Napoleon III

Napoleon III
State portrait of Napoleon III. This was Empress Eugénie's favourite portrait, since it represented, in her opinion, his person most faithfully (by Alexandre Cabanel, c. 1865)[1]
Emperor of the French
Reign	2 December 1852 – 4 September 1870
Predecessor	Himself (as President of France)
Successor	Adolphe Thiers (as President of France)
Cabinet Chief	Émile Ollivier Charles Cousin-Montauban
President of France
In office 20 December 1848 – 2 December 1852
Prime Minister	Odilon Barrot Alphonse Henri d'Hautpoul Léon Faucher
Vice President	Henri Georges Boulay de la Meurthe
Preceded by	Louis-Eugène Cavaignac (as Chief of the Executive Power)
Succeeded by	Himself (as Emperor of the French)
Head of the House of Bonaparte
Tenure 25 July 1846 – 9 January 1873
Preceded by	Louis, Count of Saint-Leu
Succeeded by	Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial
Born	(1808-04-20)20 April 1808 Paris, First French Empire
Died	9 January 1873(1873-01-09) (aged 64) Chislehurst, Kent, England
Burial	1888 St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough
Spouse	Eugénie de Montijo ​ (m. 1853)​
Issue	Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial
Names Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte
House	Bonaparte
Father	Louis Bonaparte
Mother	Hortense de Beauharnais
Religion	Catholicism
Signature
Military career
Allegiance	Second French Empire
Service / branch	French Armed Forces
Years of service	1859–1870
Rank	Commander-in-Chief of the French Armed Forces (1848–1870)
Unit	Army of the Rhine (1870) Army of Châlons (1870)
Battles / wars	Second Italian War of Independence Battle of Magenta Battle of Solferino Franco-Prussian War Battle of Saarbrücken Battle of Sedan

Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last monarch of France.

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 (r. 1806–1810), and Hortense de Beauharnais. Napoleon I was Louis Napoleon's paternal uncle, and one of his cousins was the disputed Napoleon II. It would only be two months following his birth that he, in accordance to Napoleon I's dynastic naming policy, would be bestowed the name of Charles-Louis Napoleon,^[2] however, shortly after, Charles was very quick to be removed from his name. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 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 re-elected. 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 French head of state since the fall of the Ancien Régime, although his reign would ultimately end upon his surrender to Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm I on 2 September 1870.

Napoleon III commissioned a grand reconstruction of Paris carried out by prefect of the Seine, 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 Great Britain, where he died in 1873.