France.com

Napoleonic Era

The Revolution ends in 1799 when Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris and was crowned First Consul at the age of thirty. A brilliant politician and a military genius, he took the title of emperor Napoleon I in 1804. After establishing a powerful central administration and a strong code of law, he started numerous military campaigns which almost gave him the control of the entire European continent. First defeated in Russia in 1812 and then in Waterloo in 1815, he was replaced by Louis XVIII.

Louis XVIII’s constitutional monarchy was overthrown under Charles X, whose conservatism was a reminiscence of the old regime and lead to the July Revolution of 1830. The following July Monarchy, had an elected King, Louis Philippe, (the Duke of Orleans). He ruled France for 18 years of stable prosperity. In 1848, Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I, was elected the first president of the Second Republic. In 1852, he was proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III by national plebiscite. It was he who commissioned Baron Haussman to redesign Paris and started the French industrial revolution.

Exit mobile version