Napoleon III: The French Emperor

Meet Napoleon's nephew, the man behind Modern France.

Portrait of Napoleon III, by Hippolyte Flandrin

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Everyone has heard of Napoleon. But do you know Napoleon’s nephew?

Meet Napoleon III. Taking up the mantle of his famous uncle, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte vowed to prevent a return of the unpopular Bourbon monarchy. So he launched a military coup d’état in the early 1850s. 

Declaring himself as the new Emperor of France, he oversaw the Second French Empire from 1852 to 1870. During his fruitful reign, he transformed France from a failed state and a backward monarchy into a modern nation—powerful enough to possess her own colonial empire overseas. 

Here’s the untold story behind one of modern France’s most consequential leaders. 

The New Napoleon

Picture Napoleon III in your head. Our French hero was a tiny-figured man. He had a fat face and torso. He walked slowly on his very short legs, with his feet pointing outward. His body tilted slightly to the left side. 

Pompous and self-assured, the third Napoleon tended to show off his military regalia. Behind the decorations, though, he had a very charming personality in private. 

Napoleon III had a reputation for being a womanizer. “It is usually the man who attacks. As for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate,” he once joked. He enjoyed many mistresses, who were brought to him by his secretary Felix Bacciochi. Bonaparte’s dalliances with the girls weren’t just trivial sideshows; they often distracted him from governing France, and diminished his reputation in the eyes of other European courts. 

Before his rise to power, Napoleon III was seen as a ridiculous clown, a philandering buffoon who couldn’t even seize power properly. One opponent called him “a turkey who believes he’s an eagle.” Little did the critics realize, this “turkey” would leave an unmistakable impact on world history. Modern Paris is largely his creation. 

But where did Napoleon’s nephew come from? How did this mysterious man march his way into power, especially given his underwhelming reputation? 

Post-Waterloo

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was born on April 20, 1808. He was the youngest son of the famous Napoleon’s brother, Louis Bonaparte. His mother was Queen Hortense of Holland, the niece of his father. 

By 1814, the first Napoleon was finally defeated by the European Allies. His son, Napoleon II, briefly tried to become the Emperor of France. But the rest of Europe forced him into political prison in Austria, where the 21-year-old Napoleon would eventually die of tuberculosis. Not much of a story there! 

Following Waterloo, the entire Bonaparte family were forced into exile. Louis Bonaparte fled to Switzerland, where he withdrew from politics. Here, he basically disappears from the story. 

But Hortense wanted more for France. She prepared her son to become the nation’s future leader. In 1826, Louis-Napoleon fled to Italy’s Papal States. There, he joined the Carbonari Lodge, where he began training in revolutionary warfare. 

Unknown to Europe, a new Napoleon was preparing to liberate France once more! 

July Revolution

The Bourbon dynasty was restored in France. But the country was still highly unstable. Everybody hated the government. 

In July of 1830, a revolution toppled France’s Bourbon government. It was replaced by a new king, called the July Monarchy. 

In 1836, General Louis-Napoleon made his triumphant return to France. Known as the Strasbourg Coup, he expected to be welcomed with open arms—just as his uncle had been. But no, Bonaparte was not accepted. He was arrested and deported to the United States. After his mother’s death, he fled to London, where he planned a second coup d’état. 

Second Takeover

Meanwhile in France, the July Monarchy grew increasingly unpopular. The French Revolution were sick of having kings, even enlightened ones. They wanted a real democracy. Trying to appease the French people, King Louis Philippe returned the bones of the great Napoleon Bonaparte, which were interred at Les Invalides in Paris. 

Louis-Napoleon took this as a sign of France’s growing Bonapartist movement. He attempted a second takeover on August 5, 1840. With a gang of 56 mercenaries, Napoleon staged a landing at Boulogne-sur-Mer. 

But once again, Napoleon’s seizure of power failed miserably. He became a laughing stock for all of Europe, including within France itself. Nobody took him seriously enough to even assassinate him! “One doesn’t kill crazy people, one just locks them up,” the Journal des Débats joked dismissively. 

Bonapartism

Napoleon was sentenced to life behind bars at Ham Fortress, near Reims. It was a very comfortable imprisonment. He had his own library, and was allowed to read and write at his leisure. In jail, he learned so much that he jokingly called it “the University of Ham.” 

There, Napoleon penned his book The Extinction of Poverty, which was almost Marxist in its concern for poor people. It became an unexpected best-seller in France, winning him legions of working-class fans. 

Invoking the prestige of his famous uncle, Napoleon presented himself as a “dictator of the people” who could directly execute the will of the disenfranchised working class. This became a political ideology known as Bonapartism. 

Dressing up as a common laborer, Napoleon made a daring jailbreak in 1846. He resurfaced in London, where he prepared a third takeover. 

President of France

This time, Napoleon’s luck would finally change. 

When King Louis Philippe banned banquets, the French people erupted in protests. He was forced to abdicate, and the French people declared a Second Republic in February of 1848. 

Days later, Napoleon arrived in France. He offered to join the new government, but was mockingly sent away!

But the Revolution took a turn for the worse. In June, the workers of Paris revolted against the Provisional Government. They accused the new regime of betraying the principles of their revolution. Known as the infamous June Days, 1,500 workers were brutally murdered by the French Army. Now, France’s new government was less popular than ever! 

Enter Napoleon. This time, he tried his hand in electoral politics. Running as an outsider populist, he promised to abolish poverty from France. He won a landslide victory in December, winning 74% of the vote. 

Calling himself the Prince President, Napoleon worked closely with the National Assembly. He supported popular policies, such as sending the French Army to protect the Pope from Italian revolutionaries. 

Operation Rubicon

As his presidential term drew to a close in 1851, President Napoleon asked the National Assembly to amend the Constitution and allow him to run again. When they refused, the Prince President simply dissolved parliament. 

December 2 was a special day for Bonapartists. It was the date that Napoleon I was crowned Emperor in 1804 and won the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. 

On December 2, 1851, Napoleon III overthrew the French government. But this time, his coup actually worked. 30,000 French soldiers occupied Paris. In just two days, Paris fell to Napoleon. The Second Republic was officially dissolved. He held referendums to ensure that the French people supported his policies, and they largely did endorse Napoleon. 

On December 2, 1851, a year after his seizure of power, Napoleon III declared himself the Emperor of the French. The Second Empire was born. 

The Second Empire

Napoleon’s first order of business was to clean up and modernize Paris. Unlike today, the French capital was dirty and underdeveloped. Slums were crowded. Cholera outbreaks were common. 

Napoleon III ordered Baron Haussmann, a French architect, to radically renovate the city of Paris. The city’s modern layout was born. Slums were reworked. Parks were built. Sanitation got better. Every worker had his own home. The sweeping boulevards of Paris were laid for the first time. Gaslights lit the streets, earning the nickname “the City of Lights.” 

Napoleon implemented lots of liberal policies. Education was free and compulsory. He lifted the ban on women to enter higher education. Public pensions were introduced for the first time. Agricultural reforms wiped out famines in France permanently. 

Under Napoleon’s direction, the French state invested heavily in modern technology, such as railways and steamships. He offered guaranteed lines of credit for small business owners. Napoleon’s policies worked miracles. By 1870, the French economy grew at 5% a year. Its industrial output soared by 75%. 

After 1860, Emperor Napoleon relaxed some of his authoritarian powers. He gave more power to the French Senate, and encouraged liberal reforms. But the charismatic Napoleon lost much of his energy to painful bladder stones, starting in 1862. 

Foreign policy

Overseas, the French Empire grabbed colonies for herself. New Caledonia was colonized in 1853. Vietnam became a French colony in 1858, and Cambodia followed in 1863. 

Early into Napoleon’s reign, the Crimean War erupted in 1853. Britain and France supported the Ottoman Empire against an aggressively expansionist Russia. Nearly a million people died in this brutal conflict, but it ended in victory for the Western Allies. 

Confident from his victory over Russia, the French Empire intervened in Italy’s wars of unification in 1859. Napoleon summoned the French Army to help the Kingdom of Sardinia kick the Austrians out of their Italian colonies. It was another victory, allowing Nice and Savoy to fall into French hands. 

The German Menace

By the early 1860s, Napoleon III soared in popularity. He was widely beloved in France. But there was a new threat looming: Imperial Germany. 

Led by Otto von Bismarck, the Germans rapidly pushed for unification. They went to war against the Danes in 1864, and against the Austrians in 1865. Initially, Emperor Napoleon had no issues with the Iron Chancellor. But when France tried to annex Luxembourg, the Germans blocked it with the threat of war. 

By 1869, the French people were getting frustrated by Napoleon’s unwillingness to confront Germany. He was forced to fully liberalize the Empire. As ordinary French people got more say in government, they demanded an ill-advised war against Prussia. 

Bismarck was very pleased with this outcome. He felt that a quick war against France would ensure the unification of the German lands. The Prussians crushed the French, and even captured Napoleon personally at the humiliating Battle of Sedan. So disgraced was Napoleon and his Imperial government, France immediately voted to abolish it. The Third Republic was declared. 

After the Prussians besieged Paris, many French people were left angry. Communists took over, establishing the Paris Commune. It lasted for two months, before it was violently suppressed by the French Army. Paris, which Napoleon had spent so much time rebuilding, was now burned to the ground! 

Disgraced and disillusioned, Napoleon retired from public life. Exhausted, the elderly 65-year-old died of bladder stones on January 9, 1873. There was no heir to the Bonaparte throne, because his son died soon after in 1879. A couple years later, Napoleon’s wife Eugénie had his remains reburied at Farnborough, a small town about 30 miles from London.