Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte 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.
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93 Facts About Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
2.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte expanded the French overseas empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and engaged in the Second Italian War of Independence as well as the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, in which he commanded his soldiers during the fight and was captured.
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3.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte expanded and consolidated the railway system throughout the nation and modernized the banking system.
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4.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Free Trade Agreement with Britain and similar agreements with France's other European trading partners.
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5.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's regime assisted Italian unification by defeating the Austrian Empire in the Franco-Austrian War and later annexed Savoy and Nice through the Treaty of Turin as its deferred reward.
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7.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was swiftly dethroned and the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris.
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8.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's father was Louis Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made Louis the king of Holland from 1806 until 1810.
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9.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the only daughter of Napoleon's wife Josephine by her first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais.
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10.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's mother 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.
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11.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte last saw his uncle with the family at the Chateau de Malmaison, shortly before Napoleon departed for the Battle of Waterloo.
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12.
All members of the Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte dynasty were forced into exile after the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and the Bourbon Restoration of monarchy in France.
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14.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte passed his time learning Italian, exploring the ancient ruins and learning the arts of seduction and romantic affairs, which he used often in his later life.
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15.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became friends with the French Ambassador, Francois-Rene Chateaubriand, the father of romanticism in French literature, with whom he remained in contact for many years.
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16.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was reunited with his older brother Napoleon-Louis; together they became involved with the Carbonari, secret revolutionary societies fighting Austria's domination of Northern Italy.
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17.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was told that he could join the French Army if he would simply change his name, something he indignantly refused to do.
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18.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte published his Reveries politiques or "political dreams" in 1833 at the age of 25, followed in 1834 by Considerations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse, followed in 1839 by Les Idees napoleoniennes, a compendium of his political ideas which was published in three editions and eventually translated into six languages.
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19.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte based his doctrine upon two ideas: universal suffrage and the primacy of the national interest.
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20.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte 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".
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21.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte moved into a hotel, where he met the elite of New York society and the writer Washington Irving.
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22.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte hurried as quickly as he could back to Switzerland.
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23.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte reached Arenenberg in time to be with his mother on 5 August 1837, when she died.
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25.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had inherited a large fortune from his mother and took a house with seventeen servants and several of his old friends and fellow conspirators.
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26.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was received by London society and met the political and scientific leaders of the day, including Benjamin Disraeli and Michael Faraday.
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27.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte did considerable research into the economy of Britain.
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28.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte strolled in Hyde Park, which he later used as a model when he created the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.
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29.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte contributed articles to regional newspapers and magazines in towns all over France, becoming quite well known as a writer.
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30.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was aware that the popularity of Napoleon Bonaparte was steadily increasing in France; the Emperor was the subject of heroic poems, books and plays.
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31.
Huge crowds had gathered in Paris on 15 December 1840 when the remains of Napoleon Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte were returned with great ceremony to Paris and handed over to Louis Napoleon's old enemy, King Louis-Philippe, while Louis Napoleon could only read about it in prison.
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32.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte lived on King Street in St James's, London, went to the theatre and hunted, renewed his acquaintance with Benjamin Disraeli, and met Charles Dickens.
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33.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had an affair with the actress Rachel, the most famous French actress of the period, during her tours to Britain.
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34.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was sentenced to prison for life in the fortress of Ham in Northern France.
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35.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became his mistress and helped fund his return to France.
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36.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte wrote to Lamartine announcing his arrival, saying that he "was without any other ambition than that of serving my country".
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38.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte did not run in the first elections for the National Assembly, held in April 1848, but three members of the Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte, and Lucien Murat were elected; the name Bonaparte still had political power.
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39.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's followers were mostly on the left, from the peasantry and working class.
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40.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was elected in five departments; in Paris, he received 110,000 votes of the 247,000 cast, the highest number of votes of any candidate.
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41.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was accompanied by his companion, Harriet Howard, who gave him a large loan to help finance his campaign.
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42.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte rarely went to the sessions of the National Assembly and rarely voted.
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43.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was not a gifted orator; he spoke slowly, in a monotone, with a slight German accent from his Swiss education.
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44.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte made his first venture into foreign policy, in Italy, where as a youth he had joined in the patriotic uprising against the Austrians.
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45.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte secured the support of the army, toured the country making populist speeches that condemned the Assembly, and presented himself as the protector of universal male suffrage.
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46.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte demanded that the law be changed, but his proposal was defeated in the Assembly by a vote of 355 to 348.
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47.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte toured the country and gained support from many of the regional governments and many within the Assembly.
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48.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became the most bitter critic of Louis Napoleon, rejected the amnesty offered to him, and did not return to France for twenty years.
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49.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was given the absolute authority to declare war, sign treaties, form alliances and initiate laws.
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50.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte wants to do extraordinary things but is only capable of extravagances.
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51.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte wanted the government to play an active, not a passive, role in the economy.
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52.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte opened up French markets to foreign goods, such as railway tracks from England, forcing French industry to become more efficient and more competitive.
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55.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte completed Les Halles, the great cast iron and glass pavilioned produce market in the center of the city, and built a new municipal hospital, the Hotel-Dieu, in the place of crumbling medieval buildings on the Ile de la Cite.
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56.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte created some twenty small parks and gardens in the neighbourhoods as miniature versions of his large parks.
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58.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte quietly sent a diplomatic delegation to approach the family of Princess Carola of Vasa, the granddaughter of deposed King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden.
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59.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's beauty attracted Louis-Napoleon, who, as was his custom, tried to seduce her, but Eugenie told him to wait for marriage.
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60.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte traveled to Egypt to open the Suez Canal and officially represented him whenever he traveled outside France.
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61.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte pressured the Ministry of National Education to give the first baccalaureate diploma to a woman and tried unsuccessfully to induce the Academie francaise to elect the writer George Sand as its first female member.
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62.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was determined to follow a strong foreign policy to extend France's influence and warned that he would not stand by and allow another European power to threaten its neighbour.
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63.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte expressed his conviction that "Louis-Napoleon was resolved on a forward foreign policy".
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64.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had lived there while in exile and saw Britain as a natural partner in the projects he wished to accomplish.
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65.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte approached Lord Derby and his government; Britain was against the war, but agreed to remain neutral.
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66.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's army had been reinforced and numbered 130,000 men, roughly the same as the French and Piedmontese, though the Austrians were superior in artillery.
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67.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was less engaged in governing and less attentive to detail, but still sought opportunities to increase French commerce and prestige globally.
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68.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's Majesty, wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints, has decided that the works of art which were refused should be displayed in another part of the Palace of Industry.
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69.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte restored the fleche, or spire, of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which had been partially destroyed and desecrated during the French Revolution.
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70.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte sponsored Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the Chateau de Vincennes and the Chateau de Pierrefonds, In 1862, he closed the prison which had occupied the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel since the French Revolution, where many important political prisoners had been held, so it could be restored and opened to the public.
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71.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte 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.
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72.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte 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.
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73.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte issued a decree regulating the treatment of apprentices and limited working hours on Sundays and holidays.
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74.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte removed from the Napoleonic Code the infamous article 1781, which said that the declaration of the employer, even without proof, would be given more weight by the court than the word of the employee.
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75.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had been in Britain in 1846 when Prime Minister Robert Peel had lowered tariffs on imported grains, and he had seen the benefits to British consumers and the British economy.
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76.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte signed the treaty, without consulting with the Assembly, on 23 January 1860.
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77.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte did retain the right to change the budget estimates section by section.
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78.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte smoked heavily, distrusted doctors and their advice and attributed any problems simply to "rheumatism", for which he regularly visited the hot springs at Vichy and other spas.
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79.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte asked Marshal Leboeuf, the chief of staff of the French army, if the army was prepared for a war against Prussia.
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81.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was accompanied by the 14-year-old Prince Imperial in the uniform of the army, by his military staff, and by a large contingent of chefs and servants in livery.
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82.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte chose General Cousin-Montauban, better known as the Count of Palikao, seventy-four years old and former commander of the French expeditionary force to China, as her new prime minister.
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83.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte expected to see King William, but instead he was met by Bismarck and the German commander, General von Moltke.
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84.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had wished to at least be martyred and remain as a brave hero who died for his country.
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85.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was received by Queen Victoria, who visited him at Chislehurst.
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86.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had a longtime connection with Chislehurst and Camden Place: years earlier, while exiled in England, he had often visited Emily Rowles, whose father had owned Camden Place in the 1830s.
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87.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had assisted his escape from French prison in 1846.
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88.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had paid attention to another English girl, Elizabeth Howard, who later gave birth to a son, whose father settled property on her to support the son, via a trust whose trustee was Nathaniel Strode.
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89.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's 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.
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90.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was coached by her mother and her friend, Prosper Merimee.
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91.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
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92.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte is given high credits for the rebuilding of Paris with broad boulevards, striking public buildings, very attractive residential districts for upscale Parisians, and great public parks, including the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, used by all classes of Parisians.
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93.
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte badly mishandled the threat from Prussia and found himself without allies in the face of overwhelming force.
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