The Rise and Fall of the Second Empire, 1852-1871The Second Empire lasted longer than any French regime since 1789, yet most historical accounts of the government of Napoleon III have been overshadowed by the knowledge of its disastrous and tragic end. As Professor Plessis shows in this detailed thermatic study, such an approach ignores the major social, economic, and political developments of a period that witnessed the gradual acceptance of univeral suffrage, the establishment of large-scale industrial capitalism, a massive improvement in communications, and the birth of impressionism in art. |
Contents
1 | 25 |
Economic progress and change | 58 |
The limits of economic change | 95 |
Bourgeoisie and civilization | 125 |
The good years 185261 | 132 |
The phase of initiative | 143 |
The elections of 1857 Orsinis assassination attempt and | 150 |
Decline and fall | 152 |
The regimes failures | 158 |
An uncertain policy The failure of social policy The failure | 165 |
Notes | 175 |
Common terms and phrases
administrative Admittedly agricultural appointed areas assemblies authoritarian average bank Banque de France became Bonapartism Bonapartists bourgeois bourgeoisie candidates capital cent civil servants classes companies Comtesse de Ségur concern concessions Conseil d'Etat Constitution coup d'état Crédit Lyonnais Crédit Mobilier Dansette December decree départements deputies despite economic elections Emile Ollivier emperor established favour Finally French Furthermore growth Haussmann Histoire imperial increase industrialists industry January July Monarchy labour Lastly Legislative Body legitimists less liberal living Louis Napoleon major ment million francs ministers modern Morny Napoleon III Napoleon III's notables official opposition Orleanists Paris parliamentary peasants Pereires period Persigny plebiscite political popular population prefects president production railway regime remained republicans revolution revolutionary role Rouher rural Second Empire Second Republic sectors Senate senatus consultum Siècle social Société Thiers Third Republic towns traditional treaty universal suffrage vote workers Zola