socialist movement during the revolutions of 1848, and many people had feared for the security of their property. 3. He had a clear and published plan for running France, which was outlined in his two books (everything2.com, 2002). Emperor of the French In Nov., 1852, a new plebiscite overwhelmingly approved the establishment of the Second Empire, and Louis Napoleon became Emperor Napoleon III. For eight years he continued to exercise dictatorial rule, tempered by rapid material progress. Railway building was encouraged; the rebuilding of Paris and other cities brought a construction boom; and the first French investment banks were authorized. Napoleons foreign ventures were successful at first. The Crimean War (1854–56) and the Congress of Paris restored French leadership on the Continent. Napoleon then turned toward Italy. A long-time supporter of Italian nationalism, he met the Sardinian premier Camillo Cavour at Plombières and secretly agreed on a joint campaign by France and Sardinia to expel Austria from Italy and to establish an Italian federation of four states under the presidency of the pope; France was to be compensated with Nice and Savoy. War broke out in 1859. However, after the costly victory of the French and Sardinians at Solferino, Napoleon suddenly deserted his Italian ally and made a separate peace with Austria at Villafranca di Verona. His act was partly motivated by the opposition of the French clerical party to a policy threatening the independence of the papacy at Rome (Fact Monster, 2000). The Liberal Empire Having lost much popularity, the emperor inaugurated a more liberal domestic policy, widening the powers of the legislative assembly and lifting many restrictions on civil liberties. During the “Liberal Empire” (1860–70) such opposition leaders as Jules Favre, Émile Ollivier, and Adolphe Thiers were outstanding figures. A commercial treaty (1860) with Great Britain opened France to free trade and improved Franco-British relations. Imperialistic expansion was pushed by the French-British expedition (1857–60) against China, the acquisition of Cochin China, and the construction of the Suez Canal. Less fortunate was Napoleons intervention (1861–67) in the affairs of Mexico; the French troops finally withdrew upon the demand of the United States, leaving Emperor Maximilian to his fate. Napoleon remained neutral in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, underestimating Prussian strength. The rise of Prussia under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck revealed a new rival for European power. To regain prestige Napoleon, at the behest of advisers, took an aggressive stand regarding the candidature of a Hohenzollern prince to the Spanish throne. This gave Bismarck the opportunity to push Napoleon into war. The Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) brought ruin to the Second Empire. Napoleon himself took the field, leaving his empress, Eugénie, as regent, but he early devolved his command to Achille Bazaine. He was caught in the disaster of Sedan (Sept. 1, 1870), captured by the Prussians, and declared deposed (Sept. 4) by a bloodless revolution in Paris. Released after the armistice (1871), he went into exile in England, bearing defeat with remarkable dignity. His only son, the prince imperial, was killed while serving in the British army. Napoleon III was a complex figure. He combined traits of genuine idealism and liberalism with authoritarianism and ruthless self-aggrandizement. Although much less impressive than his mighty uncle, he was shrewd enough to capitalize on the Napoleonic image and to govern capably, albeit dictatorially. His downfall came when he encountered the far more canny Bismarck (Fact Monster, 2000). Idealism Louis Napoleons concept of an ideal government would later influence such men as Bismarck, Cavour, and others. He believed in one strong national leader who was relatively unchecked. He did not believe the government should be tainted by the `corruption of a legislature, for it would impair the leader/president from enforcing his will. He believed that a farseeing minority, who knew what was best, should and could rule over the majority. (Mussolini later used this idea in the creation of his Fascist government.) Almost immediately, Napoleon III found one thing about his government that upset him, the four-year term limit. He had aspirations to be another Bonaparte, such as the case, this stunted term would just not do! Knowing that the legislature would have no part in changing the constitution, he staged a coup dEtat, and took Paris by force. On December 2, 1849 he administered a plebiscite to the people of France. The question was whether or not to elect Napoleon III as the President for 10 years. With a 92% majority, he was elected. Exactly one year later, another plebiscite declared him Emperor for life. Already he had started to resemble his notorious uncle. This made the rest of Europe to worry. His Reign Domestically, Napoleon III was an extremely popular, as well as successful, Emperor. He was relatively intelligent, and thus focused on pleasing the four main groups that made up his constituency: the Catholics, the working class, the bourgeoisie, and the old landed nobility. The conservative Catholics were pleased by the fact that he put more of a religious role into education. He would also act as the so-called Papal protector throughout his reign. To the workers he gave unions and universal male suffrage. He also created many jobs by administering lots of public works and internal improvements. The most notable was the reconstruction of Paris. These internal improvements also enhanced Frances economy, which helped to please the bourgeoisie. Protective tariffs were his other tool that he used to appease the Business class. His most crafty domestic achievement, however, was his creation of land banks. Land banks allowed the old nobility to gain back some of their wealth and status by taking out favorable loans on their land. As a "Napoleon," he needed glory. This is French for, `he needed to fight a war. However, not only did he need to fight in a war, he needed to win. The problem was that Europe was already wary of `the next Bonaparte, and he could not afford to piss off his European neighbors. He found his opportunity when Russia attacked the Ottoman controlled Hellespont: the Crimean War. Allied with England (and Italy) in a naval war, Louis was sure to come out on top, and he did. The peace negotiations for the war were held in Paris. It was a wonderful time to be in Paris. Paris reconstruction, orchestrated by the famous Georges Haussmann, had just been finished. The whole world was there to acknowledge his victory, and also his success in urban development. This was the peak in Napoleon IIIs career. France loved him for these victories, and was filled with nationalism. In the rest of his career, Napoleon III was not nearly as successful. In the following decade, the various other leaders of Europe made a fool out of him. The most notable example of this was Otto von Bismarcks wily manipulation of him to achieve German Unification. Bismarck saw Napoleon III as a "sphinx without a riddle". This was not an entirely false statement. Despite his early success, Napoleon III was not a great leader, diplomatically. He was naive and credulous. His career abruptly ended during the Franco-Prussian War. At the battle of Sedan, in a brutal German victory, he was embarrassingly captured. Thus in 1870, Napoleon IIIs career came to an abrupt end, as he would never again serve in the French government (everything2.com, 2002). Sadly for Napoleon III, the alliance came undone by the time France most needed friends in 1870. Six weeks after his defeat at Sedan, Napoleon III was a prisoner at the Wilhelmshohe Palace in Kassel, and the empress, forced to flee Paris in the carriage of her American dentist, Dr. Thomas Evans (1823-1897), was in exile in England with the prince imperial. In March 1871 the emperor was finally permitted to join them. Two years later, on the morning of January 9, 1873, Frances last sovereign died of complications from a gallstone operation (Forbes, 2003). He is buried in the Imperial Crypt at Saint Michaels Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, England. Work Cited everything2.com, Louis Napoleon 6 November 2002. The Everything Development Company. 5 December 2006 Fact Monster, Napoleon III (2000) The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. 5 December 2006 Forbes, C. Napoleon III: the other Napoleon and his Empire - Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (2003) Brant Publications, Inc. 5 December 2006 France.com, Napoleon III 12 January 2004. GNU Free Documentation License. 5 December 2006 Wikipedia, Napoleon III of France 30 November 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 5 December 2006 Read More