Napoleon III (1808-1873) was emperor of France from 1852 to 1870. Elected president of the Second French Republic in 1848, he staged a coup d'etat in 1851 and reestablished the Empire.

Between 1848 and 1870 France underwent rapid economic growth as a result of the industrial revolution, and Napoleon III's government fostered this development. These years were also the period of the Crimean War and the unifications of Italy and Germany, and France played a pivotal role in these affairs.

Napoleon was born in Paris on April 20, 1808, the youngest son of Louis Bonaparte, the king of Holland and brother of Napoleon, I, and of Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine. His full name was Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, but he was generally known as Louis Napoleon. After 1815 Louis Napoleon lived with his mother in exile in Augsburg, Bavaria, where he attended the Augsburg gymnasium, and at Arenburg Castle in Switzerland. In 1831 he and his...