An outline, era by era

France

Napoleonic Wars, restoration, Second Empire, Third Republic

Late Modern Era / 19th Century · ~1800 – 1914

France in the nineteenth century passed through war, empire, monarchy and republic. After the Revolution of 1789, Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799 and made himself emperor in 1804. His armies and the Napoleonic Wars reshaped Europe until his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. The Bourbon monarchy was then restored under Louis XVIII and Charles X. It ended with the July Revolution of 1830, which brought in Louis-Philippe of the house of Orléans, a cadet branch of the Bourbons, as a more liberal constitutional king.

The revolution of 1848 ended the monarchy and created the Second Republic. Its president, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, made himself Emperor Napoleon III in 1852, and the Second Empire lasted until his capture by Prussia at Sedan in 1870. The Third Republic was proclaimed that year and, after the Paris Commune of 1871, became the country's lasting regime. By 1914 it was a democratic republic with a large overseas empire. These changes shaped modern French politics, law and national identity.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Napoleon takes power, 1799 to 1804

    Event

    What happened

    On 9 to 10 November 1799 (18 and 19 Brumaire) General Napoleon Bonaparte and allies overthrow the Directory in a coup. He becomes First Consul, and a plebiscite later makes him consul for life. In 1804 he is proclaimed Emperor of the French and crowned at Notre-Dame in December.

    The rest is history

    The Consulate and Empire ended the instability of the Revolution's later years. Napoleon's Civil Code of 1804 set out equality before the law and protected property, and it became a model for many other countries. He also created the prefects, the Bank of France and the Concordat of 1801 with the papacy. These institutions outlasted his regime, and many remain in France today.

    Sources

    1. BookLyons, Martyn. Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution. London: Macmillan, 1994.
    2. BookBroers, Michael. Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny. London: Faber and Faber, 2004.

  2. The Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Empire

    Event

    What happened

    From 1803 France fights coalitions of European powers. Napoleon wins at Austerlitz in 1805 and controls much of the continent by 1807. His invasion of Russia in 1812 ends in a catastrophic retreat, and allied armies defeat him at Leipzig in 1813. He abdicates in 1814, returns from Elba in 1815, and is beaten at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

    The rest is history

    The first Treaty of Paris in 1814 returned France roughly to its frontiers of 1792 under the restored monarchy. After Waterloo, the second Treaty of Paris in November 1815 was harsher: France was reduced to its 1790 frontiers, had to pay an indemnity and accept an occupation army. The Congress of Vienna meanwhile redrew the map of Europe. Napoleon spent his last years on Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The wars spread French legal and administrative ideas across Europe and also stirred nationalism against French rule.

    Sources

    1. BookEsdaile, Charles. The Wars of Napoleon. London: Longman, 1995.
    2. BookZamoyski, Adam. 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow. London: HarperCollins, 2004.

  3. The Bourbon Restoration, 1814 to 1830

    Event

    What happened

    In 1814 Louis XVIII, brother of the executed Louis XVI, returns to the throne. He issues the Charter of 1814, which keeps many Revolutionary reforms and sets up a parliament with a narrow electorate. After his death in 1824 his brother Charles X, a committed conservative, becomes king.

    The rest is history

    Tensions grew between royalists and liberals. In July 1830 Charles X issued ordinances restricting the press and the electorate, and Paris rose in the Three Glorious Days. He abdicated and went into exile. The Restoration showed that France could not simply return to the old order, and it left a lasting division between monarchists and republicans.

    Sources

    1. BookPilbeam, Pamela. The Constitutional Monarchy in France, 1814-48. Harlow: Longman, 1999.
    2. PrimaryCharter of 1814 (Charte constitutionnelle). French constitutional text granted by Louis XVIII, 4 June 1814.

  4. The July Monarchy, 1830 to 1848

    Event

    What happened

    After the July Revolution of 1830, Louis-Philippe of the house of Orléans becomes King of the French. The regime is a constitutional monarchy with a wider but still small electorate, and it favours the wealthy middle class. Industry, railways and a growing urban working class develop during these years.

    The rest is history

    Opposition grew over the refusal to widen the vote, and François Guizot's government was widely resented. A banned reform banquet in Paris in February 1848 sparked riots. Louis-Philippe abdicated and fled to England. The republic proclaimed in his place began the revolutionary year of 1848 in France.

    Sources

    1. BookPilbeam, Pamela. The 1830 Revolution in France. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991.

  5. The Second Republic and the rise of Louis-Napoleon

    Event

    What happened

    The Second Republic is declared in February 1848 and introduces universal male suffrage. In June 1848 the government crushes a workers' uprising in Paris. In December 1848 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the emperor, wins the presidency by a large majority. On 2 December 1851 he stages a coup, and a year later he is proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III.

    The rest is history

    The Second Empire that followed was authoritarian at first and became more liberal in the 1860s. Paris was rebuilt under Baron Haussmann, with broad boulevards, and railways and banking expanded. Foreign ventures, including the Crimean War, Italy in 1859 and the failed Mexican intervention, brought mixed results. The regime's weakness in foreign policy led to its collapse in 1870.

    Sources

    1. BookPrice, Roger. The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
    2. PrimaryMarx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Essay, 1852.

  6. The Franco-Prussian War and Sedan, 1870

    Event

    What happened

    In July 1870 France declares war on Prussia after a dispute over the Spanish throne. German states unite behind Prussia, and their armies defeat the French quickly. On 2 September 1870 Napoleon III surrenders with his army at Sedan. Paris proclaims a republic on 4 September and is besieged until January 1871.

    The rest is history

    The war ended the Second Empire. In the peace of 1871 France ceded most of Alsace, except Belfort, and part of Lorraine, and paid a large indemnity. The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871. The loss of the provinces fuelled French resentment for decades and was a factor in the tensions before 1914.

    Sources

    1. BookHoward, Michael. The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France, 1870-1871. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961.

  7. The Paris Commune, 1871

    Event

    What happened

    In March 1871 Parisians resist the national government's attempt to seize the city's cannon and set up the Commune, a radical municipal government. The national army under Adolphe Thiers attacks the city, and in the Bloody Week of 21 to 28 May it retakes Paris. Thousands of Communards die in the fighting and executions, and many more are imprisoned or deported.

    The rest is history

    The suppression of the Commune left deep bitterness between the working class and the republican establishment. It also showed that a conservative republic could keep order, which helped win acceptance for the new regime. Marx and later socialists studied it as a model of working-class government. A general amnesty for the Communards came only in 1880.

    Sources

    1. BookTombs, Robert. The Paris Commune 1871. London: Longman, 1999.

  8. The Third Republic takes hold and the Dreyfus Affair

    Event

    What happened

    After 1871 monarchists held a majority, but they failed to agree on a king, and the republican laws of 1875 created a lasting constitution. Republicans won control by 1879 and built free, compulsory, secular schooling in the 1880s. In 1894 army captain Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason on weak evidence. The affair divides the country until he is cleared in 1906.

    The rest is history

    The Dreyfus Affair, with Émile Zola's open letter J'accuse in 1898, split France between defenders of army and church and defenders of individual rights. The republicans' victory led to the 1905 law separating church and state. The Third Republic lasted until 1940, longer than any French regime since the Revolution.

    Sources

    1. BookBredin, Jean-Denis. The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus. New York: George Braziller, 1986.
    2. BookWeber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976.

  9. Napoleon was short

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Napoleon is widely pictured as a very short man with a complex about his height. The idea is so common that a person who acts domineering and is short is said to have a Napoleon complex.

    The rest is history

    Napoleon was about 5 feet 6 inches in modern English measure, or around 1.68 metres, according to the usual conversion of his recorded French height at death. That was average or slightly above for a Frenchman of his time. The confusion arose partly because French inches were longer than English ones. British cartoonists, especially James Gillray, also drew him as a tiny figure, and his nickname petit caporal was affectionate. His Imperial Guard grenadiers were chosen for height, which made him look smaller beside them.

    Sources

    1. BookRoberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A Life. New York: Viking, 2014.

  10. Napoleon crowns himself

    Popular belief

    The legend

    At his coronation in Notre-Dame in 1804, Napoleon is said to have snatched the crown from the Pope's hands and crowned himself, to show that he owed nothing to the Church.

    The rest is history

    Napoleon did crown himself, but this had been planned in advance. Pope Pius VII had come to Paris to anoint him and bless the crown, and was present in the cathedral. Napoleon then crowned himself on 2 December 1804 and also crowned his wife Josephine. Jacques-Louis David's painting of the scene shows Napoleon crowning Josephine, with the Pope seated behind. The self-coronation was a deliberate sign that his power came from the French people and his own deeds, not from the Church.

    Sources

    1. BookDwyer, Philip. Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

  11. Napoleon was poisoned on Saint Helena

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Some people claim that the exiled Napoleon was slowly poisoned with arsenic on Saint Helena by British or French enemies, and that this explains his death in 1821.

    The rest is history

    The theory arose from arsenic found in samples of his hair, and was promoted in the 1960s. But arsenic was common in the nineteenth century, in wallpaper, medicines and cosmetics, and hair samples taken from him years earlier show similar levels. The autopsy in 1821 found a large stomach ulcer, and most historians accept stomach cancer or ulcer disease as the cause of death on 5 May 1821. Napoleon's own father had died of a stomach cancer.

    Sources

    1. BookRoberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A Life. New York: Viking, 2014.

  12. Marie Antoinette and the cake

    Popular belief

    The legend

    When told that the people have no bread, a French queen is said to reply, Let them eat cake, and this is often attached to the Bourbon monarchy and used to explain the hatred felt for it.

    The rest is history

    No evidence ties the phrase to Marie Antoinette. Jean-Jacques Rousseau told a similar story in his Confessions, written about 1765, about an unnamed great princess, when Marie Antoinette was a child in Austria. The saying was later pinned on her during the Revolution and in the nineteenth century, when the Restoration revived interest in the old court. The original word was brioche, a rich bread, not cake.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRousseau, Jean-Jacques. Les Confessions, Book VI. Autobiography, written c. 1765, published 1782.
    2. BookFraser, Antonia. Marie Antoinette: The Journey. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001.

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