标题: Emperor Napoleon III [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 5-30-2018 16:19 标题: Emperor Napoleon III Allan Massie, The Other Bonaparte; For all the corruption and repression that marked his reign, Louis Napoleon may have done more for France than his famous uncle. Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2018 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the ... onaparte-1527635688
(book review on Alan Strauss-Schom, The Shadow Emperor; A biography of Napoleon III. St Martin's, 2018)
Note:
(a) "It began with a coup d'etat and collapsed in military defeat in an unnecessary war [Franco-Prussian War (1870 – 1871)]. The Second (Bonapartist) Empire lasted longer than the first, 18 years [1852–1870] as against 10 [1804 (became emperor)–1814 (abdication), 1815 (Waterloo): en.wikipedia.org], but left no sunset memory of 'la gloire.' The exiled Victor Hugo dismissed its emperor, Louis Napoleon, as 'Napoleon le Petit.' Bismarck called him 'a sphinx without a riddle.'
(i) Second French Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_French_Empire
(section 2.1 Coup of 1851: "Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the [Second] Republic, staged a coup" to become Napoleon III)
(ii) Victor Hugo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo
("When Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) seized complete power in 1851, establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. He relocated to Brussels, then Jersey, from which he was expelled for supporting a Jersey newspaper that had criticised Queen Victoria and finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port, Guernsey, where he would live in exile from October 1855 until 1870. While in exile, Hugo published his famous political pamphlets against Napoleon III, Napoléon le Petit ['literally Napoleon the Small': en.wikipedia.org; 'by Victor Hugo as 'Napoleon the Little' in comparison to his uncle Napoleon the Great': a 2017 book by Simon Sebag Montefiore; published in 1852] and Histoire d'un crime [The History of a Crime; 1877]. The pamphlets were banned in France but nonetheless had a strong impact there")
(A) Regions and territories: The Channel Islands. BBC, last updated July 8, 2012 https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/7515502.stm
("The Channel Islands [Jersey and Guernsey] were owned by the Duchy of Normandy, and passed to the English Crown when William the Conqueror became King of England in 1066. While England lost mainland Normandy in 1204, the islands remained possessions of the Crown")
(B) (King) Philip II of France (and lord of king of England as duke of Normandy), after a two-year military campaign against the latter, swept through and retook Normandy. 作者: choi 时间: 5-30-2018 16:21
(b) "He was the son of Napoleon Bonaparte's [younger] brother Louis, who was briefly king of Holland [1806-1810] * * * He was brought up in exile principally by his mother. ['All members of the Bonaparte dynasty were forced into exile after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the Bourbon Restoration of monarchy in France': en.wikipedia.org for Napoleon III.] * * * [He] returned to Paris when the Revolution of 1848 overthrew the Orléans monarchy [and was elected president of Second Republic] * * * A coup in December 1851, organized by his illegitimate half-brother, Auguste de Morny, soon made him emperor. Liberal republicans disapproved * * * Paris was rebuilt by Baron Haussmann, his Alsatian prefect. Many complained at the time of the destruction of medieval Paris, but the Paris so many of us love today is Haussmann's."
(i) For Orléans monarchy, see July Monarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Monarchy
(1830-1848; king Louis Philippe I was a member of Orléans branch of the House of Bourbon)
(c) "he engaged in several wars, besides continuing the Orléanist policy of colonial expansion in Algeria [French conquest of Algeria (1830-1847); so it was after the fact when he came to the scene]. The Crimean War [1853–1856] saw him allied with Britain in defense of the Ottoman Empire against Russia. In 1859, with the Piedmontese, he expelled the Austrians from all of northern Italy except Venice. These wars may be considered successful; the second even added Savoy and Nice to French territory. Then, in 1860s, came the Mexican adventure. Initially a small-scale invasion intended to recoup a substantial debt, it became an attempt to establish a Habsburg archduke as emperor of Mexico, someone who would promote European interests. Even with the US distracted by the Civil War, this was a crazy notion, one that ended in national retreat and humiliation. Then Napoleon, egged on by his Spanish wife, Eugénie, was inveigled into war with Prussia. * * * He surrendered at Sedan in September 1870. The empress and the [14-year-old only child] heir, the so-called Prince Imperial [the only one in history with that title], escaped to England. The emperor himself, released by the Prussians, joined them there and died in 1873. * * * Would it [Second Empire] have survived if he had not taken Bismarck's bait?"
(i) Second Mexican Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Mexican_Empire
(1863–1867; Americans "demanded the withdrawal of French forces, and France acceded" in 1866; Republican troops led by President Benito Juárez of Mexico in 1867 captured Emperor Maximilian I (age 35) and executed the latter)
(ii) "The emperor himself, released by the Prussians, joined them there [his wife and son in England]"
National Assembly on Mar 1, 1871 approved the peace treaty, leading to the release of Napoleon III in that month, who elected to go straight to England in an self-imposed exile.
(iii) "Bismarck's bait"
(A) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III
(section 8.6 Hohenzollern candidacy and the Ems telegram)
On the eve of Franco-Prussian War, Adolphe Thiers was a member of National Assembly
(B) Ems Dispatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Dispatch
(an internal message from the Prussian King's vacationing site to Otto von Bismarck in Berlin; The name referred to [town] Bad Ems, a resort spa)
(C) German_English dictionary:
* Bad (noun neuter): "bath" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bad#Noun
(d) "The [Second] empire would be followed by the Third Republic [1870–1940], which the veteran politician Thiers said was the regime that divided Frenchmen least. There were few Bonapartists left. Yet the Second Empire was a glittering time, the beginning of France’s Belle Epoque, and, whatever Louis Napoleon may or may not have achieved, there is this to his credit: The victorious Prussians, besides annexing Alsace and Lorraine, demanded huge reparations; the Second Empire had created such prosperity that France cleared this 'war debt' in just over two years."
(i) "The Republic is the form of government that divides us the least," Adolphe Thiers, address the National Assembly (unicameral, legislative election held on Feb 8, 1871) at Versailles, Mar 27 1871. Adolphe Thiers was soon elected the first president (in office Aug 31, 1871 – May 24, 1873) of Third Republic.
(ii) Belle Époque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Époque
(It is conventionally dated from the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914)
(iii) Treaty of Frankfurt, sign on May 10, 1871, included "payment of France's war indemnity of five billion francs (due within five years)." en.wikipedia.org for the treaty.