Shrewd, ambitious and a skilled military strategist, Napoleon successfully waged war against various coalitions of European nations and expanded his empire. However, after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in , Napoleon abdicated the throne two years later and was exiled to the island of Elba. In , he briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign. After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, he abdicated once again and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died at He was the second of eight surviving children born to Carlo Buonaparte , a lawyer, and Letizia Romalino Buonaparte Although his parents were members of the minor Corsican nobility, the family was not wealthy.
Napoleon later adopted a French spelling of his last name. As a boy, Napoleon attended school in mainland France, where he learned the French language, and went on to graduate from a French military academy in He then became a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment of the French army. The French Revolution began in , and within three years revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and proclaimed a French republic.
During the early years of the revolution, Napoleon was largely on leave from the military and home in Corsica, where he became affiliated with the Jacobins, a pro-democracy political group.
In , following a clash with the nationalist Corsican governor, Pasquale Paoli , the Bonaparte family fled their native island for mainland France, where Napoleon returned to military duty. In France, Napoleon became associated with Augustin Robespierre , the brother of revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre , a Jacobin who was a key force behind the Reign of Terror , a period of violence against enemies of the revolution.
During this time, Napoleon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the army. However, after Robespierre fell from power and was guillotined along with Augustin in July , Napoleon was briefly put under house arrest for his ties to the brothers.
In , Napoleon helped suppress a royalist insurrection against the revolutionary government in Paris and was promoted to major general. The following year, the Directory, the five-person group that had governed France since , offered to let Napoleon lead an invasion of England. Instead, he proposed an invasion of Egypt in an effort to wipe out British trade routes with India. That summer, with the political situation in France marked by uncertainty, the ever-ambitious and cunning Napoleon opted to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France.
In November , in an event known as the coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon was part of a group that successfully overthrew the French Directory. Additionally, with the Treaty of Amiens in , the war-weary British agreed to peace with the French although the peace would only last for a year. Napoleon worked to restore stability to post-revolutionary France. One of his most significant accomplishments was the Napoleonic Code , which streamlined the French legal system and continues to form the foundation of French civil law to this day.
In , a constitutional amendment made Napoleon first consul for life. Two years later, in , he crowned himself emperor of France in a lavish ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
In , Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais , a stylish widow six years his senior who had two teenage children. More than a decade later, in , after Napoleon had no offspring of his own with Empress Josephine, he had their marriage annulled so he could find a new wife and produce an heir.
To ensure their safety they put General Bonaparte in command of all troops in the capital and he moved 6, men into place around the palace under his future Cavalry commander Joachim Murat. Barras resigned and Talleyrand pocketed the two million francs he had been given to bribe him if required. The Directory was dead and the plotters' plan was that next day, November 10th, the assemblies should put a new executive in place, but the deputies irritatingly argued until Napoleon lost patience.
He stumped in to the hall of the Elders and made a speech defending himself against charges of being a Caesar or a Cromwell. Making little impact, he marched angrily into the Orangery, where the Five Hundred were in session. In fury at this intrusion, some of them pummelled him, bawling 'Outlaw!
It was, he afterwards admitted, one of the few occasions in his life when his nerve failed him. The conspiracy was saved by Lucien Bonaparte, who came out and addressed the soldiers guarding the assembly. He told them that some deputies, probably in the pay of perfidious Albion, had terrorised the majority and tried to assassinate the general.
Putting his sword dramatically against his brother's breast, Lucien swore to kill him if he ever tried to destroy French freedom. Anger over the outlawing of the political banquets brought crowds of Parisians flooding into the streets at noon on February 22, An officer ordered the crowd not to pass, but people in the front of the crowd were being pushed by the rear.
The officer ordered his men to fix bayonets, probably wishing to avoid shooting. However, in what is widely regarded as an accident, a soldier discharged his musket, which resulted in the rest of the soldiers firing into the crowd. Fifty-two people were killed. Paris was soon a barricaded city. Omnibuses were turned into barricades, and thousands of trees were felled. Fires were set, and angry citizens began converging to the royal palace.
King Louis Philippe abdicated and fled to the UK. On February 26, , the liberal opposition from the Revolution came together to organize a provisional government, called the Second Republic, which was marked by disorganization and political ambiguity. The French Revolution of had major consequences for all of Europe; popular democratic revolts against authoritarian regimes broke out in Austria and Hungary, in the German Confederation and Prussia, and in the Italian States of Milan, Venice, Turin and Rome.
Economic downturns and bad harvests during the s contributed to growing discontent. In February , the French government banned the holding of the Campagne des banquets , fundraising dinners by activists where critics of the regime would meet as public demonstrations and strikes were forbidden. As a result, protests and riots broke out in the streets of Paris. An angry mob converged on the royal palace, after which the hapless king abdicated and fled to England.
The Second Republic was then proclaimed. The revolution in France brought together classes of wildly different interests. Moderates like the aristocrat Alphonse de Lamartine sought a middle ground. Tensions between groups escalated, and in June , a working class insurrection in Paris cost the lives of 1, workers and eliminated once and for all the dream of a social welfare constitution.
The constitution of the Second Republic, ratified in September , was extremely flawed and permitted no effective resolution between the President and the Assembly in case of dispute. On February 26, , the liberal opposition came together to organize a provisional government.
The poet Alphonse de Lamartine was appointed president. Lamartine served as a virtual dictator of France for the next three months. Elections for a Constituent Assembly were scheduled for April 23, The Constituent Assembly was to establish a new republican government for France. In preparation for these elections, two major goals of the provisional government were universal suffrage and unemployment relief. Universal male suffrage was enacted on March 2, , giving France nine million new voters.
As in all other European nations, women did not have the right to vote. The conservative elements of French society were wasting no time in organizing against the provisional government. Frustration among the laboring classes arose when the Constituent Assembly did not address the concerns of the workers. Strikes and worker demonstrations became more common as the workers gave vent to these frustrations.
These demonstrations reached a climax when on May 15, , workers from the secret societies broke out in armed uprising against the anti-labor and anti-democratic policies being pursued by the Constituent Assembly and the Provisional Government.
Additionally, there was a major split between the citizens of Paris and citizens of the more rural areas of France. The provisional government set out to establish deeper government control of the economy and guarantee a more equal distribution of resources. To deal with the unemployment problem, the provisional government established National Workshops. The unemployed were given jobs building roads and planting trees without regard for the demand for these tasks.
The population of Paris ballooned as job seekers from all over France came to Paris to work in the newly formed National Workshops. To pay for these and other social programs, the provisional government placed new taxes on land.
The taxes were widely disobeyed in the rural areas and the government remained strapped for cash. Popular uncertainty about the liberal foundations of the provisional government became apparent in the April 23, elections.
Despite agitation from the left, voters elected a constituent assembly which was primarily moderate and conservative. Unknown in and forgotten or despised since , Louis Napoleon had in the last eight years advanced sufficiently in the public estimation to be elected to the Constituent Assembly in by five departments. Moreover, the monarchists, led by Thiers and the committee of the Rue de Poitiers, were no longer content even with the safe dictatorship of the upright Cavaignac, and joined forces with the Bonapartists.
Other appointees represented various royalist factions. In June , demonstrations against the government broke out and were suppressed. Leaders were arrested, including prominent politicians. The government banned several democratic and socialist newspapers in France; the editors were arrested. Karl Marx, who was living in Paris at the time, was at risk so he moved to London in August. The government sought ways to balance its budget and reduce its debts. Toward this end, Hippolyte Passy was appointed Finance Minister.
When the Legislative Assembly met at the beginning of October , Passy proposed an income tax to help balance the finances of France. The bourgeoisie, who would pay most of the tax, protested. The furor over the income tax caused the resignation of Barrot as prime minister, but a new wine tax also caused protests.
The elections resulted in a conservative body. As opened, Louis-Napoleon was not allowed by the Constitution of to seek re-election as President of France. Instead he proclaimed himself President for Life following a coup in December that was confirmed and accepted in a dubious referendum. The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from to , between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, an era of great industrialization, urbanization including the massive rebuilding of Paris by Baron Haussmann , and economic growth, as well as major disasters in foreign affairs.
Subsequently, he was in constant conflict with the members of the National Assembly. He succeeded in imposing his choices and decisions on the Assembly, which had once again become conservative in the aftermath of the June Days Uprising in Not one to admit defeat, Louis-Napoleon spent the first half of trying to change the constitution through Parliament so he could be re-elected.
Bonaparte traveled through the provinces and organized petitions to rally popular support but in January , the Parliament voted no. Louis-Napoleon believed that he was supported by the people, and he decided to retain power by other means. Top opposition leaders were arrested and six edicts promulgated to establish the rule of Louis-Napoleon. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until Thousands more went into voluntary exile abroad, including Victor Hugo.
He launched similar public works projects in Marseille, Lyon, and other French cities. Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railway system, and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made France an agricultural exporter. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize.
He was a supporter of popular sovereignty and nationalism. Despite his promises in of a peaceful reign, the Emperor could not resist the temptations of glory in foreign affairs.
He was visionary, mysterious, and secretive; had a poor staff; and kept running afoul of his domestic supporters. In the end he was incompetent as a diplomat. Napoleon did have some successes: he strengthened French control over Algeria, established bases in Africa, began the takeover of Indochina, and opened trade with China.
He facilitated a French company building the Suez Canal, which Britain could not stop. In Europe, however, Napoleon failed again and again.
The Crimean war of —56 produced no gains, although his alliance with Britain did defeat Russia. His regime assisted Italian unification and in doing so, annexed Savoy and the County of Nice to France; at the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. The French troops were swiftly defeated in the following weeks, and on September 1, the main army, which the emperor himself was with, was trapped at Sedan and forced to surrender.
A republic was quickly proclaimed in Paris, but the war was far from over. As it was clear that Prussia would expect territorial concessions, the provisional government vowed to continue resistance.
The Prussians laid siege to Paris, and new armies mustered by France failed to alter this situation. The French capital began experiencing severe food shortages, to the extent that even the animals in the zoo were eaten.
Shortly afterwards, Paris surrendered. The subsequent peace treaty was harsh. France ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and had to pay an indemnity of 5 billion francs. German troops were to remain in the country until it was paid off. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First. 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 prioritize their solutions. The anti-parliamentary French Constitution of , instituted by Napoleon III on January 14, , was largely a repetition of that of All executive power was entrusted to the emperor who as head of state was solely responsible to the people.
0コメント