The Second French Empire, officially the French Empire, was the government of France from 1852 to 1870. It was established on 2 December 1852 by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, president of France under the French Second Republic, who proclaimed himself Emperor of the French as Napoleon III. The period was one of significant achievements in infrastructure and economy, while France reasserted itself as a dominant power in Europe.
Historians in the 1930s and 1940s disparaged the Second Empire as a precursor of fascism, but by the late 20th century some re-evaluated it as an example of a modernizing regime. Historians have widely judged the Second Empire's foreign policy as a failure. However, assessments of its domestic legacy are more positive, especially from 1858 as Napoleon III liberalised his rule. Particular achievements included the development of a national railway network, which facilitated commerce and helped to develop a common national identity, and the extensive renovation of Paris to its modern form, with broad boulevards, striking public buildings, and a comprehensive, centrally-planned layout.
Internationally, Napoleon III tried to emulate his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte, engaging in numerous imperial ventures around the world as well as several wars in Europe. He began his reign with French victories in Crimea and in Italy, gaining Savoy and Nice, and very briefly, Venetia (before in turn ceding to Italy). Using very harsh methods, he built up the French Empire in North Africa, in East Africa and in French Indochina. Napoleon III also launched an intervention in Mexico seeking to erect the Second Mexican Empire and bring it into the French orbit, but this ended in a fiasco. He mishandled the Prussian threat, and by the end of his reign, the French emperor found himself without allies in the face of overwhelming German forces. The Second Empire came to an end during the Franco-Prussian War, following Napoleon III's capture at the Battle of Sedan and the proclamation of the Third French Republic on 4 September 1870.
History
Coup of 1851
On 2 December 1851, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic in 1848, staged a coup d'état by dissolving the National Assembly without having the constitutional right to do so. He thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal male suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted 92 percent support.
At that same referendum, a new constitution was approved. Formally enacted in January 1852, the new document made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, with no restrictions on re-election. It concentrated virtually all governing power in his hands. However, Louis-Napoléon was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, he set about restoring the empire. In response to officially inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the "yes" votes were manufactured out of thin air.
The empire was formally re-established by the Senate on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became "Napoléon III, Emperor of the French". The constitution had already concentrated so much power in his hands that the only substantive changes were to replace the word "president" with the word "emperor" and to make the post hereditary. The popular referendum became a distinct sign of Bonapartism, which Charles de Gaulle would later use. The financial soundness for all six companies was solidified by government guarantees. Although France had started late, by 1870 it had an excellent railway system, supported as well by good roads, canals and ports.
Napoleon, in order to restore the prestige of the Empire before the newly awakened hostility of public opinion, tried to gain the support from the Left that he had lost from the Right. After the return from Italy, the general amnesty of 16 August 1859 had marked the evolution of the absolutist or authoritarian empire towards the liberal, and later parliamentary empire, which was to last for ten years.
Religion
The idea of Italian unification, which would inevitably end the temporal power of the popes, outraged French Catholics, who had been the leading supporters of the Empire. A keen Catholic opposition sprang up, voiced in Louis Veuillot's paper the Univers, and was not silenced even by the Syrian expedition (1860) in favour of the Maronite Catholic side of the 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus.
Although the Second Empire strongly favoured Catholicism, the official state religion, it tolerated Protestants and Jews, with no persecutions or pogroms. The state dealt with the small Protestant community of Calvinist and Lutheran churches, whose members included many prominent businessmen who supported the regime. The emperor's Decree Law of 26 March 1852 led to greater government interference in Protestant church affairs, thus reducing self-regulation in favor of Catholic bureaucrats who misunderstood and mistrusted Protestant doctrine. Their administration affected not only church-state relations but also the internal lives of Protestant communities.
Police
Napoleon III manipulated a range of politicised police powers to censor the media and suppress opposition. Legally he had broad powers but in practice he was limited by legal, customary and moral deterrents. By 1851 political police had a centralised administrative hierarchy and were largely immune from public control. The Second Empire continued the system; proposed innovations were stalled by officials. Typically political roles were part of routine administrative duties. Although police forces were indeed strengthened, opponents exaggerated the increase of secret police activity and the imperial police lacked the omnipotence seen in later totalitarian states.
Freedom of the press
Napoleon began by removing the gag which was keeping the country in silence. On 24 November 1860, he granted to the Chambers the right to vote an address annually in answer to the speech from the throne, and to the press the right of reporting parliamentary debates. He counted on the latter concession to hold in check the growing Catholic opposition, which was becoming more and more alarmed by the policy of laissez-faire practiced by the emperor in Italy. The government majority already showed some signs of independence. The right of voting on the budget by sections, granted by the emperor in 1861, was a new weapon given to his adversaries. Everything conspired in their favour: the anxiety of those candid friends who were calling attention to the defective budget, the commercial crisis and foreign troubles.
Mobilisation of the working classes
The ultramontane party grumbled, while the industries formerly protected were dissatisfied with free trade reform. The working classes had abandoned their political neutrality. Disregarding Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's impassioned attack on communism, they had gradually been won over by the collectivist theories of Karl Marx and the revolutionary theories of Mikhail Bakunin, as set forth at the congresses of the International. These labour congresses defied official proscriptions, and proclaimed that the social emancipation of the worker was inseparable from his political emancipation. The union between the internationalists and the republican bourgeois became an accomplished fact.
Foreign policy
thumb|The French landing near [[Yevpatoria, Crimea, then part of the Russian Empire, 1854]]
The Crimean War ended in 1856, a victory for Napoleon III and a resulting peace that excluded Russia from the Black Sea. His son Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was born the same year, which promised a continuation of the dynasty.
Napoleon dreamed of building a French economic sphere in Latin America, centered on Mexico. He helped to promote rapid economic modernisation, but his army battled diehard insurgents who had American support. By 1863, French military intervention in Mexico to set up a Second Mexican Empire headed by Emperor Maximilian, brother of Franz Joseph I of Austria, was a complete fiasco. The Mexicans fought back and after defeating the Confederacy the U.S. demanded the French withdraw from Mexico—sending 50,000 veteran combat troops to the border to ram the point home. The French army went home; the puppet emperor did not leave and was executed.
From 1861 to 1863 France embarked on colonising experiments in Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) and Annam (central Vietnam). The conquest was bloody but successful, and supported by large numbers of French soldiers, missionaries and businessmen, as well as the local Chinese entrepreneurial element.
thumb|General [[François Achille Bazaine|Bazaine attacks the fort of San Xavier during the siege of Puebla, Mexico, 29 March 1863.]]
Mixed domestic gains and losses resulted from European policies. The support France gave to the Italian cause had aroused the eager hopes of other nations. The proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861 after the rapid annexation of Central Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had proved the danger of half-measures. But when a concession, however narrow, had been made to the liberty of one nation, it could hardly be refused to the no less legitimate aspirations of the rest.
The success of the 1870 plebiscite, which should have consolidated the Empire, determined its downfall. It was thought that a diplomatic success would make the country forget liberty in favour of glory. It was in vain that after the parliamentary revolution of 2 January 1870, Comte Daru revived, through Lord Clarendon, Count Beust's plan of disarmament after the Battle of Königgrätz. He met with a refusal from Prussia and from the imperial entourage. The Empress Eugénie was credited with the remark, "If there is no war, my son will never be emperor." French overseas territories had tripled in area; in 1870 they covered almost a million square kilometres, and controlled nearly five million inhabitants. While soldiers, administrators, businessmen and missionaries came and left, very few Frenchmen permanently settled in the colonies, except in Algeria. The colonial trade reached 600 million francs, but the profits were overwhelmed by the expenses. However, a major goal was the 'Mission civilisatrice', the mission to spread French culture, language and religion, and this proved successful.
Downfall
thumb|Surrender of [[Napoleon III after the Battle of Sedan, 1 September 1870]]
thumb|[[Silver coin: 1870 Five franc coin with the bust of Napoleon III]]
The rise of the neighbouring state of Prussia during the 1860s threatened French supremacy in western Europe. Napoleon, growing steadily weaker in body and mind, badly mishandled the situation, and eventually found himself in a war without allies. Britain was afraid of French militarism and refused to help. Russia was highly annoyed about French interference in supporting Polish rebels in the 1863 uprising. Napoleon had given strong support to Italy, but refused the demand for Rome, and kept French troops in Rome to protect the pope from the new Italian government, thus leading to Italian refusal to help. The United States remained alienated because of the fiasco in Mexico. Napoleon did not know what he wanted or what to do, but the reverse was true for Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, who planned to create a great new German nation, based on Prussian power, as well as resurgent German nationalism based on the systematic humiliation of France. After seeing the defeat of Austria, the Emperor demanded a conscription law. The parliament disagreed, maintaining that professionals would be always the better option, and outvoted, he backed down.
The immediate issue was a trivial controversy regarding control of the Spanish throne. France was successful in the diplomatic standoff, but Napoleon wanted to humiliate the Prussian king, Wilhelm I. Bismarck in turn manipulated the situation such that France declared war against Prussia on 15 July 1870 after major protests in France (however, Napoleon was reluctant as he had become ill as well as being sceptical of the outcome), thus sparking the Franco-Prussian War. The French empire made the first move, as the Emperor led a charge that crossed the German border. On August 2, the French defeated a Prussian vanguard and occupied the town of Saarbrücken. Two days later, the Prussians launched an offensive that repulsed the French army. After the first nine days of August, France experienced major losses. The Emperor handed power to the other generals and let them command, then telegrammed his wife, asking if he should return to Paris. His wife refused, and thus he only sent his son home. The French prime minister resigned, being replaced with a more effective military leader, who soldered the disorganised and demoralised French. He forged the Army of Châlons, which, led by Marshal Patrice de MacMahon and the Emperor, attempted to relieve the Siege of Metz, where the largest French army lay entrapped. The army was repulsed by the Prussians, and retreated to Sedan, where it was surrounded and forced to surrender after the Battle of Sedan. Napoleon himself became a prisoner and Republican forces quickly took control of Paris.
France, under the leadership of Léon Gambetta, declared the establishment of the Third French Republic. Napoleon and Eugénie went into exile in England. Victory produced an onrush of German nationalism that Bismarck immediately seized to unite all of the German states (except Austria), thereby creating the German Empire, with the Prussian king as its emperor and Bismarck as chancellor. The new Germany was now continental Europe's dominant military force. Additionally, France was forced to give up the two border provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and its humiliation lasted for generations.
Structure of government
thumb|upright|Napoléon III by [[Alexandre Cabanel]]
The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First. Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government; if government was to guide the people toward domestic justice and external peace, it was his role as emperor, holding his power by universal male suffrage and representing all of the people, to function as supreme leader and safeguard the achievements of the revolution.
He had so often, while in prison or in exile, chastised previous oligarchical governments for neglecting social questions that it was imperative France now prioritise their solutions. His answer was to organise a system of government based on the principles of the "Napoleonic Idea". This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, "who had sprung armed from the French Revolution like Minerva from the head of Jove".