Napoleon III

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NAPOLEON III

prince-president of the republic
the second empire
conclusion
bibliography

NAPOLEON III (Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, 1808–1873), emperor of France from 1852 to 1871.

In the 1869 preface to his article on The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, a brilliant piece of political journalism written in 1852, Karl Marx (1818–1883) described his purpose as being to "demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relations that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero's part." The "mediocrity" in question was Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, born on 20 April 1808, the son of Louis Bonaparte, appointed King of Holland by his brother Napoleon I (r. 1804–1814/15), and of Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of the emperor's first wife Josephine. As a result of the couple's separation and the exile of the Bonaparte family from France, Louis-Napoleon was brought up by his mother at the château of Arenenberg in Switzerland, surrounded by memories of empire.

In addition to childhood socialization, another formative influence on the young prince was to be the experience in the years 1830 and 1831 of joining his elder brother Napoleon-Louis in a disastrous Italian rising against Austrian occupation. The death of Napoleon-Louis and in 1832 that of Napoleon's son, the so-called Duc de Reichstadt, left Louis-Napoleon determined to assert his claim to be the great Emperor's heir. As a result of his family background and upbringing he possessed an intense sense of personal destiny. In his determination to become guardian of the Napoleonic tradition, he combined the outlook of a romantic mystic with the instincts of a political opportunist. His friend from childhood, Madame Cornu, would describe his "mission" as a "devotion first to the Napoleonic dynasty, and then to France…. His duty to his dynasty is to perpetuate it. His duty to France is to give her influence abroad and prosperity at home." To achieve these objectives he would first have to gain power.

Otherwise farcical attempts to win the support of the military garrisons at Strasbourg in 1836 and Boulogne in 1840 at least associated Louis-Napoleon with a powerful popular cult of Napoleonic glory. In a series of pamphlets enjoying a wide circulation, including Les Réflexions politiques (1832), Les idées napoléoniennes (1839), and L'Extinction du paupérisme (1844), Louis-Napoleon also published his own ideas. Vague and full of contradictions, these writings, reflecting the utopian optimism of the 1830s and 1840s, were to serve as his "guiding ideas." They were characterized by a determination to eliminate the "party" divisions responsible for political instability. Although sharing with conservatives a determination to safeguard social order, Louis-Napoleon was distinguished by his apparent commitment to "social reform" and to "democracy." It was assumed further that in a restored empire, the emperor would initiate policy, but periodic plebiscites would be used to approve the regime's general policies, as well as to reaffirm the almost mystical link between the emperor and "his" people. The powers of the elected assembly would be reduced to a minimum.

prince-president of the republic

Louis-Napoleon's opportunity came as a result of a severe crisis, beginning with poor harvests and a generalized economic crisis, accompanied by agitation for electoral reform, and culminating in the revolution of February 1848 that established the Second Republic and "universal" (i.e., manhood) suffrage. Continued social and political tension characterized by a renewed insurrection in Paris in June, and its brutal military repression by a republican government, ensured that as a result of disappointed expectations—or in the case of conservatives, fear of further revolution—substantial parts of the population were prepared to contemplate the election of a potential "savior." This was the strength of Bonapartism—to be able to appear as "all things to all men." Reluctantly supported by conservative politicians, Louis-Napoleon's victory in the presidential election in December 1848 was overwhelming: he gained 74.2 percent of the votes cast (5,534,520). His leading opponent, the republican General Louis Eugène Cavaignac (1802–1857) obtained only 19.5 percent (1,448,302). In Paris the successful candidate gained 58 percent of the vote, with higher proportions in the popular quartiers for the supposedly "socialist" author of the Extinction du paupérisme. However, in a still predominantly agrarian country, it was peasant support that would remain the basis of Bonaparte's electoral strength for decades to come. The Austrian diplomat Rudolf Apponyi warned conservative political leaders that, in this situation, "if they believe themselves able… to dominate him, they are badly mistaken." This unique election of a monarchical pretender, of a man with complete faith in his historical "mission" and, once having gained power, determined to retain it, made a coup d'état almost inevitable. This was the point at which the construction of "the political system of Napoleon III" might be said to have commenced.

Initially, Louis-Napoleon sought collaboration with conservative elites in the re-establishment of social order through increasingly intense repression of the démocrate-socialiste left, and with the Roman Catholic Church in the inculcation of "moral order" through education. He also asserted his own independence as head of government by appointing dependent ministers and officials, while ignoring protests from deputies in the National Assembly elected in May 1849. Unable to secure the two-thirds majority in the Assembly that would have allowed him to stand for re-election in 1852, the president was well placed to employ the bureaucracy and army, in which his supporters had already been placed in key positions, to launch a carefully planned coup on 2 December 1851.

In Paris only very limited resistance occurred, due to preventive arrests and obvious military preparedness. Few workers were prepared to risk a repetition of the bloodbath of June 1848 to defend the rights of a conservative assembly against a president who presented himself as the defender of popular sovereignty and enjoyed the prestige that went with the name Bonaparte. The predominantly conservative deputies who gathered in the town hall of the tenth arrondissement refused to rally to a president who had broken his constitutional oath, but were unwilling to contemplate more than symbolic resistance to a coup d'état that promised to establish strong, authoritarian government and destroy the nightmare prospect of a socialist electoral victory in 1852. Although easily crushed, more substantial resistance in rural areas of central France, and particularly the southeast, was used both to justify the coup and a reign of terror directed at republicans.

On 20 December 1851 a plebiscite was held to sanction the extension of the prince-president's authority. The electorate was asked to vote on whether "the people wish to maintain the authority of Louis-Napoleon and delegate to him the powers necessary to establish a constitution." This appeal to popular sovereignty was to be a characteristic of the new regime. Louis-Napoleon was determined to secure a large majority as a means of legitimizing his actions. It was made clear to all officials, including village mayors, that their continued employment depended on enthusiastic campaigning. The basic theme was the choice between "civilization and barbarism, society and chaos." In place of the era of disorder that had opened in 1848, a new

period of order, peace, and prosperity was promised. Nationally, 7,500,000 voted "yes," 640,000 "no," and 1,500,000 abstained. Ominously, opposition was concentrated in the major cities. Coercion was widespread but primarily the result was due to the immense popularity of the prince-president. In the countryside he was perceived to be the only safeguard against renewed revolution and additionally offered protection against the restoration of the ancien régime. The following November, after a carefully orchestrated campaign during which Bonaparte promised peace, order, and reconciliation, and which culminated in a triumphant return to the capital where he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds and processed to the Tuileries Palace under a succession of triumphal arches, 7,824,000 voters approved the re-establishment of the hereditary empire, which was proclaimed on 2 December 1852, the anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz.

the second empire

The new regime's origins in a coup d'état, its authoritarian and repressive character, together with its ignominious collapse in the war of 1870, subsequently ensured that it received, and indeed deserved, a bad press. By the 1930s the Second Empire was being described as a precursor of fascism. Certainly, the system of government established following the coup was constructed with the intention of strengthening the powers of the head of state at the expense of representative institutions. The emperor appointed ministers and senior officials and assumed responsibility for decision-making. The Senate was packed with supporters, the role of the elected lower house—the Corps législatif—with around 260 members was initially viewed as essentially consultative; although as its consent was required for legislation, it represented a potential center of opposition. For this reason its members were selected carefully and every effort was made to determine the outcome of elections through manipulation, coercion, and propaganda associating the regime with prosperity and social order. However, the decision to retain manhood suffrage clearly distinguished the Second Empire from previous monarchical regimes. This was a regime that owed its legitimacy not to divine right but to the popular will. In time, as fear of revolution declined and repression eased, the social elites that had been deprived of power by the coup were able to make use of their dominant position in the administration and Corps législatif to criticize the restrictions on political liberty as well as the emperor's adventurous foreign policy.

Napoleon III's objectives included revision of the treaties imposed on France in 1815 and a recasting of the map of Europe based on the principle of nationality, to involve a reconstitution of Poland, and the establishment of relatively weak confederations in Italy and Germany as well as the territorial aggrandizement of France itself. As far as possible this was to be achieved through congresses of the powers, but if necessary through engagement in limited war. The Crimean War in 1854 represented a first step, an alliance with Britain against Russia, the most reactionary of European states. Eventual military success considerably increased French prestige, although the Congress of Paris in 1856 did not result in revision of the treaties. War with the old rival Austria in 1859 brought further military successes at Magenta and Solferino in Northern Italy and a hastily concluded peace that united Lombardy to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Savoy and could not prevent Italian nationalists from seizing power in the duchies of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, and in the Papal Romagna. As a reward, the territories of Savoy and Nice lost in 1815 were triumphantly restored to France, following plebiscites of their inhabitants. Popular images and songs, fireworks and military parades, celebrated this renewal of national glory. The dispatch of an expeditionary force to Mexico in December 1861 in pursuit of the dream of creating a French sphere of influence in the Americas while the United States was absorbed with civil war would prove to be beyond the public's comprehension, however.

The unexpected consequences of military adventure and, in particular, the collapse of the Papal States, followed in 1860 by the negotiation of a commercial treaty with Britain, ensured that both Catholics and protectionists felt betrayed. Criticism mounted. Unlike his predecessors, Napoleon III was prepared to adapt and to engage in the difficult process of regime liberalization, in spite of warnings that he risked opening the flood gates. The gradual extension of political liberties culminating in the establishment of a liberal empire in 1870 represented concessions to criticism from the social elite rather than to the growing republican movement. As well as much greater freedom of speech, the emperor accepted that ministers should be responsible to parliament as well as to himself. Nevertheless, as the elect of the people Napoleon III retained considerable personal power, including the right to dissolve parliament and appeal to the people by means of elections or plebiscites, the authority to negotiate treaties and declare war. The new constitution was approved by plebiscite on 8 May 1870 by 7,350,000 votes to 1,538,000. The future of the dynasty appeared to have been assured.

This political liberalization during the 1860s has, in a more recent "revisionist" historiography, served to excuse previous authoritarianism. Historians have also focused more on what were perceived to be the regime's positive achievements and particularly the reconstruction of Paris, the creation of a modern transportation infrastructure, the reduction of tariff protection, and, more broadly, the establishment of the conditions for rapid economic growth, for which the regime had claimed most—and deserved some—of the credit. This revisionism culminated in 1990 in the publication, by the conservative politician Philippe Séguin, of a study entitled Louis-Napoléon le grand, and in the inauguration of the Place Napoleon III in Paris by Séguin, flanked by Jacques Chirac (b. 1932)—then the city's mayor—and the contemporary Prince Napoleon.

conclusion

"Revisionism" has probably gone too far. In a perceptive comment in his notebook, Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908), the librettist who was also responsible for preparing the minutes of the Corps législatif, wrote following the announcement of the plebiscite results in 1870: "Too many Yes votes. The Emperor will believe that this is still the France of 1852 and do something stupid." The decision in July 1870 to go to war against Prussia, which threatened to upset the balance of power, perfectly illustrates the danger of allowing a single individual too much power. In order to avoid loss of face, and although he realized that the army was not ready, Napoleon III chose to engage in an extremely high-risk strategy. On 28 July, this sick and prematurely aged warlord, unable to sit on his horse or to concentrate for long periods, left Paris to assume command of his armies. On 2 September, an army under his direct command was forced to capitulate at Sedan in eastern France. On 4 September, the Republic was again proclaimed in the capital. No one was prepared to defend a regime responsible for such a catastrophic failure. After Sedan, Napoleon remained a prisoner in Germany until March 1871. He subsequently established his family at Chiselhurst in England, where, planning another coup d'etat, he died on 9 January 1873.