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Issues of 2008
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Napoleon III. revival of the empire style
Although many contemporaries, including the famous French author Victor Hugo portrayed him «Napoleon the small» (Napoleon le Petit), the common people adored him. Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (April 20, 1808 – January 9, 1873), as he was known before becoming emperor, was born in Paris. He was the third son of Louis Bonaparte, a younger brother of Napoleon I, and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Napoleon I’s wife Josephine de Beauharnais by her first marriage. After Napoleon I’s final defeat and deposition in 1815 and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France, all members of the Bonaparte family were forced into exile, so the child Louis-Napoleon was brought up in Switzerland (living with his mother in the canton of Thurgau) and Germany (receiving his education at the gymnasium school at Augsburg in Bavaria). As a young man he settled in Italy, where he and his elder brother Napoleon Louis espoused liberal politics and became involved in the Carbonari, a resistance organization fighting Austrian domination of Northern Italy. After the rebellion was crashed, he and his mother escaped to Great Britain.
He secretly returned to France in October 1836, for the first time since his childhood, to try to lead a Bonapartist coup at Strasbourg. The coup failed; he was tried, absolved and exiled to the United States of America, and spent four years in New York. Then he secretly returned and he tried again in August 1840, sailing with some hired soldiers into Boulogne. This time, he was caught and imprisoned for life, though in relative comfort, in the fortress of the town of Ham in the Department of Somme. During his years of imprisonment, he wrote essays and pamphlets that combined his monarchical claim with progressive, even mildly socialist economic proposals, as he defined Bonapartism. In 1844, his uncle Joseph died, making him the direct heir apparent to the Bonaparte claim. He finally managed to escape to Southport, United Kingdom in May 1846 by changing clothes with a mason working at the fortress. A month later, his father Louis was dead, making Louis-Napoleon the clear Bonapartist candidate to rule France. Louis-Napoleon lived in Great Britain until the revolution of February 1848 in France deposed Louis-Philippe and established a Republic. He was now free to return to France, which he immediately did. He ran for, and won, a seat in the assembly elected to draft a new constitution. When the constitution of the French Second Republic was finally promulgated and direct elections for the presidency were held on 10 December 1848, Louis¬Napoleon won in a landslide. On 2 December 1852, after approval by another referendum, the Second Republic was officially ended and the Empire restored, ushering in the Second French Empire. President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor Napoleon III. The French economy was rapidly modernized under Napoleon III. Napoleon III wanted to be known mainly as a great social engineer. The industrialization of France during this period helped satisfy both the business interests and the working classes. The Credit Mobilier sold stocks to the public and then used the money raised from stocks to invest in industrial enterprises in France. This sparked a period of rapid economic development. The mileage of railways in France increased from 3,000 to 16,000 kilometers during the 1850s. Between 1859 and 1869, a French company built the Suez Canal. French colonies were rapidly expanding. The vast French empire now included Senegal, New Caledonia, and Indo-China. The defeat of Russia in the Crimean War (March 1854–March 1856) and the alliance with Britain gave France increased authority in Europe. This war marked a breaking down of the peace system, which had held for nearly half a century after the Napoleonic Wars. The emperor began quickly to look for a wife to produce a legitimate heir. Napoleon decided to «marry for love», choosing the young, beautiful Countess of Teba, EugÊnie de Montijo, a Spanish noblewoman who had been brought up in Paris. In 1856, Eugenie gave birth to a legitimate son and heir, Napoleon EugÊne Louis, the Prince ImpÊrial. The Emperor and his court (reestablished on the model of the one of Emperor Napoleon I) situated at the Tuileries Palace. Under Napoleon III, numerous places at court as well as the ceremonial of the court and Imperial Life-Guards were restored. The charming and smart 26-year-old Empress acted as a regent three times (for instance, during Napoleon’s Italian campaign and the journey to Algeria). Empress EugÊnie was an important statesperson significantly influencing the French foreign affairs. Although Napoleon III was not very fond of opulence of the court life, he considered the luxury an integral part and an obligatory attribute of power. Thus, Napoleon III and Empress EugÊnie had a great desire to originate a new art style, which could stress the importance and splendor of the Second Empire. The existed art style of Louis-Philippe characterized by strong influence of Gothic and Renaissance elements did not meet the ambitions of the royal couple. They strived to revive the style of the First Empire. Changes in the French art life began with restoration of the statue of Napoleon Bonaparte on the Colonne VendÆme at Place VendÆme in Paris. Napoleon erected the column, modelled after Trajan’s Column, to celebrate the victory of Austerlitz; its spiralling veneers of bas¬relief bronze plates (by the sculptor Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret) were made out of cannons taken from the combined armies of Europe, according to his propaganda. Empress EugÊnie did her best to bring the Louis XVI style in vogue. According to V.G. Vlasov, that art style featuring elements of the Empire, Italian Renaissance and Baroque styles formed the so-called Second Empire style in France. Being highly eclectic, the Second Empire style was characterized by abundance of ornamental and decorative elements and luxury. Being a «socialist emperor» (as his main backers Saint-Simonians called him) and possessing colossal financial and labour resources, Napoleon III undertook a number of large-scale projects, including construction of the Suez Canal (1854–1869). Giuseppe Verdi’s grand opera «Aida» is sometimes thought to have been commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. An important legacy of Napoleon III’s reign was the rebuilding of Paris (1853–1869). Part of the design decisions were taken in order to reduce the ability of future revolutionaries to challenge the government by capitalizing on the small, medieval streets of Paris to form barricades. However, this should not overlook the fact that the main reason for the complete transformation of Paris was NapolÊon III’s desire to modernize Paris based on what he had seen of the modernizations of London during his exile there in the 1840s. With his characteristic social approach to politics, NapolÊon III desired to improve health standards and living conditions in Paris with the following goals: build a modern sewage system to improve health, develop new housing with larger apartments for the masses, create green parks all across the city to try and keep working classes away from the pubs on Sunday, etc. Large sections of the city were thus flattened down and the old winding streets were replaced with large thoroughfares and broad avenues. The rebuilding of Paris was directed by Baron Haussmann (1809–1891; Prefect of the Seine dÊpartement 1853–1870). It was this rebuilding that turned Paris into the city of broad tree¬lined boulevards and parks. Then, the majestic building of Grand Opera was erected. The project was put out to open competition in 1861, and was won by the architect Charles Garnier (1825–1898). The foundation stone was laid in 1861, followed by the start of construction in 1862. Legend has it that the Emperor’s wife, the Empress EugÊnie, asked Garnier during the construction as to whether or not the building would be built in the Greek or Roman style, to which he replied: «It is in the Napoleon III style Madame!». The faÚade of the Palais Garnier (as the Paris Opera is sometimes called) was decorated with sculptural compositions by Jean Baptiste Carpeaux and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. Carpeaux’s «La Danse» (the Dance, 1869), situated on the right side of the faÚade, was criticised as an offence to common decency.
The Louvre was still being added to by Napoleon III. The new wing of 1852–1857, by architects Visconti and Hector Lefuel, represents the Second Empire’s version of Neo¬baroque, full of detail and laden with sculpture. Work continued until 1876. Jean Baptiste Carpeaux received the honorable title of the court sculptor. Among his most important works was a bust of Napoleon III, created in 1873. However, the main symbol of the Second Empire was the celebrated Statue of Liberty created by renowned French sculptor FrÊdÊric Auguste Bartholdi in 1878. The copper-clad giant statue was donated in 1886 by the Union Franco-Americaine (Franco-American Union), founded by Edouard de Laboulaye, to the United States. It was rumored all over France that the face of the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Bartholdi’s mother; and the body after his mistress. Before starting his commission, Bartholdi traveled to the United States to personally select New York Harbor as the site for the statue. The royal couple paid much attention to Salon de Paris, which was the official art exhibition of the AcadÊmie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748–1890, it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the world. Many prominent painters and sculptors displayed their works at the Salon during the reign of Napoleon III: Thomas Couture («Romans in the Decadence of the Empire», 1847, Alexander Cabanel («Venus», 1863), Jean-LÊon GÊrÆme and others. In order to prove that the Salons were democratic, in 1863 Napoleon III instituted the «Salon des RefusÊs», containing all the works that the Salon had rejected that year. It opened on May 17, 1863, marking the birth of the avant-garde. Among the participants of the «Salon des RefusÊs» were Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, Eugne Boudin, James Whistler, etc. French nobility preferred furniture made in «Boulle» style; expensive, bulky, gilded pieces, richly decorated mirror and picture frames were popular among the representatives of emerging middle class. Workshops producing bronze and ceramic pieces as well as silver tableware prospered too. Emperor Napoleon III was fond aluminum tableware. Aluminum was very expensive (it cost more than gold at the time) and the Emperor used to present aluminum knives and forks to his guests. However, despite the prosperity of the state, the reign of Napoleon III ended dramatically. The Franco-Prussian War proved disastrous for France, and was instrumental in giving birth to the German Empire, which would take France’s place as the major land power on the continent of Europe until the end of World War I. In battle against Prussia in July 1870 the Emperor was captured at the Battle of Sedan (September 2) and was deposed by the forces of the Third Republic in Paris two days later. Napoleon spent the last few years of his life in exile in England, with Eugenie and his only son. He died at Chislehurst (Kent), on January 9, 1873. Napoleon’s death-mask was made by the Emperor’s favourite sculptor Jean Baptiste Carpeaux.
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