National Assembly elections took place the following May, and the result was a majority of conservatives known as the Party of Order, led by Adolphe Thiers (left). A few weeks later, a large group of people attempted a coup, going so far as to erect barricades in the streets, as in 1830 and 1848. Support for this coup attempt was minimal, and Louis-Napoléon had no trouble putting it down.

In 1850, the Thiers-dominated Assembly increased the requirements for voting, and a full one-third of voters suddenly lost the franchise. President Bonaparte publicly opposed the bill and campaigned to repeal it, but the Assembly did not do so.

A year later, President Bonaparte made a public appeal for a change to the constitutional requirement that the president had to step down after four years in office. He argued that he needed more time in which to implement his economic program. A vote on the proposed amendment to the constitution returned a majority in favor; however, that majority was not a two-thirds majority, as was required, so the amendment did not pass.

Undeterred, Bonaparte engineered a coup himself, to replace the one-term presidency with a leader-for-life. On December 2, the anniversary of his famous uncle's great victory at the Battle of Austerlitz and of his coronation as emperor, Bonaparte and a large number of military and political leaders seized key parts of the city of Paris and arrested prominent members of the National Assembly. Again appeared protesters and barricades in the streets. This time, the army was with the leader, and the protests went nowhere. Bonaparte ordered mass arrests; tens of thousands of people were rounded up, and many were exiled. A decree muzzled the press.

Bonaparte had ordered a referendum on his taking power, and that vote took place in December 1851. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of the coup.

The newly minted Prince-President ordered new elections for the National Assembly for early 1852. Again, the results were very much in favor of the man in power. Later that year, another referendum approved making the Prince-President an emperor. On December 2, one year after the coup, the Prince-President became Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution, which consolidated a large amount of power in the hands of the leader anyway, needed just one amendment, to change the word "president" to "emperor."

Thus empowered, Napoleon III embarked on a period of rapid industrialization and expansion, encouraging the establishment of new banks and the opening up of French markets to foreign goods. In transportation, he championed the laying of large amounts of railroad tracks and also the establishment of new ports and shipping lines, routes, and contracts. He added money and political muscle to the construction of the Suez Canal.

In a related area, the emperor lowered tariffs on goods foreign and domestic. The result was a surging French economy, one that outstripped the hard-charging U.K. economy.

Also appearing in the first two decades of the new emperor's reign were a number of department stores, first of which, Bon Marché, opened in 1852. This was part of a redesign and reinvigoration of Paris. Plans included an expansion of the borders of the city, and that expansion included an annexation of 11 communes on the outskirts of the capital city by order of an 1860 decree. The result was an expansive yet orderly Paris, in which a great many derelict structures had been replaced by gleaming symbols of new opportunity. Pride of place belonged to the Paris Opera (right), the largest theater in the world.

Not forgetting nature, the emperor ordered construction of a new aqueduct, a new large reservoir, and a large program of reforestation and farmland reclamation. Dotting Paris at irregular intervals were parks and gardens, including the famous Bois de Boulogne.

In 1853, the emperor married, to Eugélgenie de Derje de Montijo of Spain. Their son, Napoléon, was born in 1856.

Also in 1853, the Crimean War began. This was a three-year struggle for supremacy in the Middle East and in the Black Sea region involving Austria, France, the Ottoman Empire, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. France at this time had the largest ship in the world, the Charlemagne. French had a strong alliance with the U.K. at this time, thanks in large part to to the French emperor's living in London time and again. The two countries embarked on a joint military expedition to the Black Sea region that culminated in the seizure of the vital Russian port of Sevastopol. The alliance of France with the U.K. against Russia was a sharp contrast with the alliance of Russia and the U.K. against France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods.

Closer to home, Napoleon III enacted a law in 1864 that allowed French workers to strike. This had been forbidden by the first Napoleon. Also in the work area, the emperor put a limit on work hours and equalized the rights of workers and employers in labor disputes.

The emperor was a strong proponent of education, not only of men and boys but also of women and girls. Minister of Public Education Victor Duruy established a national curriculum that required the teaching of geography and history; as well, the government established scholastic libraries for thousands of schools across the country. Napoleon III also encouraged the creation of many new universities and institutes.

Again focused on Italy, Napoleon III took control of the French Army on an expedition into northern Italy in 1859. French and Italian forces took Milan back from Austria. A second battle, at Solferino, resulted in another Italian victory, and Austria left Lombardy. The three nations fighting the war agreed to end it with armistice. A number of French troops stayed on in Italy, ostensibly to keep the peace but also to assist with the unification of Italy, which was completed in 1870.

A bright spot for French foreign intervention came in what is now Vietnam and was then Cochinchina. The establishment of a French protectorate there led to a long period of influence in the area.

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