Napoleon III

Who was Napoleon III?

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the first President of the French Republic and, as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I. He was the first President of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. However, in 1852, when he was blocked by the Constitution and Parliament from running for a second term, he organized a coup d'état in 1851, and then took the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation.

During the first years of the Empire, his government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand persons were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies Cayenne or Algeria until they were amnestied in 1859. Thousands more, including Victor Hugo, went into voluntary exile abroad. Beginning in 1862, Napoleon loosened the censorship and lifted many of the repressive measures, and gave the legislature more power, in what was known as "The Liberal Empire." Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly.

Napoleon III is best known today for his reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his prefect of the Seine Baron Haussmann. He created the grand boulevards and squares of central Paris, made the Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes and other famous Paris parks, and built the Palais Garnier for the Paris Opera. He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon and other French cities.