Napoleon III

Napoleon III (born 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. He created the Second French Empire in 1852, and this period saw rapid industrialization in France, rapid expansion of infrastructure and rise of French influence in world politics after several decades of instability. He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland and the nephew of Napoleon, Emperor of the French. As head of state of France for 22 years, he was the longest-reigning French head of state since the end of the ancien régime.

Napoleon III was born at the height of the First French Empire in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland (r. 1806–1810), and Hortense de Beauharnais, and paternal nephew of the reigning Emperor Napoleon I. As a young man, he led two failed coups against the July Monarchy, for which he was imprisoned in 1840. In 1848, after the overthrow of the July Monarchy in the February Revolution, he was elected president of the French Second Republic. 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.